MTAB 113, December 2025
Kyra Harvey, Jennifer L. McKay
2025, Newsletter
This Memo to All Banders (MTAB 113) was released in December 2025. Subjects in this this memo are 1. The Chief’s Chirp – End-of-Year Message and BBL’s Year in Numbers; 2. Alerts –Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Screw-worms; 3. News – GameBirds Data Release and Banders Without Borders Updates;...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Haynesville Formation within the onshore United States and State waters of the Gulf Coast Basin, 2024
Rand Gardner, Jason A. Flaum, Justin E. Birdwell, Scott A. Kinney, Janet K. Pitman, Stanley T. Paxton, Katherine L. French, Tracey J. Mercier, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Christopher J. Schenk
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3054
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 152 million barrels of oil and 47.9 trillion cubic feet of gas in reservoirs of the Haynesville Formation within the onshore United States and State waters of the Gulf Coast Basin....
A U.S. scientific community vision for sustained earth observations of greenhouse gases to support local to global action
N. Parazoo, D. Carroll, J. B. Abshire, Y. M Bar-On, R. A. Birdsey, A. A. Bloom, K. W. Bowman, R. K. Braghiere, L.M. Bruhwiler, B. Byrne, A. Chatterjee, D. Crisp, L. Duncanson, A. F. Feldman, A. M. Fox, C. Frankenberg, B. A. Gay, F. Hopkins, F. M. Hoffman, J. R. Holmquist, L. R. Hutyra, M. Keller, C. D. Koven, Laughner J. L., J. Liu, N. S. Lovenduski, N. Macbean, G. A. McKinley, G. McNicol, D. Menemenlis, A. M. Michalak, C. E. Miller, H. Nesser, T. Oda, E. M. Ordway, L. E. Ott, K. Paustian, Z. A. Pierrat, B. Poulter, Sasha C. Reed, D. S. Schimel, S. P. Serbin, S.S. Saatchi, H. Suto, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, D. Wunch
2025, AGU Advances (6)
Managing carbon stocks in the land, ocean, and atmosphere under changing climate requires a globally-integrated view of carbon cycle processes at local and regional scales. The growing Earth Observation (EO) record is the backbone of this multi-scale system, providing local information with discrete coverage from surface measurements and regional information at global scale from...
Wetland hydrologic dynamics and duck productivity are declining in the Prairie Pothole Region, and they are linked
Michael J. Anteau, Michael L Szymanski, Aaron T. Pearse
2025, Environmental and Sustainability Indicators (29)
The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America is a globally important area hosting >50 % of North America’s breeding ducks. Ducks in the PPR depend on wetlands and grasslands which have experienced accelerated losses in extent and quality due to agriculture. While other bird populations have declined,...
Early season tropical cyclones affect birds breeding on a barrier island
Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Amanda Nicole Anderson, Brock Geary, Jessica Schulz, Robert C. Dobbs, Wylie C. Barrow, Hardin Waddle
2025, Gulf and Caribbean Research (36) 38-48
Animal populations often experience acute natural disturbances, most of which are connected to short—term weather events. Occurrences of early—season tropical cyclones during the peak of the avian breeding season are likely to increase with climate change, which can substantially impact populations of coastal breeding birds at multiple scales. To understand...
