Estimating mortality of Lake Sturgeon in the Lake Winnebago system using traditional age-based approaches and capture–recapture models
Jeremiah S. Shrovnal, Margaret H. Stadig, Joshua K. Raabe, Daniel A. Isermann
2025, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (45) 616-632
Objective The Lake Winnebago system in Wisconsin supports a popular winter spear fishery for Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens. Setting harvest caps for this fishery relies on estimating instantaneous natural mortality rate (M), which can be done using age-based approaches or capture–recapture models that incorporate recoveries of fish with passive integrated transponder...
Hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity estimates from slug tests in wells within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, Arkansas and Mississippi, 2020
Aaron L. Pugh
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5101
During the spring and summer of 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted single-well slug tests on selected observation wells within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain in Arkansas and Mississippi to estimate hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity values for the Mississippi River Valley alluvial and middle Claiborne aquifers. Well and aquifer data were...
Estimated annual abundance of migratory Peale's Peregrine Falcons in coastal Washington, USA
Daniel E. Varland, Joseph B. Buchanan, Guthrie S. Zimmerman, Javan Mathias Bauder, Tracy L. Fleming, Brian A. Millsap
2025, Journal of Raptor Research (59) 1-16
Following the recovery of Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus), the US Fish and Wildlife Service began a process to allow “take” (capture) of wild peregrines for falconry in the United States. Recently, that effort involved generating updated estimates of the collective abundance of the three North American peregrine subspecies: F. p. anatum, F....
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....
Hydrologic response of groundwater and streamflow to natural and anthropogenic drivers of change in headwaters of the upper Colorado River basin during recent wet (1982–1999) and drought (2000–2022) conditions
Fred D. Tillman, Melissa D. Masbruch, Jacob E. Knight, John A. Engott, Samuel Francisco Lopez, Casey J.R. Jones, Jesse E. Dickinson, Matthew P. Miller
2025, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (60)
Study region: Headwaters of the upper Colorado River basin (UCOL), USAStudy focus: Surface-water and groundwater numerical models incorporating water-use information were used to investigate changes in climate, water use, and simulated hydrologic responses of snow processes, evapotranspiration, groundwater, and streamflow during recent wet (1982–1999) and drought (2000–2022) periods in the...
Lake Ontario spring prey fish bottom trawl survey and Alewife assessment, 2025
Brian Weidel, Jessica Goretzke, Jeremy P. Holden, Emma Bloomfield, Scott David Stahl, Olivia Margaret Mitchinson, Brian O’Malley, Nicole Lynn Berry, Katie Victoria Anweiler, Amanda Susanne Ackiss
2025, Report
The multi-agency Lake Ontario spring prey fish survey quantifies changes in pelagic prey fish populations, in particular Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus, which are the primary prey supporting the lake’s sport fishes. The 2025 survey included 230 trawls in the main lake and embayments and sampled depths from 5.5 to 245 m...
Modeling seawater intrusion along the Alabama coastline using physical and machine learning models to evaluate the effects of multiscale natural and anthropogenic stresses
Hossein Gholizadeh, T. Prabhakar Clement, Christopher Green, Geoffrey R. Tick, Alain Plattner, Yong Zhang
2025, Scientific Reports (15)
Seawater intrusion threatens groundwater resources in coastal regions, including southern Baldwin County, Alabama, where the freshwater-saltwater interface dynamics remain poorly understood. To address this gap, this study uses combined physics-based and machine-learning models to quantify seawater intrusion caused by natural (storm surges) and anthropogenic (human activities) perturbations. The long short-term...
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....
A molecular specimen bank for contemporary and future study captures landscape-scale biodiversity baselines before Klamath River dam removal
Dylan J. Keel, Katie Karpenko, Scott M. Blankenship, Gregg Schumer, Oshun O’Rourke, Carl O. Ostberg, Daniel A. Chase, Jeffrey J. Duda
2025, Scientific Reports (15)
Global restoration and conservation of freshwater biodiversity are represented in practice by works such as the Klamath River Renewal Project (KRRP), the largest dam removal and river restoration in the United States, which has reconnected 640 river kilometers. With dam removals, many biological outcomes remain understudied due...
Assessing the potential for evaluation of wildland fire models using remotely sensed data—Summary proceedings from a U.S. Geological Survey workshop in 2024
Sophie R. Bonner, Kurtis Nelson, Peter G. Rinkleff, Chad M. Hoffman, Paul F. Steblein
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5053
On September 19, 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) held a virtual workshop titled “Potential for Evaluation of Fire Models with Remote Sensing Data Workshop” to assess the feasibility of using remotely sensed datasets to evaluate next-generation wildland fire behavior models. Remote sensing and fire modelling experts gathered to: (1)...
