FAQ's about Biology

Systematics, or taxonomy, is the branch of biological sciences that deals with the identification, description, naming, and classification of the world's biota. Taxonomic information can be found through the National Biological Information Infrastructure (the NBII) at http://www.nbii.gov. Quoting their website, "The National Biological Information Infrastructure is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the [world's] biological resources." From their homepage there is a link to the Systematics website, where you can find a number of excellent sources for the information about the scientific names of plants and animals, including the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, or ITIS. ITIS is a partnership of federal and international agencies, and other organizations, as well as, taxonomic specialists cooperating on the development of an online, scientifically credible list of biological names focusing on the biota of North America. The ITIS is also a participating member of Species 2000, an international project indexing the world's known species.

Bats are among the world's least appreciated and most endangered animals. The USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center's pages on bats can be found at http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/okbats/ and include links to other sources of information. A delightful educational site, "Echo the Bat," can be accessed at http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The Teachers' Guide contains links to bat conservation organizations and other sources of information.

Bat Conservation International has an extensive site at http://www.batcon.org and provides a wealth of information, including volunteer opportunities and bat workshop schedules.

There are 15 essential elements to all animals and plants, these include: Hydrogen(H) Carbon (C) Nitrogen (N) Oxygen (O) Sodium (Na) Magnesium(Mg) Phosphorus(P) Sulfur(S) Chlorine (C) Potassium (K) Calcium (Ca) Manganese (Mn) Iron (Fe) Copper (Cu) Zinc (Zn), and Selenium (Se)

The USGS Wildlife: Terrestrial and Endangered Species Program conducts research and monitoring to conserve, protect, and restore declining species and the habitats they depend on. For more information on these activities go to the USGS imperiled species website.

Highlights of new ground-breaking USGS research on endangered plants and animals has just been released in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a publication called the Endangered Species Bulletin (PDF).

The USGS Educational Resources page provides links to online information on biology, geology, hydrology, and geography, as well as ordering information for additional materials -- many of which are available at no cost. Another excellent site is the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII).

This link is a video link of an Asian swamp eel.

Trace essential elements such as fluorine, copper, selenium, molybdenum, and others can be hazardous to living organisms if present at high levels. Nonessential heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium are usually toxic to organisms as much lower levels than trace essential elements. Depending on the association that these nonessential elements may form with natural geologic materials such as organic matter, other elements or minerals, and adsorbers (such as clays), these elements can range from being safe to being extremely toxic.

Because of growing public concern about the environmental contamination, it is becoming increasingly important to better understand both the natural and human processes that control the movement of elements at the Earth's surface. Elements can be quite mobile in water, and the majority of our environmental problems are ultimately associated with the contamination of surface and ground water.

When water comes into contact with rocks and soils, some of the minerals and organic substances dissolve and enter the natural waters. Forests and grasslands generally contribute only small amounts of these dissolved substances. However, it is possible for an area to contain unusually high concentrations of minerals, thereby depositing them to the waterways. For example, swamps and marshes often produce acidic and colored water. Other areas that contributed natural pollutants to water are those containing rocks with sulfide minerals, particularly pyrite.

Inorganic substance are cycled naturally through our environment at concentrations that usually do no adversely affect plants and animals. However, the combination of some natural processes with human activities can increase these substances to harmful or toxic levels. Therefore, toxic substances may have both natural and human sources.

Natural sources of toxic substance include rocks, volcanoes, sediments, and soils. Human activities that add toxic substances to the environment include smelting, manufacturing, refining, chemical processing, fertilizer application, irrigation, and waste disposal.

A large concentration of a substance commonly identifies a source of pollution but may not necessarily indicate a problem. In addition to the concentration, other characteristics of the substance must be considered. These characteristics include the amount of the substance released, the rate of release, its availability to organisms, and its residence time in a particular ecosystem. (From USGS Circular 1105.)

They are primarily algae feeders. They feed by filtering the water through a siphon, up to a liter per day. This is why they like the insides of pipes so well, there is a constant supply of water and food flowing by them.

The Gap Analysis Program (GAP) is a state-based cooperative effort to map major indicators of biodiversity over states, along with the existing network of conservation lands. The indicators of biodiversity that the GAP state projects map using geographic information system (GIS) technology are dominant vegetation types (e.g., oak-hickory-hemlock forest) and distributions of each native vertebrate species.

Although coordinated by the BRD, the program is made up of over 400 cooperating organizations nationwide, including businesses, governments, and universities.

Visit the USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) web pages at http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/. The National Wildlife Health Center was established in 1975 as a biomedical laboratory dedicated to assessing the impact of disease on wildlife and to identifying the role of various pathogens in contributing to wildlife losses. Go to http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/ for information about specific diseases being studied by the NWHC.

So, what is a zebra mussel? They are a type of mollusk, which also include a wide variety of organisms such as squids, octopuses, snails, oysters, scallops, and clams. Generally, zebra mussels live for four to five years and average about an inch in length. Mussels are also called "bivalves," which means they have two shells or valves. The zebra mussel gets its name because of the dark, striped pattern on each valve. Usually the shell is a light color, either tan or beige, with zig-zag stripes.

First of all, plants naturally grow in and around lakes. Maybe you're asking about a lake that is being choked off by too much algae. In many cases, humans are responsible. Actually, these lakes are being fed too much food for plants! There are certain chemicals we use that are nutrients (food) to plants. At our homes we fertilize our yards with nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. These chemicals wash off our lawns and eventually get into the water system, such as into creeks, rivers, and lakes. Once there, algae and plants have a feast on this "food". Things used to be worse for our water bodies. Phosphorus used to be an ingredient in our laundry detergent, but this has generally been phased out.

