Assessment and validation of depressions in digital elevation models from multiple elevation data sources and delineation of depressions, sinking streams, and their watersheds in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi
David E. Ladd, John K. Carmichael
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5134
Closed depressions and sinking streams in karst landscapes pose difficulties for water-resources management, in the construction of roads and other public works, and in hydrologic and hydrogeomorphic analyses. Digital elevation models (DEMs) can be used to identify the location and determine the size and shape of closed depressions, but separating...
The National Fish Habitat Partnership – A unique path to conserving fish habitat
Gary Whelan, Alexandra McOwen, Daniel J. Wieferich
2025, Fisheries (50) 512-520
The National Fish Habitat Partnership (NFHP) is a science based, non-regulatory, partnership-driven effort to conserve fish habitat across the USA. The NFHP was developed in the early to mid-2000s in response to the noted declines to fish populations and their associated habitats across the USA with the effort led by...
In situ, modeled, and earth observation monitoring of surface water availability in West African rangelands
Kimberly Slinski, Gabriel B. Senay, Alkhalil Adoum, Shraddhanand Shukla, Amy McNally, James Rowland, Erwan Fillol, Soni Yatheendradas, Chris Funk, Andrew Hoell, Michael Jasinski
2025, Frontiers in Water (7)
Introduction: Rangeland ponds are vital to the livelihoods of pastoral and agropastoral communities in Africa, providing an important source of water for livestock. However, sparse instrumentation across much of Africa makes it extremely challenging to monitor surface water availability in these areas. Model estimates of surface water, for example, as...
Photodegradation of lignocellulose in plant litter – Reinterpreting data from Méndez et al. (2022)
Daryl L. Moorhead, Katherine E.O. Todd-Brown, Alexi C. Besser, Dellena Evelyn Bloom, Ashley Bonner, Alejandro Cueva, Thomas C. Ingalls, Jiwei Li, Sasha Reed, Isabel Torres, Heather L. Throop
2025, New Phytologist (247) 1977-1980
No abstract available....
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...
Using public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) to explore uses and values for Mojave Trails National Monument, California
Emily J. Wilkins, Sarah M. Lindley, Karla Rogers, Rudy Schuster, Mark T. Hannon, Parker T. Rowland, Michael J. Runnels
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5037
Many people ascribe a variety of values to public lands and waters, but some values are more difficult to assess and quantify than others. Public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) are tools that have been used to help quantify and map the public’s diverse values for a landscape. This work...
A wavier polar jet stream contributed to the mid-20th century winter warming hole in the United States
Jacob I. Chalif, Erich C. Osterberg, Trevor Fuess Partridge
2025, AGU Advances (6)
Winter waves in the polar jet stream are associated with extreme cold outbreaks and can modulate longer-term winter temperature trends in the mid-latitudes. Recent research has highlighted a positive trend in jet stream waviness from 1990 to 2010, with a hypothesized connection to Arctic amplification of anthropogenic warming. However, an...
Characterization of the hydrogeologic framework, groundwater-flow system, geochemistry, and aquifer hydraulic properties of the shallow groundwater system in the Wilcox and Lorraine process areas of the Wilcox Oil Company Superfund site near Bristow, Oklahoma, 2022
Andrew P. Teeple, Zulimar Lucena, Christopher L. Braun, Evin J. Fetkovich, Isaac A. Dale, Shana L. Mashburn
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5042
The Wilcox Oil Company Superfund site (hereinafter referred to as “the site”) was formerly an oil refinery northeast of Bristow in Creek County, Oklahoma. Historical refinery operations contaminated the soil, surface water, streambed sediments, alluvium, and groundwater with refined and stored products at the site. The Wilcox and Lorraine process...
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...
On the importance of geological and geophysical lunar field work enabled by Artemis Base Camp
K. Runyon, S. Buxner, K. Crane, C. Crow, A. Douglass, Lauren A. Edgar, D. Eppler, J.M. Hurtado, K. Rubins, M. Wagner
2025, Report
We report on six Findings related to the benefit of Artemis Base Camp (ABC) to lunar geoscience (Figure 1). These Findings are on the topics of 1) Repeat field site visits; 2) Geological experiments; 3) Satellite ABC campus(es); 4) Advanced lab equipment; 5) Frequent and resource-intensive EVAs; and 6) Geoscience...
