Interacting sea-level rise, sea-ice loss, storm flooding, erosion, and permafrost thaw threaten ecosystems, wildlife, and communities on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
M. Torre Jorgenson, James S. Sedinger, Craig Ely, Ann Fienup-Riordan, David E. Atkinson, James Ayuluk, Dana Brown, Gerald V. Frost, Benjamin M. Jones, Janet C. Jorgenson, Frank Keim, Rachel A. Loehman, Matthew J. Macander, Alice Rearden
2025, Earth's Future (13)
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has the largest intertidal wetland in North America, is a globally critical breeding area for waterbirds, and is home to the largest regional indigenous population in the Arctic. Here, coastal tundra ecosystems, wildlife, and indigenous communities are highly vulnerable to sea-ice loss in the...
Refining the earthquake history of south-central Alaska through lake records
Nore Praet, Maarten Van Daele, Katleen Wils, Peter J. Haeussler, Robert C. Witter, Nicholas P. McKay, Britta J.L. Jensen, Jasper Moernaut, Marc De Batist
2025, Earth Science Reviews (271)
The Alaska–Aleutian subduction zone (AASZ) is one of the world's most seismically active plate boundaries and the source of the 1964 Mw 9.2 Great Alaska earthquake–the second largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the world. Understanding the nature and frequency of such earthquakes is necessary for seismic and tsunami...
Warming Alaskan rivers affect first-year growth in critical northern food fishes
Peyton Thomas, Dylan Blaskey, Yifan Cheng, Michael P. Carey, Heidi K. Swanson, Andrew J. Newman, Cassandra M. Brooks, Nicole M. Herman-Mercer, Keith N. Musselman
2025, Scientific Reports (15)
Arctic and subarctic rivers are warming rapidly, with unknown consequences for migratory fishes and the human communities dependent on them. To date, few studies have provided a comprehensive assessment of possible climate change impacts on the hydrology and temperature of Arctic rivers at the regional scale, and even fewer have...
Geologic map of the Greater Antilles and Virgin Islands
2025, Scientific Investigations Map 3534
Introduction The geologic map of the Greater Antilles and Virgin Islands is a compilation of information from the literature, integrated to provide a seamless geologic map of the region. This map was prepared to serve as a base map for a mineral resource assessment of the region. Several small-scale regional geologic...
Vibrio pectenicida strain FHCF-3 is a causative agent of sea star wasting disease
Melanie B. Prentice, Grace Crandall, Amy M. Chan, Katherine M. Davis, Paul Hershberger, Jan F. Finke, Jason Hodin, Andrew McCracken, Colleen T. Kellogg, Rute Carvalho, Carolyn Prentice, Kevin X. Zhong, Drew Harvell, Curtis A. Suttle, Alyssa-Lois M. Gehman
2025, Nature Ecology & Evolution (9) 1739-1751
More than 10 years following the onset of the sea star wasting disease (SSWD) epidemic, affecting over 20 asteroid species from Mexico to Alaska, the causative agent has been elusive. SSWD killed billions of the most susceptible species, sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides), initiating a trophic cascade involving unchecked urchin population...
Late Quaternary environmental change in eastern Beringia
Alistair J. Monteath, Mary E. Edwards, Duane Froese, Lesleigh Anderson, Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Scott L. Cocker, Julie Brigham-Grette, Matthew J. Wooller, Bruce P. Finney, Mark B. Abbott
2025, Quaternary Science Reviews (368)
Eastern Beringia (Alaska and western Yukon) is an extensive, high-latitude region of North America that remained largely unglaciated throughout the Quaternary. Consequently, its sedimentary deposits preserve long-term environmental records that have intrigued scientists for nearly a century. Recent advances in palaeoecological proxies and dating methods have proved critical...
