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Loss of Arctic sea ice owing to climate change is the primary threat to polar bears throughout their range. We evaluated the potential response of polar bears to sea-ice declines by (i) calculating generation length (GL) for the species, which determines the timeframe for conservation assessments; (ii) developing a standardized...

The Penobscot River Restoration Project (PRRP), to be completed in 2016, involved an extensive plan of dam removal, increases in hydroelectric capacity, and fish passage modifications to increase habitat access for diadromous species. As part of the PRRP, Great Works and Veazie dams were removed, making Milford Dam the first...

Stocking of hatchery-raised fish is an important part of the pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus recovery program. In the wild, juvenile pallid sturgeon consume primarily aquatic insects, although little is known about specific dietary needs. In hatchery settings, pallid sturgeon are fed commercial diets that are formulated for salmonids. To compare...

World-wide concern over emerging vector-borne diseases has increased in recent years for both animal and human health. In the United Sates, concern about vector-borne diseases in canines has focused on Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and heartworm which infect domestic and wild canids. Of these diseases, Lyme and anaplasmosis are also...

Serological tests play an important role in the detection of wildlife diseases. However, while there are many commercial assays and reagents available for domestic species, there is a need to develop efficient serological assays for wildlife. In recent years, marine mammals have represented a wildlife group with emerging infectious diseases,...

Populations of the Eastern Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) are thought to be declining because of a range of potential factors including habitat loss, pesticide use, and predation. However, this species is nocturnal and, as a consequence, it is poorly studied, and its population status is not well assessed by traditional diurnal...

Capsule: Red-footed Falcons Falco vespertinus migrating from northern Kazakhstan proceed west before heading south to Africa; their northbound travel follows a different route with passage close to shooting hotspots in the Mediterranean.Aim: To use tracking and ringing data to document for the first time the migration of globally threatened Red-footed Falcons from northern Kazakhstan.Methods: Light-level...

The ability to detect a species is central to the success of monitoring for conservation and management purposes, especially if the species is rare or endangered. Traditional methods, such as live capture, can be labor-intensive, invasive, and produce low detection rates. Technological advances and new approaches provide opportunities to more...

Wheat stem sawfly (Cephus cinctus Norton, Hymenoptera: Cephidae) has long been a significant insect pest of spring, and more recently, winter wheat in the northern Great Plains. Wheat stem sawfly was first observed infesting winter wheat in Colorado in 2010 and, subsequently, has spread rapidly throughout wheat production regions of the...

Using a geology-based methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 13 million barrels of oil and 2,643 billion cubic feet of natural gas in the Dnieper-Donets Basin and North Carpathian Basin Provinces of Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and Poland....

Executive SummaryWe estimated abundance and trends of non-native mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) in the Olympic Mountains of northwestern Washington, based on aerial surveys conducted during July 13–24, 2016. The surveys produced the seventh population estimate since the first formal aerial surveys were conducted in 1983. This was the second population...

Input datasets for annualized earthquake loss (AEL) estimation for California were updated recently by the scientific community, and include the National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM), site‐response model, and estimates of shear‐wave velocity. Additionally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s loss estimation tool, Hazus, was updated to include the most recent census...

Although current assessments of shark population trends involve both fishery-independent and fishery-dependent data, the latter are generally limited to commercial landings that may neglect nearshore coastal habitats. Texas has supported the longest organized land-based recreational shark fishery in the United States, yet no studies have used this “non-traditional” data source...

Paektu volcano (Changbaishan) is a rhyolitic caldera that straddles the border between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China. Its most recent large eruption was the Millennium Eruption (ME; 23 km3 DRE) circa 946 CE, which resulted in the release of copious magmatic volatiles (H2O, CO2, sulfur, and...

Endogenous progestogens are important regulators of vertebrate reproduction. Synthetic progestins are components of human contraceptive and hormone replacement pharmaceuticals. Both progestogens and progestins enter the environment through a number of sources, and have been shown to cause profound effects on reproductive health in various aquatic vertebrates. Progestins are designed to...

Evolutionary and ecological consequences of hybridization between native and invasive species are notoriously complicated because patterns of selection acting on non-native alleles can vary throughout the genome and across environments. Rapid advances in genomics now make it feasible to assess locus-specific and genome-wide patterns of natural selection acting on invasive...

Flood protection in south Louisiana is largely dependent on earthen levees, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the state’s levee system has received intense scrutiny. Accurate elevation data along the levees are critical to local levee district managers responsible for monitoring and maintaining the extensive system of non-federal levees...

This report provides supporting details and evidence for the rationale, validity and efficacy of a new mark-recapture model, the Barker Robust Design, to estimate regional manatee survival rates used to parameterize several components of the 2012 version of the Manatee Core Biological Model (CBM) and Threats Analysis (TA).  The CBM...

To evaluate the influence of military training activities on streamflow and water quality, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Army, began a hydrologic data collection network on the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Carson in 1978 and on the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in 1983....

Cores from living coral colonies were collected from Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, U.S.A., to obtain skeletal records of past coral growth and allow geochemical reconstruction of environmental variables during the corals’ centuries-long lifespans. The samples were collected as part of the U.S. Geological Survey Coral Reef Ecosystems Studies project...

High-resolution site index (SI) and mean annual increment (MAI) maps are desired for local forest management. We integrated field inventory, Landsat, and ecological variables to produce 30 m SI and MAI maps for the Tahoe National Forest (TNF) where different tree species coexist. We converted species-specific SI using adjustment factors....

Heavy rainfall occurred across Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi in March 2016 as a result of a slow-moving southward dip in the jetstream, funneling tropical moisture into parts of the Gulf Coast States and the Mississippi River Valley. The storm caused major flooding in the northwestern and southeastern parts of...

During 3 years of study (2010–2012), the western Arctic Ocean was found to have unique aragonite saturation profiles with up to three distinct aragonite undersaturation zones. This complexity is produced as inflow of Atlantic-derived and Pacific-derived water masses mix with Arctic-derived waters, which are further modified by physiochemical and biological...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, has maintained a water-level monitoring program at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) since 1949. The purpose of the program is to systematically measure and report water-level data to assess the eastern Snake River Plain aquifer and...

Brood division in the postfledging period is a common avian behavior that is not well understood. Brood division has been reported in Golden-winged Warblers (Vermivora chrysoptera), but it is not known how common this behavior is, whether males and females exhibit different strategies related to parental care and habitat use,...