Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change
Michael Stemkovski, Joey Bernhardt, Benjamin Wong Blonder, John B. Bradford, Kyra Clark-Wolf, Laura E. Dee, Margaret Evans, Virginia Iglesias, Loretta Johnson, Abigail J. Lynch, Sparkle Malone, Brooke Osborne, Melissa Pastore, Michael Paterson, Malin Pinsky, Christine R. Rollinson, Oliver Selmoni, Jason Venkiteswarnan, Anthony P. Walker, Nicole K. Ward, John B. Williams, Claire Zarakas, Peter B. Adler
2025, Functional Ecology (39) 1923-1939
Ecological responses to climate change occur across vastly different time-scales, from minutes for physiological plasticity to decades or centuries for community turnover and evolutionary adaptation. Accurately predicting the range of ecosystem trajectories will require models that incorporate both fast processes that may keep pace with climate change and slower...
Pathology, tissue distribution, and phylogenomic characterization of largemouth bass virus isolated from a wild smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu)
Christine J.E. Haake, Thomas B. Waltzek, Chrissy D. Eckstrand, Nora Hickey, Joetta Lynn Reno, Rebecca M. Wolking, Preeyanan Sriwanayos, Jan Lovy, Elizabeth A. Renner, Kyle R. Taylor, Ryan Oliveira
2025, Viruses (17)
We performed a diagnostic disease investigation on a wild smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) with skin ulcers that was collected from Lake Oahe, South Dakota, following reports from anglers of multiple fish with similar lesions. Gross and histologic lesions of ulcerative dermatitis, myositis, and lymphocytolysis within the spleen and kidneys...
Risks and rewards of pre-emergent herbicide (indaziflam) to defend core sagebrush-steppe ecosystems under suboptimal precipitation
Brynne Lazarus, Matthew Germino
2025, Rangeland Ecology and Mangement (102) 153-159
Protection of intact habitat from the spread of invasive plants is a global priority, especially where invaders alter wildfire occurrence. Invasion of perennial sagebrush-steppe ecosystems by cheatgrass and other fire-promoting exotic annual grasses (EAGs) is one of the most notorious examples of this problem. Protection and expansion of the remaining...
Daily fluctuating flows affect riparian plant species distributions from local to regional scales
Bradley J. Butterfield, Emily C. Palmquist
2025, Applied Vegetation Science (28)
AimsThe number of hydropower dams has grown globally over recent decades, with significant impacts on downstream riparian plant communities. Many of these dams generate daily fluctuating flows known as hydropeaking to meet sub-daily variation in energy demands. Hydropeaking can significantly impact riparian plant communities, with obligate riparian species tending to...
From water to web: Trophic transfer of neonicotinoids from a wastewater effluent-dominated stream to riparian spiders
A. L. Mianecki, J. R. Behrens, Dana W. Kolpin, G. R. Hemphill, K. Kapoor, G. H. LeFevre
2025, ACS Environmental Au (5) 457-467
Municipal wastewater is a known point source of organic contaminants, including pharmaceuticals and neonicotinoid insecticides. Emergent aquatic insects can provide a direct aquatic-to-terrestrial contaminant transfer route to the food web, with implications for terrestrial food web dispersal of wastewater-derived organic contaminants. We quantified 17 target pharmaceuticals and insecticides (log Kow: −1.43...
Evaluating deterrent locations and sequence in the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway to minimize invasive carp occupancy and abundance
Michael E. Colvin, Caleb A. Aldridge, Neal Jackson, Max Post van der Burg
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1039
Invasive carps, specifically silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), bighead carp (H. nobilis), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), and black carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus), have proliferated in the Mississippi River Basin owing to escapes from aquaculture facilities and intentional releases. In the Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA) of 2020 Sec. 509, Congress directed...
Genetic structure of an expanding population of Humpback Chub in Grand Canyon
Maria C. Dzul, Robert Massatti, Charles B. Yackulic, Emily Omana-Smith, Kirk Young
2025, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (45) 929-940
ObjectiveHumpback Chub (HBC) Gila cypha in Grand Canyon declined in abundance and distribution over the latter part of the 20th century but have substantially increased in abundance and distribution over the past two decades. Although previous genetic work suggested that HBC in Grand Canyon belong to one genetic...
Inferring Brown-Capped Rosy-Finch demography and breeding distribution trends from long-term wintering data in New Mexico
Whitney A. Watson, Corrie C. Borgman, Steven Cox, Abigail Jean Lawson
2025, Report
The three North American Rosy-Finch species (Brown-capped [Leucosticte australis], Black [L. atrata], and Gray-crowned [L. tephrocotis]) are among the most climate-threatened species in the United States. New Mexico is an important location for investigating the effects of climate change because it is the southernmost location in which Brown-capped Rosy-Finches breed...
Beach nourishment response and recent morphological evolution of Minnesota Point, Lake Superior
Collin Roland, Joel T. Groten, J. William Lund, Jenny L. Hanson
2025, Journal of Great Lakes Research (51)
Beach nourishments are a popular nature-based alternative to armoring for shoreline erosion mitigation, but nourishments have been criticized due to their environmental impacts and uncertain sustainability. Monitoring is often nonexistent or insufficient to constrain nourishment longevity and inform the renourishment interval required to maintain shoreline protection. This study uses a...
