Two USGS scientists conducting field work collecting and processing samples/Photo Credit USGS.

By day, insects provide the white noise of the South, but the night belongs to the amphibians.  In a typical year, the Southern air hangs heavy from the humidity and the sounds of wildlife. The Southeast, home to more than 140 species of frogs, toads and salamanders, is the center of amphibian biodiversity in our nation.  If the ponds and swamps are the auditorium for their symphonic choruses, the scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, or ARMI, have front-row seats.

Amphibians, which rely on water for part or all of their life cycle, must adjust to often atypical weather.  Some years bring heavy deluges, such as the region’s notorious hurricanes, and others bring the transformations that come with drought. Amphibians around the world seem to be experiencing the worst declines documented among vertebrates. While habitat loss is the number one reason for population declines, research suggests that disease, invasive species, contaminants and perhaps other factors contribute to declines in protected areas.

And then there’s climate change, another stressor for amphibians to contend with. Climate change projections indicate that rainfall will increasingly come in pulses, with greater deluges and longer periods of drought. Scientists have long suspected that climate change is an important factor in amphibian declines, and resource managers are asking whether conservation measures might help species persist or adapt in a changing climate. Three recent U.S. Geological Survey studies offer some insight into the issue.

Why amphibians?

Amphibians, which are declining throughout the world, play an important role in ecological systems. They eat small creatures, including mosquitos, and they are food themselves for larger creatures, such as birds and snakes. Because amphibians are the middle of the food chain — and sensitive to environmental disruption because of their aquatic or semi-aquatic lives — their existence is often used as an indication of ecosystem health.

Scientists in ARMI, a program started by Congress in 2000 in response to concerns about amphibian declines, have been working to unravel the ups and downs of amphibian populations to support effective conservation and resource management decisions. To do this, ARMI scientists and field crews monitor the status of amphibians, research the causes of declines, and scientifically evaluate projects undertaken to sustain these species and their habitats across the country.

Pond life – it’s not easy being green!

Close up or Mole salamander taken at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge/Photo Credit USGS.

ARMI scientists looked at a range of amphibian species found in the Southeast and posed the question, “What will happen to their populations under a scenario of changes in rainfall patterns – more deluges alternating with droughts – which is being predicted by current climate models?”

It turns out that understanding how climate affects amphibians requires “thinking like the ponds” in which they live. Amphibians have unique life cycles – most alternate between living in water as juveniles, to maturing and dispersing on land, then returning to water again as adults to mate and lay eggs.

When USGS scientists reviewed what was known about amphibian responses to rainfall, it turned out that both extremes in rainfall – drought and heavy rainfall events – can decrease the number of amphibians.   The amphibians’ response depends on a balance between these two key factors.  If ponds dry up while aquatic juveniles are developing, survival of the next generation is lowered.  However, if a deluge occurs at that time, nearby pools that often contain fish will be physically connected with the pools containing juvenile amphibians, and the fish will eat the juveniles.

In essence, the study showed that extreme rainfall events are key to predicting amphibian responses to climate, because such events affect the amount and timing of water in ponds that they depend on. The full review of species’ responses was published in March 2013 edition of the journal Biology.

Wetlands Reserve Program Morehouse Parish, Louisiana

Drought and declining salamanders

Knowing that each species responds to droughts and deluges based on the particulars of their biology, scientists set out to test just how these dynamics played out in the southeastern U.S. by looking at larval mole salamanders in small isolated ponds in St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge, Florida.

Larval mole salamanders have a similar life cycle to the flatwoods salamander, a federally threatened species found on the refuge.  Because it is difficult to study the flatwoods salamander directly, and mole salamanders are ecologically similar, scientists study the mole salamander instead, knowing that whatever affects them will likely impact the flatwoods salamander as well.

In the four years of the study, drought consistently decreased salamander occupancy in ponds. To support young salamanders, rain has to fill a pond during the breeding season and then the pond has to stay filled long enough for larvae to transform into the next life stage. Therefore, scientists confirmed that drought did indeed cause short-term declines in mole salamanders – suggesting that the listed flatwoods salamander may face a similar fate under climate change.

The results of the mole salamander study are published in the April 2013 edition of the journal Wetlands.

Can habitat conservation make a difference for frogs and toads?

To answer this question, USGS scientists examined whether the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Wetlands Reserve Program was helping address the problem. The Wetlands Reserve Program is a voluntary USDA program offering landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property. To assess the potential benefit of WRP restoration to amphibians, in this case, frogs and toads, USGS scientists surveyed 30 randomly selected WRP sites and 20 nearby agricultural sites in the Mississippi Delta in northwest Mississippi.

The scientists found that WRP sites had more kinds of species and was home to more numbers of amphibians than the agricultural sites studied. The restoration of wetland hydrology appeared to provide the most immediate benefit to the animals.

The study can be found in the March 2013 edition of the journal Restoration Ecology.

What’s next?

With multiple studies pointing to the synergistic role of climate change, disease, habitat change, and other factors in amphibian declines, USGS and its partners are continuing their research to provide information which resource managers can use in making decisions that can help arrest or reverse declines. Additionally, a new study that provides the first-ever broad assessment of amphibian populations in the United States, and the first quantitative estimate of trends for amphibian populations at a continental scale, will be published later in May.  A news release announcing the results will be available on the USGS website.

Sound Files:

Evening frog calls

Bird and insect calls

Links for more information:

National Wetlands Research Center – Amphibian Monitoring Program

Southeast Ecological Science Center- Herpetology

A radio-tagged female Burmese python in the Everglades leads USGS researchers to male pythons. And a radio-tagged feral pig lets USGS scientists know just how destructive to native wildlife or vegetation her kind is. These and other so-called “Judas” animals are unknowingly traitors to their own kind in USGS research that sheds light on the movement and habits of important non-native species.

