Estuaries provide critical nursery habitat for many commercially and recreationally important fish and shellfish species. These productive, diverse ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to pollution because they serve as repositories for non–point-source contaminants from upland sources, such as pesticide runoff. Atrazine, ...

The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), University of California Moss Landing Marine Lab (MLML), and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), conducted ecosystem ...

This paper provides a summary of the “state of knowledge” regarding behavioral impacts of domoic acid exposure on fish. Initial studies by authors of this paper suggested that fish are behaviorally impacted by domoic acid in the same way that ...

Water masses can become undersaturated with oxygen when natural processes alone or in combination with anthropogenic processes produce enough organic carbon that is aerobically decomposed faster than the rate of oxygen re-aeration. The dominant natural processes usually involved are photosynthetic ...

This document provides an assessment of the status of ecological condition in coastal-ocean waters along the U.S. continental shelf, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, WA to the Mexican border, based on sampling conducted in June 2003. The project ...

Brown tides of the pelagophytes Aureococcus anophagefferens Hargraves et Sieburth and Aureoumbra lagunensis DeYoe et Stockwell have formed ecosystem disruptive algal blooms in shallow estuaries of the United States and South Africa for more than two decades. These algae achieve ...

Hypoxia-inducible factor-? (HIF-?) and cytochrome P450 1A (CYP1A) are biomarkers of environmental exposure to hypoxia and organic xenobiotic chemicals that act through the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, respectively. Many aquatic environments heavily contaminated with organic chemicals, such as harbors, are also ...

A large hypoxic zone forms every summer on the Texas-Louisiana Shelf in the northern Gulf of Mexico due to nutrient and freshwater inputs from the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River System. Efforts are underway to reduce the extent of hypoxic conditions through reductions ...

The National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment (NEEA) is a tool for evaluating both current eutrophic condition and the effectiveness of management actions aimed at reducing eutrophic condition. Eutrophication is caused by excess nutrients and is expressed by symptoms such as increased ...

Salt marsh ecosystems are sensitive habitats that may be susceptible to oil and oil spill mitigation chemicals during clean up. This research project assessed the toxicity of three shoreline cleaners (SLC) in laboratory and mesocosm exposures, determined petroleum hydrocarbon distributions ...