Increasing soil water drought in response to altered precipitation timing across the western United States
Fangyue Zhang, Joel A. Biederman, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, John B. Bradford, Sasha Reed, William K. Smith
2024, Ecohydrology (18)
Recent trends of rising temperatures and longer droughts between precipitation events are impacting water-limited dryland ecosystems in the western United States. Although ecosystem drought response depends directly on soil moisture, trends in soil moisture (e.g., edaphic drought) remain more poorly explored than precipitation (e.g., meteorological drought), representing an important knowledge...
Using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio method to estimate thickness of the Barry Arm landslide, Prince William Sound, Alaska
Andrew L. Collins, Kate E. Allstadt, Dennis M. Staley
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1071
Conducting detailed investigations of large landslides is difficult, especially in the subsurface, largely due to environmental factors such as steep slopes, difficult access, and numerous objective hazards. These factors have made it challenging to accurately estimate the depth to the failure surface of the Barry Arm landslide, a large (roughly...
Dryland fungi are spatially heterogeneous and resistant to global change drivers
Andrea Lopez, Mark Anthony, Jovani Catalan-Dibene, Scott Ferrenberg, Samuel E. Jordan, Brooke B. Osborne, Sasha C. Reed, Adriana L. Romero-Olivares
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Fungi are considered particularly important in regulating the structure and function of dryland ecosystems, yet the response of dryland fungal communities to global change remains notably understudied. Without a clear understanding of how fungi respond to global change drivers, mitigation plans—required for biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation and restoration—are impossible...
The dynamics of sea otter prey selection under population growth and expansion
Clint Leach, Ben Weitzman, Jim Bodkin, Daniel Esler, George G. Esslinger, Kimberly A. Kloecker, Daniel Monson, Jamie N. Womble, Mevin B. Hooten
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were extirpated from much of their range in the North Pacific by the early 1900s but have made a remarkable recovery in Southeast Alaska. Sea otter populations have been particularly successful in Glacier Bay, Alaska, a protected tidewater glacier fjord with a diverse and productive nearshore...
Influenza A virus antibodies in ducks and introduction of highly pathogenic influenza A(H5N1) virus, Tennessee, USA
David Stallknect, Deborah Carter, Abigail Blake-Bradshaw, Nicholas Masto, Cory Highway, Jamie Feddersen, Richard J. Webby, Bradley S. Cohen, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Rebecca L. Poulson
2024, Emerging Infectious Diseases (30) 2647-2650
Testing of ducks in Tennessee, United States, before introduction of highly pathogenic influenza A(H5N1) virus demonstrated a high prevalence of antibodies to influenza A virus but very low prevalence of antibodies to H5 (25%) or H5 and N1 (13%) subtypes. Antibody prevalence increased after H5N1 introduction....
Data and knowledge gaps of a water bottling facility inventory and select water-use dataset, United States
Carol L. Luukkonen, Cheryl A. Buchwald, Gary R. Martin, Allegra E. Johnson Mckee
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5106
In 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey developed a national inventory of water bottling facilities for the United States, including information about locations, water sources, water use, and a collection of other attributes. The purpose of the inventory was to provide information about water bottling facilities needed to assess and improve...
Adaptive capacities of inland fisheries facing anthropogenic pressures
Gretchen L. Stokes, Samuel J. Smidt, Emily L. Tucker, Matteo Cleary, Simon Funge-Smith, John Valbo-Jorgensen, Benjamin S. Lowe, Abigail Lynch
2024, Global Environmental Change (90)
Inland fisheries face multiple, intensifying threats (i.e., proximate human pressures causing degraded ecological attributes) from land development, climate change, resource extraction, and competing demands for water resources. Planning for resiliency amidst these pressures requires understanding the factors that influence an inland fishery’s capacity to adapt to system changes under multiple...
Deformation by pressure solution and grain boundary sliding in a retrograde shear zone in southern New England, USA
Robert P. Wintsch, Bryan A. Wathen, Ryan J. McAleer, Jesse Walters, Jessica A. Matthews
2024, American Journal of Science (324)
Alleghanian phyllonites in a shear zone in southern New England were formed by the retrogression and hydration of a high-grade Acadian pelitic schist. The retrogression was locally incomplete, resulting in both heterogeneous mineralogy and mineral compositions, and in many arrested reaction textures. These features, documented by backscattered electron and element...
