Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
Mission Area Publications
Mission Area Publications
We are focused on some of the most significant issues society faces, and our science is making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the Nation and the world. Learn more about the major topics our research covers and the programs focused on those topics.
Filter Total Items: 171268
Utility of an instantaneous salt dilution method for measuring streamflow in headwater streams
Streamflow records are biased toward large streams and rivers, yet small headwater streams are often the focus of ecological research in response to climate change. Conventional flow measurement instruments such as acoustic Doppler velocimeters (ADVs) do not perform well during low-flow conditions in small streams, truncating the development of rating curves during critical baseflow conditions dom
Authors
Karli M Rogers, Jennifer Burlingame Hoyle Fair, Nathaniel P. Hitt, Karmann G. Kessler, Zachary A. Kelly, Martin Briggs
Large-scale dam removal and ecosystem restoration
Rivers underpin vital ecosystems that support aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity and many ecosystem services, including food, water, culture, and recreation (Dudgeon et al. 2006). After centuries of building dams on rivers across the world, river restoration via dam removal is receiving increased public attention, financial investment, and scientific study because of various issues of regarding
Authors
Rebecca McCaffery, Jeffrey J. Duda, Laura Soissons, Jean-Marc Roussel
Redistribution of debris-flow sediment following severe wildfire and floods in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, USA
Severe fire on steep slopes increases stormwater runoff and the occurrence of runoff-initiated debris flows. Predicting locations of debris flows and their downstream effects on trunk streams requires watershed-scale high-resolution topographic data. Intense precipitation in July and September 2013 following the June 2011 Las Conchas Fire in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, led to widespread debri
Authors
J. M. Friedman, Anne C. Tillery, Samuel J. Alfieri, Elizabeth Rachaelann Skaggs, Patrick B. Shafroth, Craig D. Allen
Revision of ModelMuse to support the use of PEST software with MODFLOW and SUTRA models
Executive SummaryModelMuse is a graphical user interface for several groundwater modeling programs. ModelMuse was updated to generate the input files for the parameter estimation software suite PEST. The software is used with MODFLOW or SUTRA models to run PEST-based parameter estimation and display the updated model inputs after parameter estimation. The PEST input files can also be used with the
Authors
Richard B. Winston
Population genetic structure and demographic history reconstruction of introduced flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) in two US Mid-Atlantic rivers
Population genetic analysis of invasive populations can provide valuable insights into the source of introductions, pathways for expansion, and their demographic histories. Flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) are a prolific invasive species with high fecundity, long-distance dispersal, and piscivorous feeding habits that can lead to declines in native fish populations. In this study, we analyse
Authors
Justin Waraniak, Michael S. Eackles, Jason Keagy, Geoffrey D. Smith, Megan Schall, Sydney Stark, Shannon L. White, David C. Kazyak, Tyler Wagner
Origin of the Laurentian Great Lakes fish fauna through upward adaptive radiation cascade prior to the Last Glacial Maximum
The evolutionary histories of adaptive radiations can be marked by dramatic demographic fluctuations. However, the demographic histories of ecologically-linked co-diversifying lineages remain understudied. The Laurentian Great Lakes provide a unique system of two such radiations that are dispersed across depth gradients with a predator-prey relationship. We show that the North American Coregonus s
Authors
Nathan J.C. Backenstose, Daniel J. MacGuigan, Christopher A. Osborne, Moises A. Bernal, Elizabeth K. Thomas, Eric Normandeau, Daniel Yule, Wendylee Stott, Amanda Susanne Ackiss, Victor A. Albert, Louis Bernatchez, Trevor J. Krabbenhoft
Common-garden experiment reveals outbreeding depression and region-of-origin effects on reproductive success in a frequently translocated tortoise
Human-mediated animal movement can expose wildlife populations to novel environments. Phenotypic plasticity can buffer against the challenges presented by novel environments, while adaptation to local ecosystems may limit resilience in novel ecosystems. Outbreeding depression during the mixing of disparate gene pools can also reduce reproductive success after long-distance movement. Here, we use a
Authors
Kevin J. Loope, J. Nicole DeSha, Matthew J. Aresco, Kevin T. Shoemaker, Elizabeth Ann Hunter
Body mass changes of dabbling and diving ducks wintering in California
Bird body mass is often used as an index of body condition and fluctuates throughout the year in response to environmental conditions and avian life-history events. We examined the body mass of 59,572 ducks representing 13 species (7 dabbling duck species and 6 diving duck species) harvested within the 3 regions of the Central Valley in California, USA (Sacramento Valley, Suisun Marsh, San Joaquin
Authors
Mark P. Herzog, Josh T. Ackerman, Jeffrey D. Kohl, Brady Lynn Fettig, C. Alex Hartman, Sarah H. Peterson, Michael L. Casazza, Joseph P. Fleskes
Estimating traffic volume and road age in Wyoming to inform resource management planning: An application with wildlife-vehicle collisions
Road networks and their associated vehicular traffic disturb many terrestrial systems, but inventories of roads used to assess these effects often focus on the ‘where’ (e.g., local road type and density) and neglect the ‘when’ (e.g., temporal disturbance) or ‘how much’ (e.g., traffic volume disturbance). We developed annual estimates of the ‘when’ (road age) and ‘how much’ (vehicular traffic volum
Authors
Richard D. Inman, Benjamin Seward Robb, Michael S. O'Donnell, David R. Edmunds, Matthew J Holloran, Cameron L. Aldridge
Riverine dissolved organic matter transformations increase with watershed area, water residence time, and Damköhler numbers in nested watersheds
Quantifying the relative influence of factors and processes controlling riverine ecosystem function is essential to predicting future conditions under global change. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a fundamental component of riverine ecosystems that fuels microbial food webs, influences nutrient and light availability, and represents a significant carbon flux globally. The heterogeneous nature o
Authors
Kevin Alexander Ryan, Vanessa Garayburu-Caruso, Byron Crump, Ted Bambakidis, Peter Raymond, Shaoda Liu, James Stegen
It's about time: A multistate semicontinuous time mark–recapture model to evaluate seasonal survival and movement rates of juvenile Coho Salmon in a small coastal watershed
ObjectiveMany mark–recapture models assume that releases and recaptures are discrete events, and researchers often aggregate continuous recapture data (e.g., passive integrated transponder [PIT] detections) into coarse temporal scales to satisfy this assumption. This temporal discretization could result in parameter biases by ignoring the individual heterogeneity in the time susceptible to mortali
Authors
Nicholas P. Van Vleet, Darren Ward, Nicholas A. Som, Daniel C. Barton, Colin Anderson, Mark J. Henderson
A heuristic method to evaluate consequences for flight control and stability induced by attachment of biologging devices to birds and bats
Biologging is central to the study of wildlife, but questions remain about the minimization of effects of biologging devices. Rarely considered are changes biologging devices induce on an animal's centre of mass (COM) and resulting losses of flight control and stability.We applied established aeronautical principles to estimate how the COM of a flying bird or bat may be affected by the typical pos
Authors
Todd E. Katzner, George Young