Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Book Chapters

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.

Filter Total Items: 6071

Aquatic-riparian systems

 No abstract available.
Authors
Deanna H. Olson, Sherri L. Johnson, Paul D. Anderson, Brooke E. Penaluna, Jason B. Dunham

Datasheet: Pseudogymnoascus destructans (white-nose syndrome fungus)

Pseudogymnoascus destructans is a psychrophilic (cold-loving) fungus that causes white-nose syndrome (WNS), an emerging disease of North American bats that has caused unprecedented population declines. The fungus is believed to have been introduced to North America from Europe or Asia (where it is present but does not cause significant mortality), but the full extent of its native range is unknown
Authors
David S. Blehert, Emily W. Lankau

Enhancing public trust in Federal forest management

No abstract available.
Authors
Michael Paul Nelson, Hannah Gosnell, Dana R. Warren, Chelsea Batavia, Matthew Betts, Julia Burton, Emily Jane Davis, Mark Schulze, Catalina Segura, Cheryl Ann Friesen, Steven S. Perakis

Long-term forest productivity

No abstract available.
Authors
Bernard T. Bormann, Steven S. Perakis, Robyn Darbyshire, Jeff Hatten

Managing the livestock– Wildlife interface on rangelands

On rangelands the livestock–wildlife interface is mostly characterized by management actions aimed at controlling problems associated with competition, disease, and depredation. Wildlife communities (especially the large vertebrate species) are typically incompatible with agricultural development because the opportunity costs of wildlife conservation are unaffordable except in arid and semi-arid r
Authors
Johan T. du Toit, Paul C. Cross, Marion Valeix

Mercury

No abstract available.
Authors
Charles N. Alpers

Reptiles and amphibians

Summary – We reviewed all the peer-reviewed scientific publications we could find on the known and potential effects of wind farm development, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning on reptiles and amphibians (collectively herpetofauna) worldwide. Both groups are declining globally due to a multitude of threats including energy development. Effect studies were limited to the long-term researc
Authors
Jeffrey E. Lovich, Joshua R. Ennen

Octocoral diseases in a changing ocean

Octocorals (Cnidaria, Octocorallia) constitute a geographically widely distributed and common group of marine invertebrates commonly referred to as “soft-corals,” “sea fans,” “horny corals,” “sea feathers,” and “sea plumes.” They are found from shallow coastal habitats to mesophotic and abyssal depths. Octocorals are important members of most Atlantic-Caribbean, Indo-Pacific, and Mediterranean coa
Authors
Ernesto Weil, Caroline S. Rogers, Aldo Croquer

Capturing spatiotemporal variation in wildfires for improving postwildfire debris-flow hazard assessments

Wildfires can increase the frequency and magnitude of catastrophic debris flows. Integrated, proactive natural hazard assessment would therefore characterize landscapes based on the potential for the occurrence and interactions of wildfires and postwildfire debris flows. This chapter presents a new modeling effort that can quantify the variability surrounding a key input to postwildfire debris-flo
Authors
Jessica R. Haas, Matthew P. Thompson, Anne C. Tillery, Joe H. Scott

Monitoring protocols: Options, approaches, implementation, benefits

Monitoring and adaptive management are fundamental concepts to rangeland management across land management agencies and embodied as best management practices for private landowners. Historically, rangeland monitoring was limited to determining impacts or maximizing the potential of specific land uses—typically grazing. Over the past several decades, though, the uses of and disturbances to rangelan
Authors
Jason W. Karl, Jeffrey E. Herrick, David A. Pyke

Temperature

Stream temperature has direct and indirect effects on stream ecology and is critical in determining both abiotic and biotic system responses across a hierarchy of spatial and temporal scales. Temperature variation is primarily driven by solar radiation, while landscape topography, geology, and stream reach scale ecosystem processes contribute to local variability. Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in f
Authors
Leslie A. Jones, Clint C. Muhlfeld, F. Richard Hauer

Hydrokinetic tidal energy resource assessments using numerical models

Hyrdokinetic tidal energy is the conversion of tidal current kinetic energy to another more useful form, frequently electricity. As with any other form of renewable energy, resource assessments are essential for the tidal energy project planning and design process. While tidal currents have significant spatial and temporal variability, the predictability of tidal flows makes deterministic modeling
Authors
Kevin Haas, Zafer Defne, Xiufeng Yang, Brittany Bruder