Monitoring animal populations with cameras using open, multistate, N-mixture models
Alexej P.K. Siren, Michael T. Hallworth, Jillian R. Kilborn, Chris A. Bernier, Nicholas L. Fortin, Katherina D. Geider, Riley K. Patry, Rachel M. Cliche, Leighlan S. Prout, Suzanne J. Gifford, Scott Wixsom, Toni Lyn Morelli, Tammy L. Wilson
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Remote cameras have become a mainstream tool for studying wildlife populations. For species whose developmental stages or states are identifiable in photographs, there are opportunities for tracking population changes and estimating demographic rates. Recent developments in hierarchical models allow for the estimation of ecological states and rates over time for...
Assessment of the interconnection between Tampa Bay and the Floridan aquifer system: Historical groundwater data compilation and analysis, 1976–2022
Jeremy D. Decker
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5073
The U.S. Geological Survey used existing data collected after the last major navigational channel modification in the mid-1980s to investigate groundwater levels and chloride concentrations in wells in the Floridan aquifer system and other aquifers beneath and near Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is located on the west-central coast of Florida...
Facilitating psychological safety in science and research teams
Megan Siobhan Jones, Amanda E. Cravens, Jill Zarestky, Courtney Ngai, Hannah B. Love
2024, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (11)
Science is increasingly dependent on large teams working well together. Co-creating knowledge in this way, usually across disciplines and institutions, requires team members to feel comfortable taking interpersonal risks with each other; in other words, to have what is known as “psychological safety”. Although the importance of psychological safety for...
The U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Network—Groundwater—2023
Bruce D. Lindsey, James A. Kingsbury
2024, General Information Product 247
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates a National Water Quality Network (NWQN) to monitor trends in groundwater quality and assess emerging contaminants of concern. It is a “network of networks” with 81 subnetworks being sampled on a decadal time scale. Each year, eight of the subnetworks are sampled. Subnetworks have...
New methodology for assessing underground natural gas storage resources – Example from Michigan Basin, United States
Marc L. Buursink, Ashton M. Wiens, Brian A. Varela, Matthew M. Jones, Philip A. Freeman
2024, Conference Paper
Energy consumption in the United States (U.S.) and across the world is shifting away from traditional fossil fuels like coal and oil, and towards natural gas and renewable sources, including hydrogen. Because gas demand is typically greatest during cold seasons and renewable sources sometimes produce variable supplies, it is important...
Natural resource management confronts the growing scale and severity of ecosystem responses to drought and wildfire
Seth M. Munson, Anna L. Vaughn, Brian Petersen, John B. Bradford, Michael C. Duniway
2024, Ecology and Society (29)
Intensification of drought and wildfire associated with climate change has triggered widespread ecosystem stress and transformation. Natural resource managers are on the frontline of these changes, yet their perspectives on whether management actions match the scale and align with the severity of ecosystem responses to improve outcomes are not well...
Geophysical modeling of a possible blind geothermal system near Battle Mountain, NV
Tait E. Earney, Jonathan M.G. Glen, Jared R. Peacock, James Faulds, William D. Schermerhorn, Grant Harold Rea-Downing, Jacob Elliott Anderson, Cary R. Lindsey, Maria Richards
2024, Conference Paper, Using the Earth to save the Earth
The northeastern portion of the Reese River basin in north-central Nevada is the focus of detailed geophysical and geological studies as part of the INGENIOUS project, which aims to identify new, commercially viable hidden geothermal systems in the Great Basin region of the western U.S. This location, herein referred to...
Reconciling bias in moderate magnitude earthquake ground motions predicted by numerical simulations
K. C. Sajan, Chukwuebuka C. Nweke, Jonathon P. Stewart, Robert Graves
2024, Conference Paper
Recent studies found a significant underprediction in ground motion intensity measures for finite-fault simulations of moderate magnitude events in southern California relative to established ground motion models. This study aims to understand the source(s) of this bias by evaluating ground motion residuals. For this, simulations have been performed for a...
Investigating the influence of forest disturbance on grizzly bear habitat ecology and fitness in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem
Milan V. Vinks, Sarah Nelson Sells, Cecily M. Costello
2024, Report
No abstract available....
A regional synthesis of climate data to inform the 2025 State Wildlife Action Plans in the Northeast U.S.
