Integrating theory and empirical patterns: Fish body size distributions, life history traits, and environmental flows in streams
Taylor Woods, Daniel J. McGarvey, Matthew J. Cashman, Michael R. Meador, Daren M. Carlisle, Ken Eng, Darin A. Kopp, Kelly O. Maloney
2025, Science Advances (11)
Individual size distributions (ISDs) are prominent in ecological research and may support resource managers with ecosystem-scale objectives. We use a database of individual size measurements for US stream fishes to test for direct and indirect effects of traits, flow regimes, and land use on the interspecific ISD exponent. Path analysis...
Landscape associations and population genetics of a generalist carnivore at a range limit
Bailey A. Kleeberg, Robert Charles Lonsinger, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, W. Sue Fairbanks
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
American black bear (Ursus americanus) sightings have increased in the Oklahoma Panhandle, an area outside of the species’ historical range, prompting an assessment of bears in the region. We used camera traps and an occupancy modeling framework to identify factors influencing bear detection and space-use patterns. We used noninvasive genetic...
USGS Flow Photo Explorer is still going and growing!
Jennifer H. Fair
2025, Newsletter
The Flow Photo Explorer (FPE) platform continues to grow rapidly as a national resource for using imagery to monitor environmental conditions. As of early December 2025, FPE now supports more than 350 users, operating across more than 600 monitoring sites. The database has expanded to over 12 million images, 800,000 annotations, and approximately 160 trained models, reflecting...
Shallow geologic framework of the Mississippi Sound and the potential for sediment resources
James Flocks, Arnell Forde
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5100
The Mississippi Sound, an estuarine environment located between the mainland and barrier islands bordering the northern Gulf of America (formerly the Gulf of Mexico), serves as a vital ecosystem for the States of Mississippi and Alabama. Spanning approximately 100 kilometers from east to west and covering 1,400 square kilometers, the...
Environmental characterization of Blue Mesa Reservoir and potential causes of and management strategies for harmful algal blooms, 1970 through 2023, Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado
Katherine Walton-Day, Natalie K. Day, M. Alisa Mast, Rachel G. Gidley, Evan J. Gohring, Tyler V. King, Warren C. Day, Nicole D. Gibney, Nancy J. Bauch
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5109
Blue Mesa Reservoir, in the Curecanti National Recreation Area, is the largest storage reservoir in Colorado and consists of three distinct basins: Iola (the shallowest), Cebolla, and Sapinero. After algal toxins were first documented in Iola basin in 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey began a study in cooperation with the...
Virulence evolution of a salmonid virus following a host jump
Malina Mariko Loeher, Gael Kurath, David A. Kennedy, Joanne E. Salzer, William N. Batts, Rachel B. Breyta, Andrew R. Wargo
2025, PLoS Pathogens (21)
Emergent viral diseases remain a critical obstacle to welfare across landscapes and species, encompassing humans, wildlife, and agriculture. Following a jump to a novel host, the severity of disease resulting from infection is a critical determinant of the overall emergent pathogen threat. Conventional wisdom posits that virulence, defined here as...
Assessing streams in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed to guide conservation and restoration activities
Kelly O. Maloney, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Matthew J. Cashman, Lindsey J. Boyle, Stephanie E. Gordon, Benjamin P. Gressler, Michelle P. Katoski, Alexander H. Kiser, Marina J. Metes, Gregory E. Noe, Andrew J. Sekellick, Allison Sussman, John A. Young
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3056
Freshwater streams in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are home to numerous aquatic organisms (like fish, amphibians, mussels, and insects) and provide drinking water and recreational opportunities to people living in or visiting the watershed. Land-use changes, such as urban development and increased activities in certain agricultural sectors, have degraded water...
Sediment accumulation rates and volume in Pahranagat Wash above Arrow Canyon Dam in northern Moapa Valley, Nevada
Jon W. Wilson, Boris Poff, Christopher C. Fuller
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5106
An evaluation of sediment deposition rates and volume of impounded sediments in Pahranagat Wash behind Arrow Canyon dam in southeastern Nevada was done between 2016 and 2022. Data were collected and interpreted to address concerns by the Moapa Band of Paiutes and local historical preservation groups regarding the burial of...
Responding to ecological transformation in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah—Employee perspectives from pilot interviews from the Cross-Park Resist-Assist-Direct Project
Amanda E. Cravens, Zachary B. Hough Solomon, Julia B. Goolsby, Heather M. Yocum, Stefan Tangen, Wylie Carr
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5103
Executive SummaryClimate change is causing a range of changes that can affect the natural, cultural, and built resources of the Nation’s protected areas and affect opportunities to visit and recreate in these spaces. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns also affect species and habitats, leading to ecological transformation. This report...
