Monitoring visitor activity and informal trail disturbance in Yosemite Valley meadows to assess temporal changes in use and impacts
Sheri A. Shiflett, Jeffery S. Jenkins, Rachel F. Mattos, Kai Thiry, Peter Christian Ibsen, Melissa Booher, Angela Tricomi, Nicole D Athearn
2025, Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism (50)
Montane meadows provide vital habitat that supports ecosystems, regulate hydrological processes, and offer valuable recreational opportunities. Meadows account for 3 % of Yosemite National Park's area, including Yosemite Valley, and are particularly susceptible to human impacts such as formation of informal trails. We collected observational data on visitor activity and quantified...
Enhanced geothermal systems electric-resource assessment for the Great Basin, southwestern United States
Erick R. Burns, Colin F. Williams, Jacob DeAngelo
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3027
The U.S. Geological Survey recently (2025) completed a provisional assessment of the geothermal-electric resources associated with high-temperature, low-permeability rock formations of the Great Basin, Southwestern United States. If sufficient technological advances to commercialize enhanced geothermal systems occur, then a current best provisional estimate for electric-power generation capacity of 135 gigawatts...
Histological progression and bacterial load dynamics of Renibacterium salmoninarum in Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
Riley E. Dils, Tawni B.R. Firestone, Paula A. Schaffer, Dana L. Winkelman, Eric R. Fetherman
2025, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (162) 85-97
Renibacterium salmoninarum, the cause of bacterial kidney disease (BKD), severely impacts salmonid populations. Much of our understanding of the BKD pathology in salmonids comes from evaluating fatal infections in wild populations or spawning Pacific Northwest salmonids. Our study investigated the histological progression and bacterial load dynamics of R. salmoninarum infection in Chinook...
Assessment of conventional and continuous oil and gas resources in the Mowry Composite Total Petroleum System in the Southwestern Wyoming Province, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, 2024
Jane S. Hearon, Christopher J. Schenk, Sarah E. Gelman, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Tracey J. Mercier, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kira K. Timm, Ronald M. Drake II, Andrea D. Cicero, Phuong A. Le
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3023
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional and continuous resources of 473 million barrels of oil and 27 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Mowry Composite Total Petroleum System in the Southwestern Wyoming Province, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah....
Bedrock geologic map of the Bellows Falls 7.5- x 15-minute quadrangle, Windham and Windsor Counties, Vermont, and Sullivan and Cheshire Counties, New Hampshire
Arthur J. Merschat, Gregory J. Walsh, Peter M. Valley, Ryan J. McAleer, Thomas R. Armstrong
2025, Scientific Investigations Map 3535
Introduction The bedrock geology of the Bellows Falls 7.5- x 15-minute quadrangle, Vermont and New Hampshire, consists of polydeformed Ordovician to Devonian metasedimentary, metavolcanic, and metaplutonic rocks of the Connecticut Valley trough, Bronson Hill anticlinorium (or Bronson Hill terrane), and the Central Maine terrane. Previous work in this area includes a...
Foraging of wading birds on a patchy landscape: Simulating effects of social information, interference competition, and patch selection on prey intake and individual distribution
Hyo Won Lee, Donald L. DeAngelis, Simeon Yurek, Yannis P. Papastamatiou
2025, Ecological Modelling (507)
Foragers on patchy landscapes must acquire sufficient resources despite uncertainty in the location and amount of the resources. Optimal Foraging Theory posits that foragers deal with this uncertainty by using strategies that optimize resource intake within foraging periods. For species such as wading birds, this optimization is closely linked to...
White‐tailed deer habitat use and implications for chronic wasting disease transmission
Marie L.J. Gilbertson, Alison C. Ketz, Matthew A. Hunsaker, Daniel P. Walsh, Daniel J. Storm, Wendy Christine Turner
2025, Wildlife Monographs (217)
Animal space use, activity patterns, and habitat selection—and heterogeneity in these patterns—have important implications for where and when infectious diseases are transmitted. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are habitat generalists, with a high degree of heterogeneity in their movement ecology based on sex, age, season, and region. These heterogeneities have important...
Bayesian ETAS modeling for the Pacific Northwest: Uncovering effects of tectonic regimes, regional differences, and swarms on aftershock parameters
Max Schneider, Michael Barall, Peter Guttorp, Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Andrew J. Michael, Morgan T. Page, Nicholas van der Elst
2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (115) 2219-2236
The Pacific Northwest (PNW) of North America has high seismic hazard due to numerous earthquake sources under populated areas. It hosts several tectonic regimes and subregional seismic zones that are hypothesized to have different patterns of earthquake and aftershock occurrence. It is also predisposed to earthquake swarms, which can complicate...
