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Ecosystems Mission Area

The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area provides science to help America achieve sustainable management and conservation of biological resources in wild and urban spaces, and places in between.

News

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Sparing or Sharing the Effects of Urbanization for Conservation

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Grant funding will advance a novel immune-based strategy to prevent white-nose syndrome in North American bats

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New study describes HPAI infections in wild mammals in US

Publications

A targeted annual warning system developed for the conservation of a sagebrush indicator species

A fundamental goal of population ecologists is to identify drivers responsible for temporal variation in abundance. Understanding whether variation is associated with environmental stochasticity or anthropogenic disturbances, which are more amenable to management action, is crucial yet difficult to achieve. Here, we present a hierarchical monitoring framework that models rates of change in abundan

Forecasting natural regeneration of sagebrush after wildfires using population models and spatial matching

ContextAddressing ecosystem degradation in the Anthropocene will require ecological restoration across large spatial extents. Identifying areas where natural regeneration will occur without direct resource investment will improve scalability of restoration actions.ObjectivesAn ecoregion in need of large scale restoration is the Great Basin of the Western US, where increasingly large and frequent w

Exploring effects of vessels on walrus behaviors using telemetry, automatic identification system data and matching

Arctic marine mammals have had little exposure to vessel traffic and potential associated disturbance, but sea ice loss has increased accessibility of Arctic waters to vessels. Vessel disturbance could influence marine mammal population dynamics by altering behavioral activity budgets that affect energy balance, which in turn can affect birth and death rates. As an initial step in studying these l

Science

Organic Contaminants in Reuse Waters and Transport Following Land Application

Potential reuse waters contained unique mixtures of organic contaminants with the greatest number detected in treated municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent, followed by urban stormwater, and agricultural runoff. This study provided information for decisions on reuse strategies to support freshwater supplies.
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Organic Contaminants in Reuse Waters and Transport Following Land Application

Potential reuse waters contained unique mixtures of organic contaminants with the greatest number detected in treated municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent, followed by urban stormwater, and agricultural runoff. This study provided information for decisions on reuse strategies to support freshwater supplies.
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Avian Influenza Dynamics in the Chesapeake Bay Region

This project focuses on understanding the forces driving the risk of avian influenza transmission from wild waterfowl to domestic poultry within the Chesapeake Bay region.
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Avian Influenza Dynamics in the Chesapeake Bay Region

This project focuses on understanding the forces driving the risk of avian influenza transmission from wild waterfowl to domestic poultry within the Chesapeake Bay region.
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Expanding Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been detected in 30 US states and four Canadian provinces in free-ranging cervids and/or commercial captive cervid facilities. CWD has been detected in free-ranging cervids in 29 states and three provinces and in captive cervid facilities in 18 states and three provinces.
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Expanding Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been detected in 30 US states and four Canadian provinces in free-ranging cervids and/or commercial captive cervid facilities. CWD has been detected in free-ranging cervids in 29 states and three provinces and in captive cervid facilities in 18 states and three provinces.
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