Ocean acidification, the progressive change in ocean chemistry caused by uptake of atmospheric CO2, is likely to affect some marine resources negatively, including shellfish. The Atlantic sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) supports one of the most economically important single-species commercial fisheries in the United States. Careful management appears to be the ...

Multiple indicators of water quality, sediment quality, and biological condition were used to assess the status of ecological condition of National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) sites in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia relative to a suite of corresponding scoring criteria. All measurements were made in subtidal aquatic habitats ...

In September of 2004 hurricane Ivan, a category 3 storm at the time, passed through the northern Gulf of Mexico. Severe wave action attributed to the storm triggered a subsea mudslide that toppled Taylor Energy Company’s (TEC) oil Saratoga production platform A at Mississippi Canyon block 20 (MC20). The superstructure, ...

Didemnum sp. A is a colonial ascidian or “sea squirt” of unknown geographic origin. Colonies of Didemnum sp. A were first documented in U.S. waters in 1993 at Damariscotta River, Maine and San Francisco Bay, California. An alarming number of colonies have since been found at several locations in New ...

Lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles complex) are venomous coral reef fishes from the Indian and western Pacific oceans that are now found in the western Atlantic Ocean. Adult lionfish have been observed from Miami, Florida to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and juvenile lionfish have been observed off North Carolina, New York, and ...

The St. Thomas East End Reserves, or STEER, is a collection of Marine Reserves and Wildlife Sanctuaries (MRWS) located on the southeastern end of the island of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. With an area of approximately 9.6 km2 , the STEER contains extensive mangroves and seagrass beds, along with ...

NOAA's Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program (DSCRTP) is compiling a national database of the locations of deep-sea corals and sponges, beginning in U.S. waters. The DSCRTP will make this information accessible to resource managers, the scientific community, and the public over the World Wide Web. The database fulfills ...

This report examines survey technologies, with a focus on towed camera systems (TCSs), and modeling techniques which can increase nonindigenous species (NIS) detection and sampling efficiency in deepwater habitats of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI); thus filling a critical data gap in present datasets. A pilot study conducted in 2008 at ...

This summary represents the continuation of an ongoing collaboration with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS), and the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), through a comprehensive regional oceanographic data synthesis and integration effort for ...

A coastwide bloom of the toxigenic diatom Pseudo-nitzschia in spring 2015 resulted in the largest recorded outbreak of the neurotoxin, domoic acid, along the North American west coast. Elevated toxins were measured in numerous stranded marine mammals and resulted in geographically extensive and prolonged closures of razor clam, rock crab, ...

Heterokont members of the Pelagophyceae form the massive brown tides that have continually plagued the coastal regions of the eastern U.S. seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. To gain a better understanding of the photosynthetic competence that may be linked to their success in forming massive blooms, we sequenced the ...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Biogeography Branch has conducted surveys of reef fish in the Caribbean since 1999. Surveys were initially undertaken to identify essential fish habitat, but later were used to characterize and monitor reef fish populations and benthic communities over time. The Branch’s goals are to develop ...

The Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) is a comprehensive, standard terminology published in 2014. The standard is intended to unify habitat classification efforts, in order to allow for broader integration and comparison of data. The standard is well-developed, and has been implemented in some regions, but CMECS not ...

Interest and growth in marine aquaculture are increasing around the world, and with it, advanced spatial planning approaches are needed to find suitable locations in an increasingly crowded ocean. Standard spatial planning approaches, such as a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), may be challenging and time consuming to interpret in heavily ...

Trailered boats have been implicated in the spread of aquatic invasive species. There has been, however, little empirical research on the type and quantity of aquatic invasive species being transported, nor on the efficacy of management interventions (e.g., inspection crews, boat washing). In a study of small-craft boats and trailers, ...

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) are found on the insular and continental slopes of Caribbean islands and comprise mainly scleractinian corals, sponges and macroalgae. These species provide habitat for a highly diverse and specialized crustacean fauna. A new genus and species of the family Louriniidae is described from samples taken from ...

An activity book designed to introduce elementary school children to the animal, aquatic and ecology of the Arctic and Antarctic ...

A mechanistic model was developed to predict midsummer bottom-water dissolved oxygen (BWDO) concentration and hypoxic area on the Louisiana shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico, USA (1985–2011). Because of its parsimonious formulation, the model possesses many of the benefits of simpler, more empirical models, in that it is computationally ...

A study was conducted in October 2006 in the Charleston, South Carolina area to test the movements of three different buoy line types to determine which produced a preferred profile that could reduce the risk of dolphin entanglement. Tests on diamond-braided nylon commonly used in the crab pot fishery were ...

NOAA's Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) lists saltmarshes along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts as the most vulnerable habitat to oil spills. As a result of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig accident, more that 200 million gallons of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico, and more than ...