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Eastern Ecological Science Center

In 2020, the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Leetown Science Center merged to create the Eastern Ecological Science Center (EESC). Our goals are to align our scientific capabilities with the most pressing conservation and management challenges; establish an engaged workforce that fosters high relationship trust with employees, partners and the public.

News

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Waste not, want not: How USGS capabilities enhance COVID-19 wastewater surveillance

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Why we have better maps of Mars than of the seafloor—and what USGS is doing to change that

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On a golden wing and a prayer: your actions can give birds a better chance of surviving migration

Publications

Deer management generally reduces densities of nymphal Ixodes scapularis, but not prevalence of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto

Human Lyme disease–primarily caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto (s.s.) in North America–is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Research on risk mitigation strategies during the last three decades has emphasized methods to reduce densities of the primary vector in eastern North America, the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis). Controlling white-tailed
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Alynn Martin, Danielle Buttke, Jordan Raphael, Kelsey Taylor, Sarah Maes, Christina M. Parise, Howard Ginsberg, Paul Cross

Spatial asynchrony and cross-scale climate interactions in populations of a coldwater stream fish

Climate change affects populations over broad geographic ranges due to spatially autocorrelated abiotic conditions known as the Moran effect. However, populations do not always respond to broad-scale environmental changes synchronously across a landscape. We combined multiple datasets for a retrospective analysis of time-series count data (5–28 annual samples per segment) at 144 stream segments di
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George Valentine, Xinyi Lu, Evan S. Childress, C. Andrew Dolloff, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Matthew Kulp, Benjamin Letcher, Kasey C. Pregler, Jacob Rash, Mevin B. Hooten, Yoichiro Kanno

Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty

Our ability to forecast epidemics far into the future is constrained by the many complexities of disease systems. Realistic longer-term projections may, however, be possible under well-defined scenarios that specify the future state of critical epidemic drivers. Since December 2020, the U.S. COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub (SMH) has convened multiple modeling teams to make months ahead projections
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Emily Howerton, Lucie Contamin, Luke C Mullany, Michelle Qin, Nicholas G. Reich, Samantha Bents, Rebecca K. Borchering, Sung-mok Jung, Sara L Loo, Claire P. Smith, John Levander, Jessica Kerr, J. Espino, Willem G. van Panhuis, Harry Hochheiser, Marta Galanti, Teresa K Yamana, Sen Pei, Jeffrey L. Shaman, Kaitlin Rainwater-Lovett, Matt Kinsey, Kate Tallaksen, Shelby Wilson, Lauren Shin, Joseph C Lemaitre, Joshua Kaminsky, Juan Dent Hulse, Elizabeth C. Lee, Clif McKee, Alison Hill, Dean Karlen, Matteo Chinazzi, Jessica T Davis, Kunpeng Mu, Xinyue Xiong, Ana Pastore Piontti, Alessandro Vespignani, Erik T Rosenstrom, Julie S Ivy, Maria E Mayorga, Julie L Swann, Guido España, Sean Cavany, Sean Moore, Alex Perkins, Thomas J. Hladish, Alexander N. Pillai, Kok Ben Toh, Ira Longini Jr., Shi Chen, Rajib Paul, Daniel Janies, Jean-Claude Thill, Anass Bouchnita, Kaiming Bi, Michael Lachmann, Spencer Fox, Lauren Ancel Meyers, Ajitesh Srivastava, Przemyslaw Porebski, Srinivasan Venkatramanan, Aniruddha Adiga, Bryan Lewis, Brian Klahn, Joseph Outten, Benjamin Hurt, Jiangzhuo Chen, Henning Mortveit, Amanda Wilson, Madhav Marathe, Stefan Hoops, Parantapa Bhattacharya, Dustin Machi, Betsy L Gunnels, Jessica M Healy, Rachel B. Slayton, Michael A Johansson, Matthew Biggerstaff, Shaun Truelove, Michael C. Runge, Katriona Shea, Cécile Viboud, Justin Lessler

Science

Exploring Biodiversity of the Deep Hawaiian Pacific Ocean with Seafloor Mapping and eDNA Technologies

Working in partnership with BOEM and the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, scientists from the USGS will embark on a 10-day voyage to the outer limits of the U.S. Pacific waters south of Hawai’i to conduct seafloor mapping and autonomous environmental DNA sampling in order to investigate and characterize the geology and biology of the Hawaiian abyssal plain.
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Exploring Biodiversity of the Deep Hawaiian Pacific Ocean with Seafloor Mapping and eDNA Technologies

Working in partnership with BOEM and the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, scientists from the USGS will embark on a 10-day voyage to the outer limits of the U.S. Pacific waters south of Hawai’i to conduct seafloor mapping and autonomous environmental DNA sampling in order to investigate and characterize the geology and biology of the Hawaiian abyssal plain.
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Advancing the Environmental DNA Toolkit for Ecosystem Monitoring and Management

The emerging field of Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis allows characterization of species presence and community biodiversity by identifying trace amounts of genetic material left behind as organisms move through their environments. EESC scientists have been using eDNA technologies to detect native and rare species and as community biomonitoring tools.
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Advancing the Environmental DNA Toolkit for Ecosystem Monitoring and Management

The emerging field of Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis allows characterization of species presence and community biodiversity by identifying trace amounts of genetic material left behind as organisms move through their environments. EESC scientists have been using eDNA technologies to detect native and rare species and as community biomonitoring tools.
Learn More

AquaDePTH-Aquatic Disease and Pathogen Repository

The Aquatic Disease and Pathogen Repository (AquaDePTH) will be a public-facing national repository to support biosurveillance of aquatic animal diseases and pathogens. By collating historically published data, plus new aquatic pathogen and disease information, stakeholders will be able monitor fish kill and aquatic pathogen trends spatially and temporally in freshwater and marine environments...
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AquaDePTH-Aquatic Disease and Pathogen Repository

The Aquatic Disease and Pathogen Repository (AquaDePTH) will be a public-facing national repository to support biosurveillance of aquatic animal diseases and pathogens. By collating historically published data, plus new aquatic pathogen and disease information, stakeholders will be able monitor fish kill and aquatic pathogen trends spatially and temporally in freshwater and marine environments...
Learn More