Power source, data retrieval method, and attachment type affect success of dorsally mounted tracking tag deployments in 37 species of shorebirds
Emily L. Weiser, Richard Lanctot, Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Lee Tibbitts, José Abad-Gómez, Joaquin Aldabe, Juliana Bose de Almeida, José A. Alves, Guy Anderson, Phil F. Battley, Heinrich Belting, Joël Bêty, Kristin Bianchini, Mary Anne Bishop, Roeland A. Bom, Katharine Bowgen, Glen S. Brown, Stephen C. Brown, Leandro Bugoni, Niall Burton, David R. Bybee, Camilo Carneiro, Gabriel Castresana, Ying-Chi Chan, Chi-Yeung Choi, Katherine Christie, Nigel A. Clark, Jesse R. Conklin, Medardo Cruz-López, Stephen J. Dinsmore, Steve Dodd, David C. Douglas, Luke Eberhart-Hertel, Willow B. English, Harry Ewing, Fernando A. Faria, Samantha E. Franks, Richard A. Fuller, Robert E. Gill Jr., Marie-Andrée Giroux, Cheri L Gratto-Trevor, David Green, Rhys E. Green, Ros Green, Tómas Gunnarsson, Jorge S. Gutiérrez, Autumn-Lynn Harrison, C. Alex Hartman, Chris J. Hassell, Sarah Hoepfner, Jos C. E. W. Hooijmeijer, James Johnson, Oscar W. Johnson, Bart Kempenaers, Marcel Klaassen, Eva Kok, Johannes Krietsch, Clemens Küpper, Andy Kwarteng, Eunbi Kwon, Jean-Francois Lamarre, Christopher Latty, Nicolas Lecomte, A.H. Loonstra, Zhijun Ma, Lucas Mander, Christopher Marlow, Peter P. Marra, Jose A. Masero, Laura Anne McDuffie, Rebecca L McGuire, Johannes Melter, David S. Melville, Verónica Méndez, Tyler Michels, Christy Morrissey, Tong Mu, David Newstead, Gary W. Page, Allison K. Pierce, Theunis Piersma, Márcio Repenning, Brian H. Robinson, Afonso Rocha, Danny I. Rogers, Amy L. Scarpignato, Shiloh Schulte, Emily Scragg, Nathan R. Senner, Paul Smith, Audrey R. Taylor, Rachel C. Taylor, Böðvar Þórisson, Mihai Valcu, Mo A. Verhoeven, Lena Ware, Nils Warnock, Michael Weber, Lucy J. Wright, Michael B. Wunder
2025, Journal of Avian Biology (2025)
Animal-borne trackers are commonly used to study bird movements, including in long-distance migrants such as shorebirds. Selecting a tracker and attachment method can be daunting, and methodological advancements often have been made by trial and error and conveyed by word of mouth. We synthesized tracking outcomes across...
Detecting hidden sedimentary geothermal systems in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Rand Gardner, Justin E. Birdwell, Donald S. Sweetkind, Patrick Sullivan, Melia Eaton, Holger Petermann, Annaka Clement, James Hagadorn, Joshua Woda
2025, Conference Paper, Using the Earth to save the Earth
Geothermal resources exist in sedimentary rock where circulation of water for efficient extraction or storage of heat is possible. Except in rare instances where hot water is expressed at the land surface, sedimentary geothermal resources are hidden, so the identification of these systems is optimally accomplished using predictive subsurface modeling....
The continued decline of the Palila (Loxioides bailleui) on Mauna Kea, Island of Hawaiʻi
Noah Hunt, Chauncey K. Asing, Lindsey Nietmann, Paul C. Banko, Richard J. Camp
2025, Avian Conservation and Ecology (20)
Palila (Loxioides bailleui) are critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreepers specializing on māmane (Sophora chrysophylla) seeds and restricted to Mauna Kea volcano on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Recently, the population was estimated to decline by 89% between 1998 and 2021, despite decades of ungulate removal, fence construction, māmane regeneration, fire suppression, and...
Geothermal potential of orphan oil and gas wells
Rand Gardner, Justin E. Birdwell, Matthew D. Merrill, Ashton M. Wiens, Karl Haase, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Uei I. Lei, Patrick Sullivan
2025, Conference Paper, Using the Earth to save the Earth
The United States is estimated to have hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells. Orphan wells are abandoned wells that are both unremediated and have no responsible operator. While traditionally considered environmental and economic liabilities, orphan oil and gas wells may offer new opportunities in sustainable geothermal energy...
Exploring Martian geothermal and liquid water potential with basin modeling
Rand Gardner, Justin E. Birdwell, Katherine L. French, Chris Okubo, Janet K. Pitman, Stanley T. Paxton, Jason A. Flaum
2025, Conference Paper, Using the Earth to save the Earth
Assessing the potential for geothermal energy and liquid water presence in the Martian subsurface is crucial for future exploration and habitability studies. In this work, we employed comprehensive finite element model simulations adapted specifically for Martian conditions to estimate subsurface temperatures and the potential for liquid water at depth within Martian...
Potential for co-production of lithium and geothermal resources in the Gulf Coast
Rand Gardner, Justin E. Birdwell
2025, Conference Paper, Using the Earth to save the Earth
Lithium brine extractions and geothermal resource developments often are not economically viable as standalone projects, but they May become cost effective when the potential for both resources exist within the same reservoir. Subsurface datasets were analyzed to identify areas in the U.S. Gulf Coast region with potential for lithium brine...
