DNA virome composition of two sympatric wild felids, bobcat (Lynx rufus) and puma (Puma concolor) in Sonora, Mexico
Natalie Payne, Leigh Combrink, Simona Kraberger, Rafaela S. Fontenele, Kara Schmidlin, Ivonne Cassaigne, Megan K. La Peyre, Arvind Varsani, Koenraad Van Doorslaer
2023, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (11)
With viruses often having devastating effects on wildlife population fitness and wild mammals serving as pathogen reservoirs for potentially zoonotic diseases, determining the viral diversity present in wild mammals is both a conservation and One Health priority. Additionally, transmission from more abundant hosts could increase the extinction risk of...
Increased salinity decreases annual gross primary productivity at a Northern California brackish tidal marsh
Sarah Russell, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Ellen J Goodrich-Stuart, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Frank Anderson, Patty Oikawa, Sara Knox
2023, Environmental Research Letters (18)
Tidal marshes sequester 11.4–87.0 Tg C yr−1 globally, but climate change impacts can threaten the carbon capture potential of these ecosystems. Tidal marshes occur across a wide range of salinity, with brackish marshes (0.5–18 ppt (parts per thousand)) dominating global tidal marsh extents. A diverse mix of freshwater-...
A meta-analysis of the stony coral tissue loss disease microbiome finds key bacteria in unaffected and lesion tissue in diseased colonies
Stephanie M. Rosales, Lindsay K. Huebner, James S. Evans, Amy Apprill, Andew C. Baker, Anthony J. Bellantuono, Marilyn E. Brandt, Abigail S. Clark, Javier del Campo, Caroline E. Dennison, Katherine R. Eaton, Naomi E. Huntley, Christina A. Kellogg, Monica Medina, Julie L. Meyer, Erinn M. Muller, Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty, Jennifer L. Salerno, W. Bane Schill, Erin N. Shilling, Julia Marie Stewart, Joshua D. Voss
2023, ISME Communications
Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has been causing significant whole colony mortality on reefs in Florida and the Caribbean. The cause of SCTLD remains unknown, with the limited concurrence of SCTLD-associated bacteria among studies. We conducted a meta-analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA gene datasets generated...
2022 drought in New England
Dee-Ann E. Crozier, James M. LeNoir, Pamela J. Lombard
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5016
Introduction During April through September 2022, much of New England experienced a short but extreme hydrologic drought that was similar to the drought of 2020. By August 2022, Providence, Rhode Island, was declared a Federal disaster area, and New London and Windham counties in Connecticut were declared natural disaster areas. Mandatory...
Movement ecology of diploid and triploid grass carp in a large reservoir and upstream tributaries
Tyler Michael Hessler, Duane Chapman, Craig P. Paukert, Jeff C. Jolley, Michael E. Byrne
2023, PLoS ONE (18)
Grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella, is an herbivorous fish originally brought to North America from Asia in 1963 to control nuisance aquatic vegetation. Since their arrival, detrimental alterations to aquatic ecosystems have sometimes occurred in waterways where they were initially stocked and into which they have escaped. The...
Hydrologic effects of possible changes in water-supply withdrawals from, and effluent recharge to, the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system, Winslow Township, Camden County, New Jersey
Glen B. Carleton, Daryll A. Pope
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5002
Winslow Township and the Camden County Municipal Utility Authority (CCMUA) developed a plan to shut down the Winslow sewage-treatment facility and associated effluent infiltration facility and transfer the effluent to the CCMUA sewage-treatment facility on the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey. Winslow Township reduced groundwater withdrawals from the Kirkwood-Cohansey...
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, 2022
Jason K. Ramage, Christopher L. Braun
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5007
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...
Geologic energy storage
Marc L. Buursink, Steven T. Anderson, Sean T. Brennan, Erick R. Burns, Philip A. Freeman, Joao S. Gallotti, Celeste D. Lohr, Matthew D. Merrill, Eric A. Morrissey, Michelle R. Plampin, Peter D. Warwick
2023, Fact Sheet 2022-3082
Introduction As the United States transitions away from fossil fuels, its economy will rely on more renewable energy. Because current renewable energy sources sometimes produce variable power supplies, it is important to store energy for use when power supply drops below power demand. Battery storage is one method to store power....
