Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1145
Climate-driven tradeoffs between landscape connectivity and the maintenance of the coastal carbon sink Climate-driven tradeoffs between landscape connectivity and the maintenance of the coastal carbon sink
Ecosystem connectivity tends to increase the resilience and function of ecosystems responding to stressors. Coastal ecosystems sequester disproportionately large amounts of carbon, but rapid exchange of water, nutrients, and sediment makes them vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Individual components of the coastal landscape (i.e., marsh, forest, bay) have contrasting...
Authors
Kendall Valentine, Ellen Herbert, David Walters, Yaping Chen, Alexander J. Smith, Matthew Kirwan
Regional variability in peatland burning at mid-to high-latitudes during the Holocene Regional variability in peatland burning at mid-to high-latitudes during the Holocene
Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennial...
Authors
Thomas Sim, Graeme Swindles, Paul Morris, Andy Baird, Angela Gallego-Sala, Yuwan Wang, Maarten Blaauw, Philip Camill, Michelle Garneau, Mark Hardiman, Julie Loisel, Minna Valiranta, Lysanna Anderson, Karina Apolinarska, Femke Augustijns, Liene Aunina, Joannie Beaulne, Premysl Bobek, Werner Borken, Nils Broothaerts, Qiao-Yu Cui, Marissa Davies, Ana Ejarque, Michelle Farrell, Ingo Feeser, Angelica Feurdean, Richard Fewster, Sarah Finkelstein, Marie-Jose Gaillard, Mariusz Gałka, Annica Greisman, Liam Heffernan, Renske Hoevers, Miriam Jones, Teemu Juselius, Edgar Karofeld, Klaus Knorr, Atte Korhola, Dmitri Kupriyanov, Malin Kylander, Terri Lacourse, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Martin Lavoie, Geoffrey Lemdahl, Dominika Lucow, Gabriel Magnan, Alekss Maksims, Claudia Mansilla, Katarzyna Marcisz, Elena Marinova, Paul Mathijssen, Dmitri Mauquoy, Yuri Mazei, Natalia Mazei, Julia McCarroll, Robert McCulloch, Alice Milner, Yannick Miras, Fraser Mitchell, Elena Novenko, Nicolas Pelletier, Matthew Peros, Sanna Pillo, Louis-Martin Pilote, Guillaume Primeau, Damien Rius, Vincent Robin, Mylene Robitaille, Thomas Roland, Eleonor Ryberg, A. Sannel, Karsten Schittek, Gabriel Servera-Vives, William Shotyk, Michal Slowinski, Normunds Stivrins, Ward Swinnen, Gareth Thompson, Alexei Tiunov, Andrey Tsyganov, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Gert Verstraeten, Tuomo Wallenius, Julia Webb, Debra A. Willard, Zicheng Yu, Claudio Zaccone, Hui Zhang
Linking seed size and number to trait syndromes in trees Linking seed size and number to trait syndromes in trees
Aim Our understanding of the mechanisms that maintain forest diversity under changing climate can benefit from knowledge about traits that are closely linked to fitness. We tested whether the link between traits and seed number and seed size is consistent with two hypotheses, termed the leaf economics spectrum and the plant size syndrome, or whether reproduction represents an independent...
Authors
Michal Bogdziewicz, Marie-Claire Aravena Acuña, Robert Andrus, Davide Ascoli, Yves Bergeron, Daniel Brveiller, Thomas Boivin, Raul Bonal, Thomas Caignard, Maxime Cailleret, Rafael Calama, Sergio Calderon, J. Julio Camarero, Chia-Hao Chang-Yang, Jerome Chave, Francesco Chianucci, Natalie Cleavitt, Benoit Courbaud, Andrea Cutini, Thomas Curt, Adrian Das, Hendrik Davi, Nicolas Delpiere, Sylvain Delzon, Michael Dietze, Laurent Dormont, William Farfan-Rios, Catherine Gehring, Gregory Gilbert, Georg Gratzer, Cathryn Greenberg, Arthur Guignabert, Qinfeng Guo, Andrew Hacket-Pain, Arndt Hampe, Qingmin Han, Kazuhiko Hoshizaki, Ines Ibanez, Jill Johnstone, Valentin Journe, Thomas Kitzberger, Johannes M.H. Knops, Georges Kunstler, Richard Kobe, Jonathan Lageard, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Mateusz Ledwon, Theodor Leininger, Jean-Marc Limousin, James Lutz, Diana Macias, Anders Marell, Eliot McIntire, Emily Moran, Renzo Motta, Jonathan Myers, Thomas Nagel, Shoji Naoe, Kyotaro Noguchi, Michio Oguro, Hiroko Kurokawa, Jean-Marc Ourcival, Robert Parmenter, Ignacio M. Perez-Ramos, Lukasz Piechnik, Tomasz Podgorski, John Poulsen, Tong Qiu, Miranda Redmond, Chantal D. Reid, Kyle C. Rodman, Pavel Šamonil, Jan Holik, C. Scher, Harald Van Marle, Barbara Seget, Mitsue Shibata, Shubhi Sharma, Miles Silman, Michael Steele, Jacob Straub, I-Fang Sun, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson, Peter A. Thomas, Maria Uriarte, Giorgio Vacchiano, Thomas Veblen, Boyd Wright, S. Wright, Thomas Whitham, Kai Zhu, Jess Zimmerman, Magdalna Zywiec, James Clark
The relative stability of planktic foraminifer thermal preferences over the past 3 million years The relative stability of planktic foraminifer thermal preferences over the past 3 million years
Stationarity of species’ ecological tolerances is a first-order assumption of paleoenvironmental reconstruction based upon analog methods. To test this and other assumptions used in quantitative analysis of foraminiferal faunas for paleoceanographic reconstruction, we analyzed paired alkenone unsaturation ratio (UK′37) 37′) sea surface temperature (SST) estimates and relative abundances...