Rapid Holocene deposition in the Mackenzie Trough and Barrow Canyon areas in the western Arctic Ocean
Masanobu Yamamoto, Kenta Suzuki, Masafumi Murayama, Laura Gemery, Koji Seike, Leonid Polyak, Young Jin Joe, Shoma Uchida, Minoru Kobayashi, J. Onodera, Keiji Horikawa, Yuhji Yamamoto, Takayuki Omori, Michinobu Kuwae, Tomohisa Irino, Yutaka Watanabe, Motoyo Itoh, Eiji Watanabe
2025, Progress in Earth and Planetary Science (12)
The Arctic Ocean and terrestrial environment have recently been reported to be changing drastically, but it is unclear whether these changes are similar to natural variations in the past or how sudden and large the changes are compared to natural variations. This premise served as motivation to collect sediment cores...
The 3D National Topography Model Call for Action—Part 2: The Next Generation 3D Elevation Program
Vicki Lukas, Larry Sugarbaker, Cindy A. Thatcher, Allyson L. Jason, Jason M. Stoker
2025, Circular 1553
The three-dimensional (3D) National Topography Model initiative to integrate elevation and hydrography data includes the next generation of hydrography data from the 3D Hydrography Program and the next generation of elevation data from the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP). The first-ever collection of light detection and ranging (lidar) data for the...
Selected special conditions affecting peak streamflow and extreme floods in Alaska through water year 2022
Janet H. Curran
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5056
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, inventoried selected special conditions for annual peak flows and identified extreme floods at streamgages in Alaska through water year 2022 to facilitate hydrologic analysis. Special conditions identified from U.S. Geological Survey gaging records and basin...
Constraining snow water equivalent of wet snowpacks in southeast Alaska
Mikaila Mannello, Scott Braddock, Seth Campbell, Emma Erwin, Kristin Schild, Christopher McNeil
2025, Annals of Glaciology (66)
Quantifying snow water equivalent (SWE) with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in a warming climate is complicated by the incidence and variability of liquid water in snow. Snow surveys conducted during the melt season serve as a valuable analog to conditions under future warming. Here, we determine the variability of wet snowpack...
DNA metabarcoding and video camera collars yield different inferences about the summer diet of an arctic ungulate
Heather E. Johnson, Gabrielle Lys Coulombe, Layne G. Adams, Colleen Arnison, Perry Barboza, Martin Kienzler, William Leacock, Michael J. Suitor
2025, Ecosphere (16)
The diets of wild ungulates are a foundational component of their ecology, influencing their behavior, body condition, and demography. With changing environmental conditions, there is a significant need to identify important forage items for ungulates, but this has often proved challenging. Declines in several barren-ground caribou herds across the North...
‘The fish that stop’: Drivers of historical decline for Pacific cod and implications for modern management in an era of rapidly changing climate
Loren McClenachan, Bruce T. Anderson, Jason A. Addison, Steven J. Barbeaux, Karoline Moore, Kai Muir, Katherine L. Reedy, Ingrid B. Spies, Catherine F. West
2025, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (380)
n the Gulf of Alaska, a series of marine heat waves depleted Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) biomass to the lowest abundance ever recorded and led to the fishery’s closure in 2020. Although the fishery has been productive for decades, this collapse may have historical precedents. Traditional knowledge holders refer to...
Cryptic ice wedge networks in Holocene peat, Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska
Benjamin M. Jones, Mikhail Z. Kanevskiy, Melissa K. Ward Jones, Phillip R. Wilson, Isaiah Ditmer, Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Eric S. Klein, Rodrigo C. Rangel, Kristi L. Wallace, Miriam C. Jones, Matthew J. Wooller, Yuri Shur
2025, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes (36) 678-701
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD), covering ~75,000 km2 of Alaska's discontinuous permafrost zone, has a historic (1902–2023) mean annual air temperature of ~−1°C and was previously thought to lack ice wedge networks. However, our recent investigations near Bethel, Alaska, revealed numerous near-surface ice wedges. Using 20 cm resolution aerial orthoimagery from...
