Publications

Climate change and human–wildlife conflict are both pressing challenges for biodiversity conservation and human well-being in the Anthropocene. Climate change is a critical yet underappreciated amplifier of human–wildlife conflict, as it exacerbates resource scarcity, alters human and animal behaviours and distributions, and increases human–wildlife encounters. We synthesize evidence of...

Groundwater uranium (U) concentrations have been measured above the U.S. EPA maximum contaminant level (30 μg/L) in many U.S. aquifers, including in areas not associated with anthropogenic contamination by milling or mining. In addition to carbonate, nitrate has been correlated to uranium groundwater concentrations in two major U.S. aquifers. However, to date, direct evidence that...

Infectious diseases pose a significant threat to global health and biodiversity. Yet, predicting the spatiotemporal dynamics of wildlife epizootics remains challenging. Disease outbreaks result from complex nonlinear interactions among a large collection of variables that rarely adhere to the assumptions of parametric regression modeling. We adopted a nonparametric machine learning...

Seasonal hypolimnetic hypoxia has been documented in Lake Erie’s central basin since the 1950s. Ship-based surveys to monitor hypoxia have been conducted since the 1980s, but they occur at a relatively low frequency and focus on the deeper areas of the central basin. To better document the seasonal development of stratification and the consequent occurrence of hypoxia, we deployed eight...

Paleoclimate reconstructions can provide a window into the environmental conditions in Earth history when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were higher than today. In the eastern USA, paleoclimate reconstructions are sparse, because terrestrial sedimentary deposits are rare. Despite this, the eastern USA has the largest population and population density in North America, and...

Fish that exhibit high foraging activity or bold behavior can be particularly vulnerable to angling. If these traits are heritable, selection through harvest can drive phenotypic change, eventually rendering a target population less vulnerable to angling and consequently impacting the quality of the fishery. In this study, we used parental-based tags to investigate whether vulnerability...

Diet plasticity is a common behavior exhibited by piscivores to sustain predator biomass when preferred prey biomass is reduced. Invasive piscivore diet plasticity could complicate suppression success; thus, understanding invasive predator consumption is insightful to meeting conservation targets. Here, we determine if diet plasticity exists in an invasive apex piscivore and whether...

To assess the status and trends of conditions of surface waters throughout Mississippi, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), summarized concentrations and estimated loads, yields, trends, and spatial and temporal patterns of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) at 20 stream sites in MDEQ’s ambient water...

Coupled paleomagnetic and geochronologic data derived from mafic dykes provide valuable records of continental movement. To reconstruct the Proterozoic paleogeographic history of Peninsular India, we report paleomagnetic directions and U-Pb zircon ages from twenty-nine mafic dykes in the Eastern Dharwar Craton near Hyderabad. Paleomagnetic analysis yielded clusters of directional data...

Geospatial data and tools evolve as new technologies are developed and landscape change occurs over time. As a result, these data may become outdated and inadequate for supporting critical habitat-related work across the international boundary in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts Bird Conservation Region (BCR 33) due to the area’s complex vegetation communities and the discontinuity in data

The objective of the work presented in this report is to develop equations that can be used to extend the base flow record at multiple partial-record streamgaging stations at Acadia National Park in eastern coastal Maine based on nearby continuous-record streamgaging stations. Daily mean streamflow values at U.S. Geological Survey continuous-record streamgaging station Otter Creek near...

Land management priorities and decisions may result in population declines for non-target wildlife species. In the western United States, large-scale removal of conifer from sagebrush ecosystems (Artemisia spp.) is occurring to recover greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations and may result in pinyon jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) habitat loss. Jay populations have...