An accuracy assessment of satellite-derived rangeland fractional cover
Georgia Harrison, Matthew B. Rigge, Timothy J. Assal, Cara Applestein, Darren K. James, Sarah E. McCord
2025, Ecological Indicators (172)
Satellite-derived maps of vegetation cover provide detailed information about vegetation spatiotemporal patterns and are increasingly used to better understand and manage rangelands. Despite their utility, questions remain regarding the regional and site level accuracy for these maps, especially compared to field-collected data. We conducted an accuracy assessment of the Rangeland...
Distribution and disturbances of ditches across salt marshes of the Northeast U.S. with implications for management and restoration
Erin K. Peck, Julie E. Walker, Kate Ackerman, Joel A. Carr, Maureen D. Correll, Zafer Defne, Linda A. Deegan, Mitchell Eaton, Neil K. Ganju, Mitch Hartley, Catherine Johnson, Jason J Mercer, Katharine J. Ruskin, Jonathan D. Woodruff, Brian Yellen
2025, Journal of Environmental Management (376)
Effective management of valuable coastal systems, such as salt marshes requires an understanding of the complex stressors influencing their continued threat of drowning. However, efforts to determine the effects of one potential stressor, ditches, have produced diverging results complicating management efforts. Ditches (linear trenches dug to drain salt marshes for...
Population vulnerability of residents, employees, and cruise-ship passengers to tsunami hazards of islands in complex seismic regions: A case study of the U.S. Virgin Islands
Nathan J. Wood, Jeff Peters, Christopher Moore
2025, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (119)
Reducing the potential for loss of life from tsunamis is challenging on islands located in complex seismic regions given the multiple sources that surround islands, differences among islands in the amount of time needed to evacuate before wave arrival, and the high number of residents, employees, and tourists in tsunami-hazard...
Lunar grid systems, coordinate systems, and map projections for the Artemis missions and lunar surface navigation
Mark T McClernan, Michael L. Dennis, Ike H. Theriot, Trent M. Hare, Brent A. Archinal, Lillian R. Ostrach, Marc A. Hunter, Matthew J. Miller, Ross A. Beyer, Andrew M. Annex, Samuel J. Lawrence
2025, Techniques and Methods 11-E1
ForewardThis document contains design specifications of a navigational standard for the Moon, including a Lunar Transverse Mercator system, a Lunar Polar Stereographic system, a Lunar Grid Reference System, and a unique coordinate structure, Artemis Condensed Coordinates, for Artemis mission navigation and lunar surface science.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)...
Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century
Collin B. Edwards, Elise F. Zipkin, Erica H. Henry, Nick M. Haddad, Matthew L. Forister, Kevin J. Burls, Steven P. Campbell, Elizabeth E. Crone, Jay Diffendorfer, Margaret R. Douglas, Ryan G. Drum, Candace E. Fallon, Jeffrey Glassberg, Eliza M. Grames, Richard G. Hatfield, Shiran Hershcovich, Scott Hoffman-Black, Elise A. Larsen, Wendy Leuenberger, Mary J. Linders, Travis Longcore, Daniel A. Marschalek, James Michielini, Naresh Neupane, Leslie Ries, Arthur M. Shapiro, Ann B. Swengel, Scott R. Swengel, Douglas J. Taron, Braeden Van Deynze, Jerome Wiedmann, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Cheryl B. Schultz
2025, Science (387) 1090-1094
Reports of declining insect populations have received widespread media attention, but evidence for declines has been variable across regions and taxonomic groups. Edwards et al. examined trends in the most surveyed taxon: butterflies (see the Perspective by Inouye). Combining data from 35 citizen science programs across the continental US, the authors...
U.S. Geological Survey Cooperative Research Units Program—A hawk’s view of 2024
Elise R. Irwin, Tess M. McConnell, Donald E. Dennerline, Kevin L. Pope, Jonathan R. Mawdsley
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3009
Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units (USGS CRU) program was established in 1935 and codified by Congress in 1960 to enhance graduate education in wildlife and fisheries sciences and to facilitate research and technical assistance among natural resource agencies and universities on fisheries and wildlife management...
Letter to Editor regarding “Potential impact of the 2023 Lahaina wildfire on the marine environment: Modeling the transport of ash-laden benzo[a]pyrene and pentachlorophenol” by Downs et al. (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176346
Curt Storlazzi, Renee K. Takesue, Alicia Hendrix
2025, Science of the Total Environment (970)
No abstract available....
