Book Chapters
Science Quality and Integrity
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The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
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Occupancy in community-level studies
Another type of multi-species studies, are those focused on community-level metrics such as species richness. In this chapter we detail how some of the single-species occupancy models described in earlier chapters have been applied, or extended, for use in such studies, while accounting for imperfect detection. We highlight how Bayesian methods using MCMC are particularly useful in such settings t
Authors
Darryl I. MacKenzie, James D. Nichols, Andy Royle, Kenneth H. Pollock, Larissa L. Bailey, James E. Hines
The aerosphere as a network connector of organisms and their diseases
Aeroecological processes, especially powered flight of animals, can rapidly connect biological communities across the globe. This can have profound consequences for evolutionary diversification, energy and nutrient transfers, and the spread of infectious diseases. The latter is of particular consequence for human populations, since migratory birds are known to host diseases which have a history of
Authors
Jeremy D. Ross, Eli S. Bridge, Diann J. Prosser, John Y. Takekawa
Tributyltin: Advancing the science on assessing endocrine disruption with an unconventional endocrine-disrupting compound
Tributyltin (TBT) has been recognized as an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) for several decades. However, only in the last decade, was its primary endocrine mechanism of action (MeOA) elucidated—interactions with the nuclear retinoid-X receptor (RXR), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ), and their heterodimers. This molecular initiating event (MIE) alters a range of reproducti
Authors
Laurent Lagadic, Ioanna Katsiadaki, Ronald C. Biever, Patrick Guiney, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Tamar Schwarz, James P. Meador
Tagging and tracking
The number of stranding response facilities for marine mammals in the United States has increased over the past two decades, resulting in thousands of rehabilitated marine mammals released back into the wild (Geraci and Lounsbury 2005; Moore et al. 2007; Johnson and Mayer 2015; Simeone et al. 2015). All rehabilitated marine mammals released in the United States must be tagged or marked (50 CFR 216
Authors
Michelle E. Lander, Andrew J. Westgate, Brian C. Balmer, James P. Reid, Michael J. Murray, Kristen L. Laidre
Environmental contaminants of health-care origin: Exposure and potential effects in wildlife
A diverse range of fauna could be exposed to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) via diet, dermal absorption or bioconcentration. Low level exposures of free-ranging wildlife to APIs has only been demonstrated for a few pathways (e.g., ingestion of fish in estuaries by piscivorous birds), and many remain hypothetical (e.g., ingestion of invertebrates in sludge amended fields by terrestrial ve
Authors
Thomas Bean, Barnett A. Rattner
History of state wildlife management in the United States
No abstract available.
Authors
John F. Organ
Understanding map projections
It has probably never been more important in the history of cartography than now that people understand how maps work. With increasing globalization, for example, world maps provide a key format for the transmission of information, but are often poorly used. Examples of poor understanding and use of projections and the resultant maps are many; for instance, the use of rectangular world maps in the
Authors
E. Lynn Usery
Remote sensing and modeling to fill the “gap” in missing natural capital
This chapter reviews recent advances in remote sensing and environmental modeling that address the first step in ecosystem accounting: biophysical quantification of ecosystem services. The chapter focuses on those ecosystem services in which the most rapid advances are likely, including crop pollination, sediment regulation, carbon sequestration and storage, and coastal flood regulation. The discu
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Simon Willcock, Glenn-Marie Lange
Perissodactyla diet
Perissodactyla (Schoch 1989) includes tapirs, rhinoceros, wild asses, horses, and zebras. It is the order of hoofed mammals referred to as “odd-toed ungulates” because its members have one to three weight-bearing toes and walk on hoofs or “ungules.” They are herbivores that are specialized to exploit grasslands and brushy habitat (rhinos, horses, asses, zebras) or dense tropical forests (tapirs).
Authors
Kathryn A. Schoenecker
Sediment erosion and delivery from Toutle River basin after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens: A 30-year perspective
Exceptional sediment yields persist in Toutle River valley more than 30 years after the major 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Differencing of decadal-scale digital elevation models shows the elevated load comes largely from persistent lateral channel erosion across the debris-avalanche deposit. Since the mid-1980s, rates of channel-bed-elevation change have diminished, and magnitudes of lateral
Authors
Jon J. Major, Adam R. Mosbrucker, Kurt R. Spicer
Sirenian life history
Sirenians, including the manatees and dugongs, are large herbivorous mammals that have evolved to an aquatic form since the Eocene epoch. Sirenians have unique adaptations, including dense bone for ballast and a longitudinal hemidiaphragm separating paired lungs (which aid in maintaining a horizontal posture in the water column), species-specific rostral deflection, and unique dentition for specia
Authors
Robert K. Bonde