A matter of timing: Sagebrush steppe restoration seeding outcomes altered by species responses to warmer spring temperatures and interannual weather variation
Stella M Copeland, Jonathan D Bates, Kirk W Davies, Matthew Germino
2026, Restoration Ecology
IntroductionRestoration outcomes in cold desert ecosystems like sagebrush steppe are affected by weather variability, particularly during the spring, a critical time period for seedling establishment. Seedling emergence phenology is also highly variable among species in these ecosystems. Seed-based restoration outcomes are likely affected by the emergence timing...
Single receiver target localization in mobile marine acoustic telemetry
Eric M. Gaskell, Tyler Reid Funnell, Christopher M. Holbrook, Darryl W. Hondorp, Xiaobo Tan
2026, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering
Many marine ecological studies track animal movement and migration using acoustic telemetry, in which animals are implanted with acoustic transmitters broadcasting a unique ID code. Receivers detect and decode these transmissions and provide an estimate of the animal’s location. As transmissions can be detected at distances of hundreds of meters...
Sea-level rise in a coastal marsh: Linking increasing tidal inundation, decreasing soil strength and increasing pond expansion
Mona Huyzentruyt, Lennert Schepers, Matt L. Kirwan, Glenn Guntenspergen, Stijn Temmerman
2026, Biogeosciences (23) 751-766
Coastal marsh conversion into ponds, which may be triggered by sea-level rise, is considered an important driver of marsh loss and their valuable ecosystem services. Previous studies have focused on the role of wind waves in driving the expansion of interior marsh ponds, through lateral erosion of marsh edges surrounding...
Global framework for communication of biological invasion risks
Lorenzo Vilizzi, Vettath R. Suresh, Daniela Giannetto, Jeffrey E. Hill, Wesley M. Daniel, João G. Monteiro, Lennart Edsman, Hassan Sh Elmi, Ahmed Ibrahim Awale, Elnaz Najafi-Majd, Ramazan Mammadov, Sapto Andriyono, Djumanto, Mohammad Noor Azmai, Abdulwakil Saba, Belma K. Stroil, Avdul Adrović, Anna Vila-Gispert, Dani Boix, Oldřich Kopecký, Vilém Pavlu, Dragana Milošević, Danka Caković, Henrik Holbech, Kim Lundgreen, Juliane Lukas, Harald Ahnelt, Merike Linnamägi, Mehis Rohtla, David Almeida, Roberto Mendoza, Allan S. Gilles Jr., Richard Thomas D. Pavia Jr., Elisabeth Knudsen, Leivur J. Hansen, Philippe Goulletquer, Amelia Curd, Ivan Špelić, Jón E. Jónsson, Höskuldur Thráinsson, Angela Boggero, Mihails Pupins, Artūrs Škute, Lukas Petrulaitis, Ilona Jukonienė, Gábor Herczeg, Árpád Ferincz, Hugo Verreycken, Rob S.E.W. Leuven, Martin Malmstrøm, Gaute Velle, Trobjon Makhkamov, Akramjon Yuldashev, Dariusz Pietraszewski, Lidia Marszał, João Canning-Clode, Mariele Pasuch de Camargo, Cristina Preda, Daniyar Memedemin, Rigers Bakiu, Silvia Bakiu, Kristína S. Švolíková, Barbora Števove, Luka Duniš, Petra Kristan, Predrag Simonović, Radoslav Dekić, Riikka Puntila-Dodd, Miia Jauni, Karin H. Olsson, Kieu Anh Ta, Thuyet D. Bui, Baran Yoğurtçuoğlu, Sevan Ağdamar, Bahadir Yuldashov, Peyzulla Khydyrov, Leonidas Vardakas, Nicholas Koutsikos, Costas Perdikaris, Dzmitry Lukashanets, Oleg Borodin, Eliza Uzunova, Dimitriy Dashinov, Georgii Lazkov, Myskalai Ganybaeva, Daniya Ualiyeva, Raushan Zharmukhametova, Milica Ristovska, Aleksandra Cvetkovska Gjorgjievska, Burenbaatar Ganbaatar, Solongo Khadbaatar, Vadim