Book Chapters
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
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.
Filter Total Items: 6063
Occurrence of transformation products in the environment
Historically, most environmental occurrence research has focused on the parent compounds of organic contaminants. Research, however, has documented that the environmental transport of chemicals, such as pesticides and emerging contaminants, are substantially underestimated if transformation products are not considered. Although most examples described herein were drawn from research conducted by t
Authors
Dana W. Kolpin, William A. Battaglin, Kathleen E. Conn, Edward T. Furlong, Susan T. Glassmeyer, Stephen J. Kalkhoff, Michael T. Meyer, Douglas J. Schnoebelen
Otters, Marine
The otters (Mustelidae; Lutrinae) provide an exceptional perspective into the evolution of marine living by mammals. Most extant marine mammals (e.g. the cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sirenians) have been so highly modified by long periods of selection for life in the sea that they bear little resemblance to their terrestrial ancestors. Marine otters, in contrast, are more recent expatriates from fres
Authors
James A. Estes, James L. Bodkin, M. Ben-David
Paleomagnetism of Miocene volcanic rocks in the Newberry Mountains, California: Vertical-axis rotation and a polarity transition
No abstract available.
Authors
J. W. Hillhouse, R. E. Wells, B. F. Cox
Preface
Carbon sequestration has emerged as an important option in policies to mitigate the increasing atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2). Significant quantities of anthropogenic CO2 are sequestered by natural carbon uptake in plants, soils, and the oceans. These uptake processes are objects of intense study by biogeochemists, ecologists, and other researchers who seek to und
Authors
Brian J. McPherson, Eric T. Sundquist
Quantifying terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics in the Jinsha watershed, Upper Yangtze, China from 1975 to 2000
Quantifying the spatial and temporal dynamics of carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems and carbon fluxes between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere is critical to our understanding of regional patterns of carbon storage and loss. Here we use the General Ensemble Biogeochemical Modeling System to simulate the terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics in the Jinsha watershed of China's upper
Authors
Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu, Runsheng Yin, Zhengpeng Li, Yulin Deng, Kun Tan, Xiangzheng Deng, David Rothstein, Jiaguo Qi
Re-greening the Sahel: Farmer-led innovation in Burkina Faso and Niger
The Sahel—the belt of land that stretches across Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara—has always been a tough place to farm. Rainfall is low and droughts are frequent. The crust of hard soil is, at times, almost impermeable, and harsh winds threaten to sweep away everything in their path. Over the past three decades, however, hundreds of thousands of farmers in Burkina Faso and Niger have tra
Authors
Chris Reij, Melinda Smale, G. Gray Tappan
Remote sensing of global croplands for food security: Way forward
This book opens a new pathway for global mapping that is focused on a specific land use theme, such as irrigated or rain-fed croplands and classes within these themes. Since croplands use most of the water consumed by humans, specific knowledge of irrigated and rain-fed croplands will be critical for precise estimates of water use. At present and in the coming decades, irrigated and rain-fed cropl
Authors
Prasad S. Thenkabail, John G. Lyon
Risk assessment of invasive species
No abstract available.
Salt marsh-mangrove interactions in Australasia and the Americas
No abstract available.
Authors
Neil Saintilan, Kerrylee Rogers, Karen McKee
Standardizing electrofishing power for boat electrofishing: chapter 14
Standardization of electrofishing can help reduced the variability of survey data and potentially reduce injur of fish. Without standardization, differences among collections can be partially attributed to disparities in electrofishing methodology, intensity of the electrical field, and size of the electrical field rather than to disparities in fish abundance, population structure, or fish communi
Authors
L.E. (Steve) Miranda
Stochastic variation in avian survival rates: Life-history predictions, population consequences, and the potential responses to human perturbations and climate change
Stochastic variation in survival rates is expected to decrease long-term population growth rates. This expectation influences both life-history theory and the conservation of species. From this expectation, Pfister (1998) developed the important life-history prediction that natural selection will have minimized variability in those elements of the annual life cycle (such as adult survival rate) wi
Authors
Joel A. Schmutz