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At least 757 records · Page 42Linked to original sources
USGS2016

Territoriality and inter-pack aggression in gray wolves: shaping a social carnivore's life history

When Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book in 1894 and included the famous line "For the strength of the Wolf is the Pack, and the strength of the Pack is the Wolf," he would have had no idea that over a century later, scientific research would back up his poetic phrase. Recent studies in Yellowstone have found that both the individual wolf and the collective pack rely on each other and play important roles in territoriality. At a time when most fairy tales and fables were portraying wolves as demonic killers or, at best, slapstick gluttons, Kipling seemed to have a respect or even reverence for the wolf. Wolves in The Jungle Book raise and mentor the main character Mowgli, with the pack's leader eventually dying to save the "man-cub" from a pack of wolves. Kipling may have extended intra- pack benevolence to a human boy for literary sake, but he was clearly enthralled with how pack members treat each other. As wolf packs are almost always family units, most commonly comprised of a breeding pair and their offspring from several years, amiable behavior within the pack is unsurprising. By contrast, wolf packs are fiercely intolerant of their neighbors, their rivals. And this competition is proving to be an important facet in the life of a wolf and its pack.

Yellowstone Science↗
USGS2018

Contaminants of emerging concern in the environment: Where we have been and what does the future hold?

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring alerted the nation to the dangers of manmade chemicals and indiscriminate use of pesticides. DDT was the culprit and its use threatened a variety of wildlife, including the national bird, bald eagles. In 1969, pressured by scientists and the public, the United States banned almost all uses of DDT; however, DDT was just the tip of the chemical iceberg. In 1996, Theo Colborn’s book, Our Stolen Future, again alerted the public to the dangers of chemical exposure. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals were identified as concerns because exposure to extremely small concentrations can have adverse effects on people and wildlife by interfering with chemical messaging systems, affecting things like sexual development and reproduction.

Water Resources Impact↗
USGS2003

Arsenic in ground water: Geochemistry and occurrence

Interest in arsenic in ground water has greatly increased in the past decade because of the increased awareness of human health effects and the costs of avoidance or treatment of ground water supplies used for consumption. The goal of this book is to provide a description of the basic processes that affect arsenic occurrence and transport by providing sufficient background information on arsenic geochemistry and descriptions of hi- arsenic ground water, both affected and unaffected by human activity. An understanding of thermodynamics, adsorption, and the speciation of arsenic in solid phases, which are described in first three chapters, is needed to predict the fate of arsenic in ground water systems. Large-scale and deep movement of ground water can and has redistributed arsenic in the near surface environment, as described in the next two chapters. These large-scale systems can affect large volumes of both ground water and surface water, such as in the Yellowstone system, and can produce mineralised zones that subsequently release arsenic to ground water supplies. Regional identification of high-arsenic ground water and its consumption as described in the next three chapters clearly demonstrates a need for increased wat- quality monitoring, particularly in south and southeast Asia. Chapters 9-11 provide examples of high arsenic ground water associated with sulfide mineral oxidation and alkaline conditions. Finally, smaller scale studies of the effects of human activities that have produced high-arsenic ground water and methods for attenuation of ground water are presented

Book↗
USGS2009

Continental margin sedimentation: From sediment transport to sequence stratigraphy

This volume on continental margin sedimentation brings together an expert editorial and contributor team to create a state-of-the-art resource. Taking a global perspective, the book spans a range of timescales and content, ranging from how oceans transport particles, to how thick rock sequences are formed on continental margins. - Summarizes and integrates our understanding of sedimentary processes and strata associated with fluvial dispersal systems on continental shelves and slopes - Explores timescales ranging from particle transport at one extreme, to deep burial at the other - Insights are presented for margins in general, and with focus on a tectonically active margin (northern California) and a passive margin (New Jersey), enabling detailed examination of the intricate relationships between a wide suite of sedimentary processes and their preserved stratigraphy - Includes observational studies which document the processes and strata found on particular margins, in addition to numerical models and laboratory experimentation, which provide a quantitative basis for extrapolation in time and space of insights about continental-margin sedimentation - Provides a research resource for scientists studying modern and ancient margins, and an educational text for advanced students in sedimentology and stratigraphy

