Droughts reshape apex predator space use and intraguild overlap
Leigh West, Kasim Rafiq, Sarah J. Converse, Alan M. Wilson, Neil R. Jordan, Krystyna A. Golabek, J. Weldon McNutt, Briana Abrahms
2024, Journal of Animal Ecology (93) 1785-1798
1. Droughts are increasing in frequency and severity globally due to climate change, leading to changes in resource availability that may have cascading effects on animal ecology. Resource availability is a key driver of animal space use, which in turn influences interspecific interactions like intraguild competition. Understanding how climate-induced changes...
Juvenile coho salmon growth differences track biennial pink salmon spawning patterns
Kevin A. Fitzgerald, J. Ryan Bellmore, Jason B. Fellman, Matthew L.H. Cheng, Naomi Boyles-Muehleck, Claire E. Delbecq, Jeffrey A. Falke
2024, Freshwater Biology (69) 1583-1595
1. Spawning Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) provide marine-derived resources (MDR) to freshwater food webs in the form of eggs, flesh and maggots that consume salmon carcasses, all of which positively impact stream-dwelling fish growth. Pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) are widely distributed throughout coastal catchments along the North Pacific Ocean and display increased...
Assessing mosquito populations to limit the spread of avian disease and inform the conservation of Hawaiian forest birds
Dennis Lapointe
2024, Report
The introduced mosquito-borne avian malaria, Plasmodium relictum, along with its mosquito vector, Culex quinquefasciatus, are key limiting factors for endemic Hawaiian forest birds and are, in part, responsible for past extinctions and continued population declines of extant species. In the last 10 years steep declines in forest bird populations have...
Distribution of yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) and notes on other ant species at Wake Atoll, 6-21 October, 2023
Sheldon M. Plentovich, Robert W. Peck, Elyse Sachs
2024, Hawaii Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report HCSU-111
Wake Atoll, located in the central Pacific Ocean, is a tropical coral atoll comprised of three islands totaling 696 ha of emergent land. Wake Atoll supports at least 17 species of non-native ants, but one species, the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), is especially harmful to ecosystems, including seabirds, which...
Best practices for incorporating climate change science into Department of the Interior analyses, consultations, and decision making
Adam J. Terando, Anna Maureen Tucker, Amber N. Runyon, James A. Miller, Judy L. Perkins, Sean W. Kimbrel, Amanda S. Cross, Ryan P. Boyles
2024, Report
The purpose of this document is to provide technical guidance, practical application examples, and resource lists for those who conduct, manage, and/or interpret technical workflows within the Department of the Interior. This document is intended to support implementation of Department of the Interior policy 526 DM 1 and establish best...
Deep-ocean macrofaunal assemblages on ferromanganese and phosphorite-rich substrates in the Southern California Borderland
Michelle Guraieb, Guillermo F Mendoza, Kira Mizell, Gregory W. Rouse, R.A. McCarthy, Olivia S. Pereira, Lisa A. Levin
2024, PeerJ (12)
Mineral-rich hardgrounds, such as ferromanganese (FeMn) crusts and phosphorites, occur on seamounts and continental margins, gaining attention for their resource potential due to their enrichment in valuable metals in some regions. This study focuses on the Southern California Borderland (SCB), an area characterized by uneven and heterogeneous topography featuring FeMn...
Detecting trajectories of regime shifts and loss of resilience in coastal wetlands using remote sensing
Melinda Martinez, Marcelo L Ardon, Joshua Gray
2024, Ecosystems (27) 1060-1075
Many freshwater forested wetlands along the southeastern United States coastline are rapidly transitioning from forest to marsh or open water, due to climate change-related disturbances. Recent studies have found early warning signals (EWS) of regime shifts in other ecosystems, but it is unclear if these can be detected for coastal...
Early detection of wildlife disease pathogens using CRISPR-Cas system methods
Adam Alberto Perez, Guelaguetza Vazquez-Meves, Margaret Hunter
2024, The CRISPR Journal (7) 327-342
Wildlife diseases are a considerable threat to human health, conservation, and the economy. Surveillance is a critical component to mitigate the impact of animal diseases in these sectors. To monitor human diseases, CRISPR-Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated protein) biosensors have proven instrumental as diagnostic tools capable of detecting...
Sand supply to San Francisco Bay from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers of the Central Valley, California
Mathieu D. Marineau, David Hart, Christopher P. Ely, Lester McKee
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1055
Sediment from the Central Valley via the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) and Suisun Bay is a primary source of sand to San Francisco Bay, California. Sand is mined from San Francisco Bay for commercial purposes, such as for use in concrete for construction. To better understand the supply of sand...