Radon is a gas produced by the radioactive decay of the element radium. Radioactive decay is a natural, spontaneous process in which an atom of one element decays or breaks down to form another element by losing atomic particles (protons, neutrons, or electrons). When solid radium decays to form radon gas, it loses two protons and two neutrons. These two protons and two neutrons are called an alpha particle, which is a type of radiation. The elements that produce radiation are called radioactive. Radon itself is radioactive because it also decays, losing an alpha particle and forming the element polonium.

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Elements that are naturally radioactive include uranium, thorium, carbon, and potassium, as well as radon and radium. Uranium is the first element in a long series of decay that produces radium and radon. Uranium is referred to as the parent element, and radium and radon are called daughters. Radium and radon also form daughter elements as they decay.

The decay of each radioactive element occurs at a very specific rate. How fast an element decays is measured in terms of the element "half-life", or the amount of time for one half of a given amount of the element to decay. Uranium has a half-life of 4.4 billion years, so a 4.4-billion-year-old rock has only half of the uranium with which it started. The half-life of radon is only 3.8 days. If a jar was filled with radon, in 3.8 days only half of the radon would be left. But the newly made daughter products of radon would also be in the jar, including polonium, bismuth, and lead. Polunium is also radioactive - it is this element, which is produced by radon in the air and in people's lungs, that can hurt lung tissue and cause lung cancer.

(74 kb) Radon levels in outdoor air, indoor air, soil air, and ground water can be very different.

Radioactivity is commonly measured in picocuries (pCi). This unit of measure is named for the French physicist Marie Curie, who was a pioneer in the research on radioactive elements and their decay. One pCi is equal to the decay of about two radioactive atoms per minute.

Because the level of radioactivity is directly related to the number and type of radioactive atoms present, radon and all other radioactive atoms are measured in picocuries. For instance, a house having 4 picocuries of radon per liter of air (4 pCi/L) has about 8 or 9 atoms of radon decaying every minute in every liter of air inside the house. A 1,000-square-foot house with 4 pCi/L of radon has nearly 2 million radon atoms decaying in it every minute.

Radon levels in outdoor air, indoor air, soil air, and ground water can be very different. Outdoor air ranges from less than 0.1 pCi/L to about 30 pCi/L, but it probably averages about 0.2 pCi/L. Radon in indoor air ranges from less that 1 pCi/l to about 3,000 pCi/L, but it probably averages between 1 and 2 pCi/L. Radon in soil air (the air that occupies the pores in soil) ranges from 20 or 30 pCi/L to more than 100,000 pCi/L; most soils in the United States contain between 200 and 2,000 pCi of radon per liter of soil air. The amount of radon dissolved in ground water ranges from about 100 to nearly 3 million pCi/L.

Why do radon levels vary so much between indoor air, outdoor air, soil air, and ground water? Why do some houses have high levels of indoor radon while nearby houses do not? The reasons lie primarily in the geology of radon - the factors that govern the occurrence of uranium, the formation of radon, and the movement of radon, soil gas, and ground water.

Have you visited the Children's Butterfly Site? Although it is geared toward young people, the site contains a wealth of information on butterflies, including photo galleries (Common Butterflies of Western Europe and Great Britain, and Common Butterflies of North America), as well as links to other Internet sites, including the online version of Butterflies of North America. The North American Butterfly Association Web site also contains a great deal of information on butterflies, along with many links to additional information--including state-by-state links for local information.

If you have specific questions, you may wish to contact your local university or college entomology department or extension office.

Not directly, no. High-altitude pilots can experience enhanced levels of radiation during magnetic storms, but the hazard is due to the radiation, not the magnetic field itself. Direct effects on human health of the magnetic field at the Earth's surface are, quite frankly, insignificant. The primary effects of geomagnetism are on the health of electrically-based technological systems that are critically important to the modern civilization of humanity, not the humans themselves.

Figuring out clever ways to estimate animal population sizes and their trends involves a lot of research time at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. You may be interested in the Web pages beginning at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/populations/ to learn about these activities. As you probably know, animals do not particularly want to be counted and it becomes quite a tricky business!

Birds: Information on Salton Sea bird die-offs can be found through the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Web site at http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/. Information has been issued by the center through their Quarterly Wildlife Mortality Report.

Fish: There are several species of Tilapia in the Salton Sea. By far, the most abundant is Tilapia mossambica. This fish was accidentally introduced by nearby fish-rearing facilities in the 1960s, and it has proliferated as the salinity has increased. This is the species that now comprises the majority of fish involved in massive die-offs and is suspected of having a role in the deaths of fish-eating birds from avian botulism.

Another good information resource is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Web page. You can also download the document "Saving the Salton Sea" at their Web site at http://pacific.fws.gov/refuges/salton.pdf.

Following a rigorous protocol, BBS data are collected by thousands of dedicated participants along thousands of randomly established roadside routes throughout the continent. Professional BBS coordinators and data managers work closely with researchers and statisticians to compile and deliver these population data and population trend analyses on more than 400 bird species, for use by conservation managers, scientists, and the general public.

For more information on the BBS go to: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/.

If you're interested in becoming involved in the North American Breeding Bird Survey, go to: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/participate/

You can access the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center's Bird Banding Laboratory Web pages at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/default.htm; the page on "How to Report a Bird Band" is at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/call800.htm. Call toll-free, 1-800-327-2263, from anywhere in Canada, the United States, and most parts of the Caribbean. Please have all the information on the bird band with you when you call (band number, location, date, and how you got the band). You may also report the band electronically, through a link from the Web page.