E. Panov, Oleh Marenkov, Nurali Saidov, Mekhrovar Okhonniyozov, Yuriy Kvach, Volodymyr Yuryshynets, Marine Arakelyan, Hasmik Khachatryan, Levan Mumladze, Bella Japoshvili, Renanel Pickholtz, Tal Gavriel, Usman Atique, Muhammad Altaf, Sonia Iqbal, Zainab Al-Wazzan, Sahar Chebaane, Mohammad Hamid Hamdard, Abdul Rahman Osmani, Seyed Daryoush Moghaddas, Jamileh Javidpour, Mariyam Nashath, Faruhana Abdullah, Hari Prasad Sharma, Bharat Babu Shrestha, Vandana Vibhakaran, Shams M. Galib, Md. Abdul Gofur Khan, Udaya Priyantha Epa, Nadiya Cassim, Mahanama De Zoysa, Ratcha Chaichana, Kamalaporn Kanongdate, Nyein Chan, La Minn Ko Ko, Jigdrel Dorji, Chhimi Dorji, Khaml Inkhavilay, Chanhvilay Somvongsa, Kim Soben, Yutha Nida, Yohannes B. Tesfay, Bikila W. Dullo, Chulhong Oh, Youngjun Park, Shan Li, Hui Wei, Akihiko Koyama, Atsuhiko Isobe, Marina Piria
2026, Management of Biological Invasions (17) 1-33
Biological invasions, driven by the spread of non-native species, have become a critical global issue because of their far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Effective communication of the risks of biological invasions is essential for implementing robust policy and legislation and gaining public support for conservation efforts. However, current policies often...
Recent scientific contributions by the U.S. Geological Survey in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary
Judith Z. Drexler, Jake Weltzin
2026, Fact Sheet 2025-3058
Introduction The San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary (hereafter, Bay-Delta) is the largest estuary on the West Coast of the United States. The Bay-Delta covers more than 1,600 square miles and drains a watershed of more than 75,000 square miles, which is greater than 40 percent of California. The...
Multi-year cut-to-drown management limits Phragmites australis growth, belowground resources, and rhizome viability in Great Lakes wetlands
Wesley A. Bickford, Kaira A. Schaefer, Spenser L. Widin, Kurt P. Kowalski
2026, Journal of Great Lakes Research (52)
The distribution and abundance of Phragmites in the Great Lakes coastal zone has expanded in part due to its unique ventilation physiology and its ability to take advantage of changes in lake levels over the past several decades. During an extended period of low lake levels in the early...
Teach me how to pycap: A high-capacity well decision support tool using analytical solutions in Python
Michael N. Fienen, Aaron Pruitt, Howard W. Reeves
2026, Groundwater (64) 223-234
Regulatory agencies in humid temperate environments rely on timely evaluations of streamflow depletion and drawdown to protect aquatic ecosystems and existing water users. Numerical models offer detailed insights, but their complexity and time demands often preclude their practical use in rapid decision-making. We present pycap-dss, an open-source Python package that...
Experimental lure design reveals the best attractants for increasing detection of multiple mesocarnivores
Danielle N. Brosend, Anna K. Moeller, Robert Charles Lonsinger
2026, Wildlife Biology
Many mesocarnivores have low detection rates that hinder practitioners' abilities to implement effective monitoring strategies. Using olfactory attractants (i.e. lures) may increase detection rates, but variation in effects among species is not well understood. Thus, investigating factors influencing detection of mesocarnivores, can inform and improve monitoring efforts....