Identifying presence or absence of grizzly and polar bear cubs from the movements of adult females with machine learning
Erik Andersen, Justin Clapp, Milan Vinks, Todd C. Atwood, Daniel D. Bjornlie, Cecily M. Costello, David Gustine, Mark A. Haroldson, Lori L. Roberts, Karyn D. Rode, Frank T. van Manen, Ryan H. Wilson
2025, Movement Ecology (13)
BackgroundInformation on reproductive success is crucial to understanding population dynamics but can be difficult to obtain, particularly for species that birth while denning. For grizzly (Ursus arctos) and polar bears (U. maritimus), den visits are impractical because of safety and logistical considerations. Reproduction is typically documented through direct...
Environmental drivers of productivity explain population patterns of an Arctic-nesting goose across a half-century
Antti Piironen, Jeffrey M. Knetter, Kyle A. Spragens, Joshua Dooley, Vijay P. Patil, Eric T. Reed, Megan V. Ross, Daniel Gibson, Adam C. Behney, Mark J. Petrie, Todd Sanders, Mitch D. Weegman
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Joint estimation of demographic rates and population size has become an essential tool in ecology because it enables evaluating mechanisms for population change and testing hypotheses about drivers of demography in a single modeling framework. This approach provides a comprehensive perspective on population dynamics and how animal populations will respond...
2024 Surprise Inlet landslides: Insights from a prototype landslide‐triggered tsunami monitoring system in Prince William Sound, Alaska
Ezgi Karasozen, Michael E. West, Katherine R. Barnhart, John J. Lyons, Terry Nichols, Lauren N. Schaefer, Bohyun Bahng, Summer Ohlendorf, Dennis M. Staley, Gabriel J. Wolken
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
Alaska's coastal communities face growing landslide hazards owing to glacier retreat and extreme weather intensified by the warming climate, yet hazard monitoring remains challenging. As part of ongoing experimental monitoring in Prince William Sound, we detected three large landslides (0.5–2.3 M m3) at Surprise Inlet on 20 September 2024, within the span...
Arctic speleothems reveal nearly permafrost-free Northern Hemisphere in the Late Miocene
Anton Vaks, Andrew Mason, Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach, Alena Maria Giesche, Alexander Osinzev, Irina Adrian, Aleksandr Kononov, Stuart Umbo, Franziska A. Lechleitner, Marcelo Rosensaft, Gideon M. Henderson
2025, Nature Communications (16)
Arctic warming is happening at nearly four times the global average rate. Long-term trends of permafrost dynamics cannot be estimated directly from monitoring of present-day thaw processes, requiring paleoclimate-proxy information. Here we use cave carbonates (speleothems) from a northern Siberian cave to determine when the Northern Hemisphere was mostly permafrost-free....
Makushin Volcano: Recent eruptive history and ash hazards
Hannah R. Dietterich, Janet Schaefer, Jessica Larsen, James W. Vallance, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Kristi L. Wallace
2025, Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys Information Circular 86 v. 2
No abstract available....
Paralytic shellfish toxins and seabirds: Evaluating sublethal effects, behavioral responses, and ecological implications of saxitoxin ingestion by common murres (Uria aalge)
Matthew M. Smith, Robert J. Dusek, Tuula E. Hollmen, Sarah K. Schoen, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Kristen Steinmetzer, Aidan Lee, Jenna Schlenner, Vijay P. Patil, D. Ransom Hardison, David Kulis, Donald M. Anderson, Clark D. Ridge, Sherwood Hall
2025, Harmful Algae (148)
Paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs), including saxitoxin (STX) and its congeners, are neurotoxins that can be produced during harmful algal blooms and cause illness or death in humans, fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Since 2014, multiple large-scale seabird mortality events have occurred in Alaska waters, with STXs detected in some carcasses....
