How sampling design of GPS collar deployment influences consistency of mapped migration corridors over time
Emily R. Gelzer, Justine A. Becker, Samantha P.H. Dwinnell, Gary L. Fralick, Embere Hall, Rusty C. Kaiser, Matthew J. Kauffman, Tayler N. LaSharr, Kevin L. Monteith, Anna C. Ortega, Jill E. Randall, Hall Sawyer, Mark A. Thonhoff, Jerod A. Merkle
2025, Journal of Wildlife Management (89)
Federal and state agencies within the United States have recently issued directives prioritizing the conservation of ungulate migration corridors and winter ranges. The ability to identify and delineate the spatial distribution of seasonal ranges underpins these policies. While such delineations are often derived from global positioning system (GPS) collar data...
2022–2024 Status and trends of the Palila (Loxioides bailleui)
Noah Hunt, Chauncey K. Asing, Lindsey Nietmann, Paul C. Banko, Richard J. Camp
2025, Hawaii Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report HCSU-115
Palila (Loxioides bailleui) are critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreepers specializing on the seedpods of māmane (Sophora chrysophylla) and restricted to Mauna Kea volcano on the Island of Hawaiʻi. A previous analysis of survey data estimated an 89% population decline between 1998 and 2021. Using the most recent annual survey data from...
Idiosyncratic spatial scaling of biodiversity–disease relationships
Neil A. Gilbert, Graziella Vittoria DiRenzo, Elise Zipkin
2025, Ecography (2025)
High host biodiversity is hypothesized to dilute the risk of vector-borne diseases if many host species are ‘dead ends' that cannot effectively transmit the disease and low-diversity areas tend to be dominated by competent host species. However, many studies on biodiversity–disease relationships characterize host biodiversity at single, local spatial scales,...
Trade-offs in designing a participatory acoustic study of bats: Comparison of user engagement and data quality between two ultrasonic detectors
Anya Metcalfe, Theodore J. Weller, Carol Fritzinger, Brandon P. Holton, Theodore Kennedy
2025, Journal of North American Bat Research 89-99
Technology for the acoustic detection of animals has advanced rapidly over the past few decades. Due to ease of use, consistency, and safety, acoustic methods are particularly useful for science applications that engage the public. In this study, we evaluated the technological and educational trade-offs between 2 acoustic bat detectors...
Vegetation community monitoring: Forest structure in Klamath Network parks
Sean Smith, Lauren N. Youngblood, Micah C. Wright, Phillip J. van Mantgem
2025, Science Authors Report NPS/SR-2025/291
The Klamath Network, comprising six national park units in northern California and southern Oregon, initiated a vegetation monitoring protocol in 2011 to discern ecologically significant vegetation trends in these parks. The premise of the protocol is that multivariate analyses of species composition data is the most robust means for early...
Biodiversity on public lands: How community science can help
Amanda Katzer, Erin Boydston, Michael E. Akresh, Jennifer S. Briggs, Kelsey Cooper, Vijay Barve, Lena Lee, Toni Lyn Morelli
2025, Conservation Science and Practice (7)
Species inventories are crucial for conservation but are difficult to assemble and maintain. Bioblitzes, which encourage the public to document biodiversity in a particular area and timeframe, may offer useful information but their integration with other datasets poses challenges. We investigated the potential contribution of bioblitzes to natural resource management...
Two-stage models improve machine learning classifiers in wildlife research: A case study in identifying false positive detections of Ruffed Grouse
Laurence A. Clarfeld, Katherina D. Gieder, Robert Abrams, Christopher Bernier, Joseph Cahill, Susan Staats, Scott Wixsom, Therese M. Donovan
2025, Ecological Informatics (89)
Autonomous recording units are increasingly being used to monitor wildlife on large geographic and temporal scales, paired with machine learning (ML) to automate detection of wildlife. However, false positive detections from ML classifiers can result in erroneous ecological models that can lead to misguided management and conservation actions. We used...
Assessing shifting technology in genetic monitoring of the North American plains bison Federal conservation herds
Shawna J Zimmerman, Rachael Marie Giglio, Chris Geremia, Lee C. Jones, Blake McCann, Timothy J Smyser, Brendan J Moynahan, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2025, Conservation Genetics (26) 657-675
Human expansion is a major driver of both declining wildlife abundance and the contraction of species’ distributions, increasing the risk of genetic erosion and the need for genetic monitoring. Rapidly advancing technology has expanded the types of genetic data that are available for wildlife conservation. However, inferences from different genetic...