Modeling carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands in the Mississippi river deltaic plain under various hydrologic conditions: Implications for river diversions
Hongqing Wang, Ken W. Krauss, Gary P. Shaffer, Brett Patton, Daniel Kroes, Gregory E. Noe, Zhaohua Dai, Lindsey Dettwiller, Carl C. Trettin
2026, Wetlands Ecology and Management (34)
Our understanding of the impacts of climate change, sea-level rise (SLR), and freshwater management on the magnitude and variability of carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands remains limited. In this study, we applied a process-driven wetland biogeochemistry model, Wetland Carbon Assessment Tool—DeNitrification-DeComposition (WCAT-DNDC) model to explore responses of carbon fluxes...
Prioritizing resource protection and understanding potential susceptibility of springs to surficial changes in a low-temperature geothermal system
Connor P. Newman, Jeff D. Pepin
2026, Geothermics (136)
Geothermal systems are vulnerable to changes in water budget and composition, requiring science-based management. This study uses a dataset of spring water temperatures, time series of groundwater residence time tracers (tritium and carbon-14), and stable isotopes of water to understand geothermal flow in a low-temperature geothermal system in north west...
A catalogue of Do's and Don'ts in the modeling of environmental systems
Xifu Sun, Anthony J. Jakeman, Serena H Hamilton, Volker Grimm, Randall J. Hunt, Sondoss El Sawah, Hsiao-Hsuan Wang, Barry Croke, Min Chen
2026, Environmental Modelling and Software (198)
Modeling plays a vital role in understanding and managing complex environmental systems, but its credibility and quality depend heavily on a comprehensive set of defensible model activities and practices, especially when the system of interest is plagued with uncertainties and conflicting stakeholder perspectives. This paper proposes a...
Earthquake-hazard exposure of residents with potential access and functional needs in the United States
Nathan J. Wood, Alice Pennaz, Jeanne M. Jones
2026, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (134)
Earthquake response plans and earthquake early warning (EEW) systems designed for general populations may not consider potential access and functional needs (AFN) of individuals with physical, sensory, cognitive, or social limitations. Previous efforts to map the distribution of these populations have focused on social-vulnerability indices that ignore or oversimply these...
A conceptual framework and methods for studying the connectivity of fishes
Jordanna N. Bergman, Jessica A. Robichaud, Jasper McCutcheon, Michael Thomas Booth, Brendan Campbell, Grace A. Casselberry, Cienna R. Cooper, Bronwyn M. Gillanders, Lucas P. Griffin, Edward Hale, Luc LaRochelle, Karen J. Murchie, Mary M. Peacock, Reid G. Swanson, Simon D. Stewart, Ryan. J. Woodland, Daniel P. Zielinski, Steven J. Cooke, Morgan L. Piczak
2026, Fish and Fisheries (27) 342-369
Connectivity is a multifaceted concept that has important implications for the management and conservation of marine and freshwater fishes. We developed a conceptual framework that encompasses multiple, interrelated categories of connectedness, including landscape (e.g., structural, functional) connectivity and ecological (e.g., trophic, genetic, demographic) connectivity, that together shape...
Extreme Potomac floods at Washington D.C. during the past 500 years
Michael Toomey, Thomas M. Cronin, Jessica R. Rodysill, Julia Lynn Seidenstein, Debra A. Willard
2026, Geophysical Research Letters (53)
Washington D.C. faces one of the highest 100-year flood risks of any major city along the U.S. East Coast. In addition to storm-surge inundation during hurricanes and nor'easters, water-level observations for Washington are strongly skewed by major floods on the Potomac River. Using geologic and historic records we find new...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other contaminants of concern in tribal waters of Montana
Kelly L. Smalling, Paul M. Bradley, Kristin M. Romanok, John T. Doyle, Margaret J. Eggers, Christine Martin, Elliott P. Barnhart, Picabo Binette, Eric M. Castro, Madisan Chavez, Stephanie A. Ewing, Stephanie E. Gordon, Mathew W. Fields, James L. Gray, Ashley M. Groshong, Chiachi Hwang, Leslie K. Kanagy, JoRee WClay LaFrance, Keith A. Loftin, Carrie Mae Long, R. Blaine McCleskey, Shannon M. Meppelink, Crystal L. Richards, Molly L. Schreiner, Jonathan I. Shikany, Mahelat Tesfamariam
2026, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts (28) 579-597
We assessed potential exposures to a broad suite of contaminants (inorganic, organic and microbial) in culturally important surface waters from three watersheds in a northern plains Native American community (Apsáalooke [Crow Tribe of Montana]) in south-central Montana, United States, with water insecurity concerns. Inorganic (37), organic (435)...