A monitoring framework to assess forest bird population response to landscape scale mosquito suppression using the Incompatible Insect Technique
Seth Judge, Christopher C Warren, Amanda K Navine, Richard J. Camp, Lisa H. Crampton, Hanna L Mounce, John Vetter, Lauren K. Smith, Patrick J. Hart, Mona Renee Bellinger, Katherine Maria McClure
2025, Hawaii Cooperative Studies Unit Technical Report HCSU-119
The Birds, Not Mosquitoes Monitoring and Support Science Working Group detailed methods for monitoring the population response of Hawaiian forest birds during implementation of the Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) on the islands of Maui and Kauaʻi. The group prioritized methods for measuring the influence of mosquito suppression on populations within...
Observational, virological, and serological data provide insights into an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza among wild birds on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska in 2022
Bryan Daniels, Erik E. Osnas, Megan Boldenow, Robert Gerlach, Christina Ahlstrom, Sarah Coburn, Michael J. Brook, Michael Brubaker, Julian Fischer, David N. Koons, Angela Matz, Marin Murphy, Daniel Rizzolo, Laura Celeste Scott, David R. Sinnett, Jordan M. Thompson, Juliana Lenoch, Mia Kim Torchetti, David E. Stallknecht, Rebecca L. Poulson, Andrew M. Ramey
2025, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (61) 1010-1027
In 2021–22, clade 2.3.4.4b highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses were introduced by wild birds into North America, leading to geographically widespread disease. In response to HPAI outbreaks throughout late 2021 and early 2022, we recorded observations of sick and dead birds, estimated abundance of carcasses, collected swab and sera...
The Bird Banding Lab Is back online. Thank you for your patience
Antonio Celis-Murillo
2025, Newsletter
Note to All Banders was a special extra communication with more urgent information relevant to banders. This Note to All Banders was sent to U. S. bird banders on November 14, 2025, following the return of Bird Banding Lab staff after the 43-day furlough. This note includes information regarding staff...
Understanding abundances and behaviors of shorebirds in coastal Louisiana
Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Amanda Nicole Anderson, Nicholas Enwright, Hana R. Thurman, Wyatt C. Cheney, Delaina LeBlanc, Robert C. Dobbs, Brock Geary, Hardin Waddle
2025, Preprint
Barrier islands provide resources and ecological services that are integral to economic and environmental interests, such as protection of coastal infrastructure and provision of wildlife habitat. Over time, barrier islands may become eroded and experience land loss, which can require management actions to restore island integrity. Barrier island restoration can...
Same view through a different lens: Comparing population trends for North American birds using eBird and the Breeding Bird Survey
Orin J. Robinson, Alison J. Johnston, Wesley M. Hochachka, J. A. Hostetler, John R. Sauer, Tom Auer, Matthew E. Strimas-Mackey, Shawn Ligocki, Nicholas A. Faraco-Hadlock, Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, Amanda D. Rodewald, Daniel Fink
2025, Ornithological Applications
Confidently estimating population trends is of vital importance for a wide range of ecological, conservation, and management applications. North America has 2 major data sources for estimating population trends of breeding birds—the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and the global participatory science project eBird. Because the...
Non-native bird populations respond differently to their environment and exhibit shifts in ecological niche limits across continents
Kristin P. Davis, Helen Sofaer, Henrik G. Smith, Henning Heldbjerg, Anna Gamero, Ainārs Auniņš, Lluís Brotons, Tomasz Chodkiewicz, Daniel Palm Eskildsen, Benoît Fontaine, John Atle Kålås, Primož Kmecl, Petras Kurlavičius, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Åke Lindström, Ingar Jostein Øien, Jiří Reif, Nicolas Strebel, Tibor Szép, Chris A.M. van Turnhout, Thomas Vikstrøm, Liba Pejchar
2025, Diversity and Distributions (31)
AimThe degree to which species' niches remain stable over space and time–the niche conservatism hypothesis–is critical for predicting species' responses to environmental change. Tests of this hypothesis typically focus on changes in niche centroids and boundaries. An outstanding question is whether species' environmental associations differ within the...
Variation in detection distance of Eastern Black Rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) vocalizations by autonomous recording units
Blake D. Lamb, Heather E. Levy, Elizabeth A. Beilke, Chelsea S. Kross, Peter J. Kappes, Matt J. Sukiennik, James A. Cox, Jennifer K. Wilson, Jarrett O. Woodrow, Matthew J. Butler, Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Auriel M.V. Fournier, Mark S. Woodrey
2025, Waterbirds (48) 1-12
Autonomous recording units (ARUs) are an emerging technology that allows for passive monitoring of soniferous animals and soundscapes. Over the past decade, ARUs have become a popular tool for monitoring birds for their potential to reduce the labor and costs of traditional in-person sampling procedures. However, uncertainty surrounding factors affecting...
