Perpetuation of avian influenza from molt to fall migration in wild Swan Geese (Anser cygnoides): An agent-based modeling approach
John Takekawa, Chang-Yong Choi, Diann Prosser, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Nyambayar Batbayar, Xiangming Xiao
2025, Viruses (17)
Wild waterfowl are considered to be the reservoir of avian influenza, but their distinct annual life cycle stages and their contribution to disease dynamics are not well understood. Studies of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus have primarily focused on wintering grounds, where human and poultry densities are high...
Understanding and managing introduction pathways into protected areas in a changing climate
Deah Lieurance, Susan Canavan, Katelyn T. Faulkner, Kathryn A. O’Shaughnessy, Julie L. Lockwood, Elliott W. Parsons, Julian D. Avery, Wesley Daniel
2025, Biological Invasions (27)
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 calls for the conservation of 30% of the world’s ecosystems, focusing on protecting areas vital to biodiversity, identifying and managing invasive species introduction pathways, and minimizing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. While protected areas (PAs) have historically limited the introduction, establishment, and...
The transition from resistance to acceptance: Managing a marine invasive species in a changing world
Abigail G. Keller, Timothy D. Counihan, Edwin D. Grosholz, Carl Boettiger
2025, Journal of Applied Ecology (62) 715-725
Marine invasive species can transform coastal ecosystems, yet mitigating their effects can be difficult, and even impractical. Often, marine invasive species are managed at poorly matched spatial scales, and at the same time, rates of spread and establishment are increasing under climate change and can outpace resources available for...
Combining multisite tsunami and deformation modeling to constrain slip distributions for the 1700 C.E. Cascadia earthquake
David Small, Diego Melgar, SeanPaul La Selle, Andrew J Meigs
2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (115) 431-451
A major earthquake ruptured the Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) on 26 January 1700. Key paleoseismic evidence associated with this event include tsunami deposits, stratigraphic evidence of coastal coseismic subsidence, written Japanese records of a tsunami unaccompanied by earthquake shaking, and margin‐wide turbidites found offshore and in lacustrine environments. Despite this...
Earthquake recurrence estimates for northern Caribbean faults from combinatorial optimization
Uri S. ten Brink, Eric L. Geist
2025, The Seismic Record (5) 44-54
We use combinatorial optimization to find the optimal spatial distribution of random samples of earthquakes (≥6.5) that minimize the misfit in target slip rates for all faults in the northeast Caribbean, and we derive magnitude-frequency relationships with uncertainties for these faults. Slip rates for many faults are derived from GPS...
Landslide-channel feedbacks amplify channel widening during floods
Georgina L. Bennett, Diego Panici, Francis K. Rengers, Jason W. Kean, Sara L. Rathburn
2025, Natural Hazards (2)
Channel widening is a major hazard during floods, particularly in confined mountainous catchments. However, channel widening during floods is not well understood and not always explained by hydraulic variables alone. Floods in mountainous regions often coincide with landslides triggered by heavy rainfall, yet landslide-channel interactions during a flood event are...
Biotic and abiotic drivers of ecosystem temporal stability in herbaceous wetlands in China
Guodong Wang, Nanlin Hu, Yann Hautier, Beth Middleton, Ming Wang, Meiling Zhao, Jingci Meng, Zijun Ma, Bo Liu, Yanjie Liu, Mingkai Jiang
2025, Global Change Biology (31)
Maintaining the stability of ecosystems is critical for supporting essential ecosystem services over time. However, our understanding of the contribution of the diverse biotic and abiotic factors to this stability in wetlands remains limited. Here, we combined data from a field vegetation survey of 725 herbaceous wetland sites in China...
Long-lived partial melt beneath Cascade volcanoes
Guanning Pang, Geoffrey A. Abers, Seth C. Moran, Weston Thelen
2025, Nature Geoscience (18) 184-190
Quantitative estimates of magma storage are fundamental to evaluating volcanic dynamics and hazards. Yet our understanding of subvolcanic magmatic plumbing systems and their variability remains limited. There is ongoing debate regarding the ephemerality of shallow magma storage and its volume relative to eruptive output, and so whether an upper-crustal magma...
Flying fish habitat and co-occurrence with seabirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico
Pamela E. Michael, J. Christopher Haney, Jeffrey S. Gleason, Kathy M. Hixson, Yvan G. Satgé, Patrick G.R. Jodice
2025, Fisheries Oceanography (34)
Flying fish (family Exocoetidae) play an important role in marine food webs, linking sub-surface and aerial predators. The association of seabirds with sub-surface predators in subtropical and tropical regions through facilitated foraging events is a well-known phenomenon and is sometimes used to identify fishing grounds for flying fish, flying fish roe,...