The tortoise and the antilocaprid: Adapting GPS tracking and terrain data to model wildlife walking functions
Samuel Norton Chambers, Joshua W. Von Nonn, Matthew Alexander Burgess, Lance R. Brady, Jeffrey Bracewell, Daniel A. Guerra, Miguel L. Villarreal
2025, Landscape Ecology (42)
Context The relationship between slope and terrestrial animal locomotion is key to landscape ecology but underexplored across species. This is partly due to a lack of scalable methodology that applies to a diversity of wildlife. Objectives This study investigates the slope-speed relationship for two species, Texas tortoise (Gopherus berlandieri) and...
System characterization report on Resourcesat-2A Advanced Wide Field Sensor
Mahesh Shrestha, Minsu Kim, Aparajithan Sampath, Jeffrey Clauson
2025, Open-File Report 2021-1030-V
Executive Summary This report documents the system characterization of the Indian Space Research Organisation Resourcesat-2A Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports describe the methodology and...
A framework tool that applies weight-of-evidence integration to the analysis of existing datasets to guide freshwater conservation
Olivia Rode, Martha E. Mather, Devon Oliver, Katherine Nelson, Victoria Reed, Trisha Moore, Suyash Pratap
2025, Frontiers in Freshwater Science (3)
The overarching issue we address here is how to extract clear and actionable ecological and management insights from real-world field data that often do not satisfy traditional statistical assumptions. Toward this goal, we developed a general 12+6 step adaptive management framework tool. We applied this framework tool...
Integrating marine historical ecology into management of Alaska’s Pacific cod fishery for climate readiness
Catherine F. West, Loren McClenachan, Steven J. Barbeaux, Ingrid B. Spies, Jason A. Addison, Bruce T. Anderson, Courtney A. Hofman, Katherine L. Reedy, Emma A. Elliott Smith, Michael A. Etnier, Thomas E. Helser, Bruce P. Finney
2025, ICES Journal of Marine Science (82)
The Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) fishery was closed in 2020 after a rapid decline in biomass caused by the marine heat waves of 2014–2019. Pacific cod are exceptionally thermally sensitive and management of this fishery is now challenged by increasingly unpredictable climate conditions. Fisheries monitoring is critical for climate readiness,...
Mapping predicted ecological states at landscape scales using remote sensing data and machine learning
Nathan J. Kleist, Christopher T. Domschke, Anna C. Knight, Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway, Sarah K. Carter
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Dryland ecosystems, covering 45% of the Earth's land and supporting over one-third of the global population, face significant threats from land degradation and ecological state change. Managing these ecosystems is complex, and science-based frameworks like Ecological Site Descriptions and state-and-transition models are essential tools for guiding decisions to support ecological...
Advancing broadscale spatial evapotranspiration modelling by incorporating sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence measurements
Sicong Gao, Pamela L. Nagler, William Woodgate, Alfredo Huete, Tanya M. Doody
2025, Journal of Hydrology (660)
Evapotranspiration (ET) describes the sum of water transfer from the ground surface through soil evaporation and water loss from leaf stomata into the atmosphere − critical factors linking the global water and carbon cycles. Myriad ET models based on remote sensing data provide spatially continuous estimates of ET; however, leaf...
Machine learning provides reconnaissance-type estimates of carbon dioxide storage resources in oil and gas reservoirs
Emil Attanasi, Philip A. Freeman, Timothy C. Coburn
2025, Frontiers in Enviornmental Science (13)
Oil and gas reservoirs represent suitable containers to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) in a supercritical state because they are accessible, reservoir properties are known, and they previously contained stored buoyant fluids. However, planners must quantify the relative magnitude of the CO2 storage resource in these reservoirs to formulate a comprehensive strategy...
Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection methods for wild Cervidae
Joshua Hewitt, Grete Wilson-Henjum, Jeffrey C. Chandler, Aaron T. Phillips, Diego G. Diel, W. David Walter, Alec Baker, Jennifer Høy-Petersen, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Tadao Kishimoto, George Wittemyer, Jeremy Alder, Sara Hathaway, Kezia R. Manlove, Travis Gallo, Jennifer Mullinax, Carson Coriell, Matthew Payne, Meggan E. Craft, Tyler J. Garwood, Tiffany M. Wolf, Maria A. Diuk-Wasser, Meredith C. VanAcker, Laura Dudley Plimpton, Mark Q. Wilber, Daniel Grove, Justin Koseiwska, Lisa I. Muller, Kim M. Pepin
2025, Preventive Veterinary Medicine (241)
Wildlife surveillance programs often use serological data to monitor exposure to pathogens. Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of a serological assay quantify the true positive and negative rates of the diagnostic assay, respectively. However, an assay’s accuracy can be affected by wild animals’ pathogen exposure history and quality of the sample...