Dinner on the Hoof

Feral swine, first introduced to the continental United States in the 1500s by Spanish conquistadors who brought the animals over as food, typically weigh in at a hefty 200 pounds, but can reach 400 pounds.  These feral hogs have tusks up to three inches long — which they aren’t afraid to use.  They are territorial and live in groups called sounders of as many as 20 individuals, mostly females and young pigs of both sexes.

Have You Seen the Not-So Little Piggies

Males are solitary and only interact with sows to breed. Even though these animals have been in the United States for centuries, little is known about their populations, habitat use and movement patterns, or the habitat destruction their burgeoning numbers are causing in Louisiana and Mississippi. Consequently, USGS researchers have captured, collared and then released large boars and sows to return to their sounder or to their solitary ways if a male.

An Email from the Pig? 

Collared Feral Pig Ready for Release.

The satellite collars, equipped with GPS receivers, allow scientists to track Judas pigs from their office computers.  The GPS collars upload/transmit the data to Iridium satellites that email the swines’ locations at particular times to USGS researchers. Unlike the VHF radio collar, still widely used to locate animals and birds, the GPS collar “listens” to the signal from a constellation of satellites and can calculate, by triangulating its own location, precisely where an animal is.

A group’s movements and locations are tracked via the collared pigs, helping researchers and managers better target removal efforts where most needed, such as in areas where pigs are harming sensitive landscapes. The data collected so far — and verified with fieldwork — have enabled scientists and managers to examine population movement patterns, document habitat and wildlife destruction, and help in swine removal — the preferred control measure.  Already Judas pigs have allowed researchers to learn that feral pigs raid alligator nests, are not all nocturnal as suspected, and have unpredictable movements.

Snakes in Paradise

For about five years, USGS researchers and colleagues at the National Park Service and University of Florida have been working on developing similar “Judas” tracking techniques for invasive snakes. They are currently evaluating the effectiveness of using small radio-tracking devices implanted in select male and female Burmese pythons to learn about python behavior.  Tracking studies have already allowed researchers to follow radio-tagged pythons to find other pythons.  Eventually, the tagged snakes are removed from the wild and euthanized and necropsied — an animal version of an autopsy— to discern what they are eating, how many eggs the females contain, their contaminant levels and much more.

Consequently, Judas snakes are helping researchers understand where pythons are located and where mating may be occurring. Such information is useful for developing effective biological control strategies.

Anatomy of an Invasion and Some Mammal Numbers Going Down, Down, Down

Invasive pythons are hard to find (yes, even the big ones), can live in many places and will eat a variety of mammals, birds and reptiles. A breeding population of the snakes was confirmed in Everglades National Park in 2001, and in the 12 years since, USGS and its partners have linked the snakes  to precipitous declines and even disappearances of formerly common mammals in the park. The decline exceeds 95 percent for raccoons, opossums, marsh and cottontail rabbits, and foxes. Burmese python populations are also breeding in Big Cypress National Preserve, Miami’s water management areas to the northeast of the park, Key Largo to the southeast, and many other state parks, municipalities and public and private lands in the region.

This female Burmese python broke the records for her length – 17 feet, 7 inches – and the number of eggs she contained: 87. She was first captured in Everglades National Park by USGS researchers in the spring of 2012, when they followed a “Judas snake” – a male python with a transmitter – and found her nearby in the bushes. USGS scientists then outfitted her with two radio transmitters, a GPS device, and a motion-sensing device before releasing her back into the wild. The second radio transmitter was a failsafe, ensuring she wouldn’t “go wild” again. The snake remained in the wild for 38 days and then was removed and euthanized. The information from this snake’s every move – each pitch, roll, and yawl – was recorded by the motion detector, allowing biologists to piece together her behaviors, including her kills. Biologists plan to use detailed information about the snake’s biology and activity patterns to develop control methods for this invasive species. Pythons are effective at blending in the tall marsh grasses that give the Everglades its nickname, “The River of Grass,” making it hard to spot the pythons even when they are being radiotracked.

Burmese pythons, which can reach more than 20 feet long and weigh more than 250 pounds, pose a threat to federally listed species as well as a potential risk to people. The snakes feed on a large variety of animals — including endangered species such as the Key Largo woodrat and the rare roundtailed muskrat.

Ecosystem, Interrupted?

Just as important, the snakes’ may well be causing cascading and harmful effects on the Everglades’ ecosystem because depleting or eliminating vulnerable native species are likely changing the park’s food webs. Researchers do not yet know how South Florida ecosystems are being or will be disrupted by the addition of this new predator, but from experience with other ecosystems invaded by introduced snakes, researchers know serious disruption is a distinct possibility. The severe mammal declines already occurring strongly suggest that some degree of ecosystem disruption is likely.

Under Siege! Invasives Affect Everyone

The U.S. is under siege by more than 6,500 species of harmful non-native species estimated to cause more than $137 billion in damage each year to our U.S. economy. These costs are borne by farmers, ranchers, businesses, and local, state, tribal and federal governments battling to control the economic, health and environmental threats invaders pose.  Invasive species adversely affect urban and wilderness areas in every state; global travel and trade provide pathways for intentional and unintentional introductions of invasives. Costly effects of invasives include crop decimation; clogging of water facilities and waterways; wildlife and human disease transmission; threats to commercial, native, and farmed fisheries; increased fire vulnerability; and adverse effects for ranchers and farmers.

Team of scientists working together to insert a tracking device in a 14 foot Burmese python.

USGS Invasive Species Program

Wild Boar Research Images

Satellite Tracking and Geospatial Analysis of Feral Swine and Their Habitat Use in Louisiana and Mississippi

The Big Squeeze: Pythons and Mammals in Everglades National Park

Video of Record Breaking Python captured by USGS

Giant Constrictor Snakes in Florida: A Sizeable Research Challenge

Zebra Mussel, Lake Huron specimens.

