Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1145
Genetic variation in tree leaf chemistry predicts the abundance and activity of autotrophic soil microorganisms Genetic variation in tree leaf chemistry predicts the abundance and activity of autotrophic soil microorganisms
Genetic variation in the chemistry of plant leaves can have ecosystem-level consequences. Here we address the hypothesis that genetic variation in foliar condensed tannins along a Populus hybridization gradient influence soil ammonia oxidizers, autotrophic microorganisms that perform the first step of nitrification and are not dependent on carbon derived from plant photosynthesis...
Authors
Paul Selmants, Jennifer Schweitzer, Karen Adair, Liza Holeski, Richard Lindroth, Stephen Hart, Thomas Whitham
Paleoenvironmental, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence of total warfare among the Classic Maya Paleoenvironmental, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence of total warfare among the Classic Maya
Despite over a century of archaeological research, the nature and broader consequences of Classic Maya warfare remain poorly understood. Based on frequent epigraphic references and iconographic themes, Classic period (250-950 CE) Maya warfare has largely been viewed as ritualized and limited in scope. Evidence of warfare in the Terminal Classic period (TCP, 800-950 CE) is interpreted as...
Authors
David Wahl, Lysanna Anderson, Francisco Estrada-Belli, Alexandre Tokovinine
Remote sensing as the foundation for high-resolution United States landscape projections – The Land Change Monitoring, assessment, and projection (LCMAP) initiative Remote sensing as the foundation for high-resolution United States landscape projections – The Land Change Monitoring, assessment, and projection (LCMAP) initiative
The Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative uses temporally dense Landsat data and time series analyses to characterize landscape change in the United States from 1985 to present. LCMAP will be used to explain how past, present, and future landscape change affects society and natural systems. Here, we describe a modeling framework for producing high...
Authors
Terry Sohl, Jordan Dornbierer, Steve Wika, Charles Robison
Fluvial sedimentary history of Arlington Canyon, Channel Islands National Park, California Fluvial sedimentary history of Arlington Canyon, Channel Islands National Park, California
Arlington Canyon, in the northwest part of Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California, has been the setting for important scientific discoveries over the past half century, including the oldest human remains in North America, several vertebrate fossil sites, and purported evidence of a catastrophic extinction event at the end of the Pleistocene. The canyon is filled...
Authors
R. Schumann, Jeffrey Pigati
Root-driven weathering impacts on mineral-organic associations in deep soils over pedogenic time scales Root-driven weathering impacts on mineral-organic associations in deep soils over pedogenic time scales
Plant roots are critical weathering agents in deep soils, yet the impact of resulting mineral transformations on the vast deep soil carbon (C) reservoir are largely unknown. Root-driven weathering of primary minerals may cause the formation of reactive secondary minerals, which protect mineral-organic associations (MOAs) for centuries or millennia. Conversely, root-driven weathering may...
Authors
Mariela Arredondo, Corey Lawrence, Marjorie S. Schulz, Malak Tfaily, Ravi Kukkadapu, Morris Jones, Kristin Boye, Marco Keiluweit
Glacier recession since the Little Ice Age: Implications for water storage in a Rocky Mountain landscape Glacier recession since the Little Ice Age: Implications for water storage in a Rocky Mountain landscape
Glacial ice is a significant influence on local climate, hydrology, vegetation, and wildlife. We mapped a complete set of glacier areas from the Little Ice Age (LIA) using very high-resolution satellite imagery (30-cm) within Glacier National Park, a region that encompasses over 400,000 hectares. We measured glacier change across the park using LIA glacier area as a baseline and used...
Authors
Chelsea Mikle, Daniel Fagre
Rapid inundation of the southern Florida coastline despite low relative sea-level rise rates during the late-Holocene Rapid inundation of the southern Florida coastline despite low relative sea-level rise rates during the late-Holocene
Sediment cores from Florida Bay, Everglades National Park were examined to determine ecosystem response to relative sea-level rise (RSLR) over the Holocene. High-resolution multiproxy analysis from four sites show freshwater wetlands transitioned to mangrove environments 4–3.6 ka, followed by estuarine environments 3.4–2.8 ka, during a period of enhanced climate variability. We calculate...
Authors
Miriam Jones, G. Wingard, Bethany Stackhouse, Katherine Keller, Debra Willard, Marci Marot, Bryan Landacre, Christopher Bernhardt
A 3-year in-situ measurement of CO2 efflux in coastal wetlands: Understanding carbon loss through ecosystem respiration and its partitioning A 3-year in-situ measurement of CO2 efflux in coastal wetlands: Understanding carbon loss through ecosystem respiration and its partitioning
Understanding the link between ecosystem respiration (Reco) and its influential factors is necessary to evaluate the sources of gaseous carbon loss in coastal wetlands. Seablite (Suaeda salsa Pall.) is the main vegetation type pioneering temperate coastal wetlands in northeast China, and is generally an understudied wetland type. To evaluate the influence of environmental factors on Reco...
