Summary of the Final Activities of the 2018-2023 Landsat Science Team
No abstract available.
The Earth Observer↗
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Fish Immunology: J. S. Stolen, D. P. Anderson, and W. B. van Muiswinkel, editors; 1985; Elsevier Science Publishing Co. Inc. 485 pages
No abstract available at this time
Fish Health Section Newsletter↗
Fall 2025
In this newsletter, we are excited to share our recent publication, Bridging theory and practice to inform seed selection for restoration , which is part of an ongoing collaborative effort with land managers and restoration practitioners to synthesize lessons learned and identify future research directions for native seed development and use in the U.S. We would also like to say thank you to Sarah Costanzo, who was instrumental to RAMPS field work for the past three years and is starting a PhD program in Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. As always, please reach out with questions or collaboration opportunities for research and restoration in the Southwest.
RAMPS Newsletter↗
The fellow speaks: Sometimes you get only one chance
I am grateful to AGU for selecting me as one of the five recipient of the 2014 Ambassador Award, which also includes election as a Union Fellow. I thank my colleague Steve Ingebritsen for nominating me. As Steve’s citation mentions my work on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response, I would like to reflect on this experience. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is well documented in the report of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling (2011). Washington Post writer John Achenbach’s (2011) book gives a behind-the-scene portrayal of the crisis and explains oil drilling technology in layman’s terms. A special feature in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (v. 109, no. 50, December 11, 2012) presents 4 perspectives and 11 research articles on “Science Applications in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.” Here, I will simply share my personal perspective.
AGU Hydrology Section Newsletter↗
Note to Banders, December 2022
Note to All Banders was a special extra communication with more urgent information relevant to banders. This Note to All Banders was sent to U.S. bird banders on December 20, 2022. This note includes holiday greetings and a review of the 2022 successes at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Throughout 2022, the BBL increased communication, engagement, and collaboration, within the Eastern Ecological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, and with organization partners and local communities. This Note to Banders highlights these efforts in more detail.
Newsletter↗
Note to All Banders - January 2024
Note to All Banders was a special extra communication with more urgent information relevant to banders. . This note includes holiday greetings and a review of the 2023 successes at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Throughout 2022, the BBL increased communication, engagement, and collaboration, within the Eastern Ecological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, and with organization partners and local communities. This Note to All Banders highlights these efforts in more detail.
Newsletter↗
Focused campaign increases activity among participants in Nature's Notebook , a citizen science project
Citizen science projects, which engage non-professional scientists in one or more stages of scientific research, have been gaining popularity; yet maintaining participants’ activity level over time remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for a short-term, focused campaign to increase participant activity in a national-scale citizen science program. The campaign that we implemented was designed to answer a compelling scientific question. We invited participants in the phenology-observing program, Nature’s Notebook, to track trees throughout the spring of 2012, to ascertain whether the season arrived as early as the anomalous spring of 2010. Consisting of a series of six electronic newsletters and costing our office slightly more than 1 week of staff resources, our effort was successful; compared with previous years, the number of observations collected in the region where the campaign was run increased by 184%, the number of participants submitting observations increased by 116%, and the number of trees registered increased by 110%. In comparison, these respective metrics grew by 25, 55, and 44%, over previous years, in the southeastern quadrant of the United States, where no such campaign was carried out. The campaign approach we describe here is a model that could be adapted by a wide variety of programs to increase engagement and thereby positively influence participant retention.
Natural Sciences Education↗
Genetics as a tool for conservation and management of West Indian manatee populations in Brazil
A study conducted by the National Center for Research and Conservation of Aquatic Mammals (CMA), United States Geological Survey Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, and partner researchers found that the marine Antillean manatee ( Trichechus manatus manatus ) has low genetic diversity in regions where there are territorial interfaces with the Amazonian manatee ( Trichechus inunguis ). The study was published as an article in the journal, Frontiers in Marine Science.
