Mesophotic coral reef ecosystems are remote from coastal stressors, but are still vulnerable to over-exploitation, and remain mostly unprotected. They may be the key to coral reefs resilience, yet little is known about the pattern of larval subsidies from deeper to shallower coral reef habitats. Here we use a biophysical ...

The issues and problems associated with coastal and marine resources, and their current or potential relationship to climate, have continued to receive a high level of national and international attention. Headlines draw attention to subjects ranging from disastrous hurricanes and one of the strongest El Niño events in recent history, ...

Shoreline armoring is an ancient and globally used engineering strategy to prevent shoreline erosion along marine, estuarine, and freshwater coastlines. Armoring alters the land water interface and has the potential to affect nearshore submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) by changing nearshore hydrology, morphology, water clarity, and sediment composition. We quantified the ...

The response of runoff and sediment loading in the Apalachicola River under projected climate change scenarios and land use land cover (LULC) change is evaluated. A hydrologic model using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool was developed for the Apalachicola region to simulate daily runoff and sediment load under present ...

Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) are a threatened or endangered species in much of their range along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Over an approximately three-week period from late April to mid-May 2015, hundreds of adult diamondback terrapins were found dead on the shores of Flanders Bay, Long Island, New ...

We examined the processes influencing summer hypoxia in the mainstem portion of Chesapeake Bay. The analysis was based on the Chesapeake Bay Monitoring Program data collected between 1985 and 2007. Self-organizing map (SOM) analysis indicates that bottom water dissolved oxygen (DO) starts to be depleted in the upper mesohaline area ...

Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC, 1996–2002) was a NOAA Coastal Ocean Program project that investigated the marine ecosystem of the southeastern Bering Sea. SEBSCC was co-managed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Project goals were to understand the ...

The purpose of this report is to provide an assessment of the current condition of coral reef ecosystems in U.S. jurisdictions, including the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Navassa, Florida, Flower Garden Banks and other banks of the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, the Pacific ...

This report is the third in an ongoing series of assessments of the condition of coral reef ecosystems in the United States and Pacific Freely Associated states, and the second report to focus specifically on summarizing the results of coral reef ecosystem monitoring activities carried out by federal, state, territorial, ...

Since NOAA published the 2007 State of Deep Coral Ecosystems of the United States report, many deep-sea coral research and management efforts have taken place. This publication presents these exciting advances. Like the 2007 report, we have regional chapters describing the distribution and ecology of the deep-sea coral ecosystems, with ...

This study showed that large prefabricated units and concrete rubble patch reefs, placed as artificial marine habitats on sand bottom, greatly enhance the abundance, diversity, and biomass of fish in an area. Densities of individuals and biomass were found considerably higher at artificial reefs than at nearby, natural, bank reefs, ...

This report is based on one of the recommendations from the 2014 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) “Scientific Workshop on Coral Reef Resilience in Planning and Decision-support Frameworks” to address the question can intermediate depth reefs serve as “lifeboats” for increasingly stressed coral reef ecosystems? This question was addressed by ...

This study examines the integrated influence of sea level rise (SLR) and future morphology on tidal hydrodynamics along the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) coast including seven embayments and three ecologically and economically significant estuaries. A large-domain hydrodynamic model was used to simulate astronomic tides for present and future conditions ...

While early life-stage marine bivalves are vulnerable to ocean acidification, effects over successive generations are poorly characterized. The objective of this work was to assess the transgenerational efects of ocean acidifcation on two species of North Atlantic bivalve shellfsh, Mercenaria mercenaria and Argopecten irradians. Adults of both species were subjected ...

The present study seeks to further our understanding of ocean currents in and around the Mariana archipelago and their potential influence on larval transport. We combined observational data on ocean currents from satellite-tracked surface drifters with computer simulations of larval dispersal driven by an ocean circulation model to achieve the ...

The increasing use of trophic position (TP) for assessing and describing ecosystems has resulted in the emergence of novel techniques for accurate and accessible measurements. The strength of amino acid compound specific nitrogen isotopic analysis (AA?CSIA) lies in its ability to determine TP using a single organism, utilizing the isotopic ...

The dinoflagellate Karlodinium veneficum is a harmful algal bloom species with a worldwide distribution. This small athecate dinoflagellate makes a family of polyketide toxins that are hemolytic, cytotoxic and ichthyotoxic. The first chemical structure for karlotoxins from East China Sea (ECS) is reported here. The two new karlotoxins, namely 4,5-dihydro-KmTx ...

Two new species of genus Cumella G. O. Sars: Cumella solomoni and C. manolelii are described from mesophotic substrata of Puerto Rico and St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands), respectively. Similarities and dissimilarities with related species are discussed ...

Recent supply shocks in the Gulf of Mexico—including hurricanes, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the seasonal appearance of a large dead zone of low oxygen water (hypoxia)—have raised concerns about the economic viability of the U.S. shrimp fishery. The ability of U.S. shrimpers to mediate supply shocks through increased ...

Coral reefs are subject to numerous physical disturbances, and post-disturbance coral recovery potential depends on subsequent re-colonization of impacted habitat. We examined divergent recovery trajectories at 2 proximal reefs disturbed by ship groundings that resulted in clearly delineated areas of altered substrate. Post-disturbance measurements of coral recruitment, survival, and changes ...