South San Francisco Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project—A synthesis of Phase-1 mercury studies
Mark Marvin-DiPasquale, Darell Slotton, Josh T. Ackerman, Maureen A. Downing-Kunz, Bruce E. Jaffe, Amy C. Foxgrover, Fernanda Achete, Mick van der Wegen
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5113
The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project (SBSPRP) encompasses over 6,000 hectares of former salt production ponds along the south edge of the San Francisco Bay and represents the largest wetland restoration effort on the west coast of North America. A series of studies associated with Phase 1 (2010–2018) restoration...
Aquifer storage change, 2018–2021, in the Big Chino Subbasin, Yavapai County, Arizona
Jeffrey R. Kennedy
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5117
This report updates groundwater-storage and groundwater-level trends presented in U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Scientific Investigations Report 2019–5060, in the Big Chino Subbasin, Yavapai County, Arizona. This earlier geophysical investigation of groundwater-storage change in the Big Chino Subbasin was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of...
Preventing and controlling nonnative species invasions to bend the curve of global freshwater biodiversity loss
J. Robert Britton, Abigail Lynch, Helge Bardal, Stephanie J. Bradbeer, Julie A. Coetzee, Neil E. Coughlan, Tatenda Dalu, Elena Tricarico, Belinda Gallardo, Mark Lintermans, Frances Lucy, Chunlong Liu, Julian D. Olden, Rajeev Raghavan, Eleri Pritchard
2023, Environmental Reviews (31) 310-326
The Emergency Recovery Plan for freshwater biodiversity recognizes that addressing nonnative species is one of six principal actions needed to bend the curve in freshwater biodiversity loss. This is because introduction rates of nonnative species continue to accelerate globally and where these species develop invasive populations, they...
Linking seed size and number to trait syndromes in trees
Michal Bogdziewicz, Marie-Claire Aravena Acuña, Robert A. Andrus, Davide Ascoli, Yves Bergeron, Daniel Brveiller, Thomas Boivin, Raul Bonal, Thomas Caignard, Maxime Cailleret, Rafael Calama, Sergio Donoso Calderon, J. Julio Camarero, Chia-Hao Chang-Yang, Jerome Chave, Francesco Chianucci, Natalie L. Cleavitt, Benoit Courbaud, Andrea Cutini, Thomas Curt, Adrian Das, Hendrik Davi, Nicolas Delpiere, Sylvain Delzon, Michael Dietze, Laurent Dormont, William Farfan-Rios, Catherine A. Gehring, Gregory S. Gilbert, Georg Gratzer, Cathryn H. Greenberg, Arthur Guignabert, Qinfeng Guo, Andrew Hacket-Pain, Arndt Hampe, Qingmin Han, Kazuhiko Hoshizaki, Ines Ibanez, Jill F. Johnstone, Valentin Journe, Thomas Kitzberger, Johannes M.H. Knops, Georges Kunstler, Richard Kobe, Jonathan G. A. Lageard, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Mateusz Ledwon, Theodor Leininger, Jean-Marc Limousin, James A. Lutz, Diana Macias, Anders Marell, Eliot J.B. McIntire, Emily V. Moran, Renzo Motta, Jonathan A. Myers, Thomas A. Nagel, Shoji Naoe, Kyotaro Noguchi, Michio Oguro, Hiroko Kurokawa, Jean-Marc Ourcival, Robert Parmenter, Ignacio M. Perez-Ramos, Lukasz Piechnik, Tomasz Podgorski, John Poulsen, Tong Qiu, Miranda D. Redmond, Chantal D. Reid, Kyle C. Rodman, Pavel Šamonil, Jan Holik, C. Lane Scher, Harald Schmidt Van Marle, Barbara Seget, Mitsue Shibata, Shubhi Sharma, Miles Silman, Michael A. Steele, Jacob N. Straub, I-Fang Sun, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson, Peter A. Thomas, Maria Uriarte, Giorgio Vacchiano, Thomas T. Veblen, Boyd Wright, S. Joseph Wright, Thomas G. Whitham, Kai Zhu, Jess K. Zimmerman, Magdalna Zywiec, James S. Clark
2023, Global Ecology and Biogeography (32) 683-694
AimOur understanding of the mechanisms that maintain forest diversity under changing climate can benefit from knowledge about traits that are closely linked to fitness. We tested whether the link between traits and seed number and seed size is consistent with two hypotheses, termed the leaf economics spectrum...
ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 3, 2022
Obaidul Haque, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Fatima Tuz Zafrin Tuli, Jerad L. Shaw, Alex Denevan, Shannon Franks, Esad Micijevic, Mike Choate, Cody Anderson, Kurt Thome, Ed Kaita, Julia Barsi, Raviv Levy, Jeff Miller
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1013
Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat Cal/Val Team continually...
Hydrologic modeling and river corridor applications of HY_Features concepts
David L. Blodgett, J. Michael Johnson, Andrew R. Bock, Jessica Z. LeRoy, Martin R Wernimont
2023, Report
The WaterML2: Part 3 - Surface Hydrology Features (HY_Features) Conceptual Model was published by OGC in 2018. This report documents the use of HY_Features concepts in support of two key tasks: (1) local to continental hydrologic modeling; and (2) referencing river corridor data to hydrographic networks. The presented use...
Symbiotic nitrogen fixation does not stimulate soil phosphatase activity under temperate and tropical trees
Emily Jager, Andrew Quebbeman, Amelia A. Wolf, Steven Perakis, Jennifer L. Funk, Duncan N.L. Menge
2023, Oecologia (201) 827-840
Symbiotic nitrogen (N)-fixing plants can enrich ecosystems with N, which can alter the cycling and demand for other nutrients. Researchers have hypothesized that fixed N could be used by plants and soil microbes to produce extracellular phosphatase enzymes, which release P from organic matter. Consistent...
Lake Ontario’s nearshore zooplankton: Community composition changes and comparisons to the offshore
Stephanie Figary, Kristen T. Holeck, Christopher Hotaling, James M. Watkins, Jana Lantry, Mike Connerton, Scott Prindle, Zy Biesinger, Brian O’Malley, Lars G. Rudstam
2023, Journal of Great Lakes Research (49) 698-712
In large lake systems the nearshore habitat is an intermediate zone between the shoreline and offshore, is an important nursery for larval fish, and is highlighted as an area in need of research in the Laurentian Great Lakes. In this study,...
Estimating elk abundance using the Lincoln-Petersen method
Braiden A. Quinlan, Jacalyn P. Rosenberger, David M. Kalb, Emily D. Thorne, W. Mark Ford, Michael J. Cherry
2023, Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (10) 135-141
Achieving a target population size is often the first goal of species restorations. From 2012 to 2014, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources released 75 elk (Cervus canadensis) originating from Kentucky into Buchanan County in southwestern Virginia. These individuals were ear tagged with unique numbers upon release with an additional 33...
Sandstone-hosted uranium deposits of the Colorado Plateau, USA
Susan M. Hall, Bradley S. Van Gosen, Robert A. Zielinski
2023, Ore Geology Reviews (155)
More than 4,000 sandstone-hosted uranium occurrences host over 1.2 billion pounds of mined and in situ U3O8 throughout the Colorado Plateau. Most of the resources are in two distinct mineral systems with deposits hosted in the Triassic Chinle and Jurassic Morrison Formations. In the Chinle mineral system, base metal sulfides typically...