Evaluating large wood additions as a scalable method of urban stream restoration
Peter Grap, Stephen F. Matter, Adam Lehmann, Dylan Ward, Michael Thomas Booth
2025, River Research and Applications (41) 2032-2051
Urbanization is associated with increased erosion and habitat homogenization in stream ecosystems. This habitat degradation often has biological consequences, such as decreased species richness. Conventional stream restoration practices are costly, and projects are limited to small areas with easy access. A scalable, low-cost method of stream restoration is needed to...
Blowing in the wind: Anemochory in blackbrush habitat of South Texas
Beth Middleton, Emily J. Lain
2025, Plant Ecology (226) 1057-1064
Wind dispersal has the potential to carry seeds long-distances and could inform the management and restoration of natural vegetation along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Plant species with the potential to disperse seeds in arid landscapes fragmented by border barrier infrastructure include foundational native, invasive, and federally endangered plant species. Wind dispersal...
Female and male grizzly bears differ in their responses to low-intensity recreation in a protected area
Elise Loggers, Andrea R. Litt, Mark Haroldson, Kerry A. Gunther, Frank T. van Manen
2025, Journal of Wildlife Management (89)
Strategies animals use to navigate human-dominated landscapes frequently mimic anti-predator responses employed by prey species. Understanding how large carnivores respond to outdoor recreation is important for conservation, particularly in protected areas with preservation mandates. Visitation to Yellowstone National Park doubled from 1980 to 2015, increasing the need to examine potential...
Ecotoxicological effects of crude oil to early life stage Danio rerio: A molecular, morphological and behavioral approach focused on swim bladder development
Célio F. Mariz, Maria Karolaine de Melo Alves, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Italo Braga de Castro, Felix Augusto Silva de Andrade, Eliete Zanardi-Lamardo, Igor Dias Medeiros, Paulo S. Carvalho
2025, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (44) 3363-3374
Proper development and inflation of the swim bladder is essential for swimming and foraging behavior in fish. To characterize the effects of the Brazilian oil spill that occurred between 2019 and 2020 to early life stage fish, the expression of genes involved in swim bladder development were targeted, with biochemical...
The effects of forest harvesting on total and methylmercury concentrations in surface waters depend on harvest practices and physical site characteristics
Karin Eklof, Heleen A. de Wit, Chris S. Eckley, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Susan L. Eggert, Robert W. Mackereth, Ulf Skyllberg, Liisa Ukonmaanaho, Matti Verta, Craig J Allan, Erik J.S. Emilson, Karen A. Kidd, Carl P.J. Mitchell, John Munthe, Tapani Sallantaus, Joel Segersten, Andrea Garcia Bravo, Randall Kolka, Colin P.R. McCarter, Petri Porvari, Eva Ring, Stephen Sebestyen, Ulf Sikstrom, Therese Zetterberg
2025, Environmental Science and Technology (59) 15944-15955
Forest harvesting can lead to mercury (Hg) mobilization from soils to aquatic habitats and promote the transformation of inorganic Hg to highly neurotoxic and bioaccumulative methyl-Hg (MeHg). Multiple past studies reveal broad variation of stream water MeHg and total Hg (THg) concentrations responses to forest harvesting, which has confounded messaging...
Factors affecting the distribution of water-bearing fractures in the bedrock aquifers of West Virginia
Mark D. Kozar, Mitchell A. McAdoo, Samuel H. Austin, Carson A. Wright
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5044
Bedrock aquifers cover 23,601 square miles within the State of West Virginia and comprise 97.4 percent of the surficial area within the State; the remaining 2.6 percent (621 square miles) consists of alluvial sand-and-gravel and glacial outwash aquifers bordering the State’s major rivers. While West Virginia’s alluvial aquifers have been...
A flexible conservation and connectivity tool to inform stream conservation prioritization
Sarah G. Winikoff, Craig Paukert, Nicholas Sievert, Jane S. Rogosch
2025, Fisheries (50) 527-537
Healthy stream networks rely on diverse fish assemblages and the mobility of fish between habitats to maintain ecosystem structure and function. Anthropogenic structures that impede fish movement (e.g., roads, dams) disrupt life cycles of migratory fishes and isolate fish populations making them more sensitive to environmental stressors. Growing interest in...
Using integrated step-selection analyses to map high-risk electrocution areas for a highly mobile species
Caroline D. Cappello, Kenneth V. Jacobson, James T. Driscoll, Kyle M. McCarty, Javan Mathias Bauder
2025, Journal of Wildlife Management (89)
Knowledge of animal-movement patterns is a crucial component in identifying areas with high potential for human–wildlife conflict and in prioritizing associated management actions. Electrical energy infrastructure is a major source of mortality for animals worldwide, with millions of birds colliding with or being electrocuted by power lines and power-pole infrastructure...