Staying alive: Post-translocation apparent survival of fishes in headwater springs following drought
Sophia Marie Bonjour, Keith B. Gido, Peter J. Pfaff, Abigail Rick, Aiden Masek
2025, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (45) 659-668
ObjectiveIncreasing fragmentation from constructed barriers, increased water use, and climate change limits the resiliency of stream fish metapopulations by reducing colonization. Management actions such as stocking or translocating fish may help contribute to the resilience of isolated habitats and increase redundancy of populations in intermittent stream...
High-throughput screening identifies bisphenol P as a potent cardiotoxin, inducing cardiotoxicity through apoptosis and NF-κB Pathway
Jiazhen Wang, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Yanqiu Feng, Wenjing Zhao, Chuanzi Gao, Chunmiao Zheng, Wenhui Qiu
2025, Environmental Science & Technology (59) 14870-14880
The increasing use of plastic additives, particularly bisphenols (BPs), has raised significant concerns about their potential risks to human health, especially during critical developmental stages. In this study, we developed a novel high-throughput toxicity screening platform using zebrafish (Danio rerio) to identify and prioritize chemicals with cardiotoxic potential, which is...
Cascading land surface hazards as a nexus in the Earth system
Brian J. Yanites, Marin Clark, Joshua J. Roering, A. Joshua West, Dimitrios Zekkos, Jane W. Baldwin, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Sean F. Gallen, Daniel E. Horton, Eric Kirby, Ben Leshchinksy, H. Benjamin Mason, Seulgi Moon, Katherine R. Barnhart, Adam M. Booth, Jonathan A. Czuba, Scott W. McCoy, Luke A. McGuire, Allison M. Pfeiffer, Jennifer L. Pierce
2025, Science (388)
Earth’s surface is sculpted by numerous processes that move sediment, ranging from gradual and benign to abrupt and catastrophic. Although infrequent, high-magnitude sediment mobilization events can be hazardous to people and infrastructure, leaving topographic imprints on the landscape and remarkable narratives in the historical record. Hazardous events such as fires,...
Simulated soundscapes and transfer learning boost the performance of acoustic classifiers under data scarcity
Matthew J Weldy, Damon B. Lesmeister, Tom Denton, Adam Duarte, Ben J. Vernasco, Amandine Gasc, Jennifer Rowe, Michael J. Adams, Matthew G. Betts
2025, Methods in Ecology and Evolution
1. The biodiversity crisis necessitates spatially extensive methods to monitor multiple taxonomic groups for evidence of change in response to evolving environmental conditions. Programs that combine passive acoustic monitoring and machine learning are increasingly used to meet this need. These methods require large, annotated datasets, which are time-consuming and expensive...
Trait-based selection of seeds ingested and dispersed by North American waterfowl
Bia A. Almeida, Mihai Costea, Giliandro G. Silva, Leonardo Maltchik, Susan E.W. De La Cruz, John Y. Takekawa, Andy J. Green
2025, Plants (14)
There are few studies on the extent to which waterfowl select plant food compared with what is available in wetland ecosystems. We used a new dataset on the presence of seeds in the alimentary canal or feces to identify flowering plant species whose seeds are ingested by North American ducks...
Hydrogeology, water budget, and simulated groundwater availability in the Salt Fork Arkansas River and Chikaskia River alluvial aquifers, northern Oklahoma, 1980–2020
Nicole C. Gammill, S. Jerrod Smith
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5043
The 1973 Oklahoma Groundwater Law (Oklahoma Statute §82–1020.5) requires that the Oklahoma Water Resources Board conduct hydrologic investigations of the State’s aquifers to determine the maximum annual yield for each groundwater basin. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, conducted an updated hydrologic investigation of...
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in the North Cuba area, 2024
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Phuong A. Le, Andrea D. Cicero, Ronald M. Drake II, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kira K. Timm
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3029
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 4,098 million barrels of oil and 13,268 billion cubic feet of gas in the North Cuba area....
