Conceptualization and simulation of groundwater flow and groundwater availability in the Boone and Roubidoux aquifers in northeastern Oklahoma, 1980–2017
Adam R. Trevisan, Cory A. Russell, Hayden A. Lockmiller, Derrick L. Wagner, Jessica S. Correll, Katherine J. Knierim
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5093
Oklahoma Groundwater Law (Oklahoma Statute § 82-1020.5) requires that the Oklahoma Water Resources Board conduct hydrologic investigations to determine the maximum annual yield for the State’s groundwater basins. The Boone and Roubidoux aquifers (also known as the Springfield Plateau aquifer and Ozark aquifer, respectively) are bedrock aquifers that extend from...
Browsing the literature
Matthew J. Germino
2024, Rangelands (46) 168-170
No abstract available....
Direct measurements of firn-density evolution from 2016 to 2022 at Wolverine Glacier, Alaska
Max Stevens, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Christopher J. McNeil, Emily Baker, Katherine Eleanore Bollen
2024, Journal of Glaciology (70)
Knowledge of snow and firn-density change is needed to use elevation-change measurements to estimate glacier mass change. Additionally, firn-density evolution on glaciers is closely connected to meltwater percolation, refreezing and runoff, which are key processes for glacier mass balance and hydrology. Since 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey...
Demographic risk factors vary in the invasion front of chronic wasting disease in West Virginia, USA
Brian Scott Dugovich, Ethan P. Barton, James M. Crum, M. Kevin Keel, David E. Stallknecht, Mark G. Ruder
2024, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (60) 839-849
After detecting chronic wasting disease (CWD) in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Hampshire County, West Virginia, USA, in 2005, we investigated the change of CWD apparent prevalence and potential factors influencing infection risk during the invasion front. Over eight sampling years (2006–2012 and 2017)...
Differential effects of chewing lice on body condition across host age and sex in Rough-legged Hawks (Buteo Lagopus)
Mason W. Maron, Neil Paprocki, Jeb P. Owen, Courtney J. Conway
2024, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (60) 991-995
Chewing lice infesting avian hosts can significantly affect host health and fitness. Here, we present quantitative data on host body condition and louse abundance observed from 121 Rough-legged Hawks (Buteo lagopus) sampled across the North American nonbreeding range. Among hawks examined, louse prevalence was 71%, with a mean abundance and...
Geospatial PDF map of the compilation of GIS data for the mineral industries of select countries in the Indo-Pacific region
Elizabeth R. Neustaedter, Erica R. Wolfe
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1066
Introduction In 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Minerals Information Center (NMIC) completed the project titled "Compilation of geospatial data for the mineral industries of select countries in the Indo-Pacific." This project aimed to leverage the expertise and capabilities of the NMIC to collect, synthesize, and interpret geospatial data to...
Bird community response to field-level integration of prairie strips
Jordan C. Giese, Lisa A. Schulte, Robert W. Klaver
2024, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (374)
Grassland birds are under threat worldwide due to loss of habitat to agriculture. Prairie strips are a new agricultural conservation practice composed of linear strips of reconstructed diverse, native, herbaceous, perennial vegetation designed to promote land sharing among agriculture and biodiversity, while also addressing soil and water conservation goals. We...
Complex interactions of deer herbivory, soil chemistry, and competing vegetation explain oak–hickory forest tree regeneration in central Pennsylvania, USA
Danielle Begley-Miller, Duane R. Diefenbach, Emily Just Domoto, Patrick J. Drohan, Phillip Jones, Marc E. McDill, Christopher S. Rosenberry, Autumn Sabo, Bret D. Wallingford
2024, Canadian Journal of Forest Research (54) 1367-1375
The root causes of forest tree regeneration failure are difficult to resolve, although numerous studies show ungulate herbivory, soil conditions, and competition from undesirable vegetation as likely contributors. To better understand the relative importance of each issue, we conducted a 7-year manipulative experiment to assess the interactive effects of white-tailed...
The interplay of future solar energy, land cover change, and their projected impacts on natural lands and croplands in the US
James E. Diffendorfer, Brian Sergi, Anthony Lopez, Travis Williams, Michael Gleason, Zachary H. Ancona, Wesely Cole
2024, Science of the Total Environment (947)
Projections for deep decarbonization require large amounts of solar energy, which may compete with other land uses such as agriculture, urbanization, and conservation of natural lands. Existing capacity expansion models do not integrate land use land cover change (LULC) dynamics into projections. We explored the interaction between projected LULC, solar...
U.S. Geological Survey Tunison Laboratory of Aquatic Science research to rehabilitate native prey fish of the Lake Ontario fish community—Coregonine fishes
James E. McKenna Jr., James H. Johnson, Steven Lapan, Marc Chalupnicki, Gregg Mackey, Mike Millard, Kevin Loftus, Michael Connerton, Christopher Legard, Brian Weidel, Dimitry Gorsky
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5094
Restoration of native coregonines to Lake Ontario of the Laurentian Great Lakes will improve the diversity of forage for salmonid predators and ecological function in the lake, but efficacy of experimental releases for native species restoration must be evaluated. The Coregonine Research Program at the U.S. Geological Survey Tunison Laboratory...