Laboratory studies of potential competition for food and substrate among early juvenile Missouri River sturgeon and sympatric chub species
Mark L. Wildhaber, Janice L. Albers
2023, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (43) 1190-1204
Juvenile Pallid Sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus predominantly consume midges (family Chironomidae) and other macroinvertebrates, while Shovelnose Sturgeon S. platorynchus, Sicklefin Chub Macrhybopsis meeki, and Shoal Chub M. hyostoma feed on those same macroinvertebrates throughout life. The primary objective of this study was to assess the substrate component of habitat selection, specifically selection between sand and mud substrates,...
Unrecorded tundra fires of the Arctic Slope, Alaska USA
Eric A. Miller, Benjamin M. Jones, Carson Baughman, Randi R. Jandt, Jennifer L. Jenkins, David A. Yokel
2023, Fire (6)
Few fires are known to have burned the tundra of the Arctic Slope north of the Brooks Range in Alaska, USA. A total of 90 fires between 1969 and 2022 are known. Because fire has been rare, old burns can be detected by the traces of thermokarst and distinct...
Towards vibrant fish populations and sustainable fisheries that benefit all: Learning from the last 30 years to inform the next 30 years
Steven J. Cooke, Elizabeth A. Fulton, Warwick H. H. Sauer, Abigail Lynch, Jason S. Link, Aaron A. Koning, Joykrushna Jena, Luiz G. M. Silva, Alison J. King, Rachel Kelly, Matthew Osborne, Julia Nakamura, Ann L. Preece, Atsushi Hagiwara, Kerstin Forsberg, Julie B. Kellner, Ilaria Coscia, Sarah Helyar, Manuel Barange, Elizabeth A. Nyboer, Meryl J. Williams, Ratana Chuenpagdee, Gavin A. Begg, Bronwyn M. Gillanders
2023, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (33) 317-347
A common goal among fisheries science professionals, stakeholders, and rights holders is to ensure the persistence and resilience of vibrant fish populations and sustainable, equitable fisheries in diverse aquatic ecosystems, from small headwater streams to offshore pelagic waters. Achieving this goal requires a complex intersection of...
Using DC resistivity ring array surveys to resolve conductive structures around tunnels or mine-workings
Michael Albert Mitchell, Douglas W. Oldenburg
2023, Journal of Applied Geophysics (211)
In underground environments, conventional direct current (DC) resistivity surveys with a single linear array of electrodes produce fundamentally non-unique inversions. These non-uniqueness and model resolution issues stem from limitations placed on the location of transmitters (TXs) and receivers (RXs) by the geometry of existing tunnels and boreholes. Poor excitation...
Gene expression reveals immune response strategies of naïve Hawaiian honeycreepers experimentally infected with introduced avian malaria
Kristina L. Paxton, Loren Cassin-Sackett, Carter T. Atkinson, Elin Videvall, Michael G. Campana, Robert C. Fleischer
2023, Journal of Heredity (114) 326-340
The unprecedented rise in the number of new and emerging infectious diseases in the last quarter century poses direct threats to human and wildlife health. The introduction to the Hawaiian archipelago of Plasmodium relictum and the mosquito vector that transmits the parasite has led to dramatic losses in endemic Hawaiian forest bird...
Ecological significance of Wild Huckleberries (Vaccinium membranaceum)
Janene Lichtenberg, Tabitha A. Graves
Nesibe E. Kafkas, Huseyin Celik, editor(s)
2023, Book chapter, Edible berries - New insights
Wild huckleberry (Vaccinium globare/membranaceum complex) is a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The fruits are a primary food source for grizzly bears and other wildlife, as well as an important traditional and contemporary human food. Huckleberry shrubs also provide cover and nesting habitat for many animal...
A river basin spatial model to quantitively advance understanding of riverine tree response dynamics to water availability and hydrological management
Tanya M. Doody, Sicong Gao, Willem Vervoot, Jodie Pritchard, Michah Davies, Martin Nolan, Pamela L. Nagler
2023, The Journal of Environmental Management (332)
Ecological condition continues to decline in arid and semi-arid river basins globally due to hydrological over-abstraction combined with changing climatic conditions. Whilst provision of water for the environment has been a primary approach to alleviate ecological decline, how to accurately monitor changes in riverine...
