Assessing the sustainability of Pacific walrus harvest in a changing environment
Devin Johnson, Joseph Michael Eisaguirre, Rebecca L. Taylor, Erik Andersen, Joel Garlich-Miller
2024, Preprint
Harvest sustainability is a primary goal of wildlife management and conservation, and in a changing world it is increasingly important to consider environmental drivers of population dynamics alongside harvest in cohesive management plans. This is particularly pertinent for harvested species that are acutely experiencing effects of climate change. The Pacific...
Complex hydrology and variability of nitrogen sources in a karst watershed
John W. Clune, Charles A. Cravotta III, Admin Husic, Hilary J Dozier, Kurt Eric Schmidt
2024, Journal of Environmental Quality (53) 492-507
Streams draining karst areas with rapid groundwater transit times may respond relatively quickly to nitrogen reduction strategies, but the complex hydrologic network of interconnected sinkholes and springs is challenging for determining the placement and effectiveness of management practices. This study aims to inform nitrogen reduction strategies in a representative agricultural...
Treed Gaussian processes for animal movement modeling
Camille J. Rieber, Trevor J. Hefley, David A. Haukos
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Wildlife telemetry data may be used to answer a diverse range of questions relevant to wildlife ecology and management. One challenge to modeling telemetry data is that animal movement often varies greatly in pattern over time, and current continuous-time modeling approaches to handle such...
USGS invasive carp database management & integration support
Marybeth K. Brey, Andrea K. Fritts
2024, Report, 2023 Monitoring and response plan
Invasive carp tracking, monitoring, and contracted removal will continue throughout the Upper IWW system as part of an adaptive management effort to mitigate, control, and contain invasive carp. To help facilitate these actions, there is a need to compile and analyze data from the multitude of partner agencies that are...
Floral Composition of Pollen Collected from a Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis, Cresson) Nest in Southeastern Minnesota
Michael Simanonok, Elaine Evans, Clint Otto, Robert S. Cornman, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Tamara A. Smith
2024, Prairie Naturalist (56) 27-41
Understanding the forage diets of imperiled bumble bees can improve conservation planning and habitat restoration efforts. In this study, we describe the taxonomic composition of bee-collected pollen from 2 Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis, Cresson) nests located in southeastern Minnesota. This is the first published reporting of pollen collected...
Divergent trends in distribution and abundance of landbirds in low and high elevation habitats of the Kaʻū Rainforest
Seth Judge, Kevin W. Brinck, Ayesha Genz, Lainie Berry, Jacqueline M. Gaudioso-Levita, Alexander Wang, Richard J. Camp
2024, Science Report NPS/SR—2024/141
Federal, state, and non-governmental partners resurveyed landbirds in the Kaʻū Rainforest on the Island of Hawai‘i in 2019. Point-transect distance sampling was conducted in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, Kaʻū Forest Reserve, Kapāpala Forest Reserve, and Kapāpala Cooperative Game Management Area. This is the first comprehensive survey of the region since...
Grand Canyon River Alerts: An emergency alert system designed for satellite texting devices
Joseph E Thomas, Erica Paige Byerley, Thomas M. Gushue
2024, Newsletter
The Grand Canyon River Alert system is now live! The U.S. Geological Survey, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), in collaboration with Coconino County Emergency Management (CCEM), the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Park Service (NPS), have developed and implemented a framework for sending emergency alerts to...
The U.S. Geological Survey earth mapping resources initiative’s efforts to map the Rocky Mountain region
Warren C. Day, V. J. S. Grauch
2024, Newsletter
No abstract available....
Climate change
David Bickford, Guinevere O.U. Wogan, Deanna H. Olson, K.S. Seshadri, Mark C. Urban, Ana Carnaval, John Measey, Jodi J.L. Rowley, Sean Rovito, Rudolf von May, Susan Walls
Sally Wren, Arnael Borzee, Ruth Marcec-Greaves, Ariadne Angulo, editor(s)
2024, Book chapter, Amphibian conservation action plan: A status review and roadmap for global amphibian conservation
Amphibian ecology and distribution are strongly correlated with climate. Regional patterns of amphibian biodiversity are intimately linked to temperature, evapotranspiration rate, and clines in humidity. While amphibians are and will continue to be adversely affected by recent and projected changes in climate, research suggests that adaptation may happen more slowly...
Reviews
Seth S. Haines
2024, The Leading Edge (43) 398
World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins, edited by Jürgen Mienert et al., ISBN 978-3-030-81185-3, Springer, 2022, 514 p., US$299.99 (print), $299.99 (e-book).The recently published World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins, edited by Mienert et al., provides a remarkably comprehensive global look at gas hydrates in...
North American bird banding program longevity records
Lauren Emily Walker, Matthew Rogosky, Kyra Harvey
2024, Newsletter
Longevity in wild birds refers to the longest-lived individual of any particular species. This measure of age can reflect important life history traits and identifying differences in longevity patterns between species can reveal unique threats or conservation needs. Because it requires the identification of individual birds, longevity can...
Great Lakes lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) thiamine monitoring program annual report
Jacques Rinchard, James P. Ludwig, Brian F. Lantry, Brian O’Malley
2024, Report
Thiamine deficiency in lake trout eggs has been identified to induce early life-stage mortality in the Great Lakes in the 1960s through the 1990s and potentially affecting lake trout recruitment. As a results, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), Eastern Ecological Science Center, and Columbia Environmental Research...
Restoring Pacific Lamprey in the Umpqua River Basin of Oregon: A workshop summary
Jason B. Dunham, Krista Jones, Kelly C. Coates, Travis Mackie
2024, Report
The Umpqua River Basin in southwestern Oregon (Figure 1) is part of the lands inhabited by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians and an area of active co-management authority. This Basin supports a unique fish fauna, including important populations of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) and steelhead (O....