Invasive species that hitch rides into new environments via global trade and travel can cause immense environmental and economic damage in the United States and throughout the world. They can degrade vital industrial structures as well as ecosystems and food webs. Yet it’s hard to imagine a prosperous 21st century without global trade, even if it inadvertently brings invasive species to our shores. Often, these marine invasives arrive in the ballast water that ocean-going ships carry to balance their loads. USGS has partnered with other agencies and private industry to characterize the threat of marine invasive species at a global level. USGS science provides data to help establish ballast water discharge standards, and also helps to develop ballast treatment systems that will stop invasive species before they gain hold.

The highly invasive zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorph), for example, causes billions in damage annually to North American boats, docks, hydroelectric systems and other vital infrastructure and resources. Zebra mussels also compromise food webs by attaching to other animals and jeopardizing their survival. As filter feeders, mussels such as Dreissena can accumulate toxic chemicals at levels exponentially greater than in the environment. These toxic chemicals can then be passed to humans when they eat the meat of fish and waterfowl that feed on the mussels. Zebra mussels were first reported in the Great Lakes in 1988, where they probably arrived as plankton in the ballast tanks of ocean-going ships from Europe. By 2007, they had spread into U.S. waterways as far away as Lake Mead, often by unwitting recreational boaters hauling their vessels from place to place.

Prevention is best

It’s almost always too late to get rid of such pests once they are established. It’s much easier to stop aquatic species from becoming introduced by treating incoming ballast water before it is discharged into unfamiliar waters. For several decades, state and federal governments and the International Maritime Organization have been crafting requirements for treatment of ships’ ballast water. These standards could be implemented worldwide by 2020, but key to global adoption is having consistent, reliable and easily followed standards and methodologies. USGS scientists are evaluating both risk-based and quantitative ballast-water discharge standards to protect marine ecology.  In partnership with the National Park Service and private firms, USGS is developing emergency ballast-water treatment systems and freshwater ballast treatment systems that are safe and effective while also being cost-efficient and easy to use. Finally, USGS has co-produced with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the first large-scale comparative atlas of non-native marine species in the North Pacific, giving resource managers data with which to strategize against a possible threat.

A tiny threat

The European green crab (Carcinus maenas), has invaded fisheries in Northern California and in British Columbia, where it may compete with the much more valuable Dungeness crab. The CD it holds in its claws is a database for the USGS Pacific Coast Estuarine Information System, just one source used to compile the Atlas of Nonindigenous Marine and Estuarine Species in the North Pacific, co-written by Western Fisheries Research Center research geographer Deborah Reusser and released in 2013 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in collaboration with USGS and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES).

The most common marine invasives are plankton, arthropods (crabs, insects, barnacles) and mollusks (like Dreissena). All spend at least part of their lives in forms too small to be seen by the naked eye. Long before they grow to adulthood, when they may compete directly with native species, they have the potential to disrupt resource and food webs in their new waters.

“Plankton is the base of the food chain,” said USGS biologist Scott Smith.  “Let’s say a fish is adapted to eating a certain native copepod. Let’s say you introduce an invasive copepod (a small crustacean). But this invasive copepod is either not edible or not as nutritious as the native.” By reducing the fish’s nutritive intake and thus its fitness, the tiny invader affects the ecosystem of which the fish is part, and has an impact far beyond its size. USGS science is working on how to kill these non-native species cost-effectively without damaging the native ecosystem. USGS and NPS have partnered with a private marine engineering firm, Glosten and Associates, to create ballast-water treatment systems that target these tiny organisms to prevent their spread.

Water-treatment challenges

Treatments can involve filtration of ballast water to screen out organisms at the 10- to 50-micron stage, or can use ultraviolet light or chemicals as simple as chlorine bleach. The challenge lies in treating, mixing and testing water at the speed and scale required. Ballast tanks can hold up to a million gallons, and most are inconveniently shaped and fitted for mixing procedures. In addition, some treatments that use chemicals to kill organisms in ballast water must follow up with neutralizing chemicals that render the water safe for the ecosystem in which it is discharged. So USGS is working with another private firm, Assure Controls, to develop a simple, inexpensive and rapid field test to evaluate ballast water quality and ensure that the discharge is safe.

Working with the National Park Service and the private sector, USGS refined an emergency treatment system that can be used to treat the ballast on vessels that have high-risk ballast and no functioning treatment system so that the vessel can discharge safe ballast and continue to deliver the goods we all need. Future research may examine other chemicals that disinfect the water but that also break down quickly enough that a second, neutralizing, chemical is not needed.

Identifying possible threats before they happen

On another front, USGS is helping to characterize the global invasives threat in ways easily consulted by scientists and resource managers. The Atlas of Nonindigenous Marine and Estuarine Species in the North Pacific, co-written by USGS research geographer Deborah Reusser and released by the EPA in collaboration with the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), is the first synthesis and appraisal of global invasive-species data at an ocean-basin scale. Reusser and EPA coauthor Henry Lee II produced status reports on 747 invasive fish, arthropods and other animal species across the North Pacific basin, from the East China Sea to the Gulf of California. Their 1,900-page atlas offers the first consistent and easily comparable appraisal of these species across ecological regions. It establishes a baseline for future studies of abundance and movement among these species. By characterizing the species’ preferred environments by temperature, salinity, turbidity and other factors, it helps identify the risk that a species introduced to new waters will become established. Finally, the atlas will help resource managers strategize methods such as quarantines for protecting the waters in their care.

“Previously available material describes invasive species already within given areas,” Reusser explained. “Resource managers need material describing species that could colonize an area in the future, based on the habitat it prefers.”

Keeping an eye on an unwanted crab

The empty interior of an ocean-going ship’s ballast tank. Such tanks are filled with water to balance a ship’s loads. Unless the water is treated before it is emptied into foreign waters, it can introduce foreign organisms into the water that may become established and compete with native species, causing untold ecological and economic damage. USGS scientists are taking up the challenge of dosing, mixing and testing cost-effective treatments in such large tanks that will kill the organisms but render the water safe for discharge.

