Ecosystems Science at USGS
USGS Landscape Science Strategy
Science informing decision making on public lands and across all of our Nation’s landscapes.
Science informing decision making on public lands and across all of our Nation’s landscapes.
USGS Wildland Fire Science
USGS science helps understand the causes, consequences, and benefits of wildfire and helps prevent and manage larger, catastrophic events.
USGS science helps understand the causes, consequences, and benefits of wildfire and helps prevent and manage larger, catastrophic events.
Ecosystems Mission Area
The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area provides science to help America achieve sustainable management and conservation of biological resources in wild and urban spaces, and places in between.
News
Friday's FIndings - May 24, 2024
Friday's FIndings - May 24, 2024
Living with Wildfire: The Wildfire Research Team adds new USGS-led collaborator report to their series on projects informing community wildfire risk mitigation
Living with Wildfire: The Wildfire Research Team adds new USGS-led collaborator report to their series on projects informing community wildfire risk mitigation
USGS Scientist Discusses Using DNA to Assist with Aquatic Invasive Species Management in BioScience Podcast
USGS Scientist Discusses Using DNA to Assist with Aquatic Invasive Species Management in BioScience Podcast
Publications
Impacts of artificial rearing on cisco Coregonus artedi morphology, including pugheadedness
Cisco (Coregonus artedi Lesueur, 1818) in the Laurentian Great Lakes declined throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Managers are attempting to restore Great Lakes cisco and other coregonines using multiple approaches, including stocking. A potential obstacle to these efforts is that artificially reared coregonines can display deformities and morphological differences compared to wild fish, but t
Dryland soil recovery after disturbance across soil and climate gradients of the Colorado Plateau
Drylands impacted by energy development often require costly reclamation activities to reconstruct damaged soils and vegetation, yet little is known about the effectiveness of reclamation practices in promoting recovery of soil quality due to a lack of long-term and cross-site studies. Here, we examined paired on-pad and adjacent undisturbed off-pad soil properties over a 22-year chronosequence of
Linking dissolved organic matter composition to landscape properties in wetlands across the United States of America
Wetlands are integral to the global carbon cycle, serving as both a source and a sink for organic carbon. Their potential for carbon storage will likely change in the coming decades in response to higher temperatures and variable precipitation patterns. We characterized the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition from 12 different wetland sites across the USA
Science
Expanding Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been detected in 34 US states and five Canadian provinces in free-ranging cervids and/or commercial captive cervid facilities. CWD has been detected in free-ranging cervids in 34 states and four provinces and in captive cervid facilities in 19 states and three provinces.
2022 Year in Review
This has been another outstanding year for the CRU Program, and I am pleased to provide you with our 2022 Year in Review report. Highlights of this past year include the creation of our 42nd unit at Michigan State University and the completion of hiring activities for 37 new unit scientists in 31 States. In this report, you will learn more about the spectacular accomplishments of our students...
Human-Related Compounds in Water Sources in the Grand Canyon Help Identify Water Flow Pathways and Highlight Potential Water Quality Changes
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists investigated the movement of human-generated chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals and per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), in groundwater along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This research led to a better understanding of the movement of wastewater into groundwater, of complex underground flow patterns, and of chemicals present in springs near...