Publications
Below are publications associated with the Southwest Biological Science Center's research.
Trying to access a publication? Or looking for a GCMRC/GCES historical report? Reach out to Meredith Hartwell: mhartwell@usgs.gov with your request.
Filter Total Items: 1518
Do bighorn sheep use desert tortoise burrow spoil piles as mineral licks in southern California? Do bighorn sheep use desert tortoise burrow spoil piles as mineral licks in southern California?
In a previous study, bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) were periodically photographed by trail cameras when they visited desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) burrows in the San Bernardino Mountains near Palm Springs, California, USA. The authors suggested that bighorn sheep may utilize the excavated spoil material from burrows as a mineral lick. To test that supposition, we collected soil...
Authors
Jeffrey E. Lovich, Danielle M. Cleveland, Charles B. Yackulic, Kristy L. Cummings, Michele R. Puffer, Molly J. Bechtel, Christopher R. Tracy, William J. Hoese, Gerardo Avila, Megan Peukert, Samantha Hubbard
Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity
As droughts become longer and more intense, impacts on terrestrial primary productivity are expected to increase progressively. Yet, some ecosystems appear to acclimate to multiyear drought, with constant or diminishing reductions in productivity as drought duration increases. We quantified the combined effects of drought duration and intensity on aboveground productivity in 74...
Authors
Timothy Ohlert, Melinda D. Smith, Scott L. Collins, Alan K. Knapp, Jeffrey S. Dukes, Osvaldo E. Sala, Kate D Wilkins, Seth M. Munson, Maggie I. Anderson, Meghan L. Avolio, Anping Chen, Meghan T. Hayden, Martin C. Holdrege, Ingrid J. Slette, Peter A. Wilfahrt, Claus Beier, Lauchlan H. Fraser, Anke Jentsch, Michael E. Loik, Yiqi Luo, Fernando T. Maestre, Richard P. Phillips, Sally A. Power, Laura Yahdjian, Qiang Yu, Angel Chen, Andrew J. Felton, Laureano A. Gherardi, Nicholas J. Lyon, Hamed Abdoli, Mehdi Abedi, Juan Alberti, Antonio I. Arroyo, Heidi Asbjornsen, Harald Auge, Seton Bachle, Michael Bahn, David C. Bartholomew, Amgaa Batbaatar, Taryn L. Bauerle, Karen H. Beard, Kai Behn, Ilka Beil, Lucio Biancari, Irmgard Blindow, Viviana Florencia Bondaruk, Elizabeth T. Borer, Edward W. Bork, Carlos Martin Bruschetti, Kerry M. Byrne, James F. Cahill, Dianela A. Calvo, Michele Carbognani, Cameron N. Carlyle, Karen Castillioni, Miguel Castillo-Garcia, Manjunatha H. Chandregowda, Scott X. Chang, Jeff Chieppa, Amber C. Churchill, Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso, Amanda L. Cordeiro, Sara Cousins, Daniela F. Cusack, Sven Dahlke, Pedro Daleo, Lee H. Dietterich, Maren Dubbert, Nico Eisenhauer, T'ai G. Forte, Flavia A. Funk, Darcy Galiano, Aaron C. Greenville, Liebao Han, Siri Vatsø Haugum, Yann Hautier, Andy Hector, Hugh A. Henry, Daniela Hoss, Forest Isbell, Samuel E. Jordan, Yuguang Ke, Eugene F. Kelly, Sally E. Koerner, Juergen Kreyling, Gyorgy Kroel-Dulay, Alicia I. Kröpfl, Angelika Kübert, Andrew Kulmatiski, Eric G. Lamb, Klaus Steenberg Larsen, Steven R. Lee, Smriti Pehim Limbu, Anja Linstädter, Shirong Liu, Grisel Longo, Alejandro Loydi, Junwei Luan, F. Curtis Lubbe, Andrey V. Malyshev, Cameron D. McIntire, Daniel B. Metcalfe, Malesela Vincent Mokoka, Akira S. Mori, Edwin Mudongo, Gregory S. Newman, Uffe N. Nielsen, Raúl Ochoa-Hueso, Rory C. O'Connor, Romà Ogaya, Gastón R. Oñatibia, Ildiko Orban, Brooke B. Osborne, Rafael Otfinowski, Meelis Pärtel, Jesús Pascual, Josep Peñuelas, Pablo L. Peri, David S. Pescador, Guadalupe Peter, Alessandro Petraglia, Catherine Picon-Cochard, Valério D. Pillar, Juan M. Piñeiro-Guerra, Laura Weber Ploughe, Robert M. Plowes, Cristy Portales-Reyes, Suzanne M. Prober, Yolanda Pueyo, Golsa Rahmati, Sasha C. Reed, Dana Aylén Rodríguez, William E. Rogers, Christiane Roscher, David W. Rowley, Ana M. Sánchez, Bráulio A. Santos, Michael P. Schellenberg, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Eric W. Seabloom, Ruonan Shen, Baoku Shi, Lara Souza, Andreas Stampfli, Rachel J. Standish, Marcelo Sternberg, Wei Sun, Marie Sünnemann, Michelle Tedder, Tyson J. Terry, Pål Thorvaldsen, Katja Tielbörger, Maud Tissink, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Alejandro Valdecantos, Liesbeth van den Brink, Vigdis Vandvik, Liv Guri Velle, Svenja Wanke, Glenda M. Wardle, Cunzheng Wei, Christiane Werner, Georg Wiehl, Jennifer L. Williams, Amelia A. Wolf, Honghui Wu, Chong Xu, Xuechen Yang, Jenifer L. Yost, Alyssa L. Young, Ping Yue, Juan M. Zeberio, Michaela Zeiter, Haiyang Zhang, Juntao Zhu, Xiaoan Zuo