For example, Reusser said, fisheries in Northern California and in British Columbia have struggled with the invasive European green crab (Carcinus maenas), which may compete with Dungeness crab, a valuable food resource. Oregon’s coastal waters are slightly colder than those of its neighbors, and European green crab has not made inroads there. But climate change or extreme storms could alter Oregon’s marine ecology in the short or long term, creating a niche for the unwanted crab to become established.

Reusser’s team has also studied the various approaches to setting ballast water standards, evaluating what’s now available and giving pros and cons of the different approaches. The team looked at the historical invasion rate and discharge volumes for a coastline and the number of invaders in an area, and calculated the invasion probability. The team also looked at approaches based on the number of organisms in a sample. The higher the standard, the greater the volume of water that must be tested.

“Significant clumping goes on among organisms, so a sample that reads ‘zero’ won’t reflect conditions in the entire tank,” Reusser explained. “You can’t test the whole tank. But just how much do you have to test before you know the water passes the standard? We’ve worked on these statistical challenges.”

More information:

USGS Invasive Species Program

http://www.usgs.gov/ecosystems/invasive_species/index.html

Under siege! America’s most unwanted invasive species

http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/under-siege-america’s-most-unwanted-invasive-species/

Links to USGS research on invasive species

http://www.usgs.gov/science/science.php?term=602

Interactive map of nonindigenous species in your state

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/StateSearch.aspx

Invasive species in the Great Lakes

http://www.glsc.usgs.gov/main.php?content=research_invasive&title=Invasive%20Species0&menu=research

Mention endangered species and people may think about spotted owls, polar bears or sea turtles – all vertebrates, or animals with backbones.  Invertebrates, those animals without backbones, however, account for more than 99 percent of the world’s animal diversity.  So it isn’t surprising that the most imperiled species in the United States and globally are freshwater mussels, a kind of invertebrate.

Freshwater mussels.

Freshwater mussels are bivalves – animals with two shells – that live on every continent except Antarctica. North America is home to more than a third of the world’s mussel species, but more than 70 percent of the continent’s  302 species are extinct or imperiled.

Mussels — Who Cares?

Over the last 20 years, scientists and economists have become even more interested in freshwater mussels because of the important functions and services they provide to aquatic ecosystems and potentially humans.  Mussels are often highly abundant filter feeders, filtering large volumes of water and reducing suspended particle and contaminant loads.  This “cleaning” of the water has a positive impact on the ecosystem, and scientists indicate restoring native mussel beds may have the added benefit of actually reducing the cost of treating water   Mussel filtration capacity may reduce the cost of water treatment drawn from local rivers for a variety of consumptive uses (drinking, industry, agriculture, etc.). The amount of water they filter would surprise many; it is estimated that the common mussels, in this case the Eastern elliptio mussel in the Delaware River, could be filtering between 5 and 10 million gallons of water per river kilometer per day.

Mussels also excrete nutrients, aiding the growth of micro-organisms that feed fish and larger invertebrates.  Loss of mussels may have cascading effects through entire stream food webs.

Stranger Than Fiction

The mussels’ unique life cycle is part of the reason for their imperilment.  Mussels live on the bottom of streams, rivers and lakes, partially buried in the sediment, feeding on algae and bacteria.  Mussels are often found in dense aggregations, or beds, which can contain one or many species.  While they have a single muscular foot that allows them to move, their mobility is generally confined to only a few to several hundred feet. Consequently, it’s not easy for mussels to escape disturbances that threaten them, like droughts, floods, dredging or excessive contaminants. Since mussels can also be long-lived  – some species live more than 100 years – their chances of encountering a large disturbance are great.

Although mussels don’t move far or fast, they are able to spread through river systems because of a unique parasitic relationship with one or more host fish species that help disperse mussel larvae, called glochidia.  During spawning, male mussels release their sperm into the water where it is filtered by female mussels.  Her eggs are fertilized in specialized brood chambers located in her gills where the glochidia grow and develop.  The female mussel then releases her glochidia – as many as 17 million – which must attach to a suitable host fish for several weeks to complete their metamorphosis into juvenile mussels.  Only when metamorphosis has occurred can the juveniles drop from the host fish, which are generally unharmed by the glochidia, to live independently in the sediment.

Federally endangered dwarf wedgemussel, Alasmidonta heterodon.

Female mussels have evolved creative – some might say bizarre – ways to ensure glochidia attach to a suitable fish host.  Some broadcast their glochidia into the water, others enclose their glochidia in packages that resemble macro-invertebrate fish food. Then, when a fish bites into what it thinks is a meal, it gets a mouthful of glochidia, which can attach to the fish.  Other mussel species display elaborate lures that attract host fish by mimicking fish, crayfish and other aquatic animals.  Perhaps most novel is that some kinds of mussels physically capture their host fish by clamping their shell on the fish’s head while the mother mussel unloads her glochidia onto the stunned fish host.

New Populations of Endangered Mussel Discovered!

In 2000, USGS scientists discovered several new, substantial and genetically distinct populations of the federally endangered dwarf wedgemussel in the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. It was an important finding because only a few viable populations of this species were known to exist, even though this small mussel, about one and a half inches long, had historically resided in streams and rivers stretching from North Carolina to New Brunswick. Because this mussel has a fairly short lifespan of less than 12 years, low fertility, and prefers certain fish species as hosts for its glochidia, its chances of extinction are higher.

Flow Needs of the Dwarf Wedgemussel in the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River

Although the main-stem Delaware is technically a free-flowing system, water flow through the parks can be highly regulated by hydropower and water supply operations in the upper basin, particularly during low-flow summer months.  Consequently, National Park Service managers needed to know how environmental conditions of the river – such as river flow and disturbances – would affect mussel survival, health and reproduction, and what conditions would help or hinder the newly discovered dwarf wedgemussel populations.