Mitigation of human cognitive bias in volcanic eruption forecasting
Heather M. Wright, J. D. Pesicek, Stephen A. Spiller
2025, Journal of Applied Volcanology (14)
Modern operational eruption forecasting methods rely heavily on human judgment in the face of uncertainty and are thus susceptible to myriad cognitive biases and errors by the scientist-forecasters. Recent developments in the behavioral sciences have elucidated cognitive biases across a wide spectrum of human behaviors and found ways to mitigate...
Efficacy of oblique bubble screen deterrents on redirecting live eggs and larvae of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) at different developmental stages
Vindhyawasini Prasad, Juan Martin Andrade Ramos, Cory Suski, P. Ryan Jackson, Amy E. George, Duane C. Chapman, Jesse Robert Fischer, Benjamin H. Stahlschmidt, Rafael O. Tinoco
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
Invasive carp have severely damaged aquatic ecosystems in the USA, particularly in the Mississippi River Basin. Behavioral deterrents have been developed in the last few decades to control population expansion into new ecosystems. However, none of these deterrents are capable of controlling early-life stage carp, which have limited or no...
Post-wildfire sediment fluxes and turbidity plumes in a coastal-draining watershed
Amanda M. Lopez, Tesfa W. Meshesha, Christine M. Lee, Ibrahim N. Mohammed, Erin L. Hestir, Thomas C. Harmon, Dulcinea Marie Avouris
2025, Earth and Space Science (12)
Coastal watersheds impacted by wildfires experience higher erosion resulting in increased sediment delivery to the ocean that alters limiting factors (i.e., light) for marine organisms. With increasing wildfire magnitude and severity, it is critical to explore changes in riverine discharges to the ocean to assess cascading hazards associated with wildfires....
Assessment of dragonfly and damselfly (Odonata) occupancy and habitat suitability at −12 Mile Slough, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona
Anya Metcalfe, Morgan Ford, Lawrence E. Stevens, Theodore Kennedy
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1042
Management practices that enhance habitat complexity in dam tailwaters often aim to increase biodiversity and improve ecosystem health. However, in other instances, management practices may simplify habitat features to help minimize the establishment of invasive species. These tradeoffs are complex, particularly in the face of drought and warming water temperatures....
Using gridded seismicity to forecast the long-term spatial distribution of earthquakes for the 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands National Seismic Hazard Model
Andrea L. Llenos, Andrew J. Michael, Kirstie Lafon Haynie, Allison Shumway, Julie A. Herrick
2025, Seismological Research Letters
Gridded (or background) seismicity models are a critical component of probabilistic seismic hazard assessments, accounting for off‐fault and smaller‐magnitude earthquakes. They are typically developed by declustering and spatially smoothing an earthquake catalog to estimate a long‐term seismicity rate that can be used to forecast future earthquakes. Here, we present new...
Advancements in satellite observations of inland and coastal waters: Building towards a global validation network
Dulcinea Marie Avouris, Fernanda Maciel, Samantha L. Sharp, Susanne E. Craig, Arnold G. Dekker, Courtney A. Di Vittorio, John R. Gardner, Emma C. Goldsmith, Juan I. Gossn, Steven R. Greb, Brice K. Grunert, Daniela Gurlin, Mahesh Jampani, Rabia M. Khan, Ben Lowin, Lachlan McKinna, Colleen B. Mouw, Igor Ogashawara, Sara Rivero Calle, Wilson B. Salls, Joan-Albert Sanchez-Cabeza, Blake Schaeffer, Bridget N. Seegers, Jari Silander, Emily A. Smail, Menghua Wang, P. Jeremy Werdell
2025, Remote Sensing (17)
The use of satellite-based remote sensing imagery for water quality monitoring of inland and coastal waters has become widespread over the last few decades, with the expansion of, and investment in, operational Earth-observing missions. Satellite-based sensors are uniquely suited to provide synoptic, system-wide water quality parameter estimates that supplement traditional...
Streamflow as a stressor: Disentangling hydrology and water quality impacts to characterize flow-ecology relationships for two stream assemblages across two southeastern landscapes
Joshua Paul Hubbell
2025, Ecohydrology (18)
Disassociating the independent effects of flow and water quality on the ecology of flowing waters is an overarching goal in water resource science needed to improve the efficacy of watershed management. However, the interrelatedness of these gradients and their subsequent alteration due to land use change has constrained progress made...
Offsetting the noise: A framework for applying phenological offset corrections in remotely sensed burn severity assessments
Casey Elizabeth Menick, Melanie K. Vanderhoof, Joshua J. Picotte, Alicia L. Reiner, Robert A. Chastain
2025, International Journal of Wildland Fire (34)
BackgroundPhenological correction of pre- and post-fire imagery is used to improve remotely sensed burn severity evaluations. Unburned offset values standardize greenness between image pairs; however, efficacy across diverse scenarios remains underexplored.AimsWe evaluated the impact of phenological offset correction methods to support analyst decision-making across fire-prone environments.MethodsWe generated...
