Welcome to the USGS Terrestrial, Freshwater, and Marine Ecosystems Program
Civilization depends on life-support services that natural ecosystems perform, including regulating climate, mitigating floods and drought, protecting shorelines from erosion, purifying air and water, detoxifying and decomposing wastes, and pollinating crops and natural vegetation. Healthy ecosystems provide habitat for diverse fish and wildlife communities. Studies conducted by USGS Terrestrial, Freshwater, and Marine Ecosystems scientists describe factors that control ecosystem structure, function, condition, and the provision of goods and services. This information is used to predict future changes to ecosystems and to describe the results of management alternatives. Ecosystem science is thus used to restore degraded landscapes and freshwater systems, sustain plants and animals, and find means to adapt management to global change.
Major research components of the program include:
or see all research topics.
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Research Highlights
Human Influence on California Fire Regimes
Abstract: Periodic wildfire maintains the integrity and species composition of many ecosystems, including the mediterranean-climate shrublands of California. However, human activities alter natural fire regimes, which can lead to cascading ecological effects. Increased human ignitions at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) have recently gained attention, but fire activity and risk are typically estimated using only biophysical variables. Our goal was to determine how humans influence fire in California and to examine whether this influence was linear, by relating contemporary (2000) and historic (1960-2000) fire data to both human and biophysical variables. Data for the human variables included fine-resolution maps of the WUI produced using housing density and land cover data. Interface WUI, where development abuts wildland vegetation, was differentiated from intermix WUI, where development intermingles with wildland vegetation. Additional explanatory variables included distance to WUI, population density, road density, vegetation type, and ecoregion. All data were summarized at the county level and analyzed using bivariate and multiple regression methods.
Syphard AD, Radeloff VC, Keeley JE, Hawbaker TJ, Clayton MK, et al. (2007) Human Influence on California Fire Regimes. Ecological Applications: Vol. 17, No. 5 pp. 1388-1402. Available at the Ecological Society of America |
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In the Spotlight
 Many Factors Will Challenge the Recovery of the Chesapeake Bay
The U.S. Geological Survey recently released findings about the major factors affecting the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The cumulative impact of pollutants, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and disease are affecting the health of fish and bird populations in the Bay and its watershed.
For full information, read the recent USGS press release.
Additional Resource
 The Fire Research and Management Exchange System (FRAMES)
is a "systematic method of exchanging information and transferring technology between wildland fire researchers, managers, and other stakeholders." FRAMES implements web-based technologies that assist in bridging the gap between science and management, making wildland fire data, metadata, tools, and other information resources easy to find, access, distribute, compare, and use.
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Ecosystems Home
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