Experimental warming alters free-living nitrogen fixation in a humid tropical forest Experimental warming alters free-living nitrogen fixation in a humid tropical forest
Microbial nitrogen (N) fixation accounts for c. 97% of natural N inputs to terrestrial ecosystems. These microbes can be free-living in the soil and leaf litter (asymbiotic) or in symbiosis with plants. Warming is expected to increase N-fixation rates because warmer temperatures favor the growth and activity of N-fixing microbes. We investigated the effects of warming on asymbiotic...
Authors
Parker M. Bartz, Iana F. Grullón-Penkova, Molly A. Cavaleri, Sasha C. Reed, Saima Shahid, Tana E. Wood, Benedicte Bachelot
Fall 2025 Fall 2025
In this newsletter, we are excited to share our recent publication, Bridging theory and practice to inform seed selection for restoration, which is part of an ongoing collaborative effort with land managers and restoration practitioners to synthesize lessons learned and identify future research directions for native seed development and use in the U.S. We would also like to say thank you...
Authors
Laura Cecilia Shriver
Channel and floodplain cross-section and bed-elevation analyses of the Green River in Echo, Island, and Rainbow Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah Channel and floodplain cross-section and bed-elevation analyses of the Green River in Echo, Island, and Rainbow Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah
This report by the U.S. Geological Survey focuses on describing geomorphic changes in the alluvial segments of the Green River within Echo, Island, and Rainbow Parks of Dinosaur National Monument, between the 1990s and 2019. Substantial channel change occurred within these meandering alluvial segments following the construction and closure of Flaming Gorge Dam in 1962. Geomorphic...
Authors
David J. Dean, Paul E. Grams, Shannon Leigh Sartain, Christy M. Leonard, Ronald E. Griffiths, Joel A. Unema, David J. Topping, John C. Schmidt
Controls on sediment transport and storage in the Little Snake, Yampa, and Green Rivers in the vicinities of Dinosaur National Monument and Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado and Utah, with implications for fish habitat in the middle Green River Controls on sediment transport and storage in the Little Snake, Yampa, and Green Rivers in the vicinities of Dinosaur National Monument and Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado and Utah, with implications for fish habitat in the middle Green River
The transport of sand and finer sediment in the Yampa and Green river network is typically in disequilibrium with the local sediment supply because of the partial decoupling of the sources of water and sediment: most of the water is supplied farther upstream than most of the sediment. This decoupling leads to sand being transported in the main-stem rivers as elongating sand waves...
Authors
David J. Topping, Ronald E. Griffiths, Joel A. Unema, David J. Dean
Season, wind speed, and seasonal rain are major drivers of a regional aeolian sediment transport model Season, wind speed, and seasonal rain are major drivers of a regional aeolian sediment transport model
Wind erosion and sediment transport continue to increase in many parts of the world, leading to decreased soil quality, accelerated snow-melt, respiratory diseases, and traffic accidents. The processes that control sediment transport are well understood at small scales of mm to m but are less well understood at larger scales of km to hundreds of km. Here we test four approaches aimed at...