Sirenews↗
Note to banders, February 2025
Note to All Banders was a special extra communication with more urgent information relevant to banders. This Note to All Banders was sent to U.S. bird banders on February 12, 2025. This note includes a review of the 2024 successes at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Throughout 2024, the BBL increased communication, engagement, and collaboration, within the Eastern Ecological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, and with organization partners and local communities. This Note to Banders highlights these efforts in more detail.
Memo to All Banders (MTAB)↗
Estimated daily mean streamflow in Iowa using the Flow-Duration Curve Transfer Method StreamStats application
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates many streamgages throughout the country that provide historical and real-time daily streamflow information. Accurate estimates of daily streamflow and the percentage of time that a certain volume of streamflow occurs or is exceeded in a stream is crucial information for structure design and other activities conducted by federal, state, and local officials. However, many important locations are ungaged and therefore lack the in-depth data provided at streamgages. The USGS provides hydrologic information like streamflow statistics and drainage basin characteristics in the web-based tool StreamStats (https://streamstats.usgs.gov/ss/). A newly released StreamStats functionality developed by the StreamStats development team working closely with USGS scientists in the Central Midwest Water Science Center incorporates flow-duration statistics already available at USGS streamgages to calculate daily mean streamflow estimates for rural, ungaged locations in Iowa [1].
Iowa↗
An overview of USGS-NASA Landsat Science activities during 2018
Two meetings of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)-NASA Landsat Science Team (LST) took place in 2018. The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center hosted the winter meeting, which took place February 21-22 in Sioux Falls, SD. The University of Colorado-Boulder hosted the summer meeting, which was held August 8-10 in Boulder, CO.
The Earth Observer↗
Burmese python size and reproduction: Fact vs fiction
We’ve probably all heard rumors about monster 25-foot snakes or baby pythons emerging from under neighbors houses year-round, but what is fact vs fiction? To help us sort truth from myth, invasive pythons that were removed from the Everglades and surrendered to the National Park Service (NPS) were scientifically investigated via a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center’s (USGS FORT) Invasive Species Science Branch. Other contributing partners were South Florida Water Management District and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Python Contractor and Agent programs. Over the past 25 years more than 4,000 wild Burmese pythons have been found and removed from southern Florida’s Greater Everglades Ecosystem.
Everglades Cooperative Invasive Species Management↗
Natives bite back! Are Burmese pythons beginning to encounter the resilience of the Everglades Ecosystem?
Burmese pythons ( Python bivittatus ) is a large, invasive reptile known in Florida for its devastating impacts on native species in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. Several organizations and individuals are taking action to research and/or remove the snakes, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Since 2018, scientists from USGS’s Fort Collins Science Center have been working closely with the National Park Service (NPS) in Big Cypress National Preserve to use radiotelemetry and track Burmese pythons for various ecological research project and management (enabled by invaluable partnerships with the University of Florida and Zoo Miami). Over those years, we have encountered some incidental, but intriguing findings.
Florida↗
State of the network: Long-term, high-frequency flow and water quality data in the San Francisco Estuary, California
The USGS California Water Science Center is heavily involved in the measurement of flow and water quality parameters in the San Francisco Estuary, with support from many partner agencies. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR), through the Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) is one of those agencies. This article describes the resulting efforts and methodologies and provides examples of some of the uses of the data sets for science and management interests. The DWR/IEP-funded flow and water quality network provides high resolution data in both space and time, over a large portion of the San Francisco Estuary. This measurement network has evolved over the preceding decades, and proven invaluable for both management and science interests, with particular relevance to water supply and endangered species issues. Presented below are a summary of the measurement network, some of the methods being utilized, and some interesting conditions that became evident during the recent drought that spanned Water Years (WY) 2013-2016, and the wet WY2017 (water year spans Oct 1-Sept 30).
