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The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 65,000 articles authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
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Ecological dissimilarity matters more than geographical distance when predicting land surface indicators using machine learning Ecological dissimilarity matters more than geographical distance when predicting land surface indicators using machine learning
Supervised training techniques, such as those used in machine learning, use generally large sets of in situ data to train models that can, in turn, be used to make predictions (or prediction maps) about the Earth’s surface in times or places where no in situ data exist. The purpose of the present study is to investigate, using a very large set of in situ data from across the western...
Authors
Bo Zhou, Gregory S. Okin, Junzhe Zhang, Shannon L. Savage, Christopher J. Cole, Michael C. Duniway
Setting a pluralist agenda for water governance: Why power and scale matter Setting a pluralist agenda for water governance: Why power and scale matter
Global water systems are facing unprecedented pressures, including climate change-driven drought and escalating flood risk, environmental contamination, and over allocation. Water management and governance typically lack integration across spatial scales, including relationships between surface and ground water systems. They also routinely ignore connectivity across temporal scales...
Authors
Elizabeth Macpherson, Rosa I. Cuppari, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Holly Brause, William A. Brewer, William E Grant, Nicole M. Herman-Mercer, Ben Livneh, Kaustuv Raj Neupane, Tanya N. Petach, Chelsea N. Peters, Hsiao-Hsuan Wang, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Howard Wheater
Human-induced range expansions result in a recent hybrid zone between sister species of ducks Human-induced range expansions result in a recent hybrid zone between sister species of ducks
Landscapes are consistently under pressure from human-induced ecological change, often resulting in shifting species distributions. For some species, changing the geographical breadth of their niche space results in matching range shifts to regions other than those in which they are formally found. In this study, we employ a population genomics approach to assess potential conservation...
Authors
Philip Lavretsky, Kevin J. Kraai, David Butler, James Morel, Jay Alan VonBank, Joseph Marty, Vergie Musni, Daniel P. Collins
Evaluating the effectiveness of joint species distribution modeling for fresh water fish communities within large watersheds Evaluating the effectiveness of joint species distribution modeling for fresh water fish communities within large watersheds
Accurately predicting species’ distributions is critical for the management and conservation of fish and wildlife populations. Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs) account for dependencies between species often ignored by traditional species distribution models. We evaluated how a JSDM approach could improve predictive strength for stream fish communities within large watersheds...
Authors
Paul McLaughlin, Kevin Krause, Kelly O. Maloney, Taylor Woods, Tyler Wagner
Quantifying intraspecific variation in host resistance ad tolerance to a lethal pathogen Quantifying intraspecific variation in host resistance ad tolerance to a lethal pathogen
Testing for intraspecific variation for host tolerance or resistance in wild populations is important for informing conservation decisions about captive breeding, translocation, and disease treatment. Here, we test the importance of tolerance and resistance in multiple populations of boreal toads (Anaxyrus boreas boreas) against Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the amphibian fungal...
Authors
B. Hardy, Erin L. Muths, W. C. Funk, L. L. Bailey
Why do avian responses to change in Arctic green-up vary? Why do avian responses to change in Arctic green-up vary?
Global climate change has altered the timing of seasonal events (i.e., phenology) for a diverse range of biota. Within and among species, however, the degree to which alterations in phenology match climate variability differ substantially. To better understand factors driving these differences, we evaluated variation in timing of nesting of eight Arctic-breeding shorebird species at 18...
Authors
Eveling A. Tavera, David B. Lank, David C. Douglas, Brett K. Sandercock, Richard B. Lanctot, Niels M. Schmidt, Jeroen Reneerkens, David H. Ward, Joël Bêty, Eunbi Kwon, Nicolas Lecomte, Cheri L Gratto-Trevor, Paul A. Smith, Willow B. English, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Stephen C. Brown, H. River Gates, Erica Nol, Joseph R. Liebezeit, Rebecca L. McGuire, Laura McKinnon, Steve Kendall, Martin D. Robards, Megan Boldenow, David C. Payer, Jennie Rausch, Mikhail Soloviev, Diana V. Solovyeva, Steve Zack, Jordyn Stalwick, Kirsty E. B. Gurney
Pockmarks offshore Big Sur, California provide evidence for recurrent, regional, and unconfined sediment gravity flows Pockmarks offshore Big Sur, California provide evidence for recurrent, regional, and unconfined sediment gravity flows
Recent surface ship multibeam surveys of the Sur Pockmark Field, offshore Central California, reveal >5,000 pockmarks in an area that is slated to host a wind farm, between 500- and 1,500-m water depth. Extensive fieldwork was conducted to characterize the seafloor environment and its recent geologic history, including visual observations with remotely operated vehicles, sediment core...