Closing the conservation gap in the sagebrush biome: Spatial targeting and coordination are needed for conservation to keep pace with sagebrush losses
Tina G. Mozelewski, Patrick T. Freeman, Alexander V. Kumar, David E. Naugle, Elissa M. Olimpi, Scott L. Morford, Michelle I. Jeffries, David S. Pilliod, Caitlin E. Littlefield, Sarah E. McCord, Lief A. Wiechman, Emily J. Kachergis, Kevin E. Doherty
2024, Rangeland Ecology and Management (97) 12-24
Core sagebrush areas (CSAs), patches of high sagebrush ecological integrity, continue to decline despite significant conservation and restoration investments across the sagebrush biome. Historically, conservation decisions in the biome have been driven by wildlife species-specific demands, but increasing recognition of the...
The state of the bats in North America
Amanda M. Adams, Luis A. Trujillo, C.J. Campbell, Karen L. Akre, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Leanne Burns, Jeremy T.H. Coleman, Rita D. Dixon, Charles M. Francis, Melquisedec Gamba-Rios, Vona Kuczynska, Angie McIntire, Rodrigo A. Medellin, Katrina M. Morris, Jonathan D. Reichard, Brian Reichert, Jordi L. Segers, Michael D. Whitby, Winifred F. Frick
2024, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (1541) 115-128
The world's rich diversity of bats supports healthy ecosystems and important ecosystem services. Maintaining healthy biological systems requires prompt identification of threats to biodiversity and immediate action to protect species, which for wide-ranging bat species that span geopolitical boundaries warrants international coordination. Anthropogenic forces drive...
An assessment of N, P, Fe, Zn, Ni and Mo limitation on suspended nutrient diffusing substrates in nearshore areas of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie
James H. Larson, David M. Costello, Jordyn T. Stoll, Andrea S. Fitzgibbon, Sean Bailey, Mary Anne Evans
2024, Freshwater Ecology (39)
In large lakes, metal availability sometimes limits the acquisition of nutrients (nitrogen, N and phosphorus, P) in offshore waters that are relatively isolated from tributaries and sediments. We hypothesize that metals may also be important within harmful algal blooms (HABs). HABs occur where nutrient loads are elevated, but...
Quantifying potential effects of China’s gallium and germanium export restrictions on the U.S. economy
Nedal T. Nassar, Ensieh Shojaeddini, Elisa Alonso, Brian Jaskula, Amy Tolcin
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1057
China’s export controls on gallium and germanium exemplify concerns regarding the reliability of supplies of mineral commodities that are essential to economic development, national security, and transition to renewable energy. This report presents a new model that quantifies the potential effects of mineral commodity supply disruptions on the U.S. economy....
Forest cover influences fish mercury concentrations in national parks of the western U.S.
Colleen M. Flanagan-Pritz, Branden L. Johnson, James Willacker, Christopher M. Kennedy, Ninette R. Daniele, Collin A. Eagles-Smith
2024, Science of the Total Environment (955)
The global prevalence of mercury (Hg) contamination and its complex biogeochemical cycling has resulted in elevated Hg concentrations in biota in remote and pristine environments. However, there is uncertainty in the relative importance of Hg deposition and landscape factors that control Hg cycling and bioaccumulation. To address this, we measured...
Climate change amplifies ongoing declines in sagebrush ecological integrity
Martin C. Holdrege, Kyle A. Palmquist, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, William K. Lauenroth, Chad S. Boyd, Megan K. Creutzburg, Michele R. Crist, Kevin E. Doherty, Thomas E. Remington, John C. Tull, Lief A. Wiechman, John B. Bradford
2024, Rangeland Ecology and Management (97) 25-40
Understanding how climate change will contribute to ongoing declines in sagebrush ecological integrity is critical for informing natural resource management, yet complicated by interactions with wildfire and biological invasions. Here, we assessed potential future changes in sagebrush ecological integrity under a range of scenarios using an individual plant-based simulation model,...
Hatch timing of largemouth bass: Implications for recruitment at the northern edge of their native range
Giancarlo Coppola, Craig J. Kelling, Daniel J. Dembkowski, Daniel A. Isermann
2024, Journal of Freshwater Ecology (39)
Climate-related shifts in hatch timing could mean that age-0 largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides in north temperate lakes reach larger sizes and experience higher survival, which may contribute to increased prevalence of this species in many lakes. However, information on age-0 largemouth bass life history is lacking for these lakes. We estimated hatch...
Reframing conservation audiences from individuals to social beings
L. Thomas-Walters, V. Cologna, E. de Lange, J. Ettinger, M. Selinske, Megan Siobhan Jones
2024, Conservation Letters (17)
Environmental practitioners often develop communications and behavior change interventions that conceptualize individuals as consumers or as other limited, standalone personae. This view neglects the role of conservation audiences as social beings with complex social relationships and networks, potentially resulting in lost opportunities to increase the effectiveness of conservation interventions. We...
