Line transect distance sampling and genetic analyses reveal a small but genetically diverse coastal Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) population
Margaret Lamont, Irlanda Gallardo-Alanis, Diya Chordia, Michael Palandri, Ylenia Chiari
2026, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (21) 199-212
Gopher Tortoises inhabit coastal systems, including barrier islands, across the southeastern U.S. St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge is an uninhabited barrier island located off the coast of northwestern Florida. Although tortoises have been observed on the island, no information is available on the status of the population. We conducted a...
A practical decision tool for marine bird mortality assessments
Johanna Harvey, Andrew M. Ramey, Stephanie Avery-Gomm, Gregory J. Robertson, Marc D. Romano, Jennifer M Mullinax, Megan L Boldenow, Philip W. Atkinson, Diann Prosser
2026, Ornithological Applications
Given the rise in anthropogenic, environmental, and disease events contributing to marine bird mortality, there is a critical need to improve the rigor of mortality assessments. Deficits in data collection and mortality estimation can hinder a manager’s ability to document the scale of events and assess population level impacts. Therefore,...
Hydrogeology, groundwater salinity distributions, and assessment of the effect of oil-production activities on groundwater in the Midway Valley area, western Kern County, San Joaquin Valley, California
Janice M. Gillespie, Riley Gannon, Lyndsay B. Ball, John G. Warden, Rhett R. Everett, Michael J. Stephens
2026, PLOS Water (5)
This study seeks to determine the effects of oil field produced water disposal operations and well mechanical integrity issues on groundwater quality in oil fields in the southwest San Joaquin Valley, California. Whereas previous studies used groundwater wells to study shallow aquifers outside the oil fields, this study demonstrates that...
Critical minerals in zinc ore—An update on Earth Mapping Resources Initiative Research in the Boulder Batholith region, Montana
Sean Patrick Gaynor, Eric D. Anderson, Kyle A. Eastman, Karen Lund, Chris Gammons, Heather A. Lowers, Jay M. Thompson
2026, Fact Sheet 2026-3064
Plain Language Summary U.S. Geological Survey research, in collaboration with Montana Technical University and Montana Bureau of Geology and Mines, is providing key critical mineral information that may have potential for critical mineral production of several mining districts in the Boulder Batholith region, to better understand the abundance and distribution of...
Computation of regional groundwater budgets for the Virginia Coastal Plain aquifer system
Jason P. Pope, Alison D. Gordon, Ryan S. Frederiks
2026, Open-File Report 2026-1002
Computation of detailed groundwater flow budgets for subdivisions of the Virginia Coastal Plain aquifer system has enabled quantification and more thorough understanding of groundwater flow within this important water resource. A zone budget analysis based on previously published groundwater models of the Virginia Coastal Plain and Virginia Eastern Shore indicates...
Analyses of meteorological and hydrological records support Tribal members’ accounts of changing climate on the Fort Apache Reservation, east–central Arizona
Jon P. Mason
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5140
The Fort Apache Reservation in east–central Arizona, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona, contains several climate zones because of the large variation in surface elevation within the reservation. This study was carried out in cooperation with the White Mountain Apache Tribe of the...
Biological and environmental drivers of early life fawn survival in a declining pronghorn population
Derek P. Hahn, Robert Charles Lonsinger, M. Colter Chitwood, Anna K. Moeller, Matthew T. Turnley, Marlin M. Dart, Levi J. Heffelfinger, Evan P. Tanner, Michael J. Cherry, H. George Wang, W. Sue Fairbanks
2026, Wildlife Biology (2026)
Pronghorn Antilocapra americana occupy only a portion of their historical range and in Oklahoma occur at the eastern edge of the species' contemporary distribution. Monitoring has suggested pronghorn populations in Oklahoma have declined in recent years. We captured and collared 125 adult females across two winters, monitored them for...
Arsenic and isotope concentrations in the lower Platte River valley of eastern Nebraska, early 1970s to 2023
Matthew T. Moser, Mikaela L. Cherry, Brent M. Hall
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5138
The City of Lincoln, Nebraska, has been monitoring concentrations of arsenic in their source water and evaluating their options for treatment and removal since at least 2002. In 2022, the City of Lincoln, Nebr., with funding assistance from the Nebraska Water Sustainability Fund, began cooperating with the U.S. Geological Survey...