Book↗
USGS2020

Introduction: Ecological subsidies as a framework for understanding contaminant fate, exposure, and effects at the land-water interface

Ecologists have long recognized that ecological subsidies (the flow of organic matter, nutrients, and organisms between ecosystems) can strongly affect ecosystem processes and community structure in the recipient ecosystem. Animal movements, organic matter flows, and food web dynamics between linked aquatic and terrestrial systems can also influence contaminant fate, exposure, and effects at the land-water interface. Here and in this book, we develop a broad framework that highlights two important ways that ecological subsidies and contaminants interact. Ecological subsidies from the donor system can drive exposure to recipient systems, and contaminant exposures in the donor system can control subsidies and contaminant fluxes to the recipient systems. In the case of prey movement between ecosystems, subsidies drive exposure when contaminants present in aquatic environments bioaccumulate in the tissues of prey organisms at levels that are relatively non-toxic to the prey themselves. Conversely, exposure in the aquatic system can limit subsidies when pollutants are relatively toxic to prey organisms themselves and the magnitude of the subsidy (i.e., biomass of aquatic insects emerging to the terrestrial environment) is reduced. These effects of contaminants on subsidies are shaped by other global stressors that are ubiquitous in aquatic-riparian ecosystems (e.g., climate and land use change, species extinction and invasion, and eutrophication). As our understanding of these ecological and toxicological processes advances, there are increasing opportunities to make landscape-scale predictions of contaminant and animal fluxes and to integrate this knowledge of aquatic-riparian linkages into managing contaminant risks. Through these efforts to integrate the fields of ecology and ecotoxicology on this subject, we expect to gain greater insight on the ecological effects of contaminants on linked ecosystems as well as the ways in which food web dynamics and ecosystem processes can themselves govern the fate, transport, and exposure to contaminants in the environment.

Book chapter↗
USGS2025

Geochemical monitoring of volcanic fluids in the twenty-first century

This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art of geochemical volcano monitoring techniques. We cover in-situ monitoring technologies that rely on sampling fluids (direct sampling) and on instrumental analysis of the composition of such fluids in real-time (remote sensing of volcanic fluids is covered elsewhere in this book). We first review key concepts and principles in the field, and then review the results of some selected case studies and applications. We cover the large variety of fluid categories emitted by volcanoes, in both the near-(crater fumaroles and lakes, and plumes) and far-(degassing soils, groundwaters) fields. Our aim is to demonstrate the utility of measuring the chemistry of fluids released by volcanoes, and how these can help characterize volcano unrest, and eventually the increased likelihood of eruption. We conclude with a brief discussion of current challenges and knowledge gaps, and on future directions in geochemical monitoring.

Book chapter↗
USGS2025

Complexity and integration of recreational fisheries

Recreational fisheries are interconnected, complex, adaptive systems characterized by multiple direct and indirect interactions among ecological and human subsystems. This is important for many reasons, including that feedbacks between the social and ecological dimensions lead to difficult-to-predict, often entirely unexpected, outcomes and because many management and governance systems have multiple objectives that can involve social (e.g. fisher satisfaction), economic (e.g. license revenue), and ecological (e.g. fish conservation) dimensions. Embracing a social-ecological-system perspective can usher in an improved era of recreational fisheries science and management. Interdisciplinary approaches that unite experts across disciplines (e.g. social and ecological sciences) to create a unique theoretical, conceptual, and methodological identity are needed to gather crucial information from recreational fishers, quantify and predict fisher behaviours and outcomes from these behaviours, and integrate these findings into fisheries management. In this chapter, we lay the conceptual foundation for recreational fisheries as coupled social-ecological systems that are also complex and adaptive, and discuss the interdisciplinary approach to operationalize this book’s vision.

