Effects of riparian forest thinning on resident salmonid fishes in coastal northern California catchments
David A. Roon, Jason B. Dunham, Joseph R. Benjamin, Bret C. Harvey, James R Bellmore
2025, Freshwater Biology (70)
Resource managers are interested in whether thinning second-growth forests may be a viable restoration strategy for stream and riparian habitats, but may be concerned about the potential impacts that increases in stream temperature associated with riparian thinning treatments may have on cold-water salmonid fishes.We evaluated the effects of riparian...
Protected from Pterygoplichthys? Predicting thermal habitat suitability for nonnative armored catfish in the Suwannee River
Andrew Kenneth Carlson
2025, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (154) 398-413
ObjectiveNonnative fishes can modify ecosystems and harm economies when they are introduced to new environments. Climate change is likely to assist the spread and establishment of some nonnative fishes (e.g., warmwater species), but spatiotemporal gaps in water temperature monitoring and modeling may prevent ecologists and managers from forecasting thermal habitat...
A review of standardization in Mississippi’s multidecadal inland fisheries monitoring program
Caleb A. Aldridge, Michael E. Colvin
2025, Fishes (10)
Standardizing data collection, management, and analysis processes can improve the reliability and efficiency of fisheries monitoring programs, yet few studies have examined the operationalization of these tasks within agency settings. We reviewed the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, Fisheries Bureau’s inland recreational fisheries monitoring program—a 30+-year effort to...
A joint Gaussian process model of geochemistry, geophysics, and temperature for groundwater TDS in the San Ardo Oil Field, California, USA
Michael J. Stephens, Will Chang, David H. Shimabukuro, Amanda Howery, Theron Sowers, Janice M. Gillespie
2025, Journal of Hydrology (661)
Decline in availability of fresh groundwater has expanded interest in brackish groundwater resources; however, the distribution of brackish groundwater is poorly understood. Water resources in sedimentary basins across the United States often overlie oil and gas development. Mapping of groundwater total dissolved solids (TDS) using data from oil...
The Long Island Sound and Watershed Metadata map application
Timothy J. Stagnitta, Gina N. Groseclose, Harper N. Wavra, Shawn C. Fisher
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3019
The Long Island Sound and its watershed encompass an area of about 17,000 square miles and include the Connecticut, Housatonic, and Thames Rivers, which all drain to the sound. Dozens of organizations from government agencies, nonprofits, and Tribal Nations have developed projects and monitoring programs to analyze and protect the...
The 3D Elevation Program—Supporting New Mexico’s Economy
Carol Lydic
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3014
Introduction Federal, State, Tribal, and local entities managing lands in New Mexico have concerns about wildfire risk, wildlife habitat, and flood risk. Land managers in urban areas along the Rio Grande corridor and in the State’s rural northwest and southeast also have concerns about existing and developing roads, buildings, and other...
Managing water for birds—A tool for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, southeastern Oregon
Cassandra D. Smith
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5024
The “Water for Birds Tool” is a spreadsheet-based tool (using Microsoft Excel) designed to help resource managers assess the spatial extent and types of bird habitats in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, southeastern Oregon. The tool quantifies the areas of open water, partial water, and water depths on a monthly...
Genetic analysis of Missouri’s Topeka Shiners with implications for the propagation of understudied small-bodied freshwater fishes
Jessica Brooks, Leah K. Berkman, Meghan Zimmerschied, Douglas Novinger, Jerry Wiechman, Jacob Thomas Westhoff, Nathan L. Eckert, David D. Duvernell
2025, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (154) 372-384
ObjectiveBest practices for conservation hatcheries to conserve genetic diversity and minimize adaptation to captivity have been established for decades, but how to apply them is not clear in every circumstance. As a growing number of aquatic species are propagated in captive settings, addressing the fit of these practices to each...
Rapid recovery of an arctic lake ecosystem from a pulse disturbance caused by thermokarst failure
Phaedra E. Budy, Casey A. Pennock, Sarah Messenger, Hunter Pehrson, Emily Adler, Gary P. Thiede, Natasha R. Christman, Byron C. Crump, Anne E. Giblin, George W. Kling
2025, Oecologia (207)
Due to rapid climate change, arctic ecosystems are experiencing an increase in disturbances including localized land-surface failures caused by melting ground ice (thermokarst failures). These failures result in the mass transport of sediment and organic materials into surface waters, with the potential to dramatically alter aquatic ecosystem function and biotic...
Biocrust mosses and cyanobacteria exhibit distinct carbon uptake responses to variations in precipitation amount and frequency
Kristina E. Young, Osvaldo E. Sala, Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi, Colin L Tucker, Rebecca A Finger-Higgens, Megan Elyse Starbuck, Sasha C. Reed
2025, Ecology Letters (28)
Dryland organisms exhibit varied responses to changes in precipitation, including event size, frequency, and soil moisture duration, influencing carbon uptake and reserve management strategies. This principle, central to the pulse-reserve paradigm, has not been thoroughly evaluated in biological soil crusts (biocrusts), essential primary producers on dryland surfaces. We conducted two...