Similar population dynamics before and after a chytridiomycosis outbreak in a tropical riparian amphibian species
Graziella Vittoria DiRenzo, Rebecca M. McCaffery, Ana V. Longo, Kelly R. Zamudio, Karen R. Lips
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Emerging infectious diseases can cause rapid, widespread host mortality, and the lack of demographic data before and after pathogen emergence complicates understanding mechanisms of host persistence. This challenge is further compounded by environmental conditions that influence host behavior, while driving pathogen growth and virulence. These interactions create complex disease outcomes...
Invasive wild pig movement and space use in a mixed-use forest landscape, South Carolina
Erin K. Buchholtz, Andrew Jamison, Greg Yarrow
2025, Stacks Journal (2025)
Invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) pose considerable ecological and economic challenges across their introduced range, and understanding their spatial ecology is critical for management. This research and accompanying dataset represents adult wild pig movement in South Carolina, United States based on 16 individuals collared in 2023-2024. Using hourly GPS collar...
Gas chemistry and isotope data for volcano monitoring at the Lassen Volcanic Center, Lassen Volcanic National Park
Deborah Bergfeld, Jennifer L. Lewicki, Sara Peek, Andrew G. Hunt
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1056
This report presents chemical and isotopic compositions of volcanic gases collected from thermal areas within Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California from 1974 through 2019. As the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and designated a very-high-threat volcano by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Lassen Volcanic Center (LVC) requires...
Aggregating three sources of long-term trends of swallows and martins to identify priority conservation areas in the Great Lakes region
Maria C.T.D. Belotti, Brian Daniel Gerber, Wenlong Zhao, Yuting Deng, Victoria F. Simons, Gustavo Perez, Jeffrey F. Kelly, Subhransu Maji, Daniel Sheldon, Kyle G. Horton
2025, Journal of Applied Ecology (63)
1. Long-term monitoring of bird populations across scales is important in evaluating conservation targets and creating effective conservation strategies. For nearly six decades, the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) has served as the primary broad-scaled source of relative abundance trends of swallows and martins in North America. Recently, however, it has...
Viral outbreak dynamics and evolution in wildlife at the interface with humans
Rachael Marie Giglio, Aaron Westmoreland, Mark Q. Wilber, Grete WIlson-Henjum, Aung Nyein Chan, Billy Gardner, Wantida Horpiencharoen, Roderick B. Gagne, Avery M. Corondi, Alec Baker, Matthew A. Combs, Jefferey Chandler, Kezia R. Manlove, Kim M. Pepin, W. David Walter
2025, Biology Letters (21)
In this study, we used a multi-faceted approach to understand patterns of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission and persistence in a wild white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) population. Serology data indicated transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and persistence during the seven-month sampling period. Traditional disease modelling based...
USGS—An Unparalleled Scientific Asset
Shonte Jenkins, Emily Pindilli, David Applegate, Rachel E. Reagan
2025, General Information Product 263
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) delivers information critical to powering our economy, managing our natural resources, and keeping Americans safe and healthy.1Mapping the Nation$21B Geologic maps save users an estimated 15% in annual costs: a value of between $14B and $21B.$25.6B in annual value to users of imagery from Landsat...
Harmonization of a water withdrawal dataset for the conterminous United States
Carol L. Luukkonen, Ayman H. Alzraiee, Deidre M. Herbert, Richard G. Niswonger, Joshua Larsen, Cheryl A. Buchwald, Natalie Houston, Cheryl A. Dieter, Lisa D. Miller, Jana S. Stewart
2025, JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association (61)
The U.S. Geological Survey is developing nationally consistent water-use modeling approaches to replace previous methods relying on locally specific reported and estimated data. These national assessments require datasets that incorporate water withdrawal variability across the United States and over long periods. However, source data often have unclear definitions, missing or...
Rice cultivation supports growth and survival of a threatened semi-aquatic reptile
Jonathan P. Rose, Allison M. Nguyen, Anna Jordan, Daniel Antonio Macias, Elliot James Schoenig, Giancarlo Ray Napolitano, Richard Kim, Julia S.M. Ersan, Alexandria M. Fulton, Brian J. Halstead
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Integration of agroecosystems and other working landscapes with protected lands and waters is critical to the conservation of Earth's biodiversity. Rice agroecosystems support many species by providing aquatic habitat where natural wetlands have been altered or drained. In regions with long dry seasons, rice fields and associated irrigation canals provide...