Migratory strategies across an ecological barrier: Is the answer blowing in the wind?
Rosalyn E. Bathrick, James A. Johnson, Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Rebekah Snyder, Maria Stager, Nathan R. Senner
2024, Movement Ecology (12)
Background: Ecological barriers can shape the movement strategies of migratory animals that navigate around or across them, creating migratory divides. Wind plays a large role in facilitating aerial migrations, and can temporally or spatially change the challenge posed by an ecological barrier, with beneficial winds potentially converting a barrier to...
Climate futures for lizards and snakes in western North America may result in new species management issues
David S. Pilliod, Michelle I. Jeffries, Robert Arkle, Deanna H. Olson
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
We assessed changes in fundamental climate-niche space for lizard and snake species in western North America under modeled climate scenarios to inform natural resource managers of possible shifts in species distributions. We generated eight distribution models for each of 130 snake and lizard species...
Propagating observation errors to enable scalable and rigorous enumeration of plant population abundance with aerial imagery
Andrii Zaiats, Trevor Caughlin, Jennyffer Cruz, David S. Pilliod, Megan E Cattau, Rongsong Liu, Richard Rachman, Maisha Maliha, Donna M. Delparte, John DF Clare
2024, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (15) 2074-2086
Estimating and monitoring plant population size is fundamental for ecological research, as well as conservation and restoration programs. High-resolution imagery has potential to facilitate such estimation and monitoring. However, remotely sensed estimates typically have higher uncertainty than field measurements, risking biased inference on...
Accounting for multiple uncertainties in a decision-support population viability assessment
Erica M. Christensen, Abigail Jean Lawson, E. Rivenbark, P.K. London, D. Castellanos, J.C. Culbertson, S.M. DeMay, C. Eakin, L.S. Pearson, K. Soileau, J. Hardin Waddle, Conor P. McGowan
2024, Biological Conservation (299)
Conservation and management decisions often must be made on strict timelines, based on the “best available information” regarding a species’ current and expected future status. Simulation models are valuable tools for predicting a species’ future status but must incorporate multiple types of uncertainty in order to provide a complete understanding...
A rockslide-generated tsunami in a Greenland fjord rang Earth for 9 days
Kristian Svennevig, Steven P. Hicks, Thomas Forbriger, Thomas Lecocq, Ruedi Widmer-Schnidrig, Anne Mangeney, Clément Hibert, Niels J. Korsgaard, Antoine S. Lucas, Claudio Satriano, Robert E. Anthony, Aurélien Mordret, Sven Schippkus, Søren Rysgaard, Wieter Boone, Steven Gibbons, Kristen L. Cook, Sylfest Glimsdal, Finn Løvholt, Koen Van Noten, Jelle D. Assink, Alexis Marboeuf, Anthony Lomax, Kris Vanneste, Taka’aki Taira, Matteo Spagnolo, Raphael de Plaen, Paula Koelemeijer, Carl Ebeling, Andrea Cannata, William D. Hardcourt, David G. Cornwell, Corentin Caudron, Piero Poli, Pascal Bernard, Eric Larose, Eleonore Stutzmann, Peter H. Voss, Bjorn Lund, Flavio Cannavo, Manuel J. Castro-Díaz, Esteban J. Chaves, Trine Dahl-Jensen, Nicolas De Pinho Dias, Aline Deprez, Roeland Develter, Douglas Dreger, Laslo G. Evers, Enrique D. Fernández-Nieto, Ana M.G. Ferreira, Gareth J. Funning, Alice-Agnes Gabriel, Marc Hendrickx, Alan L. Kafka, Marie Keiding, Jeffrey T. Kerby, Shfaqat A. Khan, Andreas Kjær Dideriksen, Oliver D. Lamb, Tine B. Larsen, Bradley Lipovsky, Ikha Magdalena, Jean-Philippe Malet, Mikkel Myrup, Luis Rivera, Eugenio Ruiz-Castillo, Selina Wetter, Bastien Wirtz
2024, Science (385) 1196-1205
Climate change is increasingly predisposing polar regions to large landslides. Tsunamigenic landslides have occurred recently in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), but none have been reported from the eastern fjords. In September 2023, we detected the start of a 9-day-long, global 10.88-millihertz (92-second) monochromatic very-long-period (VLP) seismic signal, originating from East Greenland....
Landsat geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization
Jerad Shaw, Cody Anderson, Mike Choate, Esad Micijevic
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3039
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat Cal/Val team...
Earth observation remote sensing tools—Assessing systems, trends, and characteristics
Simon J. Cantrell, Jeff Clauson, Cody Anderson
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3040
With the ever-increasing number of civil and commercial remote-sensing satellite launches in recent years, the Earth Observation community needs to better understand the quality of new data products as they become available for scientific research purposes....
