Images

This microscopic image shows a sun-shaped area within turtle skin cells where chelonid herpesvirus 5 replicates. The virus capsids, or protein shells, are arrayed like a corona around the circle. ChHV5 is associated with fibropapillomatosisa tumor disease affecting endangered green turtles.

This image shows the blue version of sylvatic plague vaccine bait for prairie dogs. 

Prairie dogs in the wild are less likely to succumb to a deadly disease called sylvatic plague after they ingest peanut-butter-flavored bait that contains a vaccine against the disease.

Introduced Phragmites australis, also called the common reed, is an invasive grass in the Great Lakes.

The arrows in this image point to mouths of individual corallimorphs, which are a type of invasive anemone that typically thrives in coral reefs that have been degraded by environmental or man-made disturbances. Each corallimorph mouth is surrounded by a corona of tentacles.

Crocodilians are one of the few reptile taxa that exhibit parental care. In alligators, following nest construction, females stay nearby in a guard hole, and are known to defend their nests against predators or other intruders.

This image shows a sea lamprey in its larvae phase.

Green sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered throughout their range. (Credit: Thierry Work, USGS)

This photomicrograph shows a liver of a frog with a severe Perkinsea infection.

Coral reefs are prone to phase shifts where they quickly transition from coral-dominated to a uniformity of other organisms, typically algae. The Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Central Pacific is a unique case where a transition from corals to corallimorphs occurred.

Close-up photo of several duck decoys and an adult Canvasback duck.

Waterfowl hunting’s annual economic footprint is over $3 billion.

Dawn Childs SCUBA dives on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, at night. Dawn is an Information Specialist with the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program in the Ecosystems Mission Area, USGS.

A part of the National Elk Refuge showing an example of the habitat diversity on the refuge’s landscape with flat grassland, grassland-covered hills, and tree-covered hills depicted. Sheep Mountain (not part of the refuge) is in the background. 

Rangelands of the desert Southwest can be in a degraded condition and lacking perennial vegetation, which can lead to exposed soil and erosion.

Monarch butterfly on a Joe Pyeweed plant.

A monarch butterfly on a hairy puccoon plant.

Bats hibernating in a cave. 

Coral reefs are prone to phase shifts where they quickly transition from coral-dominated to a uniformity of other organisms, typically algae. The Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Central Pacific is a unique case where a transition from corals to corallimorphs occurred.

A male lesser scaup at the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center in Maryland. This bird was not part of this new research. Photograph taken in 2017. Credit: Jeffrey Sullivan, USGS. 

A part of the National Elk Refuge showing an example of the habitat diversity on the refuge’s landscape with flat grassland, grassland-covered hills, and tree-covered hills depicted. Sheep Mountain (not part of the refuge) is in the background.

A little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) with white-nose syndrome hibernating in a Virginia cave during late spring of 2016.

Coral reefs are prone to phase shifts where they quickly transition from coral-dominated to a uniformity of other organisms, typically algae. The Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Central Pacific is a unique case where a transition from corals to corallimorphs occurred.