Authors
Xueyang Yu, Siyuan Ye, Linda Olsson, Mengjie Wei, Ken Krauss, Hans Brix
FLUXNET-CH4 synthesis activity: Objectives, observations, and future directions FLUXNET-CH4 synthesis activity: Objectives, observations, and future directions
This paper describes the formation of, and initial results for, a new FLUXNET coordination network for ecosystem-scale methane (CH4) measurements at 60 sites globally, organized by the Global Carbon Project in partnership with other initiatives and regional flux tower networks. The objectives of the effort are presented along with an overview of the coverage of eddy covariance (EC) CH4...
Authors
Sara Knox, Robert Jackson, Benjamin Poulter, Gavin McNicol, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Zhen Zhang, Gustaf Hugelius, Philippe Bousquet, Josep Canadell, Marielle Saunois, Dario Papale, Housen Chu, Trevor Keenan, Dennis Baldocchi, Margaret Torn, Ivan Mammarella, Carlo Trotta, Mika Aurela, Gil Bohrer, David Campbell, Alessandro Cescatti, Samuel Chamberlain, Jiquan Chen, Weinan Chen, Sigrid Dengel, Ankur Desai, Eugenie Euskirchen, Thomas Friborg, Daniele Gasbarra, Ignacio Goded, Mathias Goeckede, Martin Heimann, Manuel Helbig, Takashi Hirano, David Hollinger, Hiroki Iwata, Minseok Kang, Janina Klatt, Ken Krauss, Lars Kutzbach, Annalea Lohila, Bhaskar Mitra, Timothy H Morin, Mats Nilsson, Shuli Niu, Asko Noormets, Walter Oechel, Matthias Peichl, Olli Peltola, Michele Reba, Andrew Richardson, Benjamin Runkle, Youngryel Ryu, Torsten Sachs, Karina Schafer, Hans Schmid, Narasinha Shurpali, Oliver Sonnentag, Angela C I Tang, Masahito Ueyama, Rodrigo Vargas, Timo Vesala, Eric Ward, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Georg Wohlfahrt, Donatella Zona
Northern forest winters have lost cold, snowy conditions that are important for ecosystems and human communities Northern forest winters have lost cold, snowy conditions that are important for ecosystems and human communities
Winter is an understudied but key period for the socio-ecological systems of northeastern North American forests. A growing awareness of the importance of the winter season to forest ecosystems and surrounding communities has inspired several decades of research, both across the northern forest and at other mid- and high-latitude ecosystems around the globe. Despite these efforts, we...
Authors
Alexandra Contosta, Nora Casson, Sarah Garlick, Sarah Nelson, Matthew Ayers, Elizabet Buralkowski, John Campbell, Irean Creed, Catharine Eimers, Celia Evans, Ivan Fernandez, Collin Fuss, Thomas G. Huntington, Kaizad Pate, Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, Kyongo Son, Pamela Templer, Darren Thornbrugh
Mineralogy dictates the initial mechanism of microbial necromass association Mineralogy dictates the initial mechanism of microbial necromass association
Soil organic matter (SOM) improves soil fertility and mitigates disturbance related to climate and land use change. Microbial necromass (the accumulated cellular residues of microorganisms) comprises the majority of soil C, yet the formation and persistence of necromass in relation to mineralogy is poorly understood. We tested whether soil minerals had different microbial necromass...
Authors
Courtney Creamer, Andrea Foster, Corey Lawrence, Jack McFarland, Marjorie S. Schulz, Mark Waldrop
Inorganic nitrogen wet deposition gradients in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area and Colorado Front Range – Preliminary implications for Rocky Mountain National Park and interpolated deposition maps Inorganic nitrogen wet deposition gradients in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area and Colorado Front Range – Preliminary implications for Rocky Mountain National Park and interpolated deposition maps
For the first time in the 40-year history of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program / National Trends Network (NADP/NTN), a unique urban-to-rural transect of wet deposition monitoring stations were operated as part of the NTN in 2017 to quantify reactive inorganic nitrogen wet deposition for adjacent urban and rural, montane regions. The transect of NADP stations (sites) was used to...
Authors
Gregory Wetherbee, Katherine Benedict, Sheila Murphy, Emily Elliott