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Intertidal microbial biofilms, or microphytobenthos, support estuarine biogeochemical cycling, the physical stability of mudflats, and food webs, particularly those of migratory shorebirds. Photosynthetic biofilms dominated by diatoms, cyanobacteria, and chlorophytes represent a significant fraction of biofilm biomass and contain pigments that can be detected with remote sensing. These diverse biofilm...

ObjectiveUnderstanding how fish populations will respond to management actions is critical for making effective management ­decisions. This study provides important information regarding population demographics for a nonnative, hatchery-implemented population of White Sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus. We investigated the population dynamics of White Sturgeon in the upper Snake River,...

Changes in vegetation cover are occurring across sub-Saharan Africa and can have substantial effects on ecological communities, but limited data make understanding status and trends difficult for many taxa. We surveyed birds for several decades across Uganda using point counts. Using time-to-detection analysis in a trait-informed Bayesian multi-species occupancy framework,...

The establishment of a reservoir species for zoonotic diseases is concerning for both animal and human health. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, has been detected in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the United States. Since its initial detection, various studies have documented...

Wildlife management in the United States of America (US) is primarily delegated to the individual states wherein state wildlife agencies manage wildlife populations to achieve multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are an important species in the Midwestern US whose populations are primarily managed through recreational hunting....

California's Central Valley is increasingly vulnerable to winter floods. A comprehensive spatial baseline of flood extents is critical for inundation analyses that can enhance future flood predictions, but cloud cover has prevented the regular observation of surface water extents with optical satellite imagery. In this study, we leveraged the daily...

Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD)-based time-series present challenges in monitoring surface urban heat islands (SUHI) due to rapid changes in land surface temperature (LST) compared to cloud-free satellite observations. This research investigates the use of a spatiotemporal gap-filling model as a feasible and cost-effective solution to produce Landsat time-series LST...

Managing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water resources requires a basin-scale approach. Predicted environmental concentrations (PEC) and stream-vulnerability scores for PFAS were determined for the Potomac River watershed in the eastern United States. Approximately 15% of stream reaches contained municipal and/or industrial wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) discharges that are...

Contamination of groundwater by oil-field fluids in proximity to oil and gas development has been an issue of concern to water users and regulators given long histories of development and legacy disposal practices. A robust set of geochemical tracers including petroleum hydrocarbon compounds, thermogenic gases, inorganic ion concentrations, stable isotopes,...

The value of national parks as bird habitat depends not only on local conditions within the parks, but also on the landscape habitat matrices in which they are located. However, the influences of local and landscape habitat matrices on birds vary by species and have not been quantified. Similarly, the...

Annual point counts are commonly used to monitor birds to track population densities across space and time. Palila (Loxioides bailleui) are surveyed annually in the first quarter, but we recently instituted quarterly sampling that offers a unique opportunity to improve estimator precision. We conducted point-transect distance sampling point counts during...

Flooding due to storm surge can propagate through coastal regions to threaten the built and natural environments. This propagation is controlled by geographic features of varying scales, from the largest oceans to the smallest marsh channels and sandy dunes. Numerical models to predict coastal flooding have been improved via the...

Monitoring populations is challenging for cryptic species with seasonal life cycles, where data from multiple field techniques are commonly collected and analyzed as multiple lines of evidence. Data integration can provide comprehensive inferences while improving accuracy, precision, and scope but faces challenges in modeling misaligned resolutions and observational uncertainties. We...

The Nama Group of southern Namibia and northwestern South Africa hosts the best-dated mixed carbonate-siliciclastic foreland basin succession of the terminal Ediacaran [ca. 551 million years (Ma) ago to <538 Ma] and is key for resolving the chronology of early metazoan evolution. Numerous silicified volcanic tuff interbeds are present,...

Introduction Critical minerals are commodities with vulnerable supply chains that play a vital role in supporting the United States’ economy, national defense and security, emerging technologies, and energy independence. The prosperity of our Nation depends on generating a resilient supply of domestic critical minerals; mine waste may be an untapped source...

The glacial deposits underlying southeastern Michigan, northeastern Indiana, and northwestern Ohio are a substantial source of water to communities, agriculture, and industry in the region. Previous efforts to characterize aquifer materials in the area cited a need for additional information about the underlying hydrogeologic characteristics and related groundwater availability as...

Cosmogenic 26Al/10Be isochron burial dating is a powerful tool for dating sediment burial over the past several million years. By measuring in-situ 26Al and 10Be in a suite of samples from the same depth in a buried deposit, it is possible to quantify the inventory of cosmogenic nuclides produced after burial, date the...

Managing water resources in semiarid watersheds is challenging due to limited supply and uncertain future climate conditions. This paper examines the impact of future climate changes on an urban watershed in southern California using an integrated hydrologic model. GSFLOW modeling software is used to simulate the nonlinear relationships between climate...

Rare earth elements (REEs) occur in magmatic rocks but are especially enriched in carbonatite and alkaline silicates. If these rocks are chemically weathered, then the REEs may become further enriched within the regolith developed from these rocks. Primary magmatic REE minerals, as well as the various carbonate minerals and apatite,...

Introduction Connecticut has a diverse, largely forested landscape characterized by hills and low mountains in the Western Upland, hills in the Eastern Upland, ridges and broad valleys in the Central Lowland, and many beaches and harbors along the coast of Long Island Sound. Connecticut is manufacturing and service focused, ranking almost...

Wildlife research and management can be disruptive to wildlife. By advancing our understanding of the impacts of these activities, we can reduce adverse effects, improve decision-making, and enhance the outcomes of research and management. During 2017–2019, we observed the responses of denning female American black bears (Ursus americanus) to 3...

For endangered shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum), the ability to estimate and monitor population size is critical for tracking species’ recovery. Yet, contemporary abundance estimates have not been completed for many shortnose sturgeon populations, largely owing to the difficulty in using traditional abundance estimators for sturgeons. Here, we estimate the adult...

The mottled duck (Anas fulvigula) is nonmigratory and a priority species for regional conservation and management because of its limited range and declining population trajectory in the western Gulf Coast (WGC) of Louisiana and Texas, USA. We developed multistate dead-recovery models for banding and recovery data (1997–2020) to evaluate potential...

Protecting habitat threatened by increasing wildfire size and frequency requires identifying the spatial intersection of wildfire behavior and ecological conditions that favor positive management outcomes. In the perennial sagebrush steppe of Western North America, invasions by fire-prone annual grasses are a key concern, and management of them requires reliable maps...

Subduction zones are home to multiple geohazards driven by the evolution of the regional tectonics, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides. Past evolution builds the present-day structure of the margin, while the present-day configuration of the system determines the state-of-stress in which individual hazardous events manifest. Regional simulations of subduction...