For the past two years, USGS has been conducting the research the NPS needs to manage this species and to recommend preferred flow options to protect it. USGS scientists have identified critical habitat requirements the species needs to persist, including water depth, flow and temperatures; they have also developed models that estimate habitat that remains suitable for mussel survival under different flows.

Observing phenology is a fun activity for adults and children alike.

Nature’s Notebook  invites citizens to get outside this spring, and join their neighbors in observing plant and animal life events in your backyard.

Gardeners, farmers, birders, hikers, anglers, joggers or all-around nature enthusiasts are already recording the recurring events they see in the lives of the plants and animals around them,  such as when cherry trees or lilacs blossom, when robins build their nests, when salmon swim upstream to spawn, or when leaves turn color in the fall.

Each entry in Nature’s Notebook represents important scientific information about an actual event in a plant or animal’s life.  And when amassed together, these observations are making it possible for scientists to better understand how species are responding to climate change and to develop more informed tools for responding to climate change.

This spring, we hope citizen-scientists will help us out in one (or several!) of Nature’s Notebook new campaigns: Cloned Lilacs and Dogwoods; Maples, Oaks, and Poplars; PopClock; New England Leaf-Out Project; the Juniper Pollen Project; and the Common Lilacs and Native Flowering Dogwood Project. Visit the campaigns pages to learn about which species are of interest for your area.

But if these campaigns don’t interest you, there are many other types of species Nature’s Notebook welcomes observations for – including plants, birds, mammals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Spring Springing Earlier?

Scientists recently used data collected by observers in Nature’s Notebook to determine that the “green-wave” of spring – or the flush of growth on trees and other plants across the nation – has already shifted – and will shift more dramatically in the future – as the climate changes.  The study (published in Geophysical Research Letters) showed how the green-wave, which now takes about 75 days to travel from Miami to Maine, may take as few as 59 days by the end of the century!  Thus, spring will arrive more quickly, and forest areas may become more similar to one another along the Eastern Seaboard.

And, in fact, warm spring temperatures in both 2010 and 2012 in the eastern half of the country resulted in record early activity of plant and animals – 2-3 weeks early in some places and for some species; the data for spring 2013 – which officially starts today – are rolling in, but they suggest early activity among some plants and animals this year as well.

Citizen-scientists monitor the different life events of certain animals and plants, including the bluebell flower pictured here.

Jake Weltzin, an ecologist with USGS and the executive director of the USA National Phenology Network, which manages the Nature’s Notebook observing program, noted that although an earlier spring brings early birds and beautiful flowers and glorious days at the shore, it also brings us earlier-arriving allergies and pests like ticks and mosquitoes. And while a longer growing season can result in increased yields for some crops, it is risky because of the higher likelihood of plant damage due to late frosts or later onset of drought. For example, in spring 2012, fruit and vegetable crops in portions of the Midwest were damaged from a very early spring followed by frosts.

Phenology, the Study of Nature’s Calendar

The study of when recurring seasonal life stages of plants and animals occur is called phenology, and people have tracked phenology for centuries for the most practical of reasons: when to hunt and fish, when to plant and harvest crops, and when to move livestock or animal herds.

Tracking phenology is just as critical today for the same reasons and for new ones too.  Not only are the data in Nature’s Notebook helping researchers understand how plants and animals are responding to climate change, but also how those responses are affecting people and ecological systems. This information is already being used in ways that benefit society, including developing more accurate indicators of spring, forecasting the onset of allergy season or the chances of western wildfires, managing wildlife and invasive plants, and helping in habitat-restoration efforts.

Arizona saquaro will be one of the species looked at by USA-NPN volunteers.

Is Climate Change Knocking Nature Out of Sync?

Changes in phenology are among the most sensitive biological indicators of local, regional and global change. Just as in the United States, many springtime events around the world are occurring earlier — and fall events happening later — than in the past. These changes are happening quickly for some species and more slowly, or not at all, for others, altering relationships and processes that may have been essentially stable for thousands of years.

Some wildlife – like caribou and butterflies and hummingbirds – are becoming mismatched from their plant food resources, which are responding differently.  Migrations for some birds are changing too, as they can now overwinter instead of moving south for the winter, or as they fly north, adjusting their pace to keep up with an advancing front of spring flowering.

Phenology, Pollinators, and Food

Working farms and ranches need phenology information too:  pollination by native insects contributes more than $3 billion in agricultural crops each year. Climate-driven changes in the phenology of crops and native insects could change the effectiveness of insect pollination for better or for worse, and certainly complicates management decisions.  However, because little is known about how pollinator phenology is changing, it is difficult to accurately assess how crops will be affected and how farmers might best adapt. By collecting observations of insect phenology and crop phenology together, the USA-NPN is contributing to our understanding of the changes taking place and helping to ensure the viability of crops across the country.

Where You Come In

In three simple steps, you can become a citizen scientist: 1. Join Nature’s Notebook, 2. Choose the location and species you’ll observe, and 3. Start observing!

By joining the program, you ultimately empower your hobby to benefit scientific discovery.

USA-National Phenology Network citizen-scientist Lucille Tower records the one millionth observation on maple vine in the large nature database.

What Changes Are Happening Where I Live?

Want to know more about observed changes in plant and animal phenology in your region over the last century? Explore the USA-NPN’s recent series of regional information sheets:

• Alaska and the Arctic
• Great Plains
• Hawai’i and the Pacific Islands
• Midwest
• Northeast
• Pacific Northwest
• Southeast
• Southwest

More about the USA-NPN

The USA National Phenology Network is a partnership among governmental and nongovernmental science and resource management agencies and organizations, the academic community and the public.  There are more ways to get involved – partner your organization with the Network, let us know about legacy phenology data sets or even share a dataset you may have already collected, or help us rescue historical bird migration datasets.  For more information visit USA-NPN or contact Jake Weltzin at jweltzin@usgs.gov.

Listen to a Spanish-language podcast about USA-NPN.

The endangered West Indian manatee is a large, plant-eating, slow moving mammal found in the southeastern United States, Caribbean Islands, eastern Mexico and Central America, and the northern coast and rivers of South America.