3-D mapping of the conterminous U.S. within the USGS US GeoFramework Initiative: A status report
Donald S. Sweetkind
2024, Conference Paper, Geologic mapping forum 23/24 abstracts;, Minnesota Geological Survey Open File Report OFR-24-2
No abstract available....
How much trapping effort is needed for early detection of European green crab?
Timothy D. Counihan, Theresa Thom
2024, Management of Biological Invasions (15) 187-200
We present a case study using trapping data and species accumulation theory to assess the sampling effort needed to detect species that are rare in habitats sampled as part of the management of invasive European green crab Carcinus maenas on the coast of Washington State and Salish Sea shorelines, such as is...
Applying local and global sensitivity analysis to inform bigheaded carp management
Richard A. Erickson, Benjamin J. Marcek, Hannah Mann Thompson, Brian Schoenung, John M. Dettmers, Michael N. Fienen
2024, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Managment (15) 112-126
Natural resource managers commonly use population-level models to aid in understanding the status of target populations or the potential implications of management actions. Sensitivity analyses, specifically, local sensitivity analysis (LSA) and global sensitivity analysis (GSA), exist as tools to improve understanding of these models, the importance of specific parameters to...
Lake Ontario August gillnet survey and Lake Trout assessment, 2023
Brian O’Malley, Scott P. Minihkeim, Olivia Margaret Mitchinson, Scott David Stahl, Michael Connerton, Jessica A. Goretzke, Collin Farrell, Dimitry Gorsky
2024, Report
Lake Ontario lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) rehabilitation has been annually assessed with fishery independent surveys since 1983, to evaluate program benchmarks and compare observations with management objectives. These surveys provide information on the abundance, strain composition, and condition of the adult lake trout stock, as well as information on levels...
Using surficial geologic maps, vegetation, and monitoring to address erosion impacts from grazing in Channel Islands National Park, California
Kevin Schmidt, Scott A. Minor, Kathryn McEachern
2024, Conference Paper, Geologic mapping forum 23/24 abstracts;, Minnesota Geological Survey Open File Report OFR-24-2
Employing a map-unit classification scheme based on geomorphic process and age, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) mapped Quaternary surficial deposits of the five islands comprising Channel Islands National Park (CHIS), California, as no such maps previously existed. Mapping was motivated through an agreement with the National Park Service (NPS) to...
Surficial geology and Quaternary fault map of the Las Vegas Valley, Clark County, Nevada
Seth Dee, Alan R. Ramelli, Craig M dePolo, Shannon A. Mahan
2024, Map 193
The Surficial Geology and Quaternary Fault Map of the Las Vegas Valley, Clark County, Nevada is a 1:50,000-scale compilation of published 1:24,000-scale geologic maps integrated with new field and desktop mapping. This geologic map compilation and GIS database are part of a broader study on the Quaternary faults in the Las Vegas...
Identifying the forage base and critical forage taxa for Chesapeake waterbirds
Matthew Hack, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Cody M. Kent, Diann Prosser
2024, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (15) 164-174
To effectively maximize the conservation value of management plans intended to capture ecosystem-wide health, it is essential to obtain an understanding of emergent patterns in dietary dynamics spanning many species. Chesapeake Bay, USA, is a critical ecosystem used annually by a diverse assortment of waterbird species, including several of conservation...
Preparing for today's and tomorrow's water-resources challenges in eastern Long Island, New York
Ronald Busciolano, John P. Masterson, Robert F. Breault
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3020
Freshwater is a vital natural resource. Although New York is a water-rich State, the wise and economical use of water resources is needed to ensure that there is enough water of adequate quality for both human and ecological needs—both for today and for tomorrow. Nowhere in New York is this...
Realizing the potential of eDNA biodiversity monitoring tools in the marine environment with application to offshore renewable energy
Adam Sepulveda, Cheryl Morrison, Margaret Hunter, Mona Khalil
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3019
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researches the biological diversity and distribution of species to support management, conservation, and resource use decisions. USGS scientists advance detection and monitoring technologies to assess changes in fish and wildlife populations, biodiversity, and the health of ecosystems. The United States is planning to install 30...
A genomic hotspot of diversifying selection and structural change in the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus)
Robert S. Cornman
2024, PeerJ (12)
BackgroundPrevious work found that numerous genes positively selected within the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) lineage are physically clustered in regions of conserved synteny. Here I further validate and expand on those finding utilizing an updated L. cinereus genome assembly and additional bat species as well as other tetrapod outgroups.MethodsA chromosome-level...
Broad-scale changes in lesser prairie-chicken habitat
Megan P. Vhay, David A. Haukos, Daniel S. Sullins, Mindy B. Rice
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) populations of in the Sand Sagebrush Prairie Ecoregion of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado, USA, have declined sharply since the mid-1980s. Decreased quality and availability of habitat are believed to be the main drivers of declines. Our objective was to reconstruct broad-scale...
Towards entity-aware conditional variational inference for heterogeneous time-series prediction: An application to hydrology
Rahul Ghosh, Wallace Mcaliley, Arvind Renganathan, Michael Steinbach, Christopher Duffy, Vipin Kumar
2024, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2024 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM)
Many environmental systems (e.g., hydrology basins) can be modeled as entity whose response (e.g., streamflow) depends on drivers (e.g., weather) conditioned on their characteristics (e.g., soil properties). We introduce Entity-aware Conditional Variational Inference (EA-CVI), a novel probabilistic inverse modeling approach, to deduce entity characteristics from observed driver-response...