Over, under, and through: Hydrologic connectivity and the future of coastal landscape salinization
Ashley Helton, James Dennedy-Frank, Ryan Emanuel, Scott C Neubauer, Kyra Adams, Marcelo Ardon, Lawrence Band, Kevin A. Befus, Hanne Borstlap, Jamie Duberstein, Adam Gold, Kominoski John, Alex Manda, Holly A. Michael, Stephen Moysey, Allison Myers-Pigg, Justine Annaliese Neville, Gregory E. Noe, Jeeban Panthi, Elnaz Pezeshki, Matthew Sirianni, Ward.Nicolas
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
Seawater intrusion (SWI) affects coastal landscapes worldwide. Here we describe the hydrologic pathways through which SWI occurs - over land via storm surge or tidal flooding, under land via groundwater transport, and through watersheds via natural and artificial surface water channels—and how human modifications to those pathways alter patterns of...
Spatiotemporal variations in strain release and seismic rupture in multifault systems: An example from Panamint Valley, southeastern California
Aubrey LaPlante, Christine Regalla, Israporn Sethanant, Shannon A. Mahan, Harrison J. Gray
2025, Lithosphere (2024)
Geometrically complex, multifault ruptures have been observed in recent, damaging earthquakes in southeastern California, sparking renewed efforts to identify physical conditions that promote or inhibit fault discontinuity-spanning coseismic ruptures. The likelihood of ruptures propagating across fault discontinuities is thought to be partly controlled by fault geometries, rupture direction, and the...
Catalyzing change: A literature review on the implementation of the Nature Futures Framework
Sana Okayasu, Jan J. Kuiper, Ghassen Halouani, HyeJin Kim, Brian W. Miller, America Paz Duran, Vermeer Angelique, Machteld Schoolenberg, Shizuka Hashimoto, Carolyn J. Lundquist
2025, Sustainability Science
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF), developed under the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), serves as a catalyst for advancing new scenarios and models focused on biodiversity and ecosystem services within the broader research community. In particular, the framework facilitates the development of scenarios and models that...
Isotopic niche plasticity of American alligators within the southern Everglades
Mathew Denton, Michael Cherkiss, Frank J. Mazzotti, Laura A. Brandt, Sidney T. Godfrey, Darren Johnson, Kristen Hart
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
Hydrologic alterations within the Everglades have degraded American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) habitat, reduced prey base, and increased physiological stress. Alligator body condition declined across many management areas from 2000 through 2014, prompting us to investigate the relationship between their intraspecific isotopic niche dynamics and body condition. Alligators within the estuary...
Hemoglobin A1c is a retrospective indicator of denning in polar bears (Ursus maritimus)
Sarah J. Teman, Todd C. Atwood, Kristin L. Laidre, Emily E. Virgin, Karyn D. Rode, Louisa A. Rispoli, Erin Curry
2025, Journal of Mammalogy (106) 1167-1177
The nutritional health of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) is tied to reproductive success, and fasting status can be used to infer recent reproductive history. However, the methods currently used to determine denning and fasting status have their limitations. We examined hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), an integrative metric of average...
Avian navigation: Comparing the olfactory navigational “map” and the infrasound direction-finding hypotheses to aeronautics
Jonathan T. Hagstrum
2025, Journal of Comparative Physiology A (211) 603-616
Animal navigation has long been a fascinating but bewildering subject. Humans and animals might well share similar navigational strategies because they developed within the same physical environments. A “map-and-compass” model has been proposed to explain the two-step avian navigational process, but the “map” step has remained elusive. Although scalar values...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Karhunen–Loève deep learning method for surrogate modeling and approximate Bayesian parameter estimation
Yuanzhe Wang, Yifei Zong, James Lucian McCreight, Joseph D. Hughes, Michael N. Fienen, Alexandre Tartakovsky
2025, Advances in Water Resources (203)
We evaluate the performance of the Karhunen–Loève Deep Neural Network (KL-DNN) framework for surrogate modeling and approximate Bayesian parameter estimation in partial differential equation models. In the surrogate model, the Karhunen–Loève (KL) expansions are used for the dimensionality reduction of the number of unknown parameters and variables, and a deep...
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...
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...