Florida’s state marine mammal gets a check-up each year by a team of biologists, veterinarians and experienced volunteers who conduct health assessments of the manatees captured at Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in the late fall and winter.

Crystal River is one of several sites where USGS has successfully captured, examined and released more than 400 manatees over the past 10 years. The researchers choose sites that manatees frequent during the cold winter months – typically areas near springs or other sources of warmer water where large numbers of manatees congregate — making it easier for biologists to assess many animals in a short period of time.

Why examine manatees?

Health assessments are a valuable tool to determine the fitness, specifically related to environmental and medical issues, of any population of wildlife. Biologists also use information from the assessments to understand the basics of manatee health in order to ensure that rescued and captive animals are properly cared for.  Marine mammals, such as manatees, are often used as sentinels for emerging threats to the ocean environment and human health.

Manatees are an endangered species, so all clinical procedures are con­ducted by experienced biologists and veterinary personnel. A special wildlife research permit is required. Since manatees, unlike people, do not voluntarily get physicals, a large team works together to capture and examine the manatees. In the water, manatees selected for capture are circled with a large net and pulled onto the beach by an experienced capture team.

The Physical Exam

Once on shore, the manatees will receive a complete medi­cal examination by veterinarians on the assessment team. Blood is drawn under sterile conditions from a flipper, centrifuged for plasma and serum separation, and submitted for routine blood analyses to assess health condition and establish baseline normal values for the manatee population.

Female manatee nursing calf

A manatee physical exam includes the following:

• General Appearance

• Body Condition

• Photo-documentation of any lesions and wounds

• Heart/Pulse Rate

• Respiratory Rate

• Temperature

• Body weight

• Complete body measurements (body length and girths)

• Eye exam

• Implantation of PIT tag (used to identify individual manatees, just like microchips in pets)

• Subcutaneous fat layer exam (conducted with an ultrasound)

• Analysis of blood, feces, urine and skin

• Reproductive parameters (tell scientists if it is male, female, pregnant)

Two manatees cavorting with others resting in the background.

About Manatees

Manatees are entirely aquatic, and as herbivores eat a wide variety of aquatic plants, including seagrass, water hyacinths and shoreline vegetation.

Ranging in color from gray to brown, the average adult manatee is about 10 feet long and weighs between 1,500 and 2,200 pounds. Newborn manatees range in size from four to four and a half feet long and weigh about 60 pounds. Manatee life expectancy is about 60 years.

Manatees cannot survive for extended periods in water colder than about 63°F, and prefer temperatures warmer than 72°F.

Manatees live in shallow fresh, brackish and marine aquatic habitats, traveling readily among them. In Florida, they travel considerable distances during the winter to access warm water habitat, such as artesian springs and the heated discharges of power generating plants. Some individuals also travel long distances during the warm season, going as far north as Rhode Island on the Atlantic coast or even to Texas along the Gulf of Mexico.

Manatees are federally listed as an endangered species that needs protection. Major threats to their survival are human activities: boat-related injuries and deaths, entanglement in fishing gear and discarded line, habitat loss or degradation, and in some countries, hunting.

Did you know?  Manatee ancestors evolved from four-footed land mammals more than 60 million years ago, and manatees are distantly related to elephants and hyraxes; the latter are small mammals native to Asia and Africa.

Video

Team Manatee: A Community Working Together

http://gallery.usgs.gov/videos/629

The USGS is hosting its first challenge via the platform Challenge.gov. Submissions will be judged on their relevance to today’s scientific challenges, innovative use of the datasets, and overall ease of use of the application. Prizes will be awarded to the best overall app, the best student app, and the people’s choice

“Challenge Yourself to App-lify USGS Data”

Contests have a way of motivating people. It must have something to do with the spirit of healthy competition that engages people in ways that are not possible otherwise. From the Orteig prize in 1919 that led to the first transatlantic flight to the Ansari X Prize paving the way for personal space flight, prizes have a long history of success throughout the world.

But successful contests are not limited to aviation and are no longer relegated to the private sector. The USGS is throwing its hat into the challenge ring and has embarked on its first challenge – App-lifying USGS Earth Science Data. The contest utilizes the platform Challenge.gov which serves as the place where Government agencies post challenges and the public posts submissions.

The Challenge
After examining the successes by other agencies in developing and executing challenges, USGS scientists invite the public to take some of its datasets and shake them up, visualize them, and mash them up with other datasets in previously unexpected ways. The challenge is focused on a specific set of ecological and/or biological datasets that serve as the basis for the challenge.

The USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis (CSAS) program is seeking help from many of the Nation’s premier application developers and data visualization specialists in developing new visualizations and applications for CSAS datasets. CSAS focuses on innovative ways to manage and deliver scientific data and information. The program implements and promotes standards and best practices to enable efficient, data-driven science for decision-making that supports a rapid response to emerging natural resource issues. One way this is accomplished is by developing national data products that increase our understanding of the Earth’s natural systems.

Gap analysis for the lark bunting. A graphical representation of an analysis conducted by combining the three data layers produced by the Gap Analysis Program (http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/). By intersecting the predicted distribution of this species with the Protected Areas Database, we determine that 2.6% of the lark bunting’s habitat falls in the category of “highly protected”.

Ready to Win?

We want you to compete in our challenge! The challenge is open to everyone. The USGS recognizes that solutions can come from unexpected places. That’s why this challenge is open to everyone including students 13 years old and up. Developers, information scientists, graphic designers, Web gurus, citizen scientists—anyone and everyone is encouraged to submit their app to the challenge.

“The USGS has produced several key biogeography datasets that are integral to understanding the natural world. We need to maximize their impact by combining them with other national datasets. By accessing and visualizing these datasets in new ways, the public can help USGS scientists tackle many of our Nation’s scientific challenges,” said Kevin Gallagher, USGS Associate Director of Core Science Systems.