3D viscoelastic models of slip-deficit rate along the Cascadia subduction zone
Frederick Pollitz
2025, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (130)
Interseismic deformation in the Pacific Northwest is constrained by the horizontal crustal velocity field derived from the Global Positioning System (GPS) in addition to vertical rates derived from GPS, leveling, and tide gauge measurements. Such measurements were folded in to deformation models of fault slip rates as part of the...
The relative influence of geographic and environmental factors on rare plant translocation outcomes
Joe Bellis, Matthew A. Albrecht, Joyce Maschinski, Sarah E. Dalrymple, Matthew J. Keir, Timothy Chambers, Jennifer Possley, Edith D. Adkins, Elliott W. Parsons, Michael Kunz, Carrie Radcliffe, Emily Coffey, Thomas N. Kaye, Cheryl L. Peterson, David Aaron, Sterling A. Herron, Eric Menges, Timothy J. Bell, Michelle Coppoletta, Caityn Elam, Mceachern A. Kathryn, Paula Williamson, Deanna Boensch, Megan Bontrager, Breeden Cooper, Noah Frade, Doria R. Gordon, Steven O. Link, Tara Littlefield, Shelia Murray, Ryan O’Dell, Noel B. Pavlovic, Charlotte M. Reemts, David D. Taylor, Jonathan H. Titus, Priscilla J. Titus, Tina A. Stanley, Katherine D. Heineman
2025, Journal of Applied Ecology (62) 638-650
Conservation translocations are an established method for reducing the extinction risk of plant species through intentional movement within or outside the indigenous range. Unsuitable environmental conditions at translocation recipient sites and a lack of understanding of species–environment relationships are often identified as critical barriers to translocation success. However, previous...
Predictive models are indeed useful for causal inference
James D. Nichols, Evan Cooch
2025, Ecology (106)
The subject of investigating causation in ecology has been widely discussed in recent years, especially by advocates of a structural causal model (SCM) approach. Some of these advocates have criticized the use of predictive models and model selection for drawing inferences about causation. We argue that the comparison of model-based...
Multiple dimensions define thresholds for population resilience of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica
Megan K. La Peyre, H. Wang, Shaye E. Sable, Wei Wu, Bin Li, Devin Comba, Carlos Perez, Melanie Bates, Lauren M. Swam
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
A species' distribution depends on its tolerance to environmental conditions. These conditions are defined by a minimum, maximum, and optimal ranges of single and combined factors. Forays into environmental conditions outside the minimum or maximum tolerance of a species (i.e., thresholds) are predicted to have large effects on a species'...
Slow slip detectability in seafloor pressure records offshore Alaska
Erik Fredrickson, Joan S. Gomberg, William Wilcock, Susan Hautala, Albert Hermann, H. Paul Johnson
2025, Journal of Geophysical Research (128)
In subduction zones worldwide, seafloor pressure data are used to observe tectonic deformation, particularly from megathrust earthquakes and slow slip events (SSEs). However, such measurements are also sensitive to oceanographic circulation-generated pressures over a range of frequencies that conflate with tectonic signals of interest. Using seafloor pressure and temperature data...
The effectiveness of harvest for limiting wildlife disease: Insights from 20 years of chronic wasting disease in Wyoming
Wynne Emily Moss, Justin Binfet, L. Embere Hall, Samantha E. Allen, William H. Edwards, Jessica E. Jennings-Gaines, Paul DELETE Cross
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Effective, practical options for managing disease in wildlife populations are limited, especially after diseases become established. Removal strategies (e.g., hunting or culling) are used to control wildlife diseases across a wide range of systems, despite conflicting evidence of their effectiveness. This is especially true for chronic wasting disease (CWD), an...
Neonicotinoid exposure causes behavioral impairment and delayed mortality of the federally threatened American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus
Michael C. Cavallaro, Michelle L. Hladik, R. Shane McMurry, Samantha Hittson, Leon K. Boyles, W. Wyatt Hoback
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
Among the most immediate drivers of American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus Olivier) declines, nontarget toxicity to pesticides is poorly understood. Acute, episodic exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides at environmentally relevant concentrations is linked to negative impacts on beneficial terrestrial insect taxa. Beyond mortality, behavioral indicators of toxicity are often better suited to...
