Adoption of non‐related goslings and intergenerational family cohesion among Greenland White‐fronted Geese (Anser albifrons flavirostris)
Robert E. Wilson, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Alyn J. Walsh, Anthony D. Fox
2025, International Journal of Avian Science (167) 1080-1088
Greenland White-fronted Geese Anser albifrons flavirostris exhibit prolonged parent–offspring and sibling–sibling associations, suggesting fitness advantages to such behaviour, so we used reduced representation genome sequence data to determine the degree to which marked flock members observed associating in apparent parent–offspring and sibling–sibling relationships in the field were genetically related. Among 50 bled,...
Origins and fluxes of gas emissions from the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes
J. Maarten de Moor, Peter Barry, Alejandro Rodriguez, Felipe Aguilera, Mauricio Aguilera, Cristobal Gonzalez, Susana Layana, Agostina Chiodi, Fredy Apaza, Pablo Masias, Christoph Kern, Jaime D. Barnes, Jeffrey T. Cullen, Deborah Bastoni, Alessia Bastianoni, Martina Cascone, Christofer Jimenez, Jessica Salas-Navarro, Carlos Ramirez, Gerdhard Jessen, Donato Giovannelli, Karen Lloyd
2025, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (466)
We present geochemical data from gas samples from ∼1200 km of arc in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes (CVZA), the volcanic arc with the thickest (∼70 km) continental crust globally. The primary goals of this study are to characterize and understand how magmatic gases interact with hydrothermal systems, assess the...
Canopy and surface fuels measurement using terrestrial lidar single-scan approach in the Mogollon highlands of Arizona
Johnathan T. Tenny, Temuulen Tsagaan Sankey, Seth M. Munson, Andrew J. Sánchez Meador, Scott J. Goetz
2025, International Journal of Wildland Fire (34)
BackgroundFuel monitoring data are essential to evaluate wildfire risk, plan management activities and evaluate fuel treatment effects. Terrestrial light detection and ranging (lidar) is a field-based 3D scanning technology with great potential to reduce labor-intensive field measurements and provide new depths of vegetation structure data.AimsTo facilitate...
Black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) population density, recruitment, size structure, and population growth at Naval Base Ventura County, San Nicolas Island, California, 2013–22
Michael C. Kenner, Julie L. Yee
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1015
The range of the endangered black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) is divided into the North Central California region, the Central California region, the Southern California Mainland region, the Channel Islands region, and the Baja California region by the National Marine Fisheries Service for management purposes. San Nicolas Island is one of...
Black abalone surveys at Naval Base Ventura County, San Nicolas Island, California—2022 annual report
Michael C. Kenner, Julie L. Yee
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1014
The U.S. Geological Survey monitors a suite of intertidal black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) sites at San Nicolas Island, California, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, which owns the island. The nine rocky intertidal sites were established in 1980 to study the potential effect of translocated southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris...
U.S. Geological Survey Pollinator Science Strategy, 2025–35—A Review and Look Forward
Clint Otto, Tabitha A. Graves, Desi Robertson-Thompson, Ian S. Pearse, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Caroline E. Murphy, Elisabeth B. Webb, Sam Droege, Melanie J. Steinkamp, Ralph Grundel
2025, Circular 1556
This “U.S. Geological Survey Pollinator Science Strategy, 2025–35—A Review and Look Forward” (“Pollinator Science Strategy”) describes the science vision of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to support management, conservation, and policy decisions on animal pollinators and their habitats. As the science arm of the Department of the Interior, the USGS has...
U.S. Geological Survey science strategy to address highly pathogenic avian influenza and its effects on wildlife health 2025–29
Andrew M. Ramey, Diann J. Prosser, Laura E. Hubbard, Guelaguetza Vazquez-Meves, Amy George, M. Camille Hopkins
2025, Circular 1558
Executive SummaryHighly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is an ecologically and economically important animal disease that can also directly affect humans (a “zoonotic” disease). HPAI was once limited almost exclusively to domestic poultry but has rapidly adapted to diverse animal hosts. Viruses causing HPAI now appear to be maintained and dispersed...
A generalized deep learning model to detect and classify volcano seismicity
David Fee, Darren Tan, John J. Lyons, Mariangela Sciotto, Andrea Cannata, Alicia J. Hotovec-Ellis, Tarsilo Girona, Aaron Wech, Diana Roman, Matthew M. Haney, Silvio De Angelis
2025, Volcanica (8) 305-323
Volcano seismicity is often detected and classified based on its spectral properties. However, the wide variety of volcano seismic signals and increasing amounts of data make accurate, consistent, and efficient detection and classification challenging. Machine learning (ML) has proven very effective at detecting and classifying tectonic seismicity, particularly using Convolutional...