Michelle Staudinger, Ambarish Karmalkar, Karen Terwilliger, Kevin Burgio, Alice Lubeck, Hanusia Higgins, Tracy Rice, Toni Lyn Morelli, Anthony D’Amato
2024, Report
The State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) are proactive planning documents, known as “comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies,” that assess the health of each state’s wildlife and habitats, identify current management and conservation challenges, and outline needed actions to conserve natural resources over the long term. SWAPs are revised every 10 years,...
Management of tidal wetland restoration and fish in the upper San Francisco Estuary: Where are we now and how do we move forward? A summary of the 2023 Wetland Science Symposium
Rosemary Hartman, Matthew J. Young, Stacy Sherman, David E. Ayers, Elizabeth Brusati, Dylan Chapple, Emma Mendonsa, Edward Hard, Louise Conrad
2024, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (22)
Tidal wetland restoration to benefit at-risk fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun marsh has gained momentum over the past decade, much of it in response to mitigation requirements for the State Water Project and Central Valley Project. In fall 2023, the Department of Water Resources and the...
Amphibian and reptile conservation in the United States of America
Deanna H. Olson, David S. Pilliod
Susan C. Walls, Katherine O'Donnell, editor(s)
2024, Book chapter
Wildlife stewardship is of utmost importance in the United States, where management for sustainable natural resources is extended to native species including amphibians and reptiles. The U.S. wildlife conservation framework is a nested system of authorities regulating species and habitats, science-based management and policy decisions, and adaptive management as new...
Salmon data mobilization
Graeme Diack, Tom Bird, Scott A. Akenhead, Jennifer M. Bayer, Deirdre Brophy, Colin Bull, Elvira de Eyto, Nora Hanson, Brett T. Johnson, Matt Jones, Alexis Knight, Marie Nevoux, Tim van der Strap, Alan Walker
2024, North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission Bulletin 61-76
Despite substantial research and conservation efforts, many salmon populations are in decline. Globally, salmon research is not delivering effective decision support products to help managers apply research insights as informed management actions. Data Mobilization (DM) is a key step towards building the wider evidence base required to deliver accountable, reliable,...
New approaches to wildlife health
Marcela Uhart, Jonathan M. Sleeman
2024, Scientific and Technical Review (Special Edition) 145-151
Recent environmental change and biodiversity loss have modified ecosystems, altering disease dynamics. For wildlife health, this trend has translated into increased potential for disease transmission and reduced capacity to overcome significant population-level impacts, which may place species at risk of extinction. Thus, current approaches to wildlife health focus not on...
A metapopulation strategy to support long term conservation of genetic diversity in Department of the Interior bison
Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Lee C. Jones, Blake McCann, Shawna J Zimmerman, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Paul Santavy, Brendan J Moynahan
2024, Science Report NPS/SR—2024/229
Once numbering in the tens of millions, plains bison (Bison bison bison) were nearly driven to extinction with only a few hundred individuals remaining by the late 19th century. Plains bison have since recovered to approximately 20,000 animals managed in conservation herds throughout North America, yet substantial challenges to their...
Climate vulnerability assessment of Oregon hatchery programs
Hannah Barrett, Melanie J. Davis
2024, Report
The goal of this project was to assess the vulnerability to climate change impacts for a sample set of hatchery programs representing different geographic areas and primary anadromous species raised in state-managed Oregon hatcheries (Summary Figure 1). Freshwater and marine ecosystem processes can significantly influence salmon and steelhead survival, and...
Restoration monitoring metric framework: Integrating innovative remote-sensing technologies: Comparisons between field and remotely sensed vegetation surveys of restored forested and grassland sites in Ohio
Heather Theel, Molly Reif, Safra Altman, Christina Saltus, Nathan R. Beane, Samuel S. Jackson, Scott Bourne, Jennifer Laird, Shea Hammond, Kenneth Matheson, Thomas Berry, Jo Ellen Hinck, Keith Grabner, Esther D. Stroh, Robin L. Tillitt, Kristin Skrabis
2024, Final Technical Report ERDC/EL TR-24-19
Restoration monitoring is generally perceived as costly and time-consuming, yet the concept of universal restoration monitoring metrics is trending for evaluation of restoration performance across spatial scales, project boundaries, and jurisdictions. Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) practitioners seek to restore natural resources injured by oil spills or hazardous...