Calibration of the Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) model to estimate annual survival, movement, and food consumption by juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the restoration reach of the Trinity River, California, 2006–18
John M. Plumb, Russell W. Perry, Kyle De Juilio
2025, Open-File Report 2024-1070
Executive SummaryThe Trinity River is managed in two sections: (1) from the upper 64-kilometer “restoration reach” downstream from Lewiston Dam to the confluence with the North Fork Trinity River, and (2) the 120-kilometer lower Trinity River downstream from the restoration reach. The Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) has been previously applied...
New technology for an ancient fish: A lamprey life cycle modeling tool with an R Shiny application
Dylan Gerald-Everett Gomes, Joseph R. Benjamin, Benjamin J. Clemens, Ralph Lampman, Jason B. Dunham
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
Lampreys (Petromyzontiformes) are an ancient group of fishes with complex life histories. We created a life cycle model that includes an R Shiny interactive web application interface to simulate abundance by life stage. This will allow scientists and managers to connect available demographic information in a framework that can be...
Regional analysis of the dependence of peak-flow quantiles on climate with application to adjustment to climate trends
Thomas M. Over, Mackenzie K. Marti, Hannah Lee Podzorski
2025, Hydrology (12)
Standard flood-frequency analysis methods rely on an assumption of stationarity, but because of growing understanding of climatic persistence and concern regarding the effects of climate change, the need for methods to detect and model nonstationary flood frequency has become widely recognized. In this study, a regional statistical method for estimating...
Controls on water quality below a reclaimed surface coal mine, southeastern Montana
Skye Keeshin, Stephanie A. Ewing, Elizabeth B Meredith, Robert A. Payne, W. Payton Gardner, Andrew Hunt
2025, Hydrogeology Journal (33) 715-737
Coal mining and reclamation can have a profound influence on hydrogeologic systems, with clear consequences for groundwater quality, yet their long-term influence on downgradient water quality over time following reclamation is less well documented. Geochemical trends were evaluated in water quality downgradient of a fully reclaimed landscape at the former...
Flexible phenology of a C4 grass linked to resiliency to seasonal and multiyear drought events in the American southwest
Rebecca A Finger-Higgens, David L. Hoover, Anna C. Knight, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Michael C. Duniway
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
Rising temperatures are predicted to further limit dryland water availability as droughts become more intense and frequent and seasonal precipitation patterns shift. Vegetation drought stress may increase mortality and cause declines and delays in phenological events, thereby impacting species' capacity to persist and recover from extreme drought conditions. We compare...
Environmental persistence and toxicity of weathered wildland fire retardants to rainbow trout
Christina M. Mackey, Michael G. Iacchetta, Holly J. Puglis
2025, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (88) 397-406
Long-term fire retardants are employed to combat and control wildfires by altering the way fuels burn, and they continue to decrease fire intensity after water in the retardant solution has evaporated. After application, fire retardants may persist on dry stream beds or in riparian habitats before precipitation events flush the...
Fine-resolution satellite remote sensing improves spatially distributed snow modeling to near real time
Graham A. Sexstone, Garrett Alexander Akie, David J. Selkowitz, Theodore B. Barnhart, David M. Rey, Claudia León-Salazar, Emily Carbone, Lindsay A. Bearup
2025, Remote Sensing (17)
Given the highly variable distribution of seasonal snowpacks in complex mountainous environments, the accurate snow modeling of basin-wide snow water equivalent (SWE) requires a spatially distributed approach at a sufficiently fine grid resolution (<500 m) to account for the important processes in the seasonal evolution of a snowpack (e.g., wind...
Shifting baselines of coral-reef species composition from the Late Pleistocene to the present in the Florida Keys
Lauren Toth, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Scarlette Shan-Hwei Hsia, David A. Weinstein
2025, The Depositional Record (11) 893-916
The ongoing global-scale reassembly of modern coral reefs is unprecedented compared with the observed stability of most late Quaternary reef assemblages. One notable exception is the marine isotope stage (MIS) 5e (ca 130–116 thousand years ago [ka]) reefs in the Florida Keys, where the ubiquitous shallow-water coral, Acropora palmata, was near absent....
Linking permafrost to the abundance, biomass, and energy density of fish in Arctic headwater streams
Michael P. Carey, Joshua C. Koch, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Brett Poulin, Christian E. Zimmerman
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Permafrost thaw alters groundwater flow, river hydrology, stream-catchment interactions, and the availability of carbon and nutrients in headwater streams. The impact of permafrost on watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry of headwater streams has been demonstrated, but there is little understanding of how permafrost influences fish in these ecosystems. We examined relations...
