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
Adaptive management framework and decision support tool for invasive annual bromes in seven Northern Great Plains National Park Service units
National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of the United States, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is northern mixed-grass prairie, which not only provides background scene
Authors
Amy Symstad, Heather Baldwin, Max Post van der Burg
Testing environmental DNA from wolf snow tracks for species, sex, and individual identification – An addendum
No abstract available.
Authors
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Victoria Zeller, Kristy Pilgrim
Protocols for collecting and processing macroinvertebrates from the benthos and water column in depressional wetlands
Freshwater aquatic macroinvertebrates are key links in food webs and nutrient cycles, and thus often serve as biological indicators of ecosystem health. Macroinvertebrate investigations in research and monitoring require consistent and reliable field and laboratory procedures. Comprehensive standard operating procedures for sampling macroinvertebrates from depressional wetlands, which can range fr
Authors
Breanna R. Keith, Jake D. Carleen, Danelle M. Larson, Michael J. Anteau, Megan J. Fitzpatrick
Prairie wetlands as sources or sinks of nitrous oxide: Effects of land use and hydrology
National and global greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets are continually being refined as data become available. Primary sources of the potent GHG nitrous oxide (N2O) include agricultural soil management and burning of fossil fuels, but comprehensive N2O budgets also incorporate less prominent factors such as wetlands. Freshwater wetland GHG flux estimates, however, have high uncertainty, and wetlands hav
Authors
Brian Tangen, Sheel Bansal
Restoration for resilience: The role of plant-microbial interactions and seed provenance in ecological restoration
With global efforts to restore grassland ecosystems, researchers and land management practitioners are working to reconstruct habitat that will persist and withstand stresses associated with climate change. Part of these efforts involve movement of plant material potentially adapted to future climate conditions from native habitat or seed production locations to a new restoration site. Restoration
Authors
Jennifer Larson, Robert Venette, Diane L. Larson
Reassessing perennial cover as a driver of duck nest survival in the Prairie Pothole Region
Conservation plans designed to sustain North American duck populations prominently feature a key hypothesis stating that the amount of the landscape in perennial cover surrounding upland duck nests positively influences nest survival rates. Recent conflicting research testing this hypothesis creates ambiguity regarding which management actions to pursue and where to prioritize conservation deliver
Authors
Aaron T. Pearse, Michael J. Anteau, Max Post van der Burg, Mark H. Sherfy, Thomas K. Buhl, Terry L. Shaffer
Space use and site fidelity of wintering whooping cranes on the Texas Gulf Coast
The Aransas-Wood Buffalo population (the only non-reintroduced, migratory population) of endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) overwinters along the Texas Gulf Coast, USA. Understanding whooping crane space use on the wintering grounds reveals essential aspects of this species' ecology, which subsequently assists with conservation. Using global positioning system telemetry data from marked w
Authors
Matthew J Butler, David R. Stewart, Grant M Harris, Mark T. Bidwell, Aaron T. Pearse
Improving pollinator habitat using mycorrhizal inoculum: Evaluating the impact of differences in remnant and reconstruction mycorrhizas on performance of conservative prairie plant species
No abstract available.
Authors
Nicholas R. Jordan
Limited land base and competing land uses force societal tradeoffs when siting energy development
As human populations grow, decisions regarding use of the world's finite land base become increasingly complex. We adopted a land use–conflict scenario involving renewable energy to illustrate one potential cause of these conflicts and resulting tradeoff decisions. Renewable energy industries wishing to expand operations in the United States are limited by multijurisdictional regulations in findin
Authors
Jill A. Shaffer, Neal D. Niemuth, Charles R. Loesch, Clayton E. Derby, Aaron T. Pearse, Kevin W. Barnes, Terry L. Shaffer, Adam J. Ryba
Behavioural adjustments in the social associations of a precocial shorebird mediate the costs and benefits of grouping decisions
Animals weigh multiple costs and benefits when making grouping decisions. The cost-avoidance grouping framework proposes that group density, information quality and risk affect an individual’s preference for con or heterospecific groups. However, this assumes the cost–benefit balance of a particular grouping is constant spatiotemporally, which may not always be true. Investigating how spatiotempor
Authors
Luke R. Wilde, Rose J. Swift, Nathan R. Senner
Forbs included in conservation seed mixes exhibit variable blooming detection rates and cost-effectiveness: Implications for pollinator habitat design
Although forb-rich plantings for pollinator habitat are becoming more common, natural resource managers lack insight on the cost-effectiveness of forbs seeded in private land conservation programs. Additional information on the possible benefits of including more forb species in a mix may help guide the design of future pollinator habitat. We examined the detection of blooming forbs from seed mixe
Authors
Stacy C. Simanonok, Clint R.V. Otto, Rich Iovanna
High abundance of a single taxon (amphipods) predicts aquatic macrophyte biodiversity in prairie wetlands
Conservation programs often aim to protect the abundance of individual species and biodiversity simultaneously. We quantified relations between amphipod densities and aquatic macrophyte (large plants and algae) diversity to test a hypothesis that biodiversity can support high abundance of a single taxonomic group. Amphipods (Gammarus lacustris and Hyalella azteca) are key forage for waterfowl and
Authors
Danelle M. Larson, Demmey DeJong, Michael J. Anteau, Megan J. Fitzpatrick, Breanna R. Keith, Emily G. Schilling, Barry Thoele