Prospectivity modeling of the NASA VIPER landing site at Mons Mouton near the Lunar South Pole
Joshua Aaron Coyan, Matthew Siegler, José Martinez-Comacho, Ross A. Beyer, Mark Shirley
2025, Planetary Science Journal (6)
We use a high-resolution digital elevation model and a numerical thermal model to produce a variety of inputs for a water-ice prospectivity model for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) landing site. These input data are maps of topography, surface slope, surface aspect, surface curvature, maximum temperature, depth to...
Broadband stochastic simulation of earthquake ground motions with multiple strong phases with an application to the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Türkiye), earthquake
S. M. Sajad Hussaini, Shaghayegh Karimzadeh, Sanaz Rezaeian, Paulo B. Lourenco
2025, Earthquake Spectra (41) 2399-2435
Stochastic ground motion simulation models are often less accurate at lower frequencies than at higher frequencies when fitting recorded data unless supplemented by a deterministic forward directivity velocity pulse model. Moreover, time-modulated stochastic models, which adjust ground motion amplitudes over time, typically use functions that fail to capture multiple strong-motion...
Reproductive habitat mismatch influences chytrid infection dynamics in a tropical amphibian community
Neil A. Gilbert, Rayna C. Bell, Alessandro Catenazzi, Renato A. Martins, Shannon Buttimer, Wesley J. Neely, Carolina Lambertini, Veronica Saenz Calderon, Célio F.B. Haddad, C. Guilherme Becker, Graziella Vittoria DiRenzo
2025, Global Ecology and Conservation (60)
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has been decimating amphibian populations globally; previous work indicates that infection risk increases with moisture and thermal mismatch from a host’s optimum. We hypothesized that, in addition to these abiotic influences, mismatch of hosts from their reproductive habitat heightens infection risk via exposure and/or susceptibility mechanisms. We evaluated...
Detection of landslide-generated tsunami by shipborne GNSS precise point positioning
Adam E. Manaster, Anne F Sheehan, Dara Elyse Goldberg, Katherine R. Barnhart, Ethan F. Roth
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
Precise point positioning (PPP) of ships using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data reveals the precise movements of marine vessels. This method may quantify anomalies in sea surface height with implications for oceanographic monitoring, exploration, and tsunami warning. The GNSS PPP data from the R/V Sikuliaq, a research ship of the...
Footprints of past mining in Alaska (USA) derived from high-resolution satellite imagery
Adrian Bender
2025, Scientific Data (12)
Mapping the land area used for mining in the past is essential for guiding the remediation of affected landscapes and assessing the resource potential of related waste products. Despite significant recent progress delineating footprints of active and inactive mining globally, the known inventory of such mine lands remains incomplete. Here,...
Genetic structure and diversity in wild populations of the Light-footed Ridgway’s Rail reflect 20 years of augmentation through captive breeding and release
Amy G. Vandergast, Julia G. Smith, Anna Mitelberg, Dustin A. Wood, Kimberley A. Sawyer, Courtney J. Conway
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1011
Captive breeding and release programs aimed at recovery of rare species can be informed by genetic data to help select high-diversity source populations, make pairing decisions to minimize inbreeding, and manage release strategies. We developed a set of 54 microsatellite loci to assess genetic structure and diversity across the United...
U.S. Geological Survey 2024 Rocky Mountain Region Science Exchange—Showcasing cutting-edge science to adapt to extreme weather events and stakeholder needs
William J. Andrews, Timothy N. Titus, Lauren Ellissa Eng, Kristine L. Zellman, Patrick J. Anderson, Jeremy C. Havens
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3008
IntroductionThe Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River Basin in the Western United States are complex, interconnected systems that sustain a large variety of species, including tens of millions of humans. These regions face risks from drought, wildfires, invasive plant and animal species, and habitat reduction. Working with many stakeholders, scientists...
Statistical approaches for modeling correlated grade and tonnage distributions and applications for mineral resource assessments
Joshua Mark Rosera, Graham W. Lederer, John Schuenemeyer
2025, Applied Computing and Geosciences (26)
Correlations between grade and tonnage exist in mineral resource data compiled from published reports, but they are not always addressed during quantitative assessment of undiscovered mineral resources. Failure to account for correlated grade and tonnage distributions can result in geologically...
Automated snow cover detection on mountain glaciers usingspaceborne imagery and machine learning
Rainey Aberle, Ellyn Enderlin, Shad O'Neel, Caitlyn Florentine, Louis C. Sass, Adam Dickson, Hans-Peter Marshall, Alejandro Flores
2025, The Cryosphere (19) 1675-1693
Tracking the extent of seasonal snow on glaciers over time is critical for assessing glacier vulnerability and the response of glacierized watersheds to climate change. Existing snow cover products do not reliably distinguish seasonal snow from glacier ice and firn, preventing their use for glacier snow cover detection. Despite previous...