Grand Canyon River Alert System—Implementing an emergency alert system for wilderness recreation
Joseph E Thomas, Thomas M. Gushue, Erica Byerley, Paul Grams
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1027
The Grand Canyon River Alert System (GCRAS) provides government-issued emergency alerts to wilderness recreationalists in the Grand Canyon, who are often outside the bounds of cellular signal reception. GCRAS is a collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey (Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center), National Weather Service, Coconino County Emergency Management,...
Metabarcoding analysis of arthropod pollinator diversity: A methodological comparison of eDNA derived from flowers and DNA derived from bulk samples of insects
Kara Suzanne Jones, David S. Pilliod, Aaron Aunins
2025, Molecular Ecology (34)
Limitations of traditional insect sampling methods have motivated the development and optimisation of new non-lethal methods capable of quantifying diverse arthropod communities. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding using arthropod-specific primers has recently been investigated as a novel way to characterise arthropod communities from the DNA they deposit on the surface of...
Anthropogenic activities have greatly altered mangroves over the last hundred years
Yao Zhang, Guangming Zhao, Ken Krauss, Lianghao Pan, Yuanqin Xu, Xianwei Meng
2025, Global and Planetary Change (253)
Mangroves not only provide ecosystem and cultural services but also contribute to the mitigation of global warming. Mangrove dynamics and their environmental responses as re-constructed from the past can inform current mangrove conservation and restoration. However, our understanding of mangrove dynamics over the past century and the impact of human...
Glaciers in Western Canada-conterminous US and Switzerland experience unprecedented mass loss over the last four years (2021–2024)
Brian Menounos, Matthias Huss, Shawn Marshall, Mark Ednie, Caitlyn Florentine, Lea Hartl
2025, Geophysical Research Letters (52)
Over the period 2021–2024, glaciers in Western Canada and the conterminous US (WCAN-US), and Switzerland respectively lost mass at rates of 22.2 ± 9.0 and 1.5 ± 0.3 Gt yr−1 representing a twofold increase in mass loss compared to the period 2010–2020. Since 2020, total ice volume was depleted by 12% (WCAN-US) and 13% (Switzerland). Meteorological conditions...
Aquifer storage change and storage properties, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, 2019–23
Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Meghan T. Bell, William G. Seelig
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5040
To better understand changes in groundwater storage and groundwater elevations, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, carried out a multiyear groundwater monitoring project. Groundwater-level data were collected at 27 locations, including sites having multiple wells screened at different depths and those having...
Parasite‐mediated competition limits dominant cervid competitor
Jennifer A. Grauer, Joshua P. Twining, Manigandan Lejeune, Jacqueline L. Frair, Krysten L. Schuler, David W. Kramer, Angela K. Fuller
2025, Ecology Letters (28)
Species interactions structure ecological communities through direct and indirect pathways with ecosystem-wide implications. Despite mounting interest in the importance of indirect interactions, empirical evidence remains limited. Here, we demonstrate the critical role of parasite-mediated competition in driving community outcomes in a multi-species system of conservation and management concern. We leveraged...
MTAB 112, June 2025
Kyra Harvey
2025, Newsletter
This Memo to All Banders (MTAB 112) was released in June 2025. Subjects in this this memo are 1. The Chief’s Chirp; 2. Message from the Director of Eastern Ecological Science Center; 3. Staff Updates – celebrating Craig “Tut” Tuthill’s remarkable career and retirement; 4. Alerts – New reportband.gov link...
Why are non-native plants successful? Consistently fast economic traits and novel origin jointly explain abundance across US ecoregions
Dana M. Blumenthal, Jeffrey M. Diez, Ian S. Pearse, Helen Sofaer, Cascade J.B. Sorte, Dave Barnett, Evelyn M. Beaury, Bethany Bradley, Jeff Corbin, Jeffrey Dukes, Regan Early, Ines Ibanez, Daniel C. Laughlin, Lais Petri, Montserrat Vila
2025, New Phytologist (248) 1192-1204
Are non-native plants abundant because they are non-native, and have advantages over native plants, or because they possess ‘fast’ resource strategies, and have advantages in disturbed environments? This question is central to invasion biology but remains unanswered.We quantified the relative importance of resource strategy and biogeographic origin in 69 441...