Surface variable‐based machine learning for scalable arsenic prediction in undersampled areas
Shams Azad, Mason O. Stahl, Melinda L. Erickson, Beck A. DeYoung, Craig T. Connolly, Lawrence Chillrud, Kathrin Schilling, Ana Navas-Acien, Anirban Basu, Brian Mailloux, Benjamin C. Bostick, Steven N. Chillrud
2026, GeoHealth (10)
In the United States, private wells are not federally regulated, and many households do not test for Arsenic (As). Chronic exposure is linked with multiple health outcomes, and risk can change sharply over short distances and with well depth. Coarse maps or sparse sampling often miss exceedances....
Waterfowl move less in heterogeneous and human-populated landscapes, with implications for spread of avian influenza viruses
Claire Stewart Teitelbaum, Diann J. Prosser, Joshua T. Ackerman, Sakib Ahmed, A.B.M. Sarowar Alam, Kazi Zenifar Azmiri, Nyambaya Batbayar, Joël Bêty, Abigail Blake-Bradshaw, Dmitrijs Boiko, Nelleke H. Buitendijk, Jeffrey J. Buler, David Cabot, Michael L. Casazza, Bradley S. Cohen, Batmunkh Davaasuren, Sébastien Farau, Jamie Feddersen, John R. Fieberg, Wolfgang Fiedler, Peter Glazov, Larry R. Griffin, Matthieu Guillemain, Heath Hagy, Matthew J. Hardy, Cory Highway, David Hoffman, Tehan Kang, Allison Keever, Jennifer Kilburn, Andrea Kölzsch, Helmut Kruckenberg, Toni Laaksonen, Brian S. Ladman, Hansoo Lee, Siwan Lee, Josée Lefebvre, Pierre Legagneux, Hans Linssen, Jesper Madsen, Nicholas M. Masto, Scott R. McWilliams, Tori Mezebish Quinn, Carl P.J. Mitchell, Axelle Moreau, Gerhard Müskens, Scott Newman, Bart A. Nolet, Rascha J.M. Nuijten, Jay Osenkowski, Cory T. Overton, Antti Piironen, Betty Plaquin, Andrew M. Ramey, Jean Rodrigue, David Rodrigues, Kees H.T. Schreven, Yali Si, Jeffery D. Sullivan, John Takekawa, Philippe J. Thomas, Mariëlle van Toor, Jonas Waldenström, Christopher K. Williams, David W. Wolfson, Fei Xu, Ian G. Brosnan, Susan E.W. De La Cruz
2026, Ecology Letters (29)
Animal movements contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and are driven in part by environmental conditions. We investigated the links among the environment, animal movement, and infectious disease dynamics in waterfowl, which are among the primary wildlife hosts of avian influenza viruses. By combining telemetry data...
Assessing the influence of conservation implementation on water quality during surface runoff events at edge-of-field monitoring sites located in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin
Brittany Rose Hanrahan, Matthew W. Diebel, Rebecca B. Carvin, Edward G. Dobrowolski, Matthew John Hardebeck, Andrew Jason Kowalczk, Chad A. Toussant, Matthew J. Komiskey
2026, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (80) 654-678
The Laurentian Great Lakes are a vital freshwater resource in the United States, and nonpoint source (NPS) nutrient pollution, specifically phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), from agricultural land use continues to negatively impact water quality throughout the Great Lakes basin. One focus of the Great Lakes Restoration...