The datasets for the contest consist of a range of earth science data types, including:

• authoritative taxonomic nomenclature for plants and animals of North America and the world;
• thousands of metadata records related to research studies, ecosystems, and species;
• several million biological occurrence records (terrestrial and marine); and
• vegetation and land cover data for the United States, including detailed vegetation maps for the National Parks.

Submissions will be judged on their relevance to today’s scientific challenges, innovative use of the datasets, and overall ease of use of the application. Prizes will be awarded to the best overall app, the best student app, and the people’s choice.
Submissions will be accepted from January 9, 2013, to April 1, 2013. Winners will be announced on April 26, 2013, and will be honored at the USGS The National Map Users Conference/Community for Data Integration Workshop (May 21-24, 2013, in Denver, Colo.), where their applications will be demonstrated to USGS scientists and program managers. The National Map is teaming up with the Community for Data Integration to host a conference focusing on collaboration, integration, and innovation. Themes for the conference span a wide range of topics including scientific applications of The National Map, the Open Science movement, and public participation in scientific research.

The USGS is looking for your bright ideas and everyone is encouraged to enter including students age 13 and up.

America Competes

Under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act signed in 2011, government agencies have jumped into the contest arena. The vehicle to do this became Challenge.gov, the contest platform administered by the General Services Administration. Challenge.gov is aimed at facilitating creative applications for government agencies to address a range of societal issues more effectively.

An early adopter of Challenge.gov has been The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has utilized the platform for many successful challenges including Green Chemistry Challenge, Game Day Challenge, and Apps for the Environment.

Apps for the Environment challenged participants to tap into EPA data and devise an app that was useful, innovative, and easy to use. The winner of Best Overall App was Lightbulb Finder, an app that used EPA data to help people find the best energy efficient light bulbs for their homes. By helping people switch incandescent light bulbs for more energy efficient ones, Lightbulb Finder is able to save electricity—reducing CO2 emissions and saving people money.

A Fresh Perspective: Crowdsourcing New Ideas

Harnessing the power of crowdsourcing, challenges have led to innovative solutions to complex problems. The power comes from the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of the crowd. In this way, solutions can come from unexpected places. For instance, the winning application, Flu-Ville!, in the Center for Disease Control’s Flu App Challenge came from a graphic artist interested in educational games.

Another contest looked at mapping dark matter, which has been a problem that has plagued physicists for decades. Solutions came from many unexpected places including glaciology, neuroscience, and even a signature verification expert. The prize was ultimately awarded to a cosmology professor and grad student team from the University of California, Irvine, but examples like these demonstrate the power of prizes to find intersections where seemingly unrelated disciplines meet.

Looking back on all of the successful challenges throughout the years, the USGS is excited to see the upcoming results of its first challenge. We invite you to submit your app to our challenge. Maybe the next great app will be yours!

Wisdom, who is at least 62, is not only the world’s oldest-known wild bird, but she’s also the oldest-known wild bird mom.

Wisdom has sported and worn out 5 bird bands since she was first banded by noted U.S. Geological Survey scientist Chandler Robbins in 1956 as she incubated an egg. Chandler rediscovered Wisdom in 2001. In 1956, he estimated Wisdom to be at least 5 years old then since this is the earliest age at which these birds breed, though they more typically breed at 8 or 9 after an involved courtship lasting several years.  This means, of course, that Wisdom could be even older than 62.

Welcome to the World, Chick! The Oldest Bird in the World Raises a Chick

Rewriting the Record Books

“As Wisdom rewrites the record books, she provides new insights into the remarkable biology of seabirds,” said Bruce Peterjohn, chief of the North American Bird Banding Program at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, MD.  “It is beyond words to describe the amazing accomplishments of this wonderful bird and how she demonstrates the value of bird banding to better understand the world around us. If she were human, she would be eligible for Medicare in a couple years yet she is still regularly raising young and annually circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean.”

And since adult albatross mate for life, with both parents raising the young, it makes one wonder if Wisdom has had the same partner all these years or not.

Wisdom is now the oldest wild bird documented in the over 90-year history of the USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian bird banding program.  “To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus is astonishing,” Peterjohn said. “While the process of banding a bird has not changed greatly during the past century, the information provided by birds marked with a simple numbered metal band has transformed our knowledge of birds.”

Wisdom has likely raised at least 30 to 35 chicks during her breeding life, though the number may well be higher because experienced parents tend to be better parents than younger breeders.  Albatross lay only one egg a year, but it takes much of a year to incubate and raise the chick. After years in which they have successfully raised and fledged a chick – which on Midway is about two-thirds of the time – the parents may take the occasional next year off from parenting.

Wisdom also nested in 2006, and then every year since 2008.  Wisdom and her 2011 chick survived the tsunami that resulted from the Tohoku Earthquake that March. The tsunami, which washed over the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, resulted in tremendous losses of Laysan and black-footed albatross at the refuge — an estimated 110,000 chicks and 2,000 adult albatross died. 

Frequent Flyer Miles

Wisdom’s mate tends to his newly hatched chick (USFWS)

Almost as amazing as being a parent at 62 is the number of miles this bird has likely logged – about 50,000 miles a year as an adult – which means that Wisdom has flown at least 2 to 3 million miles since she was first banded. Or, to put it another way, that’s 4 to 6 trips from the Earth to the Moon and back again with plenty of miles to spare.

One reason for all these miles is that Laysan albatross spend the first 3 to 5 years after fledging at sea, never touching land. Then they return to breed in the northwestern Hawaiian Island chain but some of their feeding grounds are actually off the coast of western North America, including the Gulf of Alaska. The parents tend to feed closer to the islands where their nests are when the chicks are very young, but they regularly commute to the northern Pacific Ocean and even the Gulf of Alaska when the chicks are older or when the adults are incubating.  They convert the fish and squid they eat into a rich, oily liquid, which they regurgitate and feed to their chick.