Book chapter↗
USGS2016

State-and-transition models: Conceptual versus simulation perspectives, usefulness and breadth of use, and land management applications

State-and-Transition Simulation Modeling (STSM) is a quantitative analysis method that can consolidate a wide array of resource management issues under a “what-if” scenario exercise. STSM can be seen as an ensemble of models, such as climate models, ecological models, and economic models that incorporate human dimensions and management options. This chapter presents STSM as a tool to help synthesize information on social–ecological systems and to investigate some of the management issues associated with exotic annual Bromus species, which have been described elsewhere in this book. Definitions, terminology, and perspectives on conceptual and computer-simulated stochastic state-and-transition models are given first, followed by a brief review of past STSM studies relevant to the management of Bromus species. A detailed case study illustrates the usefulness of STSM for land management. As a whole, this chapter is intended to demonstrate how STSM can help both managers and scientists: (a) determine efficient resource allocation for monitoring nonnative grasses; (b) evaluate sources of uncertainty in model simulation results involving expert opinion, and their consequences for management decisions; and (c) provide insight into the consequences of predicted local climate change effects on ecological systems invaded by exotic annual Bromus species.

Book chapter↗
USGS2016

Synthesis on biological soil crust research

In this closing chapter, we summarize the advances in biocrust research made during the last 1.5 decades. In the first part of the chapter, we discuss how in some research fields, such as the microbial diversity of fungi, bacteria, and microfauna; the interaction between biocrusts and vascular plants; and in the rehabilitation of biocrusts; particularly large achievements have been made. In other fields, previously established knowledge of overall patterns has been corroborated and refined by additional studies, e.g., in the fields of soil stabilization and disturbance effects. In the second part of the chapter, we outline the research gaps and challenges foreseen by us. We identify multiple knowledge gaps, including many understudied geographic regions, the largely missing link between genetic and morphological species identification data, and the answers to some mechanistic questions, such as the overall role of biocrusts in hydrology and nutrient cycles. With some ideas on promising new research questions and approaches we close this chapter and the overall book.

Book chapter↗
USGS2017

Anticoagulant rodenticides and wildlife: Introduction

Rodents have interacted with people since the beginning of systematic food storage by humans in the early Neolithic era. Such interactions have had adverse outcomes such as threats to human health, spoiling and consumption of food sources, damage to human infrastructure and detrimental effects on indigenous island wildlife (through inadvertent anthropogenic assisted introductions). These socio/economic and environmental impacts illustrate the clear need to control populations of commensal rodents. Different methods have been applied historically but the main means of control in the last decades is through the application of rodenticides, mainly anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) that inhibit blood clotting. The so-called First Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (FGARs) proved highly effective but rodents increasingly developed resistance. This led to a demand for more effective alternative compounds and paved the way to the development of Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs). These were more acutely toxic and persistent, making them more effective but also increasing the risks of exposure of non-target species and secondary poisoning of predatory species. SGARs often fail the environmental thresholds of different regulatory frameworks because of these negative side-effects, but their use is still permitted because of the overwhelming societal needs for rodent control and the lack of effective alternatives. This book provides a state-of-the-art overview of the scientific advancements in assessment of environmental exposure, effects and risks of currently used ARs. This is discussed in relation to the societal needs for rodent control, including risk mitigation and development of alternatives.

Book chapter↗
USGS2015

Using natural archives to track sources and long-term trends of pollution: an introduction

This book explores the myriad ways that environmental archives can be used to study the distribution and long-term trajectories of contaminants. The volume first focuses on reviews that examine the integrity of the historic record, including factors related to hydrology, post-depositional diffusion, and mixing processes. This is followed by a series of chapters dealing with the diverse archives available for long-term studies of environmental pollution.