Using the D-Claw software package to model lahars in the Middle Fork Nooksack River drainage and beyond, Mount Baker, Washington
Cynthia A. Gardner, Mary Catherine Benage, Charles M. Cannon, David L. George
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5133
Lahars, or volcanic mudflows, are the most hazardous eruption-related phenomena that will affect communities living along rivers that originate on Mount Baker. In the past 15,000 years, the largest lahars from Mount Baker have affected the Middle Fork Nooksack River drainage and beyond. Here we use the physics-based D-Claw software...
Evidence of mineral alteration in a salt marsh subterranean estuary: Implications for carbon and trace element cycling
J.J. Tamborski, Meagan J. Eagle, M.T. Thorpe, M.A. Charette, B. Kurylyk, S. Rahman, Kevin D. Kroeger, Jennifer A. O’Keefe Suttles, Adrian G. Mann, Thomas W. Brooks, Z.A. Wang
2025, JGR Biogeosciences (130)
Subterranean estuaries (STE) in salt marshes are biogeochemically active zones where interactions between terrestrial groundwater and seawater drive complex cycling of carbon and trace elements, influenced by mineral dissolution. These systems, characterized by fine-grained organic-rich peat overlying permeable coastal aquifers, play a crucial role as a blue carbon sink, yet...
A geospatial analysis of water-quality threats from orphan wells in principal and secondary aquifers of the United States
Joshua Woda, Karl B. Haase, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Kalle Jahn, Kristina Gutchess
2025, Science of the Total Environment (976)
Throughout the history of oil and gas production in the United States, millions of wells have been drilled for exploration and energy production. Hundreds of thousands of unplugged wells are no longer actively producing and are currently under orphan status, with no responsible party obligated for plugging. Orphan wells can...
Antigone canadensis (Sandhill Crane) foraging patterns influenced by crop type, roost distance, and tillage intensity during spring and autumn migration at a primary stopover area
Rachel A. Vanausdall, William L. Kendall, Daniel P. Collins
2025, Ornithological Applications (127)
The San Luis Valley in Colorado, USA, an agriculturally dominated stopover area, is used by the Rocky Mountain population of Antigone canadensis tabida (Greater Sandhill Crane) and some midcontinental individuals of A. c. canadensis (Lesser Sandhill Crane) during migration. While the numbers of both subspecies are stable, the effects of continued water scarcity and...
Status of water-level altitudes and long-term and short-term water-level changes in the Chicot and Evangeline (undifferentiated) and Jasper aquifers, greater Houston area, Texas, 2024
Jason K. Ramage, Alexandra C. Adams
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5028
Since the early 1900s, groundwater withdrawn from the primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers—has been an important source of water in the greater Houston area, Texas. This report, prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, City...
Global methane budget 2000-2020
Marielle Saunois, Adrien Martinez, Benjamin Poulter, Zhen Zhang, Peter A. Raymond, Pierre Regnier, Josep G. Canadell, Robert B. Jackson, Prabir K. Patra, Philippe Bousquet, Philippe Ciais, Edward J. Dlugokencky, Xin Lan, George H. Allen, David Bastviken, David J. Beerling, Dmitry Belikov, Donald R. Blake, Simona Castaldi, Monica Crippa, Bridget Deemer, Fraser Dennison, Giuseppe Etiope, Nicola Gedney, Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Meredith A. Holgerson, Peter O. Hopcroft, Gustaf Hugelius, Akihiko Ito, Atul K. Jain, Rajesh Janardanan, Matthew S. Johnson, Thomas Kleinen, Paul B. Krummel, Ronny Lauerwald, Tingting Li, Xiangyu Liu, Kyle C. McDonald, Joe R. Melton, Jens Mühle, Jurek Müller, Fabiola Murguia-Flores, Yosuke Niwa, Sergio Noce, Shufen Pan, Robert J. Parker, Changhui Peng, Michel Ramonet, William J. Riley, Gerard Rocher-Ros, Judith A. Rosentreter, Motoki Sasakawa, Arjo Segers, Steven J. Smith, Emily H. Stanley, Joël Thanwerdas, Hanqin Tian, Aki Tsuruta, Francesco N. Tubiello, Thomas S. Weber, Guido R. van der Werf, Douglas E. Worthy, Yi Xi, Yukio Yoshida, Wenxin Zhang, Bo Zheng, Qing Zhu, Qiuan Zhu, Qianlai Zhuang
2025, Earth System Science Data (17) 1873-1958
Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is important for assessing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. CH4 is the second most important human-influenced greenhouse gas in terms of climate forcing after carbon dioxide (CO2), and both emissions and atmospheric concentrations of CH4 have continued to...