In the non-breeding part of the year, albatross do not touch land — the birds, scientists believe, often even sleep while flying over the ocean.

Why Band Birds?

Peterjohn noted that Wisdom’s remarkable record is just one example of the valuable data provided by bird banding. In addition to establishing longevity records for birds, banding data from the North American Bird Banding Program documents migratory patterns, provides critical harvest and survival information used to manage populations of migratory game birds, and supports research activities on many issues from toxicology to disease transmission and behavior. Since 1920, approximately 68 million birds have been banded by this Interior Department-Canadian Wildlife Service program, and of those, over 4.5 million bands have been recovered.

About Albatross

Albatross are legendary birds for many reasons – in Samuel Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a sailor has to wear an albatross around his neck as punishment for killing the bird. According to seafaring legends, albatross are the souls of lost sailors and should not be killed. However, as reported by James Cook, sailors regularly killed and ate albatross.

Wisdom’s mate tends to his newly hatched chick just hours after it hatches on Sunday morning (USFWS)

Albatross are remarkable fliers who travel thousands of miles on wind currents without ever flapping their wings. They do this by angling their 6-foot wings to adjust for wind currents and varying air speeds above the water.

Nineteen of 21 species of albatross are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Present threats to the birds include lead poisoning of chicks on Midway from lead paint used in previous decades; longline fishing, where the birds are inadvertently hooked and drowned, though conservation groups have banded with fishermen and dramatically lowered the number of deaths from this cause; and pollution, especially from garbage floating on the ocean.

The birds ingest large amounts of marine debris – by some estimates 5 tons of plastic are unknowingly fed to albatross chicks each year by their parents. Although the plastic may not kill the chicks directly, it reduces their food intake, which leads to dehydration and most likely lessens their chance of survival. In addition, albatross are threatened by invasive species such as rats and wild cats, which prey on chicks, nesting adults and eggs. Albatross evolved on islands where land mammals were absent, so have no defenses against them.

For More Information:

About Bird Bands, Why Band Birds, History of Bird Banding and the Bird Banding Laboratory

Images of Wisdom http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific

Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge/Battle of Midway National Memorial

Exciting discoveries are spurring research to uncover hidden secrets deep within South Pacific tropical forests. USGS Research Biologist Robert Fisher will be making an engaging presentation detailing new discoveries and emerging threats to wildlife and ecosystems. Join us on December 13^th, to hear Fisher’s stories from the tropical forests of Papua New Guinea and hear him detail his discovery of a new species dubbed the “bumblebee” gecko, and what he and other herpetologists are finding while studying Pacific lizard biodiversity

Time: Thursday, December 13, 2012 • 7-8pm

Speaker:  Robert Fisher, USGS Research Biologist with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center

Location: 345 Middlefield Road, Building 3 Auditorium, second floor, Menlo Park, CA 94025

Phone:  650-329-4000

FREE and Open to the Public
Follow this event live streaming over the Internet!

Forests, grasslands and shrublands in the West sequester nearly 100 million tons of carbon each year, an amount equivalent to counterbalancing the emissions of about 83 million passenger cars a year in the United States, according to a new USGS report.

Carbon that is absorbed or “sequestered” through natural processes reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

While the study showed that western ecosystems are a strong carbon sink now, the region could experience a decline in storage potential between now and 2050, depending on future changes in land-use, climate and wildfires. Future carbon stocks are inextricably linked to these drivers because as ecosystems, forests or agricultural lands are converted for other uses, their ability to capture and store carbon is affected.

From the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coastal Waters

The area USGS studied extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coastal waters, and totals just over 1 million square miles. The major ecosystems evaluated were terrestrial — forests, wetlands, agricultural lands, and shrublands and grasslands — and aquatic — rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters. It includes well-known ecosystems, such as the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, the Pacific Northwest forests and the vast grasslands and shrublands of the Great Basin.

Western Forests Stored the Most Carbon

While the western ecosystems varied widely in their potential for storing carbon now and in the future, forests are by far the largest carbon-storing pools, accounting for about 70 percent of the carbon stored recently in the West.

• Forests cover 28 percent of the land areas of West, contain the most carbon per unit area, and have the second-highest rate of sequestration of ecosystem types.
• Wetlands cover less than 1 percent of the West and had the highest rate of sequestration of all ecosystem types, but because they cover only such a small percentage of land, the amount of carbon they sequester is far less significant than other ecosystem types.
• Grasslands and shrublands cover nearly 60 percent of the West and contain 23 percent of the region’s carbon stored recently.
• Agricultural lands cover about 6 percent of the land areas of the West and contain 4.5 percent of the carbon stored recently.

Significant Greenhouse Gas Emission Sources in Western Ecosystems

Wildland fires in western ecosystems generated significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, with such emissions equivalent to 13 percent of the estimated rate of the recent annual carbon sequestration by western terrestrial ecosystems. This amount could increase up to 31 percent in the future.

Water bodies in the West emitted even more CO₂ than fires. Emissions from water bodies are equivalent to more than 30 percent of the recent annual carbon sequestration rate of terrestrial ecosystems in the West.  Basically, the more interaction with the atmosphere, the more CO₂ is released.  So, in fast-moving waters, where the water is churned up, there is a greater loss of CO₂ to the atmosphere.

Land-Use, Land-Cover, and Carbon Stocks

Future changes in the ability of western ecosystems to sequester carbon will depend on future changes in land-use, climate, and wildfires.  Future carbon stocks are tied to these drivers because as ecosystems, forests or agricultural lands are converted for other uses, their ability to capture and store carbon is affected.  Land use by people causes a significant loss of carbon from ecosystems. Specific examples are forest harvesting (nearly 13 million tons of carbon per year) and agricultural harvesting (more than 20 million tons of carbon per year).

To Read More:

Blog on the Report by David Hayes, Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior

Department of the Interior News Release on the New Report

The report: Baseline and Projected Carbon Storage and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in the Ecosystems of the Western United States.