Patterns and drivers of cottonwood mortality in the middle Rio Grande, New Mexico, USA
Hannah Varani, Ellis Margolis, Esteban H. Muldavin, William T. Pockman
2024, Ecohydrology (17)
Riparian ecosystems are some of the most valuable and vulnerable on the planet. Riparian tree mortality is increasing in the western United States, where altered streamflows are combining with warming climate. Between 2011 and 2013, one third of an extensive stand of Populus deltoides var. wislizeni (Rio Grande cottonwood) died...
Use of continuous water-quality time-series data to compute total phosphorus concentrations and loads for the Missouri River at St. Joseph and Hermann, Missouri, 2007–22
Kendra M. Markland
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5097
In support of Missouri’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, which was created to reduce the nutrient contamination of Missouri’s waterways from point and nonpoint sources, total phosphorus concentrations and loads were computed for the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri, streamgage (U.S. Geological Survey station 06818000) and the Missouri River at...
Field geology under the sea with a remotely operated vehicle: Mona Rift, Puerto Rico
Uri S. ten Brink, Or M. Bialik, Jason Chaytor, Claudia Flores, Marcie Purkey Phillips
2024, Geosphere (20) 1575-1597
We implemented concepts of field geology at great ocean depths by constructing virtual outcrops from a string of overlapping video frames collected by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). This lower-cost alternative to drilling boreholes allows stratigraphic extension into the offshore and regional interpretation of marine seismic profiles. The imagery was collected...
Penguin colony georegistration using camera pose estimation and phototourism
Haoyu Wu, Clare Flynn, Carole Hall, Christian Joseph Che-Castaldo, Dimitris Samaras, Mathew Schwaller, Heather J. Lynch
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Satellite-based remote sensing and uncrewed aerial imagery play increasingly important roles in the mapping of wildlife populations and wildlife habitat, but the availability of imagery has been limited in remote areas. At the same time, ecotourism is a rapidly growing industry and can yield a vast catalog of photographs that...
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in the Norphlet Formation, U.S. Gulf Coast region, 2023
John W. Counts, William H. Craddock, Jared T. Gooley, Marc L. Buursink, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Christopher J. Schenk
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3034
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 16 million barrels of oil and 348 billion cubic feet of gas in conventional reservoirs of the Norphlet Formation in the U.S. Gulf Coast region....
Spatial distribution patterns of invasive silver carp can inform removal efforts in an oxbow lake of the Mississippi River
Jordan C. Besson, Leandro E. Miranda, Michael E. Colvin, Corey Garland Dunn, Dennis K. Riecke
2024, Management of Biological Invasions (15) 505-518
Oxbow lakes are highly productive waterbodies that host multiple life stages of many freshwater aquatic species. These lakes also provide foraging and rearing habitat to the invasive silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) enabling populations to grow in biomass and abundance that can add propagule pressure to connected waterways and oxbows within...
Examining inter-regional and intra-seasonal differences in wintering waterfowl landscape associations among Pacific and Atlantic flyways
Matthew J. Hardy, Christopher K. Williams, Brian S. Ladman, Maurice E. Pitesky, Cory T. Overton, Michael L. Casazza, Elliott Matchett, Diann Prosser, Jeffrey J. Buler
2024, Preprint
The Central Valley of California (CVC) and Mid-Atlantic (MA) in the U.S. are both critical sites for nationwide food security (California Poultry Federation 2016, Prosser et al. 2017), and many waterfowl species annually, especially during the winter, providing feeding and roosting locations for a variety of species. Mapping waterfowl distributions,...
Identifying and filling critical knowledge gaps can optimize financial viability of blue carbon projects in tidal wetlands
Tim J.B. Carruthers, S. Beaux Jones, Megan K. Terrell, Jonathan F. Scheibly, Brendan J. Player, Valerie A. Black, Justin R. Ehrenwerth, Patrick D. Biber, Rod M. Connolly, Steve Crooks, Jason P. Curole, Kelly M. Darnell, Alyssa M. Dausman, Allison L. DeJong, Shawn M. Doyle, Christopher R. Esposito, Daniel A. Friess, James W. Fourqurean, Ioannis Y. Georgiou, Gabriel D. Grimsditch, Songjie He, Eva R. Hillmann, Guerry O. Holm Jr., Jennifer Howard, Hoonshin Jung, Stacy D. Jupiter, Erin P. Kiskaddon, Ken Krauss, Paul S. Lavery, Bingqing Liu, Catherine E. Lovelock, Sarah K. Mack, Peter I. Macreadie, Karen J. McGlathery, J. Patrick Megonigal, Brian J. Roberts, Scott Settelmyer, Lorie W. Staver, Hilary J. Stevens, Ariana Eileen Sutton-Grier, Jorge A. Villa, John R. White, Michelle Waycott
2024, Frontiers in Environmental Science (12)
One of the world’s largest “blue carbon” ecosystems, Louisiana’s tidal wetlands on the US Gulf of Mexico coast, is rapidly being lost. Louisiana’s strong legal, regulatory, and monitoring framework, developed for one of the world’s largest tidal wetland systems, provides an opportunity for a programmatic approach to blue carbon accreditation...
