Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1284
Organic matter composition versus microbial source: Controls on carbon loss from fen wetland and permafrost soils Organic matter composition versus microbial source: Controls on carbon loss from fen wetland and permafrost soils
Wetland and permafrost soils contain some of Earth's largest reservoirs of organic carbon, and these stores are threatened by rapid warming across the Arctic. Nearly half of northern wetlands are affected by permafrost. As these ecosystems warm, the cycling of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the opportunities for microbial degradation are changing. This is particularly evident as the
Authors
Sommer F. Starr, Kimberly Wickland, Anne M. Kellerman, Amy M. McKenna, Martin M. Kurek, Aubrey Miller, Ariana Karsaras, Thomas A. Douglas, Rachel Mackelprang, Ashley L. Shade, Robert G.M. Spencer
An early Holocene wet period in the southwestern United States An early Holocene wet period in the southwestern United States
Multiple generations of spring-fed streams traversed ∼800 km2 of the Las Vegas Valley in southern Nevada between ca. 10.9 ka and 8.5 ka, depositing an extensive tufa network. The scale of this network and diversity of tufa morphologies is novel in North America and offers an opportunity to obtain quantitative paleoclimate data for the region during the early Holocene. We determined...
Authors
Kathleen B. Springer, Adam M. Hudson, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Katharine W. Huntington, Andrew J. Schauer
New evidence for eolian activity and mammoths on Santa Rosa Island prior to the Last Glacial Maximum New evidence for eolian activity and mammoths on Santa Rosa Island prior to the Last Glacial Maximum
Sea-level fluctuations due to the growth and decay of continental ice sheets of the Quaternary exert a strong influence on geologic processes along coastlines. The California Channel Islands are no exception to this, and many studies have been conducted that focus on the extremes of these glacial-interglacial cycles, such as the last glacial period (marine isotope stage [MIS] 2) and the...
Authors
Daniel R. Muhs, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Nathan Melling
Integrating marine historical ecology into management of Alaska’s Pacific cod fishery for climate readiness Integrating marine historical ecology into management of Alaska’s Pacific cod fishery for climate readiness
The Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) fishery was closed in 2020 after a rapid decline in biomass caused by the marine heat waves of 2014–2019. Pacific cod are exceptionally thermally sensitive and management of this fishery is now challenged by increasingly unpredictable climate conditions. Fisheries monitoring is critical for climate readiness, but short-term monitoring data may be...
Authors
Catherine F. West, Loren McClenachan, Steven J. Barbeaux, Ingrid B. Spies, Jason A. Addison, Bruce T. Anderson, Courtney A. Hofman, Katherine L. Reedy, Emma A. Elliott Smith, Michael A. Etnier, Thomas E. Helser, Bruce P. Finney
Mapping predicted ecological states at landscape scales using remote sensing data and machine learning Mapping predicted ecological states at landscape scales using remote sensing data and machine learning
Dryland ecosystems, covering 45% of the Earth's land and supporting over one-third of the global population, face significant threats from land degradation and ecological state change. Managing these ecosystems is complex, and science-based frameworks like Ecological Site Descriptions and state-and-transition models are essential tools for guiding decisions to support ecological health...
Authors
Nathan J. Kleist, Christopher T. Domschke, Anna C. Knight, Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway, Sarah K. Carter
Bølling-Allerød productivity in the subarctic Pacific driven by seasonal upwelling Bølling-Allerød productivity in the subarctic Pacific driven by seasonal upwelling
The Bølling-Allerød deglacial event is marked by high diatom productivity and opal deposition throughout the subarctic Pacific. This opal could either constitute a strengthened biological pump and thus carbon sequestration, or a weakened biological pump and release of marine-sequestered CO2 to the atmosphere. We quantify silicic acid supply at IODP Site U1340 in the Bering Sea using...
Authors
Kimberly A. deLong, Terrence Blackburn, Beth E. Caissie, Jason A. Addison, Zuzanna Stroynowski, Maria R. Sipala, Franco Marcantonio, Ana Christina Ravelo
Insights from growing Globorotalia truncatulinoides and Globorotalia menardii in the laboratory Insights from growing Globorotalia truncatulinoides and Globorotalia menardii in the laboratory
The vast majority of planktic foraminiferal culture studies have been carried out on spinose species of foraminifera, with relatively few studies on non-spinose species. We conducted a pilot study to test whether live specimens of the non-spinose planktic foraminifera, Globorotalia truncatulinoides and Globorotalia menardii, could be successfully harvested from offshore plankton tow...
