This report to the Congress details the status and trends of our Nation's wetlands. It covers the period from 1986 to 1997, and provides the most recent and comprehensive estimates of the current status of wetland area throughout the conterminous United States and the losses or gains to various wetland types that have occurred during this time.

The purpose of this publication is to report the findings of the Service's wetlands inventory of Rhode Island.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a nonregulatory Federal science agency with national scope and responsibilities, is uniquely positioned to serve the Nation's needs in understanding and responding to global change, which includes changes in climate; sea level; land use and land cover; ecosystems; and the global water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. Global change is among the most challenging and formidable issues confronting our Nation and society. Scientists agree that global environmental changes during this century will have far-reaching societal implications Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007; USGCRP, 2009]. In the face of these complex challenges, the Nation can benefit greatly by using natural science information in decisionmaking.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey Priority Ecosystems Science initiative to provide the ecological science required during Everglades restoration, we have integrated current regional hydrologic models with American crocodile research and monitoring data to create a model that assesses the potential impact of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan efforts on the American crocodile.

Although parasites play important ecological roles through the direct interactions they have with their hosts, historically that fact has been underappreciated. Today, scientists have a growing appreciation of the scope of such impacts. Parasites have been reported to dominate food webs (Bakker and others, 1997; Lafferty and others, 2006), alter predator-prey relationships (Lafferty and Morris, 1996), act as ecosystem engineers (Thomas and others, 1998, 1999), and alter community structure (Poulin, 1999; Wood and others, 2007). In spite of this growing awareness in the scientific community, parasites are still often neglected in the consideration of the management and conservation of resources and ecosystems (Marcogliese, 2004). Given that at least half of the organisms on earth are probably parasitic (Price, 1980; Windsor, 1998), it should be evident that the ecological functions of parasites warrant greater attention.

Increasingly, dry rangelands are being valued for multiple services beyond their traditional value as a forage production system. Additional ecosystem services include the potential to store carbon in the soil and plant biomass. In addition, dust emissions from rangelands might be considered an ecosystem detriment, the opposite of an ecosystem service. Dust emitted may have far-reaching impacts, for example, reduction of local air quality, as well as altering regional water supplies through effects on snowpack. Using an extensive rangeland monitoring dataset in the greater Canyonlands region (Utah, USA), we developed a method to estimate indices of the provisioning of three ecosystem services (forage production, dust retention, C storage) and one ecosystem property (nativeness), taking into account both ecosystem type and alternative states within that ecosystem type. We also integrated these four indices into a multifunctionality index. Comparing the currently ungrazed Canyonlands National Park watersheds to the adjacent Dugout Ranch pastures, we found clearly higher multifunctionality was attained in the Park, and that this was primarily driven by greater C-storage and better dust retention. It is unlikely to maximize all benefits and minimize all detriments at the same time. Some goods and services may have synergistic interactions; for example, managing for carbon storage will increase plant and biocrust cover likely lowering dust emission. Likewise, some may have antagonistic interactions. For instance, if carbon is consumed as biomass for livestock production, then carbon storage may be reduced. Ultimately our goal should be to quantify the monetary consequences of specific land use practices for multiple ecosystem services and determine the best land use and adaptive management practices for attaining multiple ecosystem services, minimizing economic detriments, and maximizing economic benefits from multi-commodity rangelands. Our technique is the first step toward this goal, allowing the simultaneous consideration of multiple targeted ecosystem services and properties.

The national parks within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) provide an opportunity to monitor amphibians within a relatively intact ecosystem, at spatial and temporal scales that can provide important insights about the status of regional amphibian populations and global declines of amphibians. The Greater Yellowstone Network (GRYN) amphibian monitoring program is the only long-term amphibian monitoring program in the GYE that consistently looks at multiple sites across the ecosystem.

This annual report details the status of key stream channel characteristics and riparian attributes obtained from the first season of monitoring in Doan and Mill Creeks within Whitman Mission National Historic Site (WHMI). This report is intended as a release of basic data sets and data summaries. Care has been taken to assure accuracy of raw data values, but thorough analysis and interpretation of the data has not been completed. More extensive analysis and discussion of stream channel characteristics and riparian will occur as part of the trend analysis, which will be available after 3 years of monitoring data become available.

