Clarifying the trophic state concept to advance macroscale freshwater science and management
Michael Frederick Meyer, Benjamin M. Kraemer, Carolina C. Barbosa, Davi G.F. Cuhna, Walter Dodds, Stephanie E. Hampton, César Ordóñez, Rachel M. Pilla, Amina Pollard, Joshua A. Culpepper, Alexander K. Fremier, Tyler Victor King, Robert Ladwig, Dina M. Leech, Shin-Ichiro S. Matsuzaki, Isabella Oleksy, Simon N. Topp, Richard Woolway, Ludmila S Brighenti, Kate Colleen Fickas, Brian P. Lanouette, Jianning Ren, Mortimer Werther, Xiao Yang
2025, Ecosphere (16)
For over a century, ecologists have used the concept of trophic state (TS) to characterize an aquatic ecosystem's biological productivity. However, multiple TS classification schemes, each relying on a variety of measurable parameters as proxies for productivity, have emerged to meet use-specific needs. Frequently, chlorophyll a, phosphorus, and Secchi depth...
Assessment of natural gas pipeline construction on stream temperature and turbidity in southwestern Virginia, 2017—25
Brendan M. Foster, Carly Marcella Maas, Alejandra Logan Flota
2025, Preprint
The natural gas pipeline network in the United States is extensive and often intersects streams and other sensitive habitats, yet there are limited case studies utilizing a comparative upstream-downstream approach to evaluate potential short- and long-term effects of pipeline stream crossing construction from pre-construction to post-site restoration. In 2017, the...
An integrated sensor network and data driven approach to satellite remote sensing of dissolved organic matter
Dulcinea Marie Avouris, Erin L Hestir, Jacob Fleck, Jeffrey A. Hansen, Brian A. Bergamaschi
2025, Earth and Space Science (12)
Traditional remote sensing retrieval models for water quality have historically relied on limited, localized data sets due to the prohibitive costs of extensive field campaigns and logistical challenges of collecting match-up data with satellite overpasses. As a result, these models often lack generalizability across seasons, tides, and sites. Furthermore, small...
Impacts of lake elevation decline on spawning habitat of a critical, native forage species
Sarah Barnes, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Phaedra Budy
2025, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (154) 640-656
ObjectiveLake elevation decline is a global phenomenon with pronounced effects in arid regions that changes the characteristics of nearshore habitat area available to lacustrine spawners, potentially impacting recruitment and whole-lake food web dynamics. Our objective was to understand the potential effects of lake elevation decline on spawning habitat for the...
Clarifying the trophic state concept to advance macroscale freshwater science and management
Michael Frederick Meyer, Benjamin M. Kraemer, Carolina C. Barbosa, Davi G.F. Cuhna, Walter Dodds, Stephanie E. Hampton, César Ordóñez, Rachel M. Pilla, Amina Pollard, Joshua A. Culpepper, Alexander K. Fremier, Tyler Victor King, Robert Ladwig, Dina M. Leech, Shin-Ichiro S Matsuzaki, Isabella Oleksy, Simon N. Topp, R. Iestyn Woolway, Ludmila S. Brighenti, Kate Fickas, Brian P. Lanouette, Jianning Ren, Mortimer Werther, Xiao Yang
2025, Ecosphere (16)
For over a century, ecologists have used the concept of trophic state (TS) to characterize an aquatic ecosystem's biological productivity. However, multiple TS classification schemes, each relying on a variety of measurable parameters as proxies for productivity, have emerged to meet use-specific needs. Frequently, chlorophyll a, phosphorus, and Secchi depth...
Grammar to graph—An approach for semantic transformation of annotations to triples
Dalia E. Varanka, Emily Abbott
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5064
Data annotation is the process of labeling data to show the outcome that a related data model should predict. In this study, annotation data were transformed into semantic graph triples, mainly for use with the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a type of entity-relationship-attribute data model for graph databases. The transformation...
Satellite tracking reveals heavy use of local MPAs by green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nesting in southeast Florida, USA
Glenn D. Goodwin, Kristen Hart, Abby C. Evans, Derek A. Burkholder
2025, Marine Biology (172)
Florida hosts a regionally important nesting aggregation of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the North Atlantic, yet internesting and post-nesting movements for this rookery remain poorly understood. Here, we used satellite telemetry to track 23 green turtles nesting on southeast Florida beaches from 2017 to 2021 to investigate their spatial...
ECCOE Landsat quarterly calibration and validation report—Quarter 1, 2025
Md Obaidul Haque, Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Daniel Steinwand, Paul Bresnahan, Jerad L. Shaw, Kathryn Ruslander, Esad Micijevic, Michael J. Choate, Cody Anderson, Jeff Clauson, Kurt Thome, Ed Kaita, Amit Angal, Raviv Levy, Jeff Miller, Leibo Ding, Cibele Teixeira Pinto
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1048
Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey 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 continually...