Hybridization and asymmetrical introgression between the vulnerable Gray‐Headed Chickadee and a more abundant congener, the Boreal Chickadee: Implications for conservation
Matthew Armstrong, Robert E. Wilson, James A. Johnson, Travis L. Booms, Callie Gesmundo, Zachary M. Pohlen, Paul Leonard, Sarah A. Sonsthagen
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
Hybridization is a common process among bird species that can precipitate a mix of positive or negative species outcomes. Particularly for rare populations, detrimental effects of hybridization on demographic growth rates and genetic integrity are of serious concern. In Alaska and a small region of northwestern Canada, the endemic subspecies...
Permafrost–wildfire interactions: active layer thickness estimates for paired burned and unburned sites in northern high latitudes
Anna Talucci, Michael M. Loranty, Jean E. Holloway, Brendan M. Rogers, Heather D. Alexander, Natalie Baillargeon, Jennifer L. Baltzer, Logan T. Berner, Amy Breen, Leya Brodt, Brian Buma, Jacqueline Dean, Clement J.F. Delcourt, Lucas R. Diaz, Catherine M. Dieleman, Thomas A. Douglas, Gerald Frost, Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Rebecca E. Hewitt, Teresa N. Hollingsworth, M. Torre Jorenson, Mark J. Lara, Rachel A. Loehman, Michelle C. Mack, Kristen L. Manies, Christina Minions, Susan M. Natali, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, David Olefeldt, Alison K. Paulson, Adrian V. Rocha, Lisa B. Saperstein, T.A. Shestakova, Seeta Sistla, Oleg Sizov, Andrey Soromotin, Merritt R. Turetksy, Sander Veraverbeke, Michelle A. Walvoord
2025, Earth System Science Data 2887-2909
As the northern high-latitude permafrost zone experiences accelerated warming, permafrost has become vulnerable to widespread thaw. Simultaneously, wildfire activity across northern boreal forest and Arctic/subarctic tundra regions impacts permafrost stability through the combustion of insulating organic matter, vegetation, and post-fire changes in albedo. Efforts to synthesis the impacts of wildfire...
Beak deformities in Buteo jamaicensis (Red-tailed Hawk) signal possible emergence of avian keratin disorder among raptors
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Colleen M. Handel, Susan Cottrell, Danielle Elizabeth Gerik, Robert J. Bildfell
2025, Ornithology (142)
Beginning in the late 1990s, an unusual cluster of beak deformities was observed among Buteo jamaicensis (Red-tailed Hawk) in the Pacific coastal region of North America. However, information was not available to determine the scope of this problem nor to assess a potential link between beak deformities in hawks and avian keratin...
Streamflow regime characterization in the changing boreal ecosystem: Wildfire impacts from stream-to-regional scales
Deanna D. Strohm, Christopher J. Sergeant, Josh D. Paul, Jeffrey A. Falke
2025, Science of the Total Environment (991)
The boreal ecosystem has experienced significant changes over recent decades as wildfires become more frequent, intense, and severe. As streams are highly prevalent and ecologically relevant, understanding interactions among wildfire and hydrologic patterns is important for effective aquatic ecosystem management. This study used a Bayesian mixture model to classify streamflow regimes...
Evaluating mark–resight survey design performance using simulation: A case study of endangered Steller sea lions
Amanda J. Warlick, Brian S. Fadely, Peter Mahoney, Sharon R. Melin, Tom Gelatt, Kim Raum-Suryan, Sarah J. Converse
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Effective monitoring is fundamental to estimating wildlife population parameters with a level of accuracy and precision that is adequate to inform management decisions. However, managers must balance trade-offs between the costs of monitoring and the resulting data quality to identify cost-effective monitoring survey designs. As such, evaluating the expected performance...
Evaluating slash piles as habitat for a threatened salamander
Rachel A. Loehman, Nancy E Karraker
2025, Fire Ecology (21)
BackgroundAmplified wildfire activity in forests of the western United States threatens biodiversity. Fuel treatments can reduce fire severity, modify fire behavior, and restore forest structure and composition, yet impacts of some treatments, including slash piling and burning, on wildlife have received little attention. Piling of residual woody material...