California↗
Investigating gas hydrate as a factor in accretionary margin frontal ridge slope failures and cold seep biogeochemistry
During August 2008, a research expedition (2008-007-PGC) was carried out offshore Vancouver Island on the northern Cascadia Margin (Figure 1) to study the role of gas hydrate in slope stability and cold seep biogeochemistry. The cruise was organized by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) as part of the Earth Science Sector, Natural Gas Hydrate Program, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). This international collaboration included McGill University, University of Victoria, the U.S. Geological Survey, Florida State University, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Fire in the Ice: NETL Methane Hydrate Newsletter↗
2009 Observer Survey Report
The USA‐National Phenology Network (USA‐NPN) seeks to engage volunteer observers in collecting phenological observations of plants and animals using consistent standards and to contribute their observations to a national data repository. In March 2009, the National Coordinating Office staff implemented an online monitoring program for 213 plant species. In this pilot year of the program, 547 observers reported phenology observations on one or more plants via the online interface. To learn more about our participants and to improve our program and our participants’ experience, we undertook a survey of individuals registered in the USA‐NPN phenology observation program. This report summarizes the results of the 2009 observer surveys. Two populations were targeted via separate surveys: Individuals who registered with the USA‐NPN plant phenology monitoring program via MyNPN but did not submit any data in 2009 (hereafter termed “non‐reporting participants”), and Individuals who submitted phenology observations via MyNPN in 2009 (hereafter termed “reporting participants”). In general, all participants in the 2009 USA‐NPN plant phenology observation program seemed to have a generally good experience. When asked why they would or would not recommend the program to friends, the majority of comments were of a positive nature, and included explanations such as, “It is an interesting and fairly light duty activity”, “It’s a cool program!”, and “A way to contribute to science”. The most commonly indicated reason for not submitting observations among non‐reporters was getting lost in the registration process (14% of respondents). Another 14% of respondents indicated that they had collected observations but did not submit them online, indicating that more people may be engaged in understanding phenology than our estimates based on data submitted suggest. Survey participants’ suggestions for improving the program fell into several categories, including the need for a more expansive list of plants from which to pick, the ability to monitor animals, and more information on the plants, including photographs of the various phenophases to aid in identification. Participants also requested increased contact from the USA‐NPN, in the form of weekly or monthly emails or newsletters and reminders to collect and submit observations. Many of these suggestions are either already being addressed in changes being made to the monitoring system and online entry system or are planned for the future.
USA-NPN Technical Series↗
North American bird banding program longevity records
Longevity in wild birds refers to the longest-lived individual of any particular species. This measure of age can reflect important life history traits and identifying differences in longevity patterns between species can reveal unique threats or conservation needs. Because it requires the identification of individual birds, longevity can usually only be measured through banding or marking of individuals. A bird’s age can generally be determined at the time of banding and then recalculated whenever the bird is subsequently recovered, recaptured, or resighted. The North American Bird Banding Program (NABBP), comprised of the U.S. Geological Survey Eastern Ecological Science Center Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) and Canada’s Bird Banding Office (BBO), curates a vast dataset of all North American bird banding records, as well as subsequent encounters of banded birds reported by banders and members of the public. Although not all bird populations are banded equally and band encounters are only reported voluntarily, the NABBP is thus uniquely situated to catalogue and report longevity records for bird species under our purview.
North American Bird Bander↗
Increasing the efficiency and power of camera traps for EDRR & ecological monitoring
Invasive species are an ever-growing concern for Florida, especially in important environments like the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. One of the best ways to fight back against invasives is the use of the “Early Detection, Rapid Response” (EDRR) system. The earlier we can detect the presence of a nonnative species, and the faster we respond, the better our chance of stopping its spread. For years, USGS Fort Collins Science Center has been working closely with the National Park Service to use trail cameras to observe the presence of any nonnative species and to monitor research assets in remote locations. Currently, we are working in Everglades National Park to detect invading Black and White Tegu lizards as well as in Big Cypress National Preserve researching the invasive Burmese python and monitoring their nest sites (did you know bobcats eat python eggs!?).
Florida↗