Publications
USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center staff publish results of their research in USGS series reports and in peer-reviewed journals. Publication links are below. Information on all USGS publications can be found at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 1902
Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies benefit from grassland/ pasture while bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) colonies in the same landscapes benefit from non-corn/soybean cropland
Agriculturally important commercially managed pollinators including honey bees (Apis mellifera L., 1758) and bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson, 1863) rely on the surrounding landscape to fulfill their dietary needs. A previous study in Europe demonstrated that managed honey bee foragers and unmanaged native bumble bee foragers are associated with different land uses. However, it is unclear how
Authors
Gabriela Quinlan, Megan Milbrath, Clint R.V. Otto, Rufus Isaacs
Honey bee foraged pollen reveals temporal changes in pollen protein content and changes in forager choice for abundant versus high protein flowers
Protein derived from pollen is an essential component of healthy bee diets. Protein content in honey bee foraged-pollen varies temporally and spatially, but the drivers underlying this variation remain poorly characterized. We assessed the temporal and spatial variation in honey bee collected pollen in 12 Michigan apiaries over 3 summers (2015–2017). We simultaneously monitored forage in flowering
Authors
Gabriela Quinlan, Megan Milbrath, Clint R.V. Otto, Autumn Smart, Deborah Iwanowicz, Rufus Isaacs, Robert S. Cornman
Acoustic interaction between a pair of owls and a wolf
During summer 2019, we recorded an apparent vocal interaction, lasting just under 4 min, between a pair of Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) and a gray wolf (Canis lupus) in Yellowstone National Park. To our knowledge, this is the first report of such an acoustic interaction in the scientific literature. The increased use of passive acoustic recorders, which record spontaneous vocalizations emi
Authors
Bárbara Martí-Domken, Vicente Palacios, Shannon Barber-Meyer
Pollinator communities vary with vegetation structure and time since management within regenerating timber harvests of the Central Appalachian Mountains
Native pollinator populations across the United States are increasingly threatened by a multitude of ecological stressors. Although the drivers behind pollinator population declines are varied, habitat loss/degradation remains one of the most important threats. Forested landscapes, where the impacts of habitat loss/degradation are minimized, are known to support robust pollinator populations in ea
Authors
Codey L. Mathis, Darin J. McNeil, Monica R. Lee, Christina M. Grozinger, David I. King, Clint R.V. Otto, Jeffery A. Larkin
Distributions of native and invasive Typha (cattail) throughout the Prairie Pothole Region of North America
The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America has experienced extreme changes in wetland habitat due to proliferation of invasive plants. Typha × glauca is a highly competitive hybrid between native T. latifolia and non-native T. angustifolia, and it is likely the predominant taxon in PPR wetlands. Genetics-based studies are limited, and distributions are poorly known for the first-generation
Authors
Brian Tangen, Sheel Bansal, Joanna R. Freeland, Steven E. Travis, Jen D. Wasko, Terence P. McGonigle, L. Gordon Goldsborough, Keira Gow, Joy E. Marburger, Jacob Meier
FLUXNET-CH4: A global, multi-ecosystem database and analysis of methane seasonality from freshwater wetlands
Methane (CH4) emissions from natural landscapes constitute roughly half of global CH4 contributions to the atmosphere, yet large uncertainties remain in the absolute magnitude and the seasonality of emission quantities and drivers. Eddy covariance (EC) measurements of CH4 flux are ideal for constraining ecosystem-scale CH4 emissions due to quasi-continuous and high-temporal-resolution CH4 flux mea
Authors
