The story of the Penobscot River Ecology Mural: A 10-step process for scientists to create public art
Jillian Fedarick, Christina Amy Murphy, Sydne Record, Allison H. Roy, Annette Dodd, Susan L. Smith
2025, Fisheries
Rivers are home to a wide variety of biota, including fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, freshwater mussels, aquatic insects, and microscopic organisms that fill unique niches to support broader ecosystem functions. While the general public may be aware of recreationally relevant biological life (e.g., fishes and insects to model flyfishing flies...
Development of PCR blocking primers enabling DNA metabarcoding analysis of dietary composition in hematophagous sea lamprey
Conor O'Kane, Nicholas S. Johnson, Kim T. Scribner, Jeannette Kanefsky, Weiming Li, John D. Robinson
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
Conventional dietary assessments are challenging in hematophagous species, particularly in sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). However, recent technological developments and molecular approaches have provided an attractive alternative through the use of DNA metabarcoding. While DNA metabarcoding has been used for dietary analyses in numerous species, including lampreys, applications of universal primers...
Divergent trends in fluvial suspended-sediment concentrations following improved land-use practices, southwest Washington State
Scott W Anderson, Christopher A. Curran, Oscar Wilkerson, Katie Seguin
2025, Geomorphology (488)
Improvements in logging practices since the mid-20th century are widely presumed to have reduced suspended sediment loads in streams across the Pacific Northwest. However, there have been few opportunities to directly assess this, particularly in larger rivers. We compare modern (2019–22) and historical (1960s) suspended sediment monitoring in three large,...
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, 2024
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Phuong A. Le, Andrea D. Cicero, Ronald M. Drake II, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kira K. Timm
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3040
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 14.6 billion barrels of oil and 83.7 trillion cubic feet of gas in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. ...
A compilation pipeline for wildlife tracking datasets collected from ground-based and satellite-based telemetry transmission devices
Gregory T. Wann, Ashley L. Whipple, Michael S. O’Donnell, Cameron L. Aldridge
2025, Ecological Informatics (90)
Wildlife conservation planning increasingly requires collaboration and integration of research from discrete studies spanning large geographic areas. Tracking datasets are essential for analyzing animal movements and species distributions in relation to environmental conditions and combining them can enable powerful analyses to further aid planning efforts. However, combining datasets necessitates addressing variation in study...
Assessing policy effectiveness trends in nonindigenous aquatic species introduction in the Ohio River basin
Abigail N. Clasgens, Brent A. Murry, Kaylyn Zipp, Caroline C. Arantes, Matthew Neilson
2025, Management of Biological Invasions (16) 943-959
Aquatic invasive species (AIS) create costly, detrimental effects when established. Recognition of this in the United States reached a threshold in 1990 with the federal passage of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act. This act created six regional panels, the national Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force, and incentivized...
Improved prediction of postfire debris flows through rainfall anomaly maps
David B. Cavagnaro, Scott W. McCoy, Matthew A. Thomas, Jaime Kostelnik, Donald N. Lindsay
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
Predicting where runoff-generated debris flows might occur during rainfall on steep, recently burned terrain is challenging. Studies of mass-movement processes in unburned areas indicate that event locations are well-predicted by rainfall anomaly, R*, in which peak observed rainfall is normalized by local rainfall climatology. Here, we use remote and field methods...
Estimating the hypothetical endowment of critical minerals and other commodities in porphyry copper mine waste in the Four Corners states, USA
Sean Patrick Gaynor, Nick Karl, Autumn Lynne Helfrich, Andrew Francis Smith, Jeffrey L. Mauk
2025, Conference Paper, Geologic Mapping Forum 24/25 abstracts
Society is fundamentally dependent upon commodities that are used in end-use products for the aerospace, defense, energy, telecommunication, and transportation sectors, resulting in centuries of mining to supply these commodities and materials. Waste from these mining operations can remain on the landscape indefinitely, but there is a lack of national...
Potomac Tributary Summary: A summary of trends in tidal water quality and associated factors, 1985 - 2022
Breck Maura Sullivan, Kaylyn Gootman, Alex Gunnerson, Sarah Betts, Gabriel Duran, Cindy Johnson, Christopher A. Mason, Elgin Perry, Gopal Bhatt, Jennifer L. Keisman, James S. Webber, Jon Harcum, Michael Lane, Olivia Devereux, Qian Zhang, Rebecca Murphy, Renee Karrh, Thomas Butler, Zhaoying Wei
2025, Report
The Potomac Tributary Summary outlines change over time for a suite of monitored tidal water quality parameters and associated potential drivers of those trends for the period of 1985 to 2022, and provides a brief description of the current state of knowledge explaining these observed changes. Water quality parameters described...
