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.

The purpose of this study was to collect baseline water quality information on the Sound and the freshwater brooks flowing into the Sound. A depauperate water quality data base and concern over the potential for increased residential development throughout the Somes Sound watershed were incentives for initiating this study.

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.

A series of natural resource inventories were conducted throughout the Boston Harbor Islands, including terrestrial, marine and estuarine ecosystems. The resource inventories enhance our appreciation for the habitats and species that occur within the Boston Harbor Islands landscape. These resource inventories provide a scientific foundation for natural resource management decisions, will assist in the design of long-term monitoring programs, and help identify areas requiring additional inventory.

This is the second progress for a multi-year study of glaciers in Alaskan national parks. The project will be completed in December 2013. The authors present results from mapping of all glacier extents in Katmai National Park and Preserve (NP&P) and Lake Clark NP&P and from measurements of surface elevation changes on select glaciers in Lake Clark NP&P. They also summarize field efforts to date associated with the focus glacier component of the project and present a sample focus glacier vignette.

This is the first progress for a multi-year study of glaciers in Alaskan national parks. The project will be completed in December 2013. Here we present results from mapping of all glacier extents in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (NP&P) and Denali NP&P, from measurements of surface elevation changes on select glaciers in Glacier Bay NP&P, and from focus glacier research on Brady, Margerie, and Muir Glaciers in Glacier Bay NP&P.

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (APIS) vegetation mapping project is an initiative of the National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Inventory Program (VIP), with cooperative support from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP), to classify and map plant communities of APIS. The goals of the project are to adequately describe and map plant communities of APIS and immediate surroundings and provide the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program, resource managers, and biological researchers with useful baseline vegetation information.

The upper Yellowstone River was mapped from the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park near Gardiner, Montana to the bridge which crosses the river at Springdale, Montana. The mapped area of approximately 85 square miles encompasses the majority of the area that has been flooded by the river in the last 300 years and therefore includes all wetland and riparian habitat adjacent to the river as well as surrounding land use. The study area covers all of the Paradise Valley where the majority of channel modifications have taken place.

First published in 1985, William deBuys’s Enchantment and Exploitation has become a New Mexico classic. It offers a complete account of the relationship between society and environment in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, a region unique in its rich combination of ecological and cultural diversity. Now, more than thirty years later, this revised and expanded edition provides a long-awaited assessment of the quality of the journey that New Mexican society has traveled in that time—and continues to travel. In a new final chapter deBuys examines ongoing transformations in the mountains’ natural systems—including, most notably, developments related to wildfires—with significant implications for both the land and the people who depend on it. As the climate absorbs the effects of an industrial society, deBuys argues, we can no longer expect the environmental future to be a reiteration of the environmental past.

The purpose of this report is to explain how the NWIPlus data could be and was used for predicting wetland functions at the landscape-level for coastal Georgia and the rationale for assigning certain biotic and/or abiotic characteristics to eleven wetland functions: 1) surface water detention, 2) coastal storm surge detention, 3) streamflow maintenance, 4) nutrient transformation, 5) carbon sequestration, 6) sediment and other particulate retention, 7) bank and shoreline stabilization, 8) provision of fish and aquatic invertebrate habitat, 9) provision of waterfowl and waterbird habitat, 10) provision of other wildlife habitat, and 11) provision of habitat for unique, uncommon or highly diverse wetland plant communities.

This is a synthesis of scientific information and literature concerning the maritime forests of the southern Atlantic Coast of the United States. Information was gathered from many sources, including published scientific literature, dissertations and theses, government agency reports and newsletters, and unpublished reports.

The main purpose of this compilation is to provide a listing of the chironomid species of the southeastern United States.

Marine Paleobiodiversity presents a concise history, development and current status of paleobiodiversity research, thus forming a reference work for beginners, graduates and postgraduates, who are interested in this subject and intend venture into serious research. This book provides a link-reference between text book and highly-specialized journal articles, and so will be valuable for a wide audience of geologists and climatologists.

NatureServe contracted with the New Hampshire Natural Heritage Bureau (NH Heritage) to conduct a survey and produce a map of the vegetation of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. NatureServe ecologists planned the sampling, oversaw the field effort, and integrated plot and accuracy assessment data and field information into the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) to produce a standardized product for the National Park Service. The purpose of this project was to produce a standardized map and classification of the vegetation communities and land cover of the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site and to provide thorough baseline data on the park's vegetation.

This is a detailed guide to the physical remains, history and topography of the castles of northwest Greece from the early Byzantine period to the eve of the First World War.

Whitebark pine is declining across much of its range in North America because of the combined effects of mountain pine beetle epidemics, fire exclusion policies, and widespread exotic blister rust infections. This management guide summarizes the extensive data collected at whitebark pine treatment sites for three periods: (1) pre-treatment, (2) 1 year post-treatment, and (3) 5 years post-treatment (one site has a 10 year post-treatment measurement). Study results are organized here so that managers can identify possible effects of a treatment at their own site by matching it to the most similar treatment unit in this study, based on vegetation conditions, fire regime, and geographical area. This guide is based on the Restoring Whitebark Pine Ecosystems study, which was initiated in 1993 to investigate the effects of various restoration treatments on tree mortality, regeneration, and vascular plant response on five sites in the northern Rocky Mountains. The objective was to enhance whitebark pine regeneration and cone production using treatments that emulate the native fire regime. Since data summaries are for individual treatment units, there are no analyses of differences across treatment units or across sites.