Evaluating the influence of constructed subtidal reefs on marsh shoreline erosion, sediment deposition, and wave energy
Kathryn E.L. Smith, Jonathan L. Pitchford, Eric L. Sparks, Michael J. Archer, Matthew Virden, Joseph F. Terrano, Christopher G. Smith
2025, Estuaries and Coasts (48)
Salt marshes play a critical role in providing economic and ecological benefits but are susceptible to shoreline erosion. Natural and nature-based features (NNBF), such as breakwater reefs, are often used to reduce shoreline exposure to wave action and provide biogenic benefits. However, waves and water level are also responsible for...
Population growth of threatened Gulf Sturgeon may be limited by the frequency of adult episodic mortality events
Stephen W. Parker, William E. Pine III, Brian D. Healy, James E. Hines
2025, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management and Ecosystem Science (17)
ObjectiveWe identified spatial and temporal variation in population trends for Gulf Sturgeon Acipenser desotoi (previously known as Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi) across the species’ range to inform recovery strategies. We also assessed whether adult survival or recruitment more strongly influences population change.MethodsWe analyzed adult Gulf Sturgeon...
Water quality-based risk assessment for zebra mussel establishment: A case study of single- and multiple-factor methods in northern temperate lakes
Victoria Christensen, Leon R. Katona, Hailey Elizabeth Trompeter, Ryan P. Maki, James C. Smith, Daniel E. Sandborn
2025, Lake and Reservoir Management (41) 124-142
Most previous research has used an individual water quality parameter, such as calcium, to predict likelihood of zebra mussel establishment in lakes; we employed two multiple-factor methods, our own susceptibility index for zebra mussels in lakes (SIZL) and aragonite saturation state, to evaluate the risk of mussel establishment. Thirty sites...
High-pass corner frequency selection and review tool for use in ground-motion processing
Maria E. Ramos-Sepulveda, Scott J. Brandenberg, Tristan E Buckreis, Grace Alexandra Parker, Jonathan P. Stewart
2025, Seismological Research Letters (96) 3244-3252
Raw seismological waveform data contain noise from the instrument’s surroundings and the instrument itself that can dominate recordings at low and high frequencies. To use these data in ground‐motion modeling, the effects of noise on the signals must be reduced and the signals’ usable frequency range identified. We present automated...
Co-location of sheep grazing and solar energy production yields agrotechnological synergies
Nikola Kochendoerfer, A. Sophie Westbrook, Christina E. McMillan, P. Andrew Lapierre, Muhammad A. Zaman, Scott H. Morris, Antonio DiTommaso, Steven Mark Grodsky
2025, Agricultural Systems (229)
CONTEXT Agrivoltaics—the co-location of solar energy and agricultural production—may reduce land-use competition and boost revenues for landowners. Sheep grazing in solar facilities (i.e., solar grazing/agrivoltaic grazing systems) is increasingly common in agricultural areas. Solar grazing can provide land access to flock owners and support agricultural viability via payments for vegetation...
Estimating disease prevalence from preferentially sampled, pooled data
Clinton P. Pollock, Andrew Hoegh, Kathryn Irvine, Luz de Wit, Brian E. Reichert
2025, Journal of Data Science (23) 542-559
After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific interest in coronaviruses endemic in animal populations has increased dramatically. However, investigating the prevalence of disease in animal populations across the landscape, which requires finding and capturing animals can be difficult. Spatial random sampling over...
Status and trends of forest bird populations at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, 1987–2024
Noah Hunt, Steve Kendall, Trevor Bak, Richard J. Camp
2025, Hawaii Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report HCSU-117
Since 1985, the Hakalau Forest Unit of the Big Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex (hereafter, Hakalau) has protected the largest endemic forest bird diversity in the State of Hawaii. This includes three endangered and one threatened species and their habitats. Hakalau’s vast area (155 km2), mostly high elevation (>1500 m)...
Preliminary field report of landslide hazards following Hurricane Helene
Kate E. Allstadt, Sara K. McBride, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen L. Slaughter, Kelli Wadsworth Baxstrom, Steven Sobieszczyk, Anna Stull
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1028
Executive SummaryThis report reflects our knowledge regarding the widespread landslide activity associated with Hurricane Helene observed during the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) mission assignment to North Carolina in October 2024. The material in this report was originally prepared for the Federal Emergency Management Agency under mission assignment DR-4827-NC. The data...
Introgression, phylogeography, and genomic species cohesion in the eastern North American white oak syngameon
Gabe Ribicoff, Mira Garner, Kasey Pham, Kieren Althaus, Jeannine Cavendar-Bares, Andy Crowl, Samantha Gray, Paul F. Gugger, Marlene Hahn, S Liao, Paul Manos, Rebekah Mohn, Ian S. Pearse, Nicholas Steichmann, Ashley Tuffin, Alan T. Whittemore, Andrew Hipp
2025, Molecular Ecology (34)
Hybridization and interspecific gene flow play a substantial role in the evolution of plant taxa. The eastern North American white oak syngameon, a group of approximately 15 ecologically, morphologically and genomically distinguishable species, has long been recognised as a model system for studying introgressive hybridization in temperate trees. However, the...