Fish composition in a complex freshwater estuary: Environmental DNA metabarcoding versus capture surveys
Anett S Trebitz, Joel C. Hoffman, Gregory S. Peterson, Chelsea I. Hatzenbuhler, Erik M. Pilgrim, Sara L. Okum, W. Lindsay Chadderton, Andrew J. Tucker, Nicholas Bogyo, Jared Thomas Myers
2025, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (154) 657-674
ObjectiveThe potential for environmental DNA (eDNA) to disperse widely from source organisms enables high detection efficiency but raises questions about eDNA's ability to differentiate fine-scale spatial patterns relative to conventional fish capture data.MethodsWe evaluate these questions in the St. Louis River estuary—a...
Critical mineral inventory of select IOA-IOCG deposits, southwestern USA
Ryan D. Taylor, Corey J. Meighan, Albert H. Hofstra
2025, Conference Paper
Critical minerals are necessary for modern technology and strategic purposes. Their increasing importance requires finding new and nontraditional resources. Samples of ore, altered, and unaltered host rock were collected from 26 iron mines and prospects in California, Nevada, and Utah to assess the potential of these deposits to host economic...
Assessing diet and genotyping success of goat pellet surveys from 2019 in Glacier National Park
Salix Scoresby, Lindsay M Dose, Jami Belt, Tabitha A. Graves
2025, Report
Fecal pellets contain genetic information and can be used to identify individuals, their diet, and more. Individual identification can be useful in understanding movements of individuals, developing population estimates, assessing vital rates, genetic diversity and structure, and evaluating trends over time (e.g., Epps et al 2024). Successful genotyping depends on...
Disturbance is the primary determinant of food chain length when the top predator is constant
Sarah F. Sorensen, Daniel D. Magoulick
2025, Journal of Freshwater Ecology (40)
Food chain length (FCL) is a primary determinant of food web structure and is hypothesized to be influenced by habitat size, productivity, and disturbance. Understanding the environmental characteristics that determine food chain length can assist in understanding how food webs may be impacted due to changes in habitats and environmental...
Living with wildfire in Estes Valley Fire Protection District, Larimer County, Colorado: 2023 Data report
Colleen Donovan, Patricia A. Champ, Suzanne Wittenbrink, Wilynn Formeller, Christine Taniguchi, Jon Landkamer, Hannah Brenkert-Smith, James Meldrum, Christopher M. Barth, Carolyn Wagner
2025, Research Note RMRS-RN-108
Homeowner wildfire risk mitigation and preparedness are critical components of community wildfire readiness. This report describes the data collected through two efforts conducted in the Estes Valley Fire Protection District of Larimer County, Colorado, study area: (1) parcel-level rapid wildfire risk assessments performed by trained assessors and (2) homeowner surveys...
Comparison of creek and bay influences on salt marsh sediment budget and deposition patterns
Lukas T. WinklerPrins, Jessica R. Lacy, Mark T. Stacey, Karen M. Thorne, McKenna Leigh Bristow, Scott Jones
2025, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (50)
The resilience of salt marshes with low organic production depends on their effective capture and retention of mineral sediment from adjacent waters. Little prior work has directly compared mechanisms of sediment import from wave-influenced marsh boundaries against those of tidal creeks. We used simultaneous deployment of net-deposition tiles and oceanographic...
Perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) disrupts immune regulation via the toll-like receptor signaling pathway in zebrafish
Jiazhen Wang, Di Fang, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Bentuo Xu, Chunmiao Zheng, Liang Tang, Wenhui Qiu
2025, Environmental Science & Technology (59) 19119-19130
As there are a growing number of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) alternative substitutes applied globally, it remains paramount to characterize their potential health risks. Perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) is the most common alternative PFAS detected in the environment; however, its toxic effects and underlying mechanism of action to aquatic biota...
Long‐term regime shifts in xeric ecoregion freshwater fish assemblages due to Anthropogenic and climate stressors
Corey A. Krabbenhoft, Jane S. Rogosch, Freya Elizabeth Rowland
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
Shifting climate regimes are projected to increase the area of xeric regions and result in more pronounced intermittency across river networks. Given these projected changes, we aim to understand the factors contributing to species persistence under increasing aridity. To investigate how changing flow regimes are related to...
Melt generation sources and conditions in the wake of a migrating slab window: Geochemistry and petrology of the million-year history of primitive volcanism at Clear Lake volcanic field, California
Dawnika L. Blatter, Seth D. Burgess
2025, Journal of Petrology (66)
Clear Lake volcanic field (CLVF) is the northernmost and youngest (~2.2 Ma to 8 ka) of the volcanic centers distributed along the San Andreas transform fault in western California. The initial phase of CLVF volcanism (interval one) occurred between ~2.2 and 1.3 Ma and extends ~35 km southeast of Clear Lake, forming a semi-continuous...