Book chapter↗
USGS2016

What are hierarchical models and how do we analyze them?

In this chapter we provide a basic definition of hierarchical models and introduce the two canonical hierarchical models in this book: site occupancy and N-mixture models. The former is a hierarchical extension of logistic regression and the latter is a hierarchical extension of Poisson regression. We introduce basic concepts of probability modeling and statistical inference including likelihood and Bayesian perspectives. We go through the mechanics of maximizing the likelihood and characterizing the posterior distribution by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. We give a general perspective on topics such as model selection and assessment of model fit, although we demonstrate these topics in practice in later chapters (especially Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 10 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 10)

Book chapter↗
USGS2023

Colorado River Basin

The Colorado River is often referred to as “the lifeblood of the west.” The basin supplies municipal water to nearly 40 million people and irrigates approximately 22,000 km 2 of agricultural lands. Twenty-two major rivers converge with the Colorado after it begins its descent from the Rocky Mountains and winds through the plateaus of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, onto the deserts of southwestern Arizona, and finally into the Gulf of California, where inflows from the Río Hardy and Río Sonoyta in Mexico complete the drainage. The mainstem Colorado, Green, Yampa, Little Colorado, and Yampa Rivers are described in further detail in the 2005 edition (Blinn and Poff, 2005) of this book. In this edition, we discuss seven other major tributaries in the Colorado River basin: the Gunnison, San Juan, Virgin, Bill Williams, Verde, Black, and Salt Rivers. The water quality and quantity, flora and fauna, and sediment and organic loads of each of these tributaries uniquely alter the mainstem Colorado River and the habitat it provides. Thus, understanding the hydrology, ecology, and human use of these tributaries is critical toward understanding both the complex history and present-day management of the Colorado River Basin as a whole.

Arizona, Baja California, California, Colorado, Ne↗
USGS2019

Coastal wetlands: A synthesis

This book and this synthesis address the pressing need for better management of coastal wetlands worldwide because these wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate; in some countries the loss is 70%–80% in the last 50 years. Managing requires understanding. Although our understanding of the functioning of coastal wetland ecosystems has grown rapidly over the past decade, still much remains to be learned and understood. We have gained insight into the roles of geomorphic processes, hydrologic dynamics, biotic feedback, and disturbance agents in creating and molding a variety of coastal wetland ecosystems across climatic gradients. The variety is expressed not so much in the more obvious differences in vegetation cover, but rather how physical processes both facilitate and constrain a diversity of plant and animal communities. At one level, coastal wetlands are the product of tidal forces and freshwater inputs at the margin of continents. At another level, the plants control the water currents in the tidal creeks draining the wetlands by generating a tidal current asymmetry that controls sediment transport and results in a deep tidal creek surrounded by shallow vegetated wetlands. The vegetation also influences the physics of water and sediment through several other processes including biofilms, bioturbation of sediments, the buffeting of currents and waves, organic enrichment of sediments, and the closing of nutrient cycles. Few ecosystems provide us with so many clear examples of such feedback controls. What we do understand about the structure and functioning of coastal wetlands should provide the theoretical underpinnings for effective management in protecting them for their many contributions to ecosystem goods and services. What we do not understand should compel us to focus our attention and energies toward seeking optimal solutions to some of the most perplexing and urgent problems facing natural resource management.