Authors
E. Lundsten, Charles K. Paull, R. Gwiazda, S. Dobbs, D.W. Caress, Linda A. Kuhnz, M. Walton, N. Nieminski, Mary McGann, Thomas Lorenson, Guy R. Cochrane, Jason A. Addison
Chronic wasting disease alters the movement behavior and habitat use of mule deer during clinical stages of infection Chronic wasting disease alters the movement behavior and habitat use of mule deer during clinical stages of infection
Integrating host movement and pathogen data is a central issue in wildlife disease ecology that will allow for a better understanding of disease transmission. We examined how adult female mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) responded behaviorally to infection with chronic wasting disease (CWD). We compared movement and habitat use of CWD-infected deer (n = 18) to those that succumbed to...
Authors
Gabriel M. Barrile, Paul C. Cross, Cheynne Stewart, Jennifer L. Malmberg, Rhiannon P. Jakopak, Justin Binfet, Kevin Montieth, Brandon Werner, Jessica Jennings-Gaines, JA Merkle
Development and validation of a GT-seq panel for genetic monitoring in a threatened species using minimally invasive sampling Development and validation of a GT-seq panel for genetic monitoring in a threatened species using minimally invasive sampling
Minimally invasive samples are often the best option for collecting genetic material from species of conservation concern, but they perform poorly in many genomic sequencing methods due to their tendency to yield low DNA quality and quantity. Genotyping-in-thousands by sequencing (GT-seq) is a powerful amplicon sequencing method that can genotype large numbers of variable-quality samples...
Authors
Molly J. Garrett, Stacey A. Nerkowski, Shannon Kieran, Nathan R. Campbell, Soraia Barbosa, Courtney J. Conway, Paul A. Hohenlohe, Lisette P. Waits
Repeated coseismic uplift of coastal lagoons above the Patton Bay Splay Fault System, Montague Island, Alaska, USA Repeated coseismic uplift of coastal lagoons above the Patton Bay Splay Fault System, Montague Island, Alaska, USA
Coseismic slip on the Patton Bay splay fault system during the 1964 Mw 9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake contributed to local tsunami generation and vertically uplifted shorelines as much as 11 m on Montague Island in Prince William Sound (PWS). Sudden uplift of 3.7–4.3 m caused coastal lagoons along the island's northwestern coast to gradually drain. The resulting change in depositional...
Authors
Jessica DePaolis, Tina Dura, Robert C. Witter, Peter J. Haeussler, Adrian Bender, Janet H. Curran, D. Reide Corbett
Assessing wild turkey productivity before and after a 14-day delay in the start date of the spring hunting season in Tennessee Assessing wild turkey productivity before and after a 14-day delay in the start date of the spring hunting season in Tennessee
Ten state wildlife management agencies in the United States, including six within the Southeast, have delayed their spring wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hunting seasons since 2017 by five or more days to address concerns related to the potential effects of hunting on wild turkey seasonal productivity. One hypothesis posits that if the spring hunting season is too early, there may be
Authors
Joseph O. Quehl, Lindsey M. Phillips, Vincent M. Johnson, Craig A. Harper, Joseph D. Clark, Roger D. Shields, David A. Buehler
Static and dynamic strain in the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake Static and dynamic strain in the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake
During the 1886 Mw 7.3 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake, three railroads emanating from the city were exposed to severe shaking. Expansion joints in segmented railroad tracks are designed to allow railroad infrastructure to withstand a few parts in 10,000 of thermoelastic strain. We show that, in 1886, transient contractions exceeding this limiting value buckled rails, and...
Authors
Roger Bilham, Susan E. Hough