Measuring polar bear health using allostatic load
Sarah Teman, Todd C. Atwood, Sarah J. Converse, Tricia Fry, Kristin L. Laidre
2025, Conservation Physiology (13)
The southern Beaufort Sea polar bear sub-population (Ursus maritimus) has been adversely affected by climate change and loss of sea ice habitat. Even though the sub-population is likely decreasing, it remains difficult to link individual polar bear health and physiological change to sub-population effects. We developed an index of allostatic...
Peak streamflow trends in Minnesota and their relation to changes in climate, water years 1921–2020
Tara Williams-Sether, Chris Sanocki
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5064-E
This report chapter summarizes the effect of hydroclimatic variability of annual peak streamflow in Minnesota and is part of a larger U.S. Geological Survey multistate study to assess potential nonstationarity in annual peak streamflows across the Midwest. Spatial and temporal patterns were examined for nonstationarity in annual peak streamflow, daily...
Peak streamflow trends in North Dakota and their relation to changes in climate, water years 1921–2020
Karen R. Ryberg, Tara Williams-Sether
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5064-H
Standardized guidelines for completing flood-flow frequency analyses are presented in a U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods report known as Bulletin 17C, https://doi.org/10.3133/tm4B5. In recent decades (since about 2000), a better understanding of long-term climatic persistence (periods of clustered floods or droughts, or wet or dry periods) and...
Preferential groundwater discharges along stream corridors are disregarded sources of greenhouse gases
A.M. Bisson, F. Liu, Eric M. Moore, Martin A. Briggs, A.M. Helton
2025, JGR Biogeosciences (130)
Groundwater delivery of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to stream banks and riparian areas, before mixing with surface waters, has not been well quantified. We measured preferential groundwater delivery of GHGs to stream banks within three stream reaches, and found that stream banks with discharging groundwater emitted more CO2 and were sources of...
Overview of North American isolates of chronic wasting disease used for strain research
W. David Walter, Allen Jeffrey Herbst, Chia-Hua Lue, Jason C. Bartz, M. Camille Hopkins
2025, Pathogens (14)
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a prion disease that affects Cervidae species, and is the only known prion disease transmitted among wildlife species. The key pathological feature is the conversion of the normal prion protein (PrPC) misfolding into abnormal forms (PrPSc), triggering the onset of CWD infections. The misfolding can generate...
Interoperability for ecosystem service assessments: Why, how, who, and for whom?
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Stefano Balbi, Greta Adamo, Ioannis Athanasiadis, Flavio Affinito, Simon Willcock, Ainhoa Magrach, Kiichiro Hayashi, Zuzana Harmackova, Aidin Niamir, Bruno Smets, Marcel Buchhorn, Evangelia Drakou, Alessandra Alfieri, Bram Edens, Luis Gonzalez Morales, Agnes Vari, Maria-Jose Sanz, Ferdinando Villa
2025, Ecosystem Services (72)
Despite continued, rapid growth in the literature, the fragmentation of information is a major barrier to more timely and credible ecosystem services (ES) assessments. A major reason for this fragmentation is the currently limited state of interoperability of ES data, models, and software. The FAIR Principles, a recent reformulation of...
Partial diel vertical migration and niche partitioning in Mysis revealed by stable isotopes
Bianca Possamai, Rosaura J. Chapina, Daniel Yule, Jason D. Stockwell
2025, Journal of Great Lakes Research
Diel vertical migration (DVM) is critical for moving energy and nutrients between surface and deep waters. Mysis sp. (Crustacea: Mysidae) facilitates this process by serving as predator and prey in both benthic and pelagic habitats. Mysis can also exhibit partial DVM (pDVM), where some individuals do not migrate into the pelagia at night or...
How to model a new invader? US-invaded range models outperform global or combined range models after 100 occurrences
Nicholas E. Young, Demetra A. Williams, Keana S. Shadwell, Ian Pearse, Catherine S. Jarnevich
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Invasive species are an economic and ecological burden, and efforts to limit their impact are greatly improved with reliable maps based on species distribution models (SDMs). However, the potential distribution of new invaders is difficult to anticipate because they are still spreading with few observations in their invaded habitat. Therefore,...
