Publications
Below is a list of available NOROCK peer reviewed and published science. If you are in search of a specific publication and cannot find it below or through a search, please contact twojtowicz@usgs.gov.
Filter Total Items: 1223
Evaluating ecosystem protection and fragmentation of the world's major mountain regions
Conserving mountains is important for protecting biodiversity because they have high beta diversity and endemicity, facilitate species movement, and provide numerous ecosystem benefits for people. Mountains are often thought to have lower levels of human modification and contain more protected area than surrounding lowlands. To examine this, we compared biogeographic attributes of the largest, con
Authors
David M. Theobald, Aerin Jacobs, Paul R. Elsen, Erik A. Beever, Libby Ehlers, Jodi Hilty
Joint spatial modeling bridges the gap between disparate disease surveillance and population monitoring efforts informing conservation of at-risk bat species
White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) is a wildlife disease that has decimated hibernating bats since its introduction in North America in 2006. As the disease spreads westward, assessing the potentially differential impact of the disease on western bat species is an urgent conservation need. The statistical challenge is that the disease surveillance and species response monitoring data are not co-located, av
Authors
Christian Stratton, Kathryn Irvine, Katharine M. Banner, Emily S. Almberg, Daniel Bachen, Kristina Smucker
Local environments, not invasive hybridization, influence cardiac performance of native trout under acute thermal stress
Climate-induced expansion of invasive hybridization (breeding between invasive and native species) poses a significant threat to the persistence of many native species worldwide. In the northern U.S. Rocky Mountains, hybridization between native cutthroat trout and non-native rainbow trout has increased in recent decades due, in part, to climate-driven increases in water temperature. It has been p
Authors
Jeffrey Strait, Jared Grummer, Nicholas Hoffman, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Shawn R. Narum, Gordon Luikart
A systematic review of the effects of climate variability and change on black and brown bear ecology and interactions with humans
Climate change poses a pervasive threat to humans and wildlife by altering resource availability, changing co-occurrences, and directly or indirectly influencing human-wildlife interactions. For many wildlife agencies in North America, managing bears (Ursus spp.) and human-bear interactions is a priority, yet the direct and indirect effects of climate change are exacerbating management challenges.
Authors
Katherine Anne Kurth, Kate Malpeli, Joseph D. Clark, Heather E. Johnson, Frank T. van Manen
Effects of culverts on habitat connectivity in streams—A science synthesis to inform National Environmental Policy Act analyses
The U.S. Geological Survey is working with Federal land management agencies to develop a series of science syntheses to support environmental effects analyses that agencies conduct to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This report synthesizes science information about the potential effects of culverts on stream connectivity and subsequent effects on fish. We conducted a stru
Authors
Richard J. Lehrter, Tait K. Rutherford, Jason B. Dunham, Aaron N. Johnston, David J.A. Wood, Travis S. Haby, Sarah K. Carter
Disease-smart climate adaptation for wildlife management and conservation
Climate change is a well-documented driver and threat multiplier of infectious disease in wildlife populations. However, wildlife disease management and climate-change adaptation have largely operated in isolation. To improve conservation outcomes, we consider the role of climate adaptation in initiating or exacerbating the transmission and spread of wildlife disease and the deleterious effects th
Authors
Lindsey Thurman, Katrina E. Alger, Olivia E. LeDee, Laura Thompson, Erik K. Hofmeister, Michael J Hudson, Alynn Martin, Tracy Melvin, Sarah H Olson, Mathieu Pruvot, Jason R. Rohr, Jennifer Szymanksi, Oscar Aleuy, Benjamin Zuckerberg
From pixels to riverscapes: How remote sensing and geospatial tools can prioritize riverscape restoration at multiple scales
Prioritizing restoration opportunities effectively across entire riverscape networks (i.e., riverine landscape including floodplain and stream channel networks) can be difficult when relying on in-channel, reach-scale monitoring data, or watershed-level summaries that fail to capture riverscape heterogeneity and the information necessary to implement restoration actions. Leveraging remote sensing
Authors
Hayley Corrine Glassic, Kenneth C. McGwire, William W. Macfarlane, Cashe Rasmussen, Nicolaas Bouwes, Joseph M. Wheaton, Robert Al-Chokhachy
The addition of 144Nd atomic mass to routine ICP-MS analysis as a Quick Screening Tool for Approximating Rare Earth Elements (Q-STAR) in natural waters
Rare earth elements (REEs) are a class of critical minerals, all of which can have supply chain vulnerability that impacts economic security. These elements are widely measured in environmental matrices via inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS); however, successful quantification can require time-consuming, sample-specific optimization. While a sample-by-sample approach is appropri
Authors
Elizabeth J. Tomaszewski, Zhouming Sun, Anthony J. Bednar
Evaluating density-weighted connectivity of black bears (Ursus americanus) in Glacier National Park with spatial capture–recapture models
BackgroundImproved understanding of wildlife population connectivity among protected area networks can support effective planning for the persistence of wildlife populations in the face of land use and climate change. Common approaches to estimating connectivity often rely on small samples of individuals without considering the spatial structure of populations, leading to limited understanding of
Authors
Sarah L Carroll, Greta M Schmidt, John S. Waller, Tabitha Graves
Quantifying effectiveness and best practices for bumblebee identification from photographs
Understanding pollinator networks requires species level data on pollinators. New photographic approaches to identification provide avenues to data collection that reduce impacts on declining bumblebee species, but limited research has addressed their accuracy. Using blind identification of 1418 photographed bees, of which 561 had paired specimens, we assessed identification and agreement across 2
Authors
Anne Colgan, Richard G. Hatfield, Amy Dolan, Wendy Velman, Rebecca Newton, Tabitha Graves
A dataset of amphibian species in U.S. National Parks
National parks and other protected areas are important for preserving landscapes and biodiversity worldwide. An essential component of the mission of the United States (U.S.) National Park Service (NPS) requires understanding and maintaining accurate inventories of species on protected lands. We describe a new, national-scale synthesis of amphibian species occurrence in the NPS system. Many park u
Authors
Benjamin Lafrance, Andrew M. Ray, Robert N. Fisher, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Charles Shafer, David Beamer, Stephen Frank Spear, Todd W Pierson, Jon M. Davenport, Matthew L. Niemiller, R. Alexander Pyron, Brad Glorioso, William Barichivich, Brian J. Halstead, Kory Roberts, Blake R. Hossack
A scaled Denil fishway for upstream passage of Arctic Grayling
Denil fishways have been used with varying success to help fish pass impediments to upstream passage such as low head dams or irrigation diversion structures. They have been tested for hydraulic and fish passage performance in laboratory and field settings, usually with only minor modifications to the fishway geometry or dimensions. We tested a reduced (0.6) scale prototype of the standard-sized D
Authors
Katey Plymesser, Matt Blank, Megan Conley, Kevin Kappenman, Joel Cahoon, David Dockery, Alexander V. Zale