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Parasitic worms with complex life cycles have several developmental stages, with each stage creating opportunities to infect additional host species. Using a dataset for 973 species of trophically transmitted acanthocephalans, cestodes, and nematodes, we confirmed that worms with longer life cycles (i.e. more successive hosts) infect a greater diversity of...

The refractory nature of zircon to temperature and pressure allows even a single zircon grain to preserve a rich history of magmatic, metamorphic, and hydrothermal processes. Isotopic dating of micro-domains exposed in cross-sections of zircon grains allows us to interrogate this history. Unfortunately, our ability to select...

AimThe United States Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has considerable offshore wind energy potential. Capturing that resource is part of a broader effort to reduce CO2 emissions. While few turbines have been constructed in U.S. waters, over a dozen currently planned offshore wind projects have the potential to...

The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter GRSG) has been a focus of scientific investigation and management action for the past two decades. The 2015 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing determination of “not warranted” was in part due to a large-scale collaborative effort to develop strategies to conserve GRSG populations...

Executive SummaryClimate change vulnerability assessments and associated adaptation strategies and actions connect existing climate science with possible effects on natural resources and highlight potential responses. However, these assessments, which are commonly generated for large regional areas, suggest management options in general terms without guidance for choosing among strategies and actions...

A long history of mining and widespread metals contamination in the Coeur d’Alene River watershed and downstream into the Spokane River has led to the area’s designation as a Superfund site and to extensive, ongoing (as of 2020) remedial actions. Long-term water-quality and streamflow data, collected by the U.S. Geological...

North American bats face unprecedented risks from continuing and emerging threats including white-nose syndrome, wind energy development, and habitat loss. Many species of bats are thought to be recently experiencing unparalleled population declines unlike any previously observed (O’Shea et al. 2016). The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) was...

Quantifying channel and floodplain geomorphic characteristics is essential for understanding and modeling sediment and nutrient dynamics in fluvial systems. The increased availability of high-resolution elevation data from light detection and ranging (lidar) has helped improve methods for extracting these metrics at a greater accuracy across regional scales. The Floodplain and...

We estimate annualized earthquake loss associated with over 600,000 bridges located throughout the contiguous United States. Each year, the Federal Highway Administration, in partnership with State Departments of Transportation, undertake a massive exercise to update the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) by combining data from states, federal agencies, local jurisdictions, and...

The goal of this research was to examine the impacts of Grade Control Structure (GCS) installations at the Heard Scout Pueblo (HSP) study site in the City of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The study site is around a high-use trail system and is comprised of eroded and incised channels that conduct...

Setting land aside has long been a primary approach for protecting biodiversity; however, the efficacy of this approach has been questioned. We examined whether protecting lands positively influences bird species in the U.S., and thus overall biodiversity. We used the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Protected Areas Database of...

Gag is a reef fish that was declared overfished in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in 2009. Although Gag are no longer listed as overfished, fisheries managers are concerned that stocks may not be recovering. Our objective was to identify habitat characteristics important to Gag, and their effect on the...

Ground motions in the Los Angeles Basin during large earthquakes are modulated by earthquake ruptures, path effects into the basin, basin effects, and local site response. We analyzed the direct effect of shallow basin structures on shaking duration at a period of 2–10 s in the Los...

Land use in Panama has changed dramatically with ongoing deforestation and conversion to cropland and cattle pastures, potentially altering the soil properties that drive the hydrological processes of infiltration and overland flow. We compared plot-scale overland flow generation between hillslopes in forested and actively cattle-grazed watersheds...

Characterizing pre- and post-fire fuels remains a key challenge for estimating biomass consumption and carbon emissions from wildfires. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) data have demonstrated effectiveness for estimating canopy, and to a lesser degree, surface fuel components at fine-scale (i.e., 30 m) across landscapes. Using...

The 2019 Ridgecrest, California earthquake sequence included Mw 6.4 and Mw 7.1 earthquakes that occurred on successive days beginning on 4 July 2019. These two largest earthquakes of the sequence occurred on orthogonal faults that ruptured the Earth’s surface. To better evaluate the 3D subsurface fault structure, (P- and S-wave)...

The Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) is an integrated network of water-level gages, interpolation models that estimate daily water-level data at ungaged locations, and applications that generate derived hydrologic data across the freshwater part of the Greater Everglades landscape. Version 3 (V3) of the EDEN interpolation surface-water model is the most...

BackgroundThe effects of climate on plant species ranges are well appreciated, but the effects of other processes, such as fire, on plant species distribution are less well understood. We used a dataset of 561 plots 0.1 ha in size located throughout Yosemite National Park, in the Sierra Nevada...

This report presents data obtained through the EcoSystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) which was established in 2006 to improve understanding and to inform researchers, managers, and citizens about the status and trends of ecosystem health in the Gulf of Maine (http://www.gulfofmaine.org/2/esip-homepage/). In its efforts to compile information on contaminant indicators in...

Hydrology is a critical driver controlling mangrove wetlands structural and functional attributes at different spatial and temporal scales. Yet, human activities have negatively affected hydrology, causing mangrove diebacks and coverage loss worldwide. In fact, the assessment of mangrove water budgets, impacted by natural and human disturbances, is limited due to...

Analyses of biota at lower latitudes may presage impacts of climate change on biota at higher latitudes. Macroinvertebrate assemblages in depressional wetlands may be especially sensitive to climate change because weather‐related precipitation and evapotranspiration are dominant ecological controls on habitats, and organisms of depressional wetlands are...

Illegal killing of nongame wildlife is a global yet poorly documented problem. The prevalence and ecological consequences of illegal killing are often underestimated or completely unknown. We review the practice of legal recreational shooting and present data gathered from telemetry, surveys, and observations on its association with illegal killing of...

Water management increasingly involves tradeoffs, making its accounting highly relevant in our interconnected world. Physical and economic data about water in many nations are becoming more widely integrated through application of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water), which enables...

There is an ever-increasing need to use accurate and consistent geometric ground reference in the processing of remotely sensed data products as it reduces the burden on the end-users to account for the differences between the data products from different missions. In this regard, United States Geological Survey (USGS) initiated...

Sequoia Scientific’s LISST-ABS is a submersible acoustic instrument that measures the acoustic backscatter sensor (ABS) concentration at a point within a river, stream, or creek. Compared to traditional physical methods for measuring suspended-sediment concentration (SSC), sediment surrogates like the LISST-ABS offer continuous data that can be calibrated with physical SSC...