Reconciling scale using the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework to improve management of woody encroachment in grasslands
Rheinhardt Scholtz, Daniel R. Uden, Brady W. Allred, Victoria M. Donovan, Jeremy D. Maestas, Scott L. Morford, Matthew O. Jones, David E. Naugle, Samantha M. Cady, Dillon T. Fogarty, Alexander L. Metcalf, Brian C. Chaffin, Craig Allen, Caleb Powell Roberts, Emily Rowen, Gwendwr R. Meredith, Holly K. Nesbitt, Matthew A. Williamson, Sabrina Gulab, Samantha Hamlin, Sapana Lohani, Dirac Twidwell
2025, Journal of Environmental Management (387)
Implementing strategies to navigate large-scale ecological transitions in grasslands is one of this century's greatest conservation challenges. In the US Great Plains, managing areas impacted by woody transitions have been reactive, short-lived, costly, and ineffective. Along with current technological innovation in rangeland monitoring, the promise of early warning science is to...
Linking fire radiative power to land cover, fire history, and environmental setting in Alaska, 2003–2022
Jessica J. Walker, Rachel A. Loehman, Britt Windsor Smith, Christopher E. Soulard
2025, International Journal of Wildland Fire (34)
BackgroundFire radiative power (FRP) shows promise as a diagnostic and predictive indicator of fire behavior and post-fire effects in Alaska, USA.AimsTo investigate relationships between FRP, vegetation functional groups, and environmental settings in Alaska (2003–2022) under various fire history conditions.MethodsWe tested for distinctness of MODIS...
Flood-inundation maps for 14.8 miles of Little and Big Papillion Creeks in Omaha, Nebraska, 2023
Kellan R. Strauch, Bradley R. Hoefer
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5032
Digital flood-inundation map libraries for two reaches that constitute 14.8 miles of Little and Big Papillion Creeks in Omaha, Nebraska, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resource District. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapping...
Framework for assessing intranational risk of critical mineral sectors: Case study of India
Keita Federico Decarlo
2025, Resources Policy (106)
Recent geopolitical actions regarding the supply of critical minerals have highlighted both the threats posed by countries dominating a critical mineral supply chain, and the potential mitigations served by alternative supplier countries. However, no systematic quantification exists for the intranational factors that determine such threats or mitigations. This study outlines...
Clarifying the role of the resist–accept–direct framework in supporting resource management planning processes
Gregor W. Schuurman, Wylie Carr, Cat Hawkins Hoffman, David J. Lawrence, Brian W. Miller, Erik A. Beever, Jean Brennan, Katherine R. Clifford, Scott Covington, Shelley D. Crausbay, Amanda E. Cravens, John E. Gross, Linh Hoang, Stephen Jackson, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Wendy Morrison, Elizabeth A. Nelson, Robin O'Malley, Jay O. Peterson, Mark T. Porath, Karen Prentice, Joel H. Reynolds, Suresh A. Sethi, Helen Sofaer, Jennifer L. Wilkening
2025, Conservation Biology (39)
No abstract available....
Kiloyear cycles of carbonate and Mg-silicate replacement at Von Damm hydrothermal vent field
Amy Gartman, Terrence Blackburn, Kiana Frank, Susan Q. Lang, Jeffrey S. Seewald
2025, Geology (53) 668-672
The Von Damm vent field (VDVF) on the Mid-Cayman Rise in the Caribbean Sea is unique among modern hydrothermal systems in that the chimneys and mounds are almost entirely composed of talc. We analyzed samples collected in 2020 and report that in addition to disordered talc of variable crystallinity, carbonates...
Negative growth in body mass of trout and salmon in a small stream network
Benjamin H. Letcher, Keith Nislow, Matthew O’Donnell, Michael J. Hayden, Todd Dubreuil
2025, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (82) 1-14
In species inhabiting stressful environments, some individuals experience negative growth in body mass during their lives, potentially influencing survival, reproduction, populations, and ecosystems. Using data from a long-term (1997–2015) study of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), brown trout (Salmo trutta), and juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in Massachusetts, USA, we analyzed...
Flood of July 2023 in Vermont
Travis L. Smith, Scott A. Olson, James M. LeNoir, Rena D. Kalmon, Elizabeth A. Ahearn
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5016
A major storm caused catastrophic flooding in many parts of Vermont on July 9–12, 2023, resulting in millions of dollars in damages. The high amount of rainfall caused several rivers to peak at record levels, in some cases exceeding records set during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The U.S. Geological...
Peak streamflow trends in Montana and northern Wyoming and their relation to changes in climate, water years 1921–2020
Steven K. Sando, Nancy A. Barth, Roy Sando, Katherine J. Chase
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5064-G
Frequency analysis on annual peak streamflow (hereinafter, peak flow) is essential to water-resources management applications, including critical structure design (for example, bridges and culverts) and floodplain mapping. Nonstationarity is a statistical property of a peak-flow series such that the distributional properties (the mean, variance, or skew) change either gradually (monotonic...
