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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: 6063

Land uses, fire, and invasion: Exotic annual Bromus and human dimensions

Human land uses are the primary cause of the introduction and spread of exotic annual Bromus species. Initial introductions were likely linked to contaminated seeds used by homesteading farmers in the late 1880s and early 1900s. Transportation routes aided their spread. Unrestricted livestock grazing from the 1800s through the mid-1900s reduced native plant competitors leaving large areas vulnerab
Authors
David A. Pyke, Jeanne C. Chambers, Jeffrey L. Beck, Matthew L. Brooks, Brian A. Mealor

Plant community resistance to invasion by Bromus species: The roles of community attributes, Bromus interactions with plant communities, and Bromus traits

The factors that determine plant community resistance to exotic annual Bromus species (Bromus hereafter) are diverse and context specific. They are influenced by the environmental characteristics and attributes of the community, the traits of Bromus species, and the direct and indirect interactions of Bromus with the plant community. Environmental factors, in particular ambient and soil temperatur
Authors
Jeanne Chambers, Matthew J. Germino, Jayne Belnap, Cynthia Brown, Eugene W. Schupp, Samuel B St. Clair

Soil moisture and biogeochemical factors influence the distribution of annual Bromus species

Abiotic factors have a strong influence on where annual Bromus species are found. At the large regional scale, temperature and precipitation extremes determine the boundaries of Bromus occurrence. At the more local scale, soil characteristics and climate influence distribution, cover, and performance. In hot, dry, summer-rainfall-dominated deserts (Sonoran, Chihuahuan), little or no Bromus is foun
Authors
Jayne Belnap, John Thomas Stark, Benjamin Rau, Edith B. Allen, Susan L. Phillips

Demographic modeling for reintroduction decision-making

In this chapter we consider the construction and use of population models to support reintroduction decision making. We begin by reviewing the decision-analytic process, also known as structured decision making. The material on structured decision making builds on the chapter by Chauvenet et al. (This Volume) who focus their attention on the objective setting step of structured decision making. In
Authors
Sarah J. Converse, Doug P. Armstrong

2016 update on induced earthquakes in the United States

During the past decade people living in numerous locations across the central U.S. experienced many more small to moderate sized earthquakes than ever before. This earthquake activity began increasing about 2009 and peaked during 2015 and into early 2016. For example, prior to 2009 Oklahoma typically experienced 1 or 2 small earthquakes per year with magnitude greater than 3.0 but by 2015 this nu
Authors
Mark D. Petersen

Advanced hierarchical distance sampling

In this chapter, we cover a number of important extensions of the basic hierarchical distance-sampling (HDS) framework from Chapter 8. First, we discuss the inclusion of “individual covariates,” such as group size, in the HDS model. This is important in many surveys where animals form natural groups that are the primary observation unit, with the size of the group expected to have some influence o
Authors
Andy Royle

An overview of environmental impacts and reclamation efforts at the Iron Mountain mine, Shasta County, California

No abstract available 
Authors
James A Jacobs, Stephen M. Testa, Charles N. Alpers, D. Kirk Nordstrom

Assessment of inland fisheries: A vision for the future

No abstract available.
Authors
Steven J. Cooke, Angela Arthington, Scott A. Bonar, Shannon D. Bower, David B. Bunnell, Rose Entsua-Mensah, Simon Funge-Smith, John Koehn, Nigel Lester, Kai Lorenzen, So Nam, Robert Randall, Paul A. Venturelli, Ian G. Cowx

Biological soil crusts

No abstract available.
Authors
Jayne Belnap

By-products of porphyry copper and molybdenum deposits

Porphyry Cu and porphyry Mo deposits are large to giant deposits ranging up to >20 and 1.6 Gt of ore, respectively, that supply about 60 and 95% of the world’s copper and molybdenum, as well as significant amounts of gold and silver. These deposits form from hydrothermal systems that affect 10s to >100 km3 of the upper crust and result in enormous mass redistribution and potential concentration of
Authors
David John, Ryan D. Taylor