Book chapter↗
USGS2008

Living in Yellowstone's Caldera: A geochemical trophic cascade in elk

Though the geology of earth's rare geothermal environments and their associated microbial communities are intensely studied, less scientific attention has focused on their potential effects through the plant-herbivore-carnivore trophic chain. The west-central portion of Yellowstone National Park contains a 2000-km 2 volcanic caldera with 2- to 60-million-year-old, predominantly rhyolitic, rocks that produce relatively infertile soils. The caldera area contains one of the largest concentrations of active geothermal features in the world, including thousands of geysers, fumaroles , hot springs, and mud pots. In many other chapters of this book, we address the ecological impacts of this unique geology to the ecology of the large mammals that live within the caldera, primarily through the effects of geothermal heat on snow pack. In this chapter, we explore the unique geochemistry of the geothermal environments and the consequences of this geochemistry to elk and perhaps other herbivores that reside within the caldera. These studies were prompted by behavioral and demographic observations of elk during the initial years of our studies that we could not explain and, in turn, led us to formulate hypotheses about potential geochemical influences on elk ecology. Specifically, we contrast the concentrations of fluoride (F) and silica (SiO 2 ) found in the Madison headwaters area with areas on Yellowstone's northern range located approximately 50 km to the northwest, where geothermal features are rare or absent. We then trace the consequences of geochemical differences through abiotic and biotic linkages in the ecosystem.

Book↗
USGS2011

Geoinformatics in the public service: Building a cyberinfrastructure across the geological surveys

Advanced information technology infrastructure is increasingly being employed in the Earth sciences to provide researchers with efficient access to massive central databases and to integrate diversely formatted information from a variety of sources. These geoinformatics initiatives enable manipulation, modeling and visualization of data in a consistent way, and are helping to develop integrated Earth models at various scales, and from the near surface to the deep interior. This book uses a series of case studies to demonstrate computer and database use across the geosciences. Chapters are thematically grouped into sections that cover data collection and management; modeling and community computational codes; visualization and data representation; knowledge management and data integration; and web services and scientific workflows. Geoinformatics is a fascinating and accessible introduction to this emerging field for readers across the solid Earth sciences and an invaluable reference for researchers interested in initiating new cyberinfrastructure projects of their own.

Book chapter↗
USGS2011

Fire management of Mediterranean landscapes

The hazardous mediterranean climate, highly flammable vegetation, and rugged terrain, all important elements of fire behavior, become problems only in the presence of people. People recreate and build homes in the mediterranean wildlands because of the delightful climate and will continue to do so as long as space is available. People start most fires, and their mere presence tends to warp fire suppression strategies because fire agencies must protect lives and property threatened by fires rather than “back off” and build fire lines around fire perimeters . Carl C. Wilson (1979a), Chief of Division of Forest and Fire Research, USFS/Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station Human presence in mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions has differed markedly in the length of human occupation; however, there are remarkable similarities in how early inhabitants altered fire regimes and how modern societies deal with the fire hazard. Here we draw on the history of human impacts outlined in the regional reviews (see Chapters 4–8), the problems created by nineteenth and twentieth century management practices, and conclude with twenty-first century problems and future options. As discussed throughout this book, MTC ecosystems are highly fire adapted but, as illustrated here, contemporary societies have not fully adapted to balancing fire hazard risk and resource needs on these landscapes. Early Human Fire Use and Impacts Fire has been a widely utilized management tool throughout the history of humankind (Pyne 1995). Early hunter–gatherers utilized fire to manage for plant and animal resources. Fire also played an important role in early domestication of crops as clearing off woody or other perennial vegetation would have required fire on many landscapes. With domestication of livestock it was an important tool for increasing forage.

Book chapter↗
USGS2021

Introduction: Metallurgical slags - Environmental liability or valuable resource?

Slags are important by-products generated by ferrous and non-ferrous pyrometallurgical operations, with hundreds of millions of tonnes generated globally each year. Depending on the chemical and mineralogical compositions of slags, they may be disposed of as waste, which can then weather and release contaminants into the environment with the potential to impact the ecosystem and humans. Alternately, slags can find use as raw materials with numerous applications in civil engineering or environmental technologies. Furthermore, residual metals, either those targeted for extraction or those that co-occur in the ore or furnace feed and partition into the slag, can be recovered for value. With the ultimate goal of a sustainable environment and a circular economy, the research on slags that is presented in this book will lead us to a better understanding of the environmental consequences of slag disposed of as waste and motivate us to find value in it.

Book chapter↗