Exposure of infants to antibiotics via cord blood, breast milk, and formula: A review on exposure level, temporal variation, and risk assessment
Jiating Feng, Bentuo Xu, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Jiayi Wang, Yajie Gao, Wenhui Qiu, Rongrong Xuan
2025, Journal of Hazardous Materials (494)
The pervasive use of antibiotics across various sectors, including agriculture, medicine, and aquaculture, has led to a notable increase in environmental antibiotic residues. This phenomenon has raised significant public concern regarding the potential health risks antibiotics may pose, particularly to vulnerable populations such as infants. However, the conceptualization of exposure...
Effects of riparian forest thinning on resident salmonid fishes in coastal northern California catchments
David A. Roon, Jason B. Dunham, Joseph R. Benjamin, Bret C. Harvey, James R Bellmore
2025, Freshwater Biology (70)
Resource managers are interested in whether thinning second-growth forests may be a viable restoration strategy for stream and riparian habitats, but may be concerned about the potential impacts that increases in stream temperature associated with riparian thinning treatments may have on cold-water salmonid fishes.We evaluated the effects of riparian...
Cave records reveal recent origin of North America’s deepest canyon
Matthew Morriss, Nate Mitchell, Brian Yanites, Lydia M. Staisch, Oliver Korup
2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (122)
We explore how and when Hells Canyon, North America’s deepest river gorge (~2,400 m deep), formed, addressing these fundamental questions first posed by W. Lindgren [The Gold Belt of the Blue Mountains of Oregon (1901)]. Existing hypotheses about the canyon’s formation and timing of incision remain speculative due to a lack...
Diagnostic success—A quick guide to quality carcass submissions for diagnostic services
Barbara L. Bodenstein, Shelby Jo Weidenkopf
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3024
The U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center provides diagnostic services to determine causes of wildlife morbidity and mortality events to State, Federal, and Tribal partners. To accomplish this, we rely on the timely collection and evaluation of submitted carcasses and the epidemiologic information relayed from personnel in the field....
Infrasonic directivity of monopole, dipole, and bipole ground-surface reflected sources
Alexandra M. Iezzi, Robin S. Matoza, Emma V. Opper, Keehoon Kim
2025, Geophysical Journal International (242)
Infrasound (acoustic waves below 20 Hz) can be used to detect, locate and quantify activity in the atmosphere such as volcanic eruptions and anthropogenic explosions. Attempts to quantify volcanic eruption parameters such as exit velocity, plume height and mass flow rate using infrasound data depend strongly on assumptions of the acoustic...
Serological assessment of pathogen exposure among desert bighorn sheep in southwestern Arizona
Colton J. Padilla, James W. Cain III, Matthew E. Gompper, Paul R. Krausman, JIM Devos
2025, The Southwestern Naturalist (68) 294-300
Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) are influenced by infectious diseases. Although Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae has been the main focus of bighorn sheep managers since early 2010, other pathogens may also influence bighorn sheep populations. We sampled desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis mexicana) captured for a study on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in...
Cultivating reciprocity and supporting Indigenous lifeways through the cultural transformation of natural resource management in North America
Jonathan J. Fisk, Richard Eugene Waggaman Berl, Jonathan W. Long, Jacobs. Lara, Lily M. van Eeden, Melinda Adams, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Jazmin Murphy, Michael C. Gavin, Chris K Williams, Jonathan Salerno, Bas Verschuuren, Nathan Bennett, Rodrigue Idohou, Alexander Mawyer
2025, People and Nature (7) 1171-1184
Recent decades have seen increasing calls for implementing Indigenous Knowledges (IK) in natural resource management (NRM). However, efforts have been limited by the cultural incommensurabilities between (1) NRM institutions, which are rooted in worldviews that prioritize extraction for dominant cultures and assume dominance over nature and (2) Indigenous worldviews...
Are wildfire risk mitigators more prepared to evacuate? Insights from communities in the western United States
Grant Webster, Hannah Brenkert-Smith, Patricia A. Champ, James Meldrum, Kelly Wallace, Colleen Donovan, Carolyn Wagner, Christopher M. Barth, Josh Kuehn, Suzanne Wittenbrink, Christine Taniguchi
2025, Ecological Economics (236)
As the realized experiences of wildfires threatening communities increase, the importance of proactive evacuation preparation and wildfire risk mitigation on private property to reduce the loss of lives and property is shaping wildfire policy and programs. To date, research has focused on pre-wildfire evacuation preparation and risk mitigation independently. This...