Shared leadership can promote success in collaborative research networks in ecology
Daniel C. Allen, Amy J. Burgin, Erin C. Seybold, Walter K. Dodds, Michelle H. Busch, Anna Bergstrom, Corey A. Krabbenhoft, Kate S. Boersma, James C. Stegen, Julian D. Olden, Carla L. Atkinson, C. Nathan Jones, Thibault Datry, Sarah E. Godsey, Arial J. Shogren, Annika W. Walters, Stephen Plont, Richard H. Walker, Margaret Shanafield, Meryl C. Mims, Adam N. Price, Chelsea R. Smith, Yaqi You, Michael T. Bogan, Ryan M. Burrows, Mathis L. Messager, Rachel Stubbington, Margaret A. Zimmer
2025, Functional Ecology
1. While collaborative science is becoming the norm in ecology, many ecologists participating in collaborations are less aware of the body of research that studies the processes by which collaborative teams organize and communicate.2. Here, we discuss how we successfully used a shared leadership model in the Dry Rivers Research...
Occurrence and tissue distribution of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in fishes from waterbodies with point and non-point sources in Massachusetts, USA
Heather L. Walsh, Vicki S. Blazer, Emma Lord, Stephen T. Hurley, Denis R. LeBlanc
2025, Aquatic Toxicology (287)
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent environmental contaminants with known bioaccumulative and toxic effects in aquatic ecosystems. This study assessed site-specific differences in PFAS contamination in fish from Ashumet Pond, Sudbury River, and Great Herring Pond (reference site) in Massachusetts. Fish from Ashumet Pond exhibited the highest PFAS concentrations,...
Hydrologic variability and groundwater age of springs in eastern Oregon and northern Nevada, USA
Henry M. Johnson
2025, Journal of Hydrology (662)
The ecological importance of springs in semiarid regions is far greater than their small size and sparse distribution, yet little is known about the hydrologic functioning of these systems. During 2016–22, 261 springs were visited in the volcanic terrane of eastern Oregon and northern Nevada. When conditions were suitable, measurements...
A streamflow permanence classification model for forested streams that explicitly accounts for uncertainty and extrapolation
Jonathan D. Burnett, Kristin L. Jaeger, Sherri L Johnson, Steven M. Wondzell, Jason Dunham, Matthew Irwin Barker, Emily Dawn Heaston, Nathan Chelgren, Michael G. Wing, Brian Staab, Michael E. Brown
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
Accurate mapping of headwater streams and their flow status has important implications for understanding and managing water resources and land uses. However, accurate information is rare, especially in rugged, forested terrain. We developed a streamflow permanence classification model for forested lands in western Oregon using the latest light detection and...
Hydrogeologic framework and conceptual model of the Red River alluvial aquifer east of Lake Texoma, southeastern Oklahoma, 1980–2022
Chloe Codner, Nicole C. Gammill, Isaac A. Dale, Amy S. Morris, Ethan A. Kirby, Grant M. Graves, Evin J. Fetkovich, Derrick L. Wagner, Jon E. Sanford, Colin A. Baciocco
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5054
The 1973 Oklahoma Groundwater Law (Oklahoma Statutes §82-1020.5) requires that the Oklahoma Water Resources Board conduct hydrologic investigations of the State’s groundwater basins to support a determination of the maximum annual yield for each groundwater basin. At present (2025), the Oklahoma Water Resources Board has not established a maximum annual...
Long-term dynamics of earthquake swarms in the Yellowstone caldera
Manuel Florez, Bing Q. Li, David R. Shelly, Mia Angulo, Jose Sanabria-Gomez
2025, Science Advances (11)
The factors controlling the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of earthquake swarms in volcanic systems remain unclear. We leverage leading-edge deep learning algorithms and a detailed three-dimensional velocity model to construct a 15-year high-resolution earthquake catalog of the Yellowstone caldera region. More than half of the region’s earthquakes are clustered...
Tailwater residency patterns of Silver Carp at Kentucky Lock and Dam
William R Budnick, Kyle Mosel, Joshua Tompkins, Brent Knights, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Marybeth K. Brey, Andrea K. Fritts
2025, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (45) 603-615
ObjectiveThe management of invasive Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix in the Tennessee River basin focuses on removal, and there is interest in extending removal efforts to the tailwater environments of high-head locks and dams along the Tennessee River, such as Kentucky Dam. We used acoustic telemetry data from Silver...
Perfluorodecanesulfonate (PFDS) induces innate immune toxicity through the NF-κB pathway in early life stage zebrafish
Chengwei Zhou, Wei Cheng, Rongrong Xuan, Xinyuan Kang, Jiazhen Wang, Jason Tyler Magnuson, Jialin Li, Di Fang, Wenhui Qiu
2025, Environment International (202)
Perfluorodecanesulfonate (PFDS), a long-chain polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), is widely detected in aquatic environments and increasingly recognized for its environmental persistence and bioaccumulative potential; however, its immunotoxicity remains poorly understood in aquatic biota. In this study, early life stage zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations of PFDS and...