Incorporating data sets with multiple sources of uncertainty in integrated species distribution models
Fiona Lunt, C. Lane Scher, Riley Olivia Mummah, David A.W. Miller
2026, Ecology and Evolution (16)
Data integration methods aim to improve species distribution estimates by incorporating multiple sources of uncertainty across datasets. Two major sources of uncertainty are: (1) variation in sampling effort across space and within datasets, and (2) variation in reliability associated with data collection protocols or timing among datasets. Our goal was...
Mineral chemistry perspective on remobilization of stored magma at Kamakai'a Hills, Southwest Rift Zone of Kilauea, Island of Hawai'i, USA
Drew T. Downs, May Sas
2026, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (474)
Differentiated magmas stored in the rift zones of Kīlauea have received more attention in recent years following eruption of andesite during the early phase of 2018 lower East Rift Zone activity. Despite this growing interest, some of the most voluminous eruptions of differentiated rift zone magmas remain...
Deep groundwater total dissolved solids mapping in the Dakota Group, Williston Basin, USA
Michael J. Stephens, Bennett Eugene Hoogenboom, Lyndsay B. Ball, Will Chang
2026, Groundwater (64) 335-349
Growing concern about the quantity of available freshwater around the world has led to interest in surveying groundwater total dissolved solids (TDS) below water well depths. Deep TDS has not been systematically mapped, and there is much to learn about the distribution and controls on deeper groundwater. In sedimentary basins...
Seabed maps showing topography, ruggedness, backscatter intensity, sediment mobility, and the distribution of geologic substrates in quadrangle 3 of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary region offshore of Boston, Massachusetts
Page C. Valentine, VeeAnn A. Cross
2026, Scientific Investigations Map 3544
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Marine Sanctuary Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has conducted seabed mapping and related research in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS) region since 1993. The area being mapped using geophysical and geological data includes the SBNMS and...
Geologic map of the Emmons Lake volcanic center, Alaska
Thomas P. Miller, Christopher F. Waythomas, Margaret T. Mangan, Frank A. Trusdell, Andrew T. Calvert
2026, Scientific Investigations Map 3519
Introduction The Emmons Lake volcanic center is a spatially clustered group of stratovolcanoes and calderas in the southwestern part of the Alaska Peninsula, Alaska. The volcanic center is characterized by several ice- and snow-clad stratovolcanoes located within and along the margins of a nested-caldera complex that includes Emmons Lake. A shieldlike...
Low streamflows in Massachusetts: Variability over space and time and relations with climatic and basin variables
Catherine A. Chamberlin, Glenn Hodgkins
2026, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (62)
Streamflows in Massachusetts have set record lows in recent years despite generally wetter conditions than during the drought of the 1960s, and the reasons for this are not known. To analyse potential drivers of low streamflows in Massachusetts, six low-flow metrics were computed at 107 streamgages. These metrics represent low-flow...
Early Miocene volcanic rocks and associated tectonics, Lava Hills and southern Bristol Mountains, California
David M. Miller, Janet Harvey, David C. Buesch, Phillip B. Gans
2026, Conference Paper, Miocene Mojave: The volcanic story: Desert Symposium field guide and proceedings
Volcanic rocks of latest Oligocene to early Miocene age form an east-west belt across part of the central eastern Mojave Desert from the Whipple Mountains on the east to the Rosamond Hills on the west. We term this the central belt because it is separated from northern and southern belts...
Small cumulative survival costs of enzootic disease could suppress long-term population size
Brad M. Glorioso, Graziella V. DiRenzo, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Brittany A. Mosher, David A.W. Miller, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Hardin Waddle
2026, Royal Society Open Science (13)
Fungal pathogens can cause epizootics that result in widespread mortality and rapid population declines in some species. However, even in the absence of high disease-induced mortality, enzootic mycoses could have large-scale impacts on host population dynamics. Here, we examined the effects of ophidiomycosis, an enzootic fungal disease, on a Louisiana...
Ecovoltaic solar energy development creates novel microclimate, temperature, and soil moisture patterns under solar panels in a warm desert
Juan Pinos, Seth M. Munson, Claire C Karban, Matthew D. Petrie
2026, Ecological Processes (15)
Background:As solar energy development expands in desert regions, new installation practices and solar technologies seek to balance ecosystem conservation and energy generation (ecovoltaics). The Gemini Solar Project, a large ecovoltaic facility located in the northeastern Mojave Desert, employed low impact installation methods to reduce disturbance of the desert ecosystem within...