Shifts in suitability of pinyon-juniper communities: A climate adaptation framework for range-wide management of arid woodland resources
Adam Roy Noel, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Ian P. Barrett, Michael C. Duniway, Jodi R. Norris, Chris T. Domschke, Brad J. Butterfield, Megan C. Swan, Kim Hartwig, Michelle R. Crist, John B. Bradford
2025, Forest Ecology & Management (596)
Pinyon-juniper (PJ) woodlands are a diverse ecosystem type providing a wealth of ecosystem services across western North America. Managing PJ woodlands in the 21st century entails balancing multiple conservation objectives, and resource managers and policy-makers working to sustain PJ woodlands need spatially explicit information about current PJ woodland conditions and...
Revisiting an enigma on California's north coast: The Mw6.5 Fickle Hill earthquake of 21 December 1954
Margaret Hellweg, Thomas A. Lee, Douglas S. Dreger, Anthony Lomax, Lijam Hagos, Hamid Haddabi, Robert C. McPherson, Lori Dengler, Susan E. Hough, Jason R. Patton
2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (115) 2623-2639
Many earthquakes occur along the North Coast of California in the vicinity of the Mendocino Triple Junction (MTJ), where the Pacific, Gorda, and North American (NA) plates meet, and on the adjacent plate boundaries. The MTJ marks the nexus of the Mendocino and San Andreas faults with the Cascadia subduction...
Evaluation of daily stream temperature predictions (1979-2021) across the contiguous United States using a spatiotemporal aware machine learning algorithm
Jeremy Alejandro Diaz, Samantha K. Oliver, Galen Gorski
2025, Environmental Modelling & Software (193)
Stream temperature controls a variety of physical and biological processes that affect ecosystems, human health, and economic activities. We used 42 years (1979–2021) of data to predict daily summary statistics of stream temperature across >50,000 stream reaches in the contiguous United States using a recurrent graph convolution network. We comprehensively...
Avian influenza spillover into poultry: Environmental influences and biosecurity protections
Matthew Brandon Gonnerman, Jennifer Mullinax, Andrew Fox, Kelly A. Patyk, Victoria Fields, Mary-Jane McCool, Mia K. Torchetti, Kristina Lantz, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Diann Prosser
2025, One Health (21)
With the continued spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), understanding the complex dynamics of virus transfer at the wild – agriculture interface is paramount. Spillover events (i.e., virus transfer from wild birds into poultry) are related to proximity to infected wild bird populations and environmental conditions. By accounting for...
Tracking status and trends in seven key indicators of river and stream condition in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Lindsey J. Boyle, Samuel H. Austin, Matthew J. Cashman, Zachary J. Clifton, John W. Clune, James E. Colgin, Kaitlyn E.M. Elliott, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Ellie P. Foss, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Elizabeth A. Hittle, Coral M. Howe, Emily H. Majcher, Kelly O. Maloney, Christopher A. Mason, Marina J. Metes, Douglas L. Moyer, Trevor P. Needham, Karli M. Rogers, Joshua J. Thompson, Guoxiang Yang, Tammy M. Zimmerman
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5072
Freshwater streams and rivers are recognized as vital habitats within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which has been undergoing extensive restoration efforts for more than 30 years. Resource managers need to understand stream and river condition and how these conditions are changing over time to determine whether regional long-term restoration and...
Cryptic CAM photosynthesis in Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia, Y. jaegeriana)
Karolina Heyduk, Sara J. Scoles-Sciulla, Bridget Hennessy, Madeline Czymmek, Edward V. McAssey, Chase Kane, G. Young Kim, Ifeoluwa Sogunle, Lulu Heublein, Dhriti Sriram, Bryan MacNeill, Michael T. Hren, Todd C. Esque, Jeremy B. Yoder, Michael R. McKain, Christopher Irwin Smith, Lesley A. DeFalco
2025, New Phytologist (248) 2583-2598
Joshua trees are long-lived perennial monocots native to the Mojave Desert in North America. Composed of two species, Yucca brevifolia and Y. jaegeriana (Asparagaceae), Joshua trees are imperiled by climate change, with decreases in suitable habitat predicted under future climate change scenarios. Relatively little is understood about the ecophysiology of Joshua trees across...
Regional differentiation in somatic growth and maturation attributes for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Northwest Atlantic
Larisa Avens, Margaret Lamont, Allen M. Foley, Benjamin M. Higgins, Lyndsey N. Howell, Gretchen Lovewell, Donna J. Shaver, Brian A. Stacy, J. Shelby Walker, Jamie M. Clark, Amy A. Wallace, Hannah B. Vander Zanden
2025, Marine Biology (172)
The ages and sizes at which organisms mature have significant implications for lifetime reproductive success. For species at risk of extinction, such as sea turtles, these attributes can ultimately impact probability of population persistence. Within the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, the broader loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) population comprises management units...
Landscape changes elevate the risk of avian influenza virus diversification and emergence in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway
Shenglai Yin, Chenchen Zhang, Claire Stewart Teitelbaum, Yali Si, Geli Zhang, Xinxin Wang, Dehua Mao, Zheng Y.X. Huangh, Willem Frederik de Boer, John Takekawa, Diann Prosser, Xiangming Xiao
2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (122)
Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) persistently threaten wild waterfowl, domestic poultry, and public health. The East Asian–Australasian Flyway plays a crucial role in HPAIV dynamics due to its large populations of migratory waterfowl and poultry. Over recent decades, this flyway has undergone substantial landscape changes, including both losses and...