Assessing uncertainty in forecasts of refugia for Joshua trees using high-density distribution data
Daniel F. Shryock, Todd Esque, Gabrielle A. Berr, Lesley A. DeFalco
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia and Yucca jaegeriana) are iconic, foundational species of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts in North America. Due to their ecosystem importance, long generation times, and low resilience to disturbance, these hybridizing sister species are increasingly the focus of conservation efforts. Predicting Joshua tree responses to impending climate variability,...
Rainfall thresholds for postfire debris-flow initiation vary with short-duration rainfall climatology
David B. Cavagnaro, Scott W. McCoy, Donald N. Lindsay, Luke A. McGuire, Jason W. Kean, Daniel T. Trugman
2025, JGR Earth Surface (130)
The size, frequency, and geographic scope of severe wildfires are expanding across the globe, including in the Western United States. Recently burned steeplands have an increased likelihood of debris flows, which pose hazards to downstream communities. The conditions for postfire debris-flow initiation are commonly expressed as rainfall intensity-duration thresholds, which...
Understanding the evolution of scoria cone morphology using multivariate models
Gabor Kereszturi, Pablo Grosse, Melody Whitehead, Marie-Noëlle Guilbaud, Drew T. Downs, Rina Noguchi, Matthieu Kervyn
2025, Communications Earth & Environment (6)
Scoria cones are the most abundant type of volcano in the Solar System. They occur in every tectonic setting and often overlap with human populations, yet our ability to provide complete geochronology within volcanic fields remains limited. Appropriate geochronology underpins the reconstruction of size-frequency distribution and is a key input...
Resiliency of land change monitoring efforts to input data resampling
Nathan C. Healey, Christopher P. Barber, Kelcy Smith, Rohan Mital, Jesslyn F. Brown, Charles Robison
2025, Frontiers in Remote Sensing (6)
The geometric transformation of remotely sensed imagery from one map projection to another necessitates a data resampling operation which alters the recorded values. The global Landsat archive is made available in the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection system which preserves geographic shape across small area but introduces small errors in...
An empirical Green’s function approach for isolating directivity effects in earthquake ground-motion amplitudes
Grace Alexandra Parker, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Evan Tyler Hirakawa
2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (115) 2336-2354
In this study, we apply an empirical Green’s function (eGf) method within a ground‐motion modeling framework to mitigate trade‐offs between source, path, and site effects. Many physical processes contribute to spatial variations in observed ground motions, including earthquake radiation pattern, directivity, variable path attenuation, and site effects. Current nonergodic ground‐motion...
A metadata checklist and data formatting guidelines to make eDNA FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable)
Miwa Takahashi, Tobias Frøslev Guldberg, Joana Pauperio, Bettina Thalinger, Katy E. Klymus, Caren C. Helbing, Cecilia Villacorta-Rath, Katherine Silliman, Luke R. Thompson, Sean Jungbluth, Suk Yee Yong, Stephen Killfoile Formel, Gareth Jenkins, Martin Laporte, Bruce Deagle, Sachit Rajbhandari, Thomas Jeppesen Stjernegaard, Andrew Bissett, Christopher L. Jerde, Erin E. Hahn, Lynn M. Schriml, Christopher Hunter, Peggy Newman, Peter Woollard, Lynsey R. Harper, Nicholas Dunn, Katrina West, Rachel Haderlé, Shaun Wilkinson, Neha Acharya-Patel, Mark Louie D. Lopez, Guy Cochrane, Oliver Berry
2025, Environmental DNA (7)
The success of environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches for species detection has revolutionized biodiversity monitoring and distribution mapping. Targeted eDNA amplification approaches, such as quantitative PCR, have improved our understanding of species distribution, and metabarcoding-based approaches have enabled biodiversity assessment at unprecedented scales and taxonomic resolution. eDNA datasets, however, are often...
Estimating abundance of desert bighorn sheep with double-observer sightability modeling with residual heterogeneity
Caitlin Q. Ruhl, James W. Cain III, Fitsum Abadi, Jacob D. Hennig
2025, Journal of Wildlife Management (89)
Accurate abundance estimates are critical for informed management of wildlife populations. In New Mexico, USA, minimum counts from aerial surveys are the primary basis for management decisions regarding desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis mexicana); therefore, there is a need to assess methods that account for imperfect detection. Common survey methods...
Reevaluation of an adaptive management framework for invasive Grass Carp within Lake Erie
Justin Bopp, Kelly Filer Robinson, Lucas Nathan, Seth Herbst, Travis O. Brenden, Christine M. Mayer, John M. Dettmers
2025, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (154) 490-504
ObjectiveResponse efforts to control invasive species frequently require making decisions in the face of substantial uncertainty. Adaptive management, which emphasizes learning during the process of managing, can be useful in cases where uncertainty impedes the decision-making process. Here, we describe how technical and institutional learning led to reformulating decision-making elements,...