Authors
Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson, Kevin Foley, Timothy Herbert, Steve Hunter, Carin Andersson, Whittney Spivey
Increased whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) growth and defense under a warmer and regionally drier climate Increased whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) growth and defense under a warmer and regionally drier climate
Introduction: Tree defense characteristics play a crucial role in modulating conifer bark beetle interactions, and there is a growing body of literature investigating factors mediating tree growth and resin-based defenses in conifers. A subset of studies have looked at relationships between tree growth, resin duct morphology and climate; however, these studies are almost exclusively from...
Authors
Nicholas E. Kichas, Gregory Pederson, Sharon Hood, Richard Everett, David McWethy
Large increases in methane emissions expected from North America’s largest wetland complex Large increases in methane emissions expected from North America’s largest wetland complex
Natural methane (CH4) emissions from aquatic ecosystems may rise because of human-induced climate warming, although the magnitude of increase is highly uncertain. Using an exceptionally large CH4 flux dataset (~19,000 chamber measurements) and remotely sensed information, we modeled plot- and landscape-scale wetland CH4 emissions from the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), North America’s...
Authors
Sheel Bansal, Max Post van der Burg, Rachel Fern, John Jones, Rachel Lo, Owen McKenna, Brian Tangen, Zhen Zhang, Robert Gleason
The benefits of big-team science for conservation: Lessons learned from trinational monarch butterfly collaborations The benefits of big-team science for conservation: Lessons learned from trinational monarch butterfly collaborations
Many pressing conservation issues are complex problems caused by multiple social and environmental drivers; their resolution is aided by interdisciplinary teams of scientists, decision makers, and stakeholders working together. In these situations, how do we generate science to effectively guide conservation (resource management and policy) decisions? This paper describes elements of...
Authors
James E. Diffendorfer, Ryan G. Drum, Greg Mitchell, Eduardo Rendon-Salinas, Victor Sánchez-Cordero, Darius J. Semmens, Wayne Thogmartin, Ignacio March
Poleward amplification, seasonal rainfall and forest heterogeneity in the Miocene of the eastern USA Poleward amplification, seasonal rainfall and forest heterogeneity in the Miocene of the eastern USA
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...
Authors
Tammo Reichgelt, Aly Baumgartner, Ran Feng, Debra A. Willard
Groundwater recharge in northern New England: Meteorological drivers and relations with low streamflow Groundwater recharge in northern New England: Meteorological drivers and relations with low streamflow
Meteorological drivers of groundwater recharge for spring (February–June), fall (October–January), and recharge-year (October–June) recharge seasons were evaluated for northern New England and upstate New York from 1989 to 2018. Monthly groundwater recharge was computed at 21 observation wells by subtracting the water levels at the end of each month from the level of the previous month...
Authors
Caitlin Crossett, Glenn Hodgkins, Hadley Menk, Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, Robert W. Dudley, Mary Lemcke-Stampone, John C. Hammond
Framework for facilitating mangrove recovery after hurricanes on Caribbean islands Framework for facilitating mangrove recovery after hurricanes on Caribbean islands
Mangrove ecosystems in the Caribbean are frequently exposed to hurricanes, leading to structural and regenerative change that elicit calls for recovery action. For those mangroves unaffected by human modifications, recovery can occur naturally. Indeed, observable natural recovery after hurricanes is the genesis of the “disturbance adaptation” classification for mangroves; while...
Authors
Ken Krauss, Kevin Whelan, John Kennedy, Daniel Friess, Caroline Rogers, Heather Stewart, Kristin Grimes, Camilo Trench, Danielle Ogurcak, Catherine Toline, Lianne Ball, Andrew From
Mangrove reforestation provides greater blue carbon benefit than afforestation for mitigating global climate change Mangrove reforestation provides greater blue carbon benefit than afforestation for mitigating global climate change
Significant efforts have been invested to restore mangrove forests worldwide through reforestation and afforestation. However, blue carbon benefit has not been compared between these two silvicultural pathways at the global scale. Here, we integrated results from direct field measurements of over 370 restoration sites around the world to show that mangrove reforestation (reestablishing...
Authors
Shanshan Song, Yali Ding, Wei Li, Yuchen Meng, Jianping Zhou, Ruikun Gou, Conghe Zhang, Shengbin Ye, Neil Saintilan, Ken Krauss, Stephen Crooks, Shuguo Lv, Guanghui Lin
Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA
Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for wildfire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have altered risk to homes, or the potential for wildfire to threaten homes. We used a random forests model to predict burn probability in relation to weather variables...
Authors
Todd Hawbaker, Paul D. Henne, Melanie Vanderhoof, Amanda R. Carlson, Miranda Mockrin, Volker C. Radeloff