Integrating hunter dynamics and waterfowl dynamics to inform harvest management
Richard Eugene Waggaman Berl, Patrick K. Devers, G. Scott Boomer, Michael Runge
2025, Journal of Wildlife Management
The successful conservation and management of North American waterfowl relies upon an adaptive harvest management framework that accounts for changes in the system state and critical uncertainties related to the dynamics of waterfowl populations and habitats. Increasing recognition of the importance of the human dimensions of the harvest process, particularly...
Economic costs of invasive carps in the United States: Case study and management implications
Ellie Brown, Joseph W. Snapp, Christopher Huber, James Caudill, Peter E. Grigelis
2025, Biological Invasions (27)
Biological invasions can have far-reaching impacts and incur enormous monetary costs. Economic considerations play an important role in management decision-making. We used the invasion of U.S. waterways by silver (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) and bighead (H. nobilis) carp as a case study of the costs of aquatic invasive species. Although these carps...
Evaluating the performance of multiple precipitation datasets over the transboundary Ili River Basin between China and Kazakhstan
Baktybek Duisebek, Gabriel Senay, Dennis S. Ojima, Tibin Zhang, Janay Sagin, Xuejiao Wang
2025, Sustainability (17)
The Ili River Basin is characterized by complex topography and diverse climatic zones with limited in situ observations. This study evaluates the performance of six widely used precipitation datasets, CHIRPS (Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data), ERA5_Land (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts—ECMWF Reanalysis 5_Land), GPCC (Global Precipitation...
RAD (Resist-Accept-Direct) switch points and triggers for adaptation planning
Abigail J. Lynch, Jaime Ashander, Anthony Ciocco, Amanda E. Cravens, Colin J. Dassow, Laura E. Dee, Jason B. Dunham, Mitchell J. Eaton, Holly Susan Embke, Joseph M. Hennessy, Alexander W. Latzka, David J Lawrence, Jeremy Littell, Brian W. Miller, Luca Palasti, Michael Runge, Gregory Sass, Aaron D. Shultz, Katherine Siegel, Leona Kay Svancara, Laura Thompson, Lindsey Thurman, Jackson Brear Valler, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Heather M. Yocum
2025, Journal of Environmental Management (392)
Climate change is transforming ecosystems globally. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework has gained traction within many natural resource management institutions to help consider the decision space in response to this transformation. Because RAD helps manage for directional change, RAD choices entail considering which RAD pathway to implement and for how long....
Relationships between water quality, stream metabolism, and water stargrass growth in the lower Yakima River, 2018 to 2020
Rich W. Sheibley, Marcella Appel, James R. Foreman
2025, Preprint
Since the early 2000s, water clarity on the lower Yakima River has improved. Changes in best management practices combined with a total maximum daily load for suspended sediment led to these improved conditions. As water clarity improved, so did conditions for aquatic plants; the clearer the water, the better the...
Evapotranspiration terminology and definitions
Kendall C. DeJonge, Richard Allen, Ayse Kilic, Kelly R. Thorp, Meetpal Kukal, Gary Marek, Jon Altenhofen, Devendra Amatya, Philip Blankenau, Sumon Datta, Garry Grabow, Ahmed Hashem, Isaya Kisekka, Jeppe Kjaersgaard, Thomas Marek, Troy Peters, Dana Porter, Michelle Reba, Daran Rudnick, Gabriel Senay, Vivek Sharma, Venkataramana Sridhar, Ge Sun, Saleh Taghvaeian, Ricardo Trezza, Thomas Trout
2025, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering (15)
Evapotranspiration (ET), the combined process of evaporation from soil and plant surfaces and transpiration from plant tissue, plays a pivotal role in the global water and energy balance. Accurately quantifying ET at various spatial scales is important for diverse applications, including irrigation and natural resource management. While efforts to standardize...
Bison population dynamics, harvest, and human conflict potential under feedground management alternatives at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming
Jonathan D. Cook, Margaret C. McEachran, Gavin G. Cotterill, Eric K. Cole
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5076-D
Bison bison were once abundant across North America but declined due to overharvesting in the late 1800s. The reintroduced population in and around Jackson, Wyoming has averaged 485 individuals between 2018–2023 and is the subject of a planning process to inform management strategies that will guide the U.S. Fish and...
Decision framing overview and performance of management alternatives for bison and elk feedground management at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming
Jonathan D. Cook, Gavin G. Cotterill, Margaret C. McEachran, Tabitha A. Graves, Eric K. Cole, Paul C. Cross
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5076-A
This report was developed to evaluate the performance of a set of proposed alternatives for Cervus elaphus canadensis (elk) and Bison bison (bison) management at the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming, U.S.A., and to inform a National Environmental Policy Act Environmental Impact Statement focused on developing the next “Bison and Elk Management Plan” (BEMP)....