North American Waterfowl Management Plan survey regional profile—Southeast region
Nicholas Cole, David Fulton
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5102
Executive SummaryGaining a better understanding of the human dimensions of waterfowl management to inform the North American Waterfowl Management Plan is a valuable but challenging goal for the future success of waterfowl management. Increasing engagement with key stakeholder groups will lead to more support and effective waterfowl management. Social systems...
Invasion of perennial sagebrush steppe by shallow-rooted exotic cheatgrass reduces stable forms of soil carbon in a warmer but not cooler ecoregion
Sydney Maya Katz, Toby Matthew Maxwell, Marie-Anne de Graaff, Matthew Germino
2025, Environmental Research Communications (7)
Soil organic carbon ('SOC') in drylands comprises nearly a third of the global SOC pool and has relatively rapid turnover and thus is a key driver of variability in the global carbon cycle. SOC is also a sensitive indicator of longer-term directional change and disturbance-responses of ecosystem C storage. Biome-scale...
Estimating spatially explicit survival and mortality risk from telemetry data with thinned point process models
Joseph Michael Eisaguirre, Medeleine G. Lohman, Graham G. Frye, Heather E. Johnson, Thomas V. Riecke, Perry J. Williams
2025, Ecology Letters (28)
Mortality risk for animals often varies spatially and can be linked to how animals use landscapes. While numerous studies collect telemetry data on animals, the focus is typically on the period when animals are alive, even though there is important information that could be gleaned about mortality risk. We introduce...
Under the Ice: Lake Whitefish and winter conditions in a Great Lake
Jessica Del Fiacco, Corbin David Hilling
2025, Newsletter
No abstract available....
Bedrock fracture characterization of the New Hampshire State Route 111 bypass, Windham, New Hampshire
Gregory J. Walsh, Nicholas E. Powell
2025, Data Report 1208
Bedrock roadcuts developed with blasting along the New Hampshire State Route 111 bypass in Windham expose the metasedimentary Silurian Berwick Formation and intrusions of multiple phases of foliated to nonfoliated granite to granitic pegmatite of the Devonian New Hampshire Plutonic Suite. Fracture characterization at two roadway rock cuts (roadcuts) included...
What are the impacts of fracking operations on local water quality?
Jennifer S. Harkness
2025, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (6) 160
No abstract available....
Dynamic and context-dependent keystone species effects in kelp forests
Ryan E. Langendorf, James A. Estes, Jane C. Watson, Michael C. Kenner, Brian B. Hatfield, M.T. Tinker, Ellen Waddle, Megan L. DeMarche, Daniel F. Doak
2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (122)
Sea otters are an iconic keystone predator that can maintain kelp forests by preying on grazing invertebrates such as sea urchins. However, the effects of sea otters on kelp forests vary over their geographic range. Here, we analyze two 30-y datasets on kelp forest communities during the reintroduction of sea...
METRIC: An interactive framework for integrated visualization and analysis of monitored and expected load reductions for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Qian Zhang, Gary W. Shenk, Gopal Bhatt, Isabella Bertani
2025, Environmental Modelling & Software (188)
Reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads have been the focus of watershed restoration in many regions for improving water quality, including the Chesapeake Bay. Watershed models and riverine monitoring data can provide important information on the progress of load reductions but do not always generate consistent interpretations. A new...
Piping Plover home ranges do not appear to be impacted by restoration of barrier islands and headlands
Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Amanda Nicole Anderson, Delaina LeBlanc, Robert C. Dobbs, Brock Geary, Hardin Waddle
2025, Preprint
Restoration of barrier island and headland habitats can alter existing and create new habitats, which may impact wildlife occupying these areas such as the threatened Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus). We used resight data from banded birds to develop minimum convex polygon (MCP) and kernel density estimates (KDE) of individual Piping...
Documenting, quantifying, and modeling a large glide avalanche in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
James W. Dillon, Erich Peitzsch, Zachary Miller, Perry Bartelt, Kevin D. Hammonds
2025, Cold Regions Science and Technology (231)
Glide avalanches present a significant and repetitive challenge to many operational forecasting programs, and they are likely to become more frequent. While the spatial location of glide release areas is extremely consistent, the onset of glide avalanche release is notoriously difficult to forecast, and their destructive potential can be immense....