Strength of depensation not influenced by fish population productivity
Greg S. Sass, Joesph T. Mrnak, Stephanie L Shaw, Zachary S. Feiner, Colin J. Dassow, Andrew L. Rypel, Holly Susan Embke
2026, Fisheries Research (294)
A long-held assumption in the management of exploited fisheries is that fish populations will compensate with increased recruit survival to replenish the population when adult stock size is reduced through harvest. Observations of depensatory recruitment (reduced recruit survival at low adult stock size) and critical depensatory thresholds have challenged the...
Mountain goat declines in a protected, interior, native population
Tabitha A. Graves, William Michael Janousek, Michael Yarnall, Jami Belt
2026, Ecosphere (17)
A shifting climate poses threats to alpine-adapted species including mountain goats. We used long-term (12 years) citizen science monitoring data and Bayesian N-mixture modeling to estimate population trends and drivers of population metrics among mountain goats in Glacier National Park (GNP). Median goats per site (n = 37 sites) declined by 45% (95%...
Reconstructing Great Lakes air temperature and ice dynamics data back to 1897
Katelyn King, Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, Cory Brant, Danielle Cohn, Inigo Peng, Karen M Alofs
2026, Scientific Data (13)
Ice cover on the Great Lakes plays an important role in regional climate, supports tourism and recreation, and provides ecological habitat. As the climate warms, ice cover in the Great Lakes is expected to decline, which in turn will create more lake effect precipitation, reduce ice cover for recreation, and...
Best practice guidelines for targeted environmental DNA-based proficiency testing in non-regulatory contexts
Margaret Hunter, Adam Sepulveda, Dianne M. Gleeson, Alejandro Trujillo-Gonzalez, Caren C. Helbing, Helen C. Rees, Devin Nicole Jones-Slobodian, Rachel C. Miliano, Toshifumi Minamoto, Susanna Theroux, Cecilia Villacorta Rath, Taylor Wilcox, Hiroki Yamanaka, Katy E. Klymus
2026, Environmental DNA (8)
The effective use of environmental DNA (eDNA) tools is contingent on strict adherence to established and validated methods. Differences in eDNA methods and quality assurance protocols may contribute to variability in results. However, quality assurance measures such as proficiency testing can provide independent evaluation of laboratory performance against pre-established test...
Remote compositional analyses of space-weathered lunar maria
Ji-In Jung, Matheiu G. Lapotre, Ralph E. Milliken, Sarah E. Minson
2026, Planetary Science Journal (7)
Visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) reflectance spectroscopy has revolutionized our understanding of planetary surface compositions. However, space-weathering processes on airless bodies complicate quantitative compositional analyses. Here, we present a framework to isolate the signatures of space weathering in VSWIR spectra of lunar maria by leveraging radiative transfer modeling under the assumptions that...
Compilation of a nationwide river image dataset for identifying river channels and river rapids via deep learning
Nicholas Brimhall, Kelvyn K. Bladen, Tom Kerby, Carl J. Legleiter, Cameron Swapp, Hannah Fluckiger, Julie E Bahr, Makenna Roberts, Kaden Hart, Christina L. Stegman, Brennan Bean, Kevin Moon
2026, Remote Sensing (18)
Remote sensing enables large-scale, image-based assessments of river dynamics, offering new opportunities for hydrological monitoring. We present a publicly available dataset consisting of 281,024 satellite and aerial images of U.S. rivers, constructed using an Application Programming Interface (API) and the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrography Dataset. The dataset includes images,...
Estimating the power of a standardized monitoring program for sportfish in Georgia, USA
Troy N. Simon, Kelly F. Robinson, Brian J. Irwin
2026, North American Journal of Fisheries Management
ObjectiveBiological monitoring is a major component of management decisions and operating budgets of many natural resource management agencies. Given the scientific and financial commitments to monitoring, it is critical to estimate the ability to detect trends through time (i.e., power).MethodsThe Georgia Department of Natural Resources has monitored reservoir sport fish...