Evaluating effectiveness of flocculation and wave-reduction barriers for restoration of a turbid, terminal lake
Cassandra Smith, Randy Joe Brannan
2025, Wetlands Ecology and Management (33)
Malheur Lake is a freshwater, shallow lake that provides key habitat for birds along the Pacific Flyway in North America. The lake shifted to a turbid state in the 1990s with suspended-sediment concentrations sometimes exceeding 1000 mg/L and minimal light available in the water column for submerged aquatic vegetation. Resource...
A short-term sublethal oral exposure to microcystin-LR disrupts cecal microbiome homeostasis in mallard
Sergei V. Drovetski, Valerie I. Shearn-Bochsler, Erik K. Hofmeister, Natalie K. Karouna-Reiner, Robert J. Dusek
2025, Frontiers in Toxicology (7)
Introduction: The frequency of cyanobacterial blooms seems to have increased globally in recent decades due to human induced eutrophication and climate change. Cyanobacterial blooms can produce several groups of toxins, among which microcystin-LR (MC-LR) is one of the most abundant. Effects of MC-LR on avian microbiome have not been studied...
Rallus elegans (King Rail) occupancy is stable, but habitat is in short supply in the Arkansas Delta
Caleb P. Roberts, Jessica Novobilsky, Paul Akpejeluh, Lauren L. Berry, Michael J. Budd, Michael C. Ferrara, Lindsey A. LaBrie, Lauren Luther, Vinita Karki, David Krementz, Karen Rowe, Michael Shaw, Kenneth Wilson, Auriel M.V. Fournier
2025, Ornithological Applications
Secretive marsh birds experienced precipitous declines due to losses in wetland habitat across North America. However, from 1998 to 2004, wetland area increased, and between 2009 and 2019, the extent of emergent wetlands did not significantly decrease. This raises the question: how did secretive marsh birds, which...
Sapsucker wells as a keystone nutritional resource: Evaluating methods for detection of secondary sap consumers
Richard Clawges, Shannon Blair, Jan H. Eitel, Leona Kay Svancara, Lee A. Vierling, Kerri Vierling
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
North American sapsuckers are considered double keystone species because they (1) excavate nest cavities that are used by other birds, small mammals, and invertebrates, and (2) create and maintain sap wells, a temporary nutritional resource available to a variety of secondary consumers. Most previous reports of secondary sap consumption relied...
Initial responses of songbird communities to forest reclamation on legacy surface mines
Rebecca N. Davenport, Christopher D. Barton, John J. Cox, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Lauren Sherman, Jeffery L. Larkin, Todd Fearer, Steven J. Price
2025, Ecosphere (16)
Surface coal mining and subsequent reclamation efforts in the Appalachian Mountains, USA, transform the ecological characteristics of natural landscapes. The Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) is a mine reclamation method that emphasizes best management practices in forestry. FRA practices have demonstrated success in establishing native forests and accelerating natural succession on...
Host responses and viral traits interact to shape the impacts of climate warming on highly pathogenic avian influenza in migratory waterfowl
Claire Stewart Teitelbaum, Michael L. Casazza, Cory T. Overton, Elliott Matchett, Diann J. Prosser
2025, PLOS Computational Biology. (21)
Emerging infectious diseases pose threats to wildlife populations, as exemplified by recent outbreaks of avian influenza viruses in wild birds. Climate change can affect infection dynamics in wildlife through direct effects on pathogens (e.g., environmental decay rates) and changes to host ecology, including shifting migration patterns. Here, we adapt an...
Spatiotemporal overlap of mallards with poultry farms is associated with greater risk of avian influenza wild bird spillover events
Joshua Alexander Cullen, Nicholas M. Masto, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Cory Highway, Kelly A. Patyk, Mary-Jane McCool, Mia Kim Torchetti, Kristina Lantz, Rebecca L. Poulson, Deborah Carter, Jamie Feddersen, Bradley S. Cohen, Diann J. Prosser
2025, Ecology and Evolution (15)
Animal movement influences local transmission and geographic spread of pathogens. Waterfowl are known reservoirs of pathogens, including H5 goose/Guangdong lineage (H5 GsGd) highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). This HPAI virus lineage causes high rates of morbidity and mortality in domestic poultry and many wild bird species. Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) are...
