Book Chapters

This chapter provides an introduction and overview of the use of aquatic ecosystems as indicators of water quality. The monitoring of biological communities (fish, algae, and invertebrates) as a means of assessing water quality conditions is emphasized along with ecotoxicological studies and measures of ecosystem function. Issues related to the design, implementation, and analysis of monitoring pr

Water clarity increased in nearshore areas of western Lake Erie by the early-1990s mainly as a result of the filtering activities of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.), which invaded in the mid-1980s. We hypothesized that increased water clarity would result in greater trawl avoidance and thus reduced ability to capture fish in bottom trawls during daytime compared to nighttime. We examined this

No abstract available.

Sand Hollow Reservoir in southwestern Utah, USA, is operated for both surface-water storage and managed aquifer recharge via infiltration from surface basin spreading to the underlying Navajo Sandstone. The total volume of estimated recharge from 2002 through 2011 was 131 Mm3., resulting in groundwater levels rising as much as 40 m. Hydraulic and hydrochemical data from the reservoir and various m

The US is in the midst of a continental scale, multiyear water resources experiment. What are we doing? We are expanding population at two to three times the national growth rate, particularly where water stress is already great. We are expanding irrigated agriculture from the west to the east, where increased competition for water has urban, agricultural, and environmental interests at odds, and

Biological soil crusts, a community of cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, and fungi, are an essential part of dryland ecosystems. They are critical in the stabilization of soils, protecting them from wind and water erosion. Similarly, these soil surface communities also stabilized soils on early Earth, allowing vascular plants to establish. They contribute nitrogen and carbon to otherwise relatively

Tidal-marsh sediment is an archive of Holocene environmental changes, including movements of sea and land levels, and extreme events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Accurate and precise radiocarbon dating of environmental changes is necessary to estimate rates of change and the recurrence interval (frequency) of events. Plant macrofossils preserved in growth position (or deposited s

No abstract available.

1. Introduction 1.1. FORMS, TOXICITY, AND HEALTH EFFECTS Mercury (Hg) has long been identified as an element that is injurious, even lethal, to living organisms. Exposure to its inorganic form, mainly from elemental Hg (Hg(0)) vapor (Fitzgerald & Lamborg, 2007) can cause damage to respiratory, neural, and renal systems (Hutton, 1987; USEPA, 2012; WHO, 2012). The organic form, methylmercury (CH3Hg

No abstract available.

No abstract available.

The Hawaiian archipelago, the most isolated cluster of islands on Earth, has been colonized successfully twice by bats. The putative “lava tube bat” of Hawaii is extinct, whereas the Hawaiian Hoary Bat, Lasiurus cinereus semotus, survives as an endangered species. We conducted a three-stage analysis to identify conditions under which hoary bats originally colonized Hawaii. We used FLIGHT to determ