Post-fire recovery of sagebrush-steppe communities is better explained by elevation than climate-derived indicators of resistance and resilience
Cara Applestein, Matthew J. Germino
2025, Journal of Applied Ecology (62) 689-700
More landscapes require restoration than can feasibly be treated, and so decision-support tools to prioritize areas for treatment are needed. Moreover, restoration is complicated by the threat of biological invasion in disturbed areas, and so indicators of ecosystem resistance to invasion and resilience to disturbance (hereafter R&R) are important...
A case for assemblage-level conservation to address the biodiversity crisis
Michael W. Belitz, C.J. Campbell, Ryan G. Drum, Wendy Leuenberger, Toni Lyn Morelli, Kelly Nail, Vaughn Shirey, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Elise F. Zipken
2025, Nature Reviews Biodiversity (1) 134-143
Traditional conservation efforts have centred on safeguarding individual species, but these strategies have limitations in a world where entire ecosystems are rapidly changing. Ecosystem conservation can maintain critical ecological functions, but often lacks the detail necessary for the effective conservation of threatened or endangered species. The conservation of such species...
Modeling the impacts of sand placement strategies on barrier island evolution in a semi-enclosed bay system
Davina Passeri, Rangley C. Mickey, David M. Thompson, Michael Itzkin, Elizabeth Godsey, Matthew V. Bilskie, Alexander C. Seymour, Autumn C. Poisson, Jin Ikeda, Scott C. Hagen
2025, Coastal Engineering (197)
This study assesses the impacts of five proposed restoration actions at Little Dauphin Island, a low-lying relic spit in a semi-enclosed bay system on the Alabama coast. A Delft3D model is developed to simulate annual scale (five-year) sediment transport and resulting bed level changes. The model is validated with observed...
Strong shaking from past Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes encoded in coastal landforms
Sean Richard LaHusen, Alex R. Grant, Jonathan P. Perkins, Devin McPhillips
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
Strong earthquakes along subduction zones are often devastating events, but sparse records along some tectonic margins limit our understanding of seismic hazards. Constraining shaking intensities is critical, especially in subduction zones with infrequent but large-magnitude earthquakes like the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), where the lack of recorded ground motions has...
Evidence for nonlocal sediment transport on hillslopes from fault scarp morphology
Harrison J. Gray, Tyler Doane, Sylvia R. Nicovich, Christopher DuRoss, Ryan D. Gold
2025, Geology (53) 323-327
Hillslope sediment transport processes such as bioturbation, rainsplash, and granular mechanics occur across the entire planet. Yet, it remains uncertain how these small-scale processes act together to shape landscapes. Longstanding hillslope diffusion theory posits that hillslope processes are spatially limited, whereas new concepts of nonlocal sediment transport argue otherwise. However,...
Considering multiecosystem trade-offs is critical when leveraging systematic conservation planning for restoration
Nicholas J. Van Lanen, C.J. Duchardt, L. Pejchar, J.E. Shyvers, Cameron L. Aldridge
2025, Global Change Biology (31)
Conservationists are increasingly leveraging systematic conservation planning (SCP) to inform restoration actions that enhance biodiversity. However, restoration frequently drives ecological transformations at local scales, potentially resulting in trade-offs among wildlife species and communities. The Conservation Interactions Principle (CIP), coined more than 15 years ago, cautions SCP practitioners regarding the importance of jointly and...
From subsidies to stressors: Shifting ecological baselines alter biological responses to nutrients in highly modified agricultural streams
Stephen Edward Devilbiss, Jason M. Taylor, Matthew B. Hicks
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Subsidy–stress gradients offer a useful framework for understanding ecological responses to perturbation and may help inform ecological metrics in highly modified systems. Historic, region-wide shifts from bottomland hardwood forest to row crop agriculture can cause positively skewed impact gradients in alluvial plain ecoregions, resulting in tolerant organisms that typically exhibit...
Hydrogeologic framework of the Mountain Home area, southern Idaho
Lauren M. Zinsser, Scott D. Ducar
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5132
In the arid western Snake River Plain around the City of Mountain Home, Idaho, declining groundwater levels concern agricultural, municipal, and other water users who rely on groundwater for sustenance because surface-water resources are limited. The U.S. Geological Survey developed this hydrogeologic framework to provide an updated characterization of groundwater...
Jaguar density estimation in Mexico: The conservation importance of considering home range orientation in spatial capture–recapture
Sean M. Murphy, Victor H. Luja
2025, Conservation Science and Practice (7)
Accurate estimation of population parameters for imperiled wildlife is crucial for effective conservation decision-making. Population density is commonly used for monitoring imperiled species across space and time, and spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models can produce unbiased density estimates. However, many imperiled species are restricted to fragmented remnant habitats in landscapes severely...