Authors
Caitlin E. Reynolds, Jennifer S. Fehrenbacher, Kaustubh Thirumalai, Eric J. Tappa, Julie N. Richey
Ecological thresholds and transformations due to climate change: The role of abiotic stress Ecological thresholds and transformations due to climate change: The role of abiotic stress
An ecological threshold is the point at which a comparatively small environmental change triggers an abrupt and disproportionately large ecological response. In the face of accelerating climate change, there is concern that abrupt ecosystem transformations will become more widespread as critical ecological thresholds are crossed. There has been ongoing debate, however, regarding the...
Authors
Michael Osland, John B. Bradford, Lauren T. Toth, Matthew J. Germino, James B. Grace, Judith Z. Drexler, Camille L. Stagg, Eric E. Grossman, Karen M. Thorne, Stephanie Romanach, Davina L. Passeri, Gregory B. Noe, Jessica R. Lacy, Ken Krauss, Kurt P. Kowalski, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Neil K. Ganju, Nicholas Enwright, Joel A. Carr, Kristin B. Byrd, Kevin J. Buffington
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, California Water Science Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Western Ecological Research Center (WERC), Western Geographic Science Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center , Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
A nationwide evaluation of crowd-sourced ambient temperature data A nationwide evaluation of crowd-sourced ambient temperature data
Growing concerns about heat in urban areas paired with the sparsity of weather stations have resulted in individuals drawing on data from citizen science sensor networks to fill in data gaps. The PurpleAir are the most widely-used low-cost air quality sensors in the contiguous United States with 14,777 deployed between 1 Jan 2017 and 20 July 2021. Although the air quality data from...
Authors
Priyanka deSouza, Peter Christian Ibsen, Daniel M. Westervelt, Ralph Kahn, Benjamin Zaitchik, Patrick Kinney
Equilibrium line altitudes, accumulation areas, and the vulnerability of glaciers in Alaska Equilibrium line altitudes, accumulation areas, and the vulnerability of glaciers in Alaska
The accumulation area ratio (AAR) of a glacier reflects its current state of equilibrium, or disequilibrium, with climate and its vulnerability to future climate change. Here, we present an inventory of glacier-specific annual accumulation areas and equilibrium line altitudes (ELAs) for over 3000 glaciers in Alaska and northwest Canada (88% of the regional glacier area) from 2018 to 2022...
Authors
Lucas Zeller, Daniel McGrath, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Jacob Downs
The North American greenhouse gas budget: Emissions, removals, and integration for CO2, CH4, and N2O (2010–2019): Results From the Second REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes Study (RECCAP2) The North American greenhouse gas budget: Emissions, removals, and integration for CO2, CH4, and N2O (2010–2019): Results From the Second REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes Study (RECCAP2)
Accurate accounting of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and removals is central to tracking progress toward climate mitigation and for monitoring potential climate-change feedbacks. GHG budgeting and reporting can follow either the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodologies for National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) reporting or use atmospheric-based “top-down” (TD)...
Authors
Benjamin Poulter, Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, Daniel J. Hayes, Philippe Ciais, Robbie M. Andrew, Ana Bastos, Brendan Byrne, David Butman, Josep G. Canadell, Abhishek Chatterjee, Grant Domke, Andrew F. Feldman, Kelsey Foster, Neha Hunka, Robert B. Jackson, Werner A. kurz, Ayia Lindquist, Maodian Liu, Ingrid Luijkx, Arnaud Mialon, Anna M. Michalak, John Miller, Wolfgang A. Obermeier, Naiqin Pan, James T. Randerson, Peter A. Raymond, Pierre Regnier, Laure Resplandy, Gerard Rocher-Ros, Nemesio Rodriquez-Fernandez, Judith A. Rosentreter, Julio Cesar Salazar-Neira, Suzanne E. Tank, Hanqin Tan, Rodrigo Vargas, Yohanna Villalobos, Jonathan A. Wang, Xinyuan Wei, Kimberly Wickland, Christopher J. Williams, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Christopher W. Woodall, Qing Ying, Zhen Zhang
An enhanced national-scale urban tree canopy cover dataset for the United States An enhanced national-scale urban tree canopy cover dataset for the United States
Moderate-resolution (30-m) national map products have limited capacity to represent fine-scale, heterogeneous urban forms and processes, yet improvements from incorporating higher resolution predictor data remain rare. In this study, we applied random forest models to high-resolution land cover data for 71 U.S. urban areas, moderate-resolution National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Tree...
Authors
Lucila Marie Corro, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Mehdi Heris, Peter Christian Ibsen, Karen Schleeweis, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Austin Troy, Kevin Megown, Jarlath P.M. O'Neil-Dunne