A spatiotemporal deep learning approach for predicting daily air-water temperature signal coupling and identification of key watershed physical parameters in a montane watershed
Mohammad Reza M. Behbahani, David M. Rey, Martin A. Briggs, Amvrossios Bagtzoglou
2025, Journal of Hydrology (663)
Seasonal shifts from runoff to groundwater dominance influence daily headwater stream temperatures, especially where local groundwater input is strong. This input buffers temperature during hot periods, supporting cold-water habitats. Recent studies use air–water temperature signal metrics to identify zones of...
Estimated average annualized tsunami losses for the United States
Anne Sheehan, Casey Zuzak, Nathan J. Wood, Doug Bausch, Cadie Goulette Yeager, Alice McDougall
2025, Report
Tsunami hazards are substantial threats to coastal communities across the United States (U.S.) and its territories. U.S. states and territories collaborate through the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to develop their own tsunami-hazard information for outreach and evacuation planning. An effort to curate this tsunami-hazard information to support comprehensive...
Refining PAH and PCB bioavailability predictions in industrial sediments using source-fingerprinting, particle size, and bulk carbon, Puget Sound, Washington
Kathleen Conn, Andrew R. Spanjer, Renee Takesue
2025, Marine Pollution Bulletin (222)
Nearshore marine sediments in a Puget Sound, Washington industrial embayment had elevated levels of PAHs, PCBs and DDTs. Chemical fingerprints implicated nearshore sources including creosote, industrial oil and tar waste, and a landfill. Elevated concentrations were confined to an approximate 300-m shoreline buffer in the industrial waterfront, suggesting high site...
Induced earthquakes are generally not tidally triggered in Oklahoma and Kansas
Margaret Elizabeth Glasgow, Justin Rubinstein, Jeanne L. Hardebeck
2025, JGR Solid Earth (130)
Human-induced earthquakes occur along critically stressed faults as injected wastewater simultaneously heightens fluid pressure and pushes faults to failure. We investigate the possibility that small stresses imposed by Earth tides could trigger earthquakes in the induced seismicity region of Oklahoma and Kansas from 2011 to 2018. We...
Fluvial sediment dynamics in the Shoshone River and tributaries around Willwood Dam, Park County, Wyoming
Jason S. Alexander, Haylie Brown, Cheryl A. Eddy-Miller, Jason Burckhardt, Laura Burckhardt, Christopher A. Ellison, Carmen McIntyre, Travis Moger, Lindsay Patterson, Chace Tavelli, David Waterstreet, Mahonri Williams
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5077
Sedimentation affects many of the aging reservoirs in the United States. Dams and water diversions from rivers have been central elements of infrastructure supporting agricultural irrigation in the arid and semiarid regions of the Western United States for more than a century. The Willwood Irrigation District diversion dam (hereafter referred...
Projecting stream water quality using Weighted Regression on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS): An example with drought conditions in the Delaware River Basin
Christopher Green, Robert M. Hirsch, Hedeff Essaid, Ward E. Sanford
2025, Science of the Total Environment (999)
Future water availability depends on understanding the responses of constituent concentrations to hydrologic change. Projecting future water quality remains a methodological challenge, particularly when using discrete observations with limited temporal resolution. This study introduces Weighted Regression on Time, Discharge, and Season for Projection (WRTDS-P), a novel, computationally efficient method that...
National Park Service staff perspectives on how climate change affects visitor use
Sarah Lynn Rappaport Keener, Emily J. Wilkins, Wylie Carr, Samantha G. Winder, Julianne Reas, Daniela B. Daniele, Spencer A. Wood
2025, People and Nature (7) 2346-2360
1. Many public lands, including those managed by the U.S. National Park Service(NPS), have the purpose of conserving natural and cultural resources and providing opportunities for visitors to recreate in and enjoy these areas. Achieving this mission becomes more challenging as drought, flooding, increasing temperatures and other climatic change effects...
Regional high-frequency monitoring revealed chloride concentrations in exceedance of ecological benchmarks in urban streams across the Delaware River Basin, USA
Rosemary M. Fanelli, Michelle Morency, Brandon J. Fleming, Joel Moore, Deanna Hardesty, Megan E. Shoda
2025, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Rising chloride concentrations pose critical risks to freshwater stream ecosystems in temperate regions like the Delaware River Basin (DRB), USA, where winter deicer applications (i.e., road salt) are common. Increasing chloride concentrations have been documented in the region, but the extent to which chloride exceeds regulatory benchmarks remains unclear because...