Kyle B. Delwiche, Sarah Knox, Avni Malhotra, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Gavin McNicol, Sarah Feron, Zutao Ouyang, Dario Papale, Carlo Trotta, Eleonora Canfora, You-Wei Cheah, Danielle Christianson, Ma. Carmelita R. Alberto, Pavel Alekseychik, Mika Aurela, Dennis Baldocchi, Sheel Bansal, David P. Billesbach, Gil Bohrer, Rosvel Bracho, Nina Buchmann, David I. Campbell, Gerardo Celis, Weinan Chen, Jiquan Chen, Housen Chu, Higo J Dalmagro, Sigrid Dengel, Ankur R. Desai, Matteo Detto, Han Dolman, Elke Eichelmann, Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Daniela Famulari, Kathrin Fuchs, Mathias Goeckede, Sébastien Gogo, Mangaliso J Gondwe, Jordan P. Goodrich, Pia Gottschalk, Scott L. Graham, Martin Heimann, Manuel Helbig, Carole Helfter, Kyle S. Hemes, Takashi Hirano, David Hollinger, Lukas Hörtnagl, Hiroki Iwata, Adrien Jacotot, Joachim Jansen, Gerald Jurasinski, Minseok Kang, Kuno Kasak, John King, Janina Klatt, Franziska Koebsch, Ken Krauss, Derrick Y.F. Lai, Annalea Lohila, Ivan Mammarella, Luca B Marchesini, Giovanni Manca, Jaclyn H Matthes, Trofim Maximov, Lutz Merbold, Bhaskar Mitra, Timothy H. Morin, Eiko Nemitz, Mats B. Nilsson, Shuli Niu, Walter C. Oechel, Patricia Y. Oikawa, Keisuke Ono, Matthias Peichl, Olli Peltola, Michele L. Reba, Andrew D. Richardson, William Riley, Benjamin RK Runkle, Youngryel Ryu, Torsten Sachs, Ayaka Sakabe, Camilo Rey Sanchez, Edward A. Schuur, Karina VR Schäfer, Oliver Sonnentag, Jed P. Sparks, Ellen Stuart-Haëntjens, Cove Sturtevant, Ryan C. Sullivan, Daphne J. Szutu, Jonathan E Thom, Margaret S. Torn, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Jessica Turner, Masahito Ueyama, Alex C. Valach, Rodrigo Vargas, Andrej Varlagin, Alma Vazquez-Lule, Joseph G. Verfaillie, Timo Vesala, George L Vourlitis, Eric Ward, Christian Wille, Georg Wohlfahrt, Guan Xhuan Wong, Zhen Zhang, Donatella Zona, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Benjamin Poulter, Robert B. Jackson
Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate
Grasslands, and the depressional wetlands that exist throughout them, are endangered ecosystems that face both climate and land-use change pressures. Tens of millions of dollars are invested annually to manage the existing fragments of these ecosystems to serve as critical breeding habitat for migratory birds. The North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is a region that contains millions of de
Authors
Owen P. McKenna, David M. Mushet, Samuel R. Kucia, Elyssa Christina Mcculloch-Huseby
Wetlands
During the last decades, soil organic carbon (SOC) attracted the attention of a much wider array of specialists beyond agriculture and soil science, as it was proven to be one of the most crucial components of the earth’s climate system, which has a great potential to be managed by humans. Soils as a carbon pool are one of the key factors in several Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goa
Authors
Brian Tangen, Sheel Bansal
Climate change scenario planning for resource stewardship at Wind Cave National Park
This report explains scenario planning as a climate change adaptation tool in general, then describes how it was applied to Wind Cave National Park as the second part of a pilot project to dovetail climate change scenario planning with National Park Service (NPS) Resource Stewardship Strategy development. In the orientation phase, Park and regional NPS staff, other subject-matter experts, natural
Authors
Amber N. Runyon, Gregor W. Schuurman, Brian W. Miller, Amy Symstad, Amanda Hardy
Preserving soil organic carbon in prairie wetlands of central North America
Wetlands of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) in the Great Plains of central North America are numerous, densely distributed, and have highly productive plant and animal communities (Photo 49). When in a natural, unaltered condition, these wetlands store relatively large amounts of organic carbon in their soils (Photo 50). Human alterations, such as extensive drainage and land-use conversion for ag
Authors
Sheel Bansal, Brian Tangen
Chemical connectivity and multi-element composition of groundwater in depressional wetlands
Little is known about the element composition of groundwater along flow paths between wetlands. What is known is based on a few major elements, such as Na and Ca. We examined the spatial and temporal variation of elements in a depressional-wetland, groundwater-flow system in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, USA. Wetlands of the region are characterized by their occurrence in hydrologica
Authors
Yuxiang Yuan, Xiaoyan Zhu, David M. Mushet, Matthew J. Solensky, Marinus L. Otte
Decision analysis of barrier placement and targeted removal to control invasive carp in the Tennessee River Basin
Controlling range expansion of invasive carp (specifically Hypophthalmichthys spp.) on the Tennessee River is important to conserve the ecological and economic benefits provided by the river. We collaborated with State and Federal agencies (the stakeholder group) to develop a decision framework and decision support model to evaluate strategies to control carp expansion in the Tennessee River. Usin
Authors
Max Post van der Burg, David R. Smith, Aaron R. Cupp, Mark W. Rogers, Duane Chapman