This annual report details the status of key indicators of water quality obtained from monitoring in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (JODA). Monitoring occurred in two units of JODA, Painted Hills and Sheep Rock. Bridge Creek flows through the Painted Hills unit and the John Day River flows through the Sheep Rock unit.

In 2009, the authors initiated a small pilot survey of six limber pine stands in CRMO following the Interagency Whitebark Pine Monitoring Protocol for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group hereafter referred to as GYWPMWG] 2007). No blister rust was found during that survey, although mountain pine beetle galleries were found in several trees, and dwarf mistletoe was ubiquitous. In 2010 the authors tested a draft version of the protocol currently being used by the Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN), as well as the Klamath Network (KLMN) and Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN; McKinney et al. 2012). In 2011 the authors implemented the first full panel of 30 plots, plus two oversamples, following approval of the McKinney et al. (2012) protocol. Results from 2011 are reported in Stucki and Rodhouse (2012). This report presents the results for the second full panel of 30 plots established and surveyed in August 2012. Note that panel 2 includes the two oversample plots that were established in 2011. This is the second formal year of protocol implementation, and the permanent plots established in 2012 represent the second of 3 panels of plots that will be monitored into the future.

The Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site (site) conducted an invasive plant survey during the summer of 2003 to generate baseline data in order to manage and assess the spatial impact of invasive plants. The primary goals of this study: 1) determine which invasive plant species inhabit the site; 2) determine the percent cover and density of the dominant invasive plant species; and 3) map where the dominant invasive plant species occur within the site.

Acclaimed historian Natalie Zemon Davis's accessible and dramatic biography was widely hailed as a masterpiece and tells the story of Leo Africanus, a sixteenth-century Moroccan who embodies the rich and complex exchanges between Europe and Africa during the Renaissance. Trickster Travels offers a virtuoso study of the fragmentary, partial and often contradictory traces that al-Hasan al-Wazzan left behind him, and is a superb interpretation of his extraordinary life and work.

This CCP is the culmination of a planning process that began in January 1999. Numerous meetings with the public, the state, and conservation partners were held to identify and evaluate management alternatives. A draft CCP and Environmental Assessment (CCP/EA) was distributed in July 2003. This CCP presents the management goals, objectives, and strategies that we believe will best achieve our vision for the refuge, contribute to the National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) Mission, achieve refuge purposes and legal mandates, and serve the American public.

In 2009, the authors initiated a small pilot survey of six limber pine stands in CRMO following the Interagency Whitebark Pine Monitoring Protocol for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group hereafter referred to as GYWPMWG] 2007). No blister rust was found during that survey, although mountain pine beetle galleries were found in several trees, and dwarf mistletoe was ubiquitous. In 2010 authors tested a draft version of the protocol currently being used by the Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN), as well as the Klamath Network (KLMN) and Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN; McKinney et al. in revision). The results reported in this report were generated in 2011 with data collected following an updated protocol by McKinney et al. (in revision). This is the first formal year of protocol implementation, and the permanent plots established in 2011 represent the first of 3 "panels" of plots that will be monitored into the future.

Throughout the world, freshwater ecosystems are considered to be among the most vulnerable systems. In the isolated Pacific islands there are a relatively small number of native freshwater species, which are mainly endemic to these locations (found nowhere else in the world). These species are characterized by an amphidromous lifecycle; reproducing in the stream, with larvae drifting to the ocean and eventually returning to a stream as juveniles and spending the remainder of their lifecycle there. Throughout the region, native flora and fauna face significant threats from species introductions and habitat destruction. The National Parks in the Pacific Island Network (PACN) protect some of the last relatively pristine stream systems. Monitoring based on this protocol: Pacific Islands Stream Monitoring: Fish, Shrimp, Snails and Habitat Characterization, will provide park managers with some of the information necessary to understand status and trends in biotic integrity within park stream systems.

This document reports on analyses and other efforts to evaluate various aspects of the monitoring protocols relevant to the big river parks, and serves as an administrative history and record of decisions made during the revision process. The primary purpose of this report is to document evaluation of potential changes to the monitoring of fish and aquatic invertebrates at BUFF and OZAR. Changes that have been considered include sampling fewer sites, sampling less frequently, collecting fewer invertebrate samples per site, collecting data on fewer habitat variables, and not collecting data on fish lengths and weights. Based on this review, recommendations are made for revising the protocols associated with sampling and analysis of data from the big river systems of BUFF and OZAR.