Predictive modeling reveals elevated conductivity relative to background levels in freshwater tributaries within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA
Rosemary M. Fanelli, Joel Moore, Charles C. Stillwell, Andrew J. Sekellick, Richard Walker
2024, ES&T Water (4) 4978-4989
Elevated conductivity (i.e., specific conductance or SC) causes osmotic stress in freshwater aquatic organisms and may increase the toxicity of some contaminants. Indices of benthic macroinvertebrate integrity have declined in urban areas across the Chesapeake Bay watershed (CBW), and more information is needed about whether these...
Mitigating climate change by abating coal mine methane: A critical review of status and opportunities
C. Ozgen Karacan, Robert A. Field, Maria Olczak, Malgorzata Kasprzak, Felicia Ruiz, Stefan Schwietzke
2024, International Journal of Coal Geology (295)
Methane has a short atmospheric lifetime compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), ∼decade versus ∼centuries, but it has a much higher global warming potential (GWP), highlighting how reducing methane emissions can slow the rate of climate change. When considering the contribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to current global...
A systematic review of laboratory investigations into the pathogenesis of avian influenza viruses in wild avifauna of North America
Matthew Brandon Gonnerman, Christina Leyson, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Mary J. Pantin-Jackwood, Erica Spackman, Jennifer M. Mullinax, Diann Prosser
2024, Proceeding of the Royal Society B (291)
The lack of consolidated information regarding the response of wild bird species to infection with avian influenza virus (AIV) is a challenge to both conservation managers and researchers alike, with related sectors also impacted, such as public health and commercial poultry. Using two independent searches, we reviewed...
Intraspecific trait variability in wild populations predicts neither variability nor performance in a common garden
Ella M. Samuel, Rachel M. Mitchell, Daniel E. Winkler, Zoe M. Davidson, Shannon Joy Lencioni, Robert Massatti
2024, Restoration Ecology
Dryland restoration requires plant materials capable of performing well despite difficult growing conditions. Selecting plant materials with higher intraspecific trait variability (ITV) may support successful outcomes by enhancing the performance of those materials in restoration settings. However, maintaining ITV from wild populations is not well understood and requires further investigation...
Inventorying ponds through novel size-adaptive object mapping using Sentinel-1/2 time series
Denghong Liu, Xioalin Zhu, Meredith Holgerson, Sheel Bansal, Xiangtao Xu
2024, Remote Sensing of Environment (315)
Ponds are an important source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere, yet evaluating their role in global biogeochemical cycling is currently hampered by limitations in quantifying their global distribution. Existing satellite-derived estimates of lake distributions have difficulty identifying small lakes (5–10 ha) and ponds (<5 ha) due to limitations in satellite...
Developments in African industrial minerals for renewable energy
Thomas Yager
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3029
Introduction Africa is emerging as a leading source for minerals used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles and in other renewable energy applications. New graphite, lithium, and rare-earth mines have or could be opened in African countries from 2017 through 2026.Estimates of production capacities for graphite, lithium, and rare-earth...
Effects of noise from oil and gas development on raptors and songbirds—A science synthesis to inform National Environmental Policy Act analyses
Logan M. Maxwell, Tait K. Rutherford, Nathan J. Kleist, Elisabeth C. Teige, Richard J. Lehrter, Megan A. Gilbert, David J.A. Wood, Aaron N. Johnston, John C. Tull, Travis S. Haby, Sarah K. Carter
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5087
The U.S. Geological Survey is working with Federal land management agencies to develop a series of science syntheses to support environmental effects analyses that agencies conduct to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This report synthesizes science information about the potential effects of noise from oil and gas...
Zircon constraints on the eruptive sequence and magma evolution of rhyolites at South Sister volcano, Oregon
Annika E. Dechert, Nathan Lee Andersen, Josef Dufek, Christine E. Jilly-Rehak
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
We present 230Th-238U crystallization ages and trace element compositions for zircons spanning the late Pleistocene to Holocene rhyolite eruptive record at South Sister volcano in the central Oregon Cascade Range. Most zircon ages are between 100 and 20 ka, with very few in secular equilibrium (>350 ka). The weighted mean of zircon ages...