Authors
Andrew Kulmatiski, Mehmet Ozturk, Kelvyn K. Bladen, Janice Brahney, Michael C. Duniway
Long-term monitoring of island night lizards on San Nicolas Island Long-term monitoring of island night lizards on San Nicolas Island
We describe the results of long-term population monitoring of the island night lizard Xantusia riversiana on San Nicolas Island, California, following the species' removal from the U.S. Endangered Species list in 2014. Monitoring activities were carried out from October 2014 through November 2023, but we also incorporate data from earlier work dating back to 1993. Because of habitat loss...
Authors
Charles A. Drost, Patrick M. Kleeman, Charles B. Yackulic, Brian J. Halstead, Gary M. Fellers
CaDAVEr: A metagenome-assembled genome catalog of microbial decomposers across vertebrate environments CaDAVEr: A metagenome-assembled genome catalog of microbial decomposers across vertebrate environments
Microbial degradation of organic matter is a fundamental Earth process, yet a mechanistic understanding of microbial metabolisms and successional ecology involved in decomposition remains poorly understood. Here, we announce the recovery of 277 cadaver-associated soil metagenome-assembled genomes to enhance our understanding of vertebrate decomposition microbial processes.
Authors
Valerie A. Seitz, Bridget B. McGivern, Michael Shaffer, Mikayla A. Borton, Aeriel D. Belk, Parsa Ghadermazi, Cameron Martino, Liat Shenhav, Anru R. Zhang, Pixu Shi, Alexandra Emmons, Heather Deel, Zhenjiang Zech Xu, Victoria Nieciecki, Qiyun Zhu, Kalen Cantrell, Asa Ben-Hur, Sasha C. Reed, Greg C. Humphry, Gail Ackermann, Daniel McDonald, Siu Hung Chan, Melissa Connor, Derek A. Boyd, Jake Smith, Jenna M.S. Watson, Giovanna Vidoli, Dawnie Steadman, Aaron M. Lynne, Sibyl Bucheli, David O. Carter, Zachary M. Burcham, Rob Knight, Kelly C. Wrighton, Jessica L. Metcalf
Supporting dryland restoration success with applied ecological forecasting of seeding outcomes Supporting dryland restoration success with applied ecological forecasting of seeding outcomes
Introduction Ecological restoration is increasingly used to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem services. In drylands of the western United States (US), post-disturbance restoration often involves seeding treatments to promote the recovery of native plant communities. Spatial and temporal variability in environmental conditions influences plant establishment and contributes to low...
Authors
Gregor-Fausto Siegmund, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Caitlin M. Andrews, Leland D. Bennion, Jacob Ferguson, Michelle I. Jeffries, Peggy Olwell, David S. Pilliod, Allison B. Simler-Williamson, Alice E. Stears, Regina Zweng, John B. Bradford
Reservoir operational strategies for sustainable sand management in the Colorado River Reservoir operational strategies for sustainable sand management in the Colorado River
Climate change and increasing societal demands for water pose challenges for the management of dam-regulated rivers. Management decisions impact the environment of these rivers, creating the need to balance societal needs with environmental conservation. Here we present a modeling framework that optimizes resource benefits within imposed water use goals for the Colorado River in Grand...
Authors
Gerard Lewis Salter, David J. Topping, Jianghao Wang, John C. Schmidt, Charles B. Yackulic, Lucas Bair, Erich R. Mueller, Paul E. Grams
Warming induces unexpectedly high soil respiration in a wet tropical forest Warming induces unexpectedly high soil respiration in a wet tropical forest
Tropical forests are a dominant regulator of the global carbon cycle, exchanging more carbon dioxide with the atmosphere than any other terrestrial biome. Climate models predict unprecedented climatic warming in tropical regions in the coming decades; however, in situ field warming studies are severely lacking in tropical forests. Here we present results from an in situ warming...
Authors
Tana E. Wood, Colin Lee Tucker, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, M. Isabel Loza, Iana F. Grullón-Penkova, Molly A. Cavaleri, Christine S. O'Connell, Sasha C. Reed