Bottom trawl assessment of Lake Ontario’s benthic prey fish community, 2025
Brian O’Malley, Olivia Margaret Mitchinson, Scott David Stahl, Brian Weidel, Jessica A Goretzke, Lucus Sunderland
2026, Report
Since 1978, bottom trawl surveys in Lake Ontario have provided information on the status and trends of the benthic prey fish community related to Fish Community Objectives that include understanding prey fish population dynamics and community diversity. Beginning in 2015, the benthic prey fish survey expanded from only U.S. sites...
Status of round goby invasion fronts in New York and Quebec: Implications for Lake Champlain
Scott D. George, Hannah Diebboll, Steven Pearson, Jesica Goldsmit, Annick Drouin, Nathalie Vachon, Guillaume Côté, Siena Daudelin, Meredith L. Bartron, Meg Modley, Kate Littrell, Rodman G. Getchell, Rob Fiorentino, Thomas R. Sadekoski, Jason S. Finkelstein, Michael J. Darling, Geneviève Parent, Lauren M. Atkins
2026, Preprint
Invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus have advanced eastward through the state of New York and provinces of Ontario and Quebec over the past two decades and are approaching Lake Champlain, one of the largest lakes in North America. This manuscript describes international efforts to monitor round goby populations during 2021–2025 on (a)...
Sources and streambed storage of soft sediment and sediment-bound phosphorus in an agricultural Great Lakes tributary
Heidi M. Broerman, James D. Blount, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, Tanja N. Williamson, Rebecca Kreiling, Isaac James Mevis, Matthew J. Komiskey
2026, Journal of Great Lakes Research (52)
The East River, an agricultural tributary to the Lower Fox River and Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, USA, has excessive phosphorus (P) and suspended-sediment loads that contribute to downstream eutrophication and habitat-related impairments. Spatial variations and connectivity in the sources and streambed storage of soft, fine-grained (silt and clay) sediment and...
Dynamics and evolution of the Kı̄lauea lower East Rift Zone 2018 fissure 8 lava flow and implications for multiphase magma properties
Jasper Baur, Janine Birnbaum, Brenna A Halverson, Hannah R. Dietterich, Julia E Hammer, Alan G Whittington, Einat Lev
2026, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (473)
The 2018 Kı̄lauea lower East Rift Zone (KLERZ) eruption was one of the most voluminous eruptions on the Island of Hawai’i in the past 200 years, leading to major disruption and destroying over 700 homes and structures. The majority of the erupted magma was emitted as a lava...
Moving toward a more human-oriented analysis of urban heat: Examining differences of heat exposure intensity at busy commuting locations
Peter Christian Ibsen, Melissa R. McHale, Priyanka deSouza, Logan Steinharter, Carl Green Jr., James E. Diffendorfer, Travis Warziniak
2026, Environmental Research: Health (4)
Examining urban thermal environments has become a critical area of research spanning epidemiology, urban planning, and ecology. While traditional metrics like air temperature (Tair) and satellite-derived surface temperature dominate urban heat studies, these measures often fail to reflect how people actually experience thermal exposure intensity. More human-oriented...
Spatial and temporal geochemical variations of lava flows and tephra deposits from the December 2020 to September 2024 eruptions of Kīlauea volcano
Drew T. Downs, Kendra J. Lynn, Heather Brianne Winslow, Steven P. Lundblad, Meghann F.I. Decker
2026, Bulletin of Volcanology (88)
Kīlauea volcano underwent dramatic morphological changes in 2018. That year recorded the end of the 35-year-long eruption of Puʻuʻōʻō (1983–2018) and 10-year-long (2008–2018) Halemaʻumaʻu lava lake and emplacement of the ~4-month-long lower East Rift Zone lava flows that coincided with ~500 m of summit caldera collapse. Starting on December 20, 2020,...
Finding the (small) cores: Spatial covariance tracks grassland bird community occupancy in fragmented grasslands
Lauren L. Berry, Brett Alexander DeGregorio, Daniel R. Uden, Caleb Powell Roberts
2026, Ecosphere (17)
Grasslands are an imperiled ecosystem, and grassland bird abundance is declining across North America. One of the strongest drivers for these declines is woody plant encroachment of grasslands. In the Great Plains and Sagebrush biomes of North America, spatial covariance—a remote-sensing metric for tracking boundaries between vegetation...
Accumulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their association with immune parameters in nestling ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) from Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, USA
Natalie Karouna-Renier, David Lee Haskins, Sandra L. Schultz, Michael E. Akresh, Barnett Rattner
2026, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of widespread, environmentally persistent compounds that pose a potential threat to wildlife and human health. Despite recent efforts to reduce the use of long-chain PFAS in industrial practices and commercial/consumer products, the persistence and solubility of PFAS have led to their detection...
