Data and Reports Explorer

Ocean acidification (OA) has the potential to restructure ecosystems due to variation in species sensitivity to the projected changes in ocean carbon chemistry. Ecological models can be forced with scenarios of OA to help scientists, managers, and other stakeholders understand how ecosystems might change. We present a novel methodology for ...

Estuaries exhibit a large range in their responses to nitrogen loadings determined in part by characteristics of the driver, such as magnitude and frequency, but also by such intrinsic characteristics as physical/chemical factors (e.g., depth, volume, hypsometry, salinity, turbidity) and biological factors (e.g., nature of ecological communities, trophic interactions). To ...

This is the original (1992) Gulf of Mexico regional component of NOAA's Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 44 species of fishes and ...

This is the Mid-Atlantic regional component of NOAA?s Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 61 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 22 estuaries ...

This is the North Atlantic regional component of NOAA?s Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 58 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 17 ...

This is the original (1991) Southeast regional component of NOAA's Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 40 species of fishes and invertebrates, in ...

This is the West Coast regional component of NOAA?s Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 47 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 32 ...

These unprojected (geographic coordinates) 3-Zone Average Annual Salinity Digital Geographies are based on analysis of long-term salinity data for 147 estuaries of the contiguous United States. Each estuary is subdivided into three zones between the head(s) of tide, and the seaward boundaries based on annual-averaged and depth-averaged salinities. The salinities ...

This report summarizes a project carried out in 2003 that attempted to quantify the desired human uses of a specific estuary in Maine and to determine current measures of success used by coastal managers in Maine to track the ability of the estuary to support desired uses. Casco Bay was ...

Vegetative reproduction promotes human-mediated dispersal of aquatic invasive plants as fragments “hitchhike” between water bodies on boats and trailers. However, desiccation of plant fragments may also reduce fitness, decreasing the likelihood of fragment survival as transport distances increase. Current inter-lake invasive species spread models do not directly consider fitness loss ...

Human activities, especially increased nutrient loads that set in motion a cascading chain of events related to eutrophication, accelerate development of hypoxia (lower oxygen concentration) in many areas of the world’s coastal ocean. Climate changes and extreme weather events may modify hypoxia. Organismal and fisheries effects are at the heart ...

Nutrient inputs from the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River system into the northern Gulf of Mexico promote high phytoplankton production and lead to high respiration rates. Respiration coupled with water column stratification results in seasonal summer hypoxia in bottom waters on the shelf. In addition to consuming oxygen, respiration produces carbon dioxide (CO2), ...

Excess nutrients derived from anthropogenic activity have resulted in the degradation of coastal water quality and an increase in low-oxygen and hypoxic events worldwide. In an effort to curb these impacts and restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, a maximum load of nutrients has been established based on a ...

The management, restoration, and conservation of estuarine habitats would benefit from knowledge of habitat-specific functions that reflect important ecosystem services. Secondary production may provide a comprehensive metric of food web support because it synthesizes ­contributions of local primary production, food subsidies from other habitats, and the protective influences of habitat ...

The last historic Hexagenia specimen in lower Green Bay was officially recorded in 1955. Field surveys and Hexagenia viability studies were completed to determine if lower Green Bay could support Hexagenia re-ecesis and where in the bay egg stocking could best be accomplished. The invertebrate field data were compared with ...

Marine biotoxin-contaminated seafood has caused thousands of poisonings worldwide this century. Given these threats, there is an increasing need for improved technologies that can be easily integrated into coastal monitoring programs. This study evaluates approaches for monitoring toxins associated with recurrent toxin-producing Alexandrium and Dinophysis blooms on Long Island, NY, ...

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most ecologically and economically valuable marine ecosystems in the world and is affected by a variety of natural and anthropogenic phenomena including climate, hurricanes, coastal development, agricultural runoff, oil spills, and fishing. These complex and interacting stressors, together with the highly dynamic ...

Six years (2009–2015) of temperature and dissolved oxygen profile data show hypoxic conditions are common in the bottom waters of southern Green Bay, Lake Michigan during the summer. Depleted oxygen concentrations (<5 mg L−1) affect nearly 70% of the 38 stations sampled representing an area of ~500–600 km2. Stratification typically ...

Studies of estuarine eutrophication have tended to focus on systems with continually flowing rivers, while little is known about estuaries from semi-arid/arid regions. Here we report results from an assessment of water quality conditions in Baffin Bay, Texas, a shallow (2 fold higher than in three other Texas estuaries. In ...

Water quality problems, including sedimentation and over enrichment of nutrients, have the potential to adversely impact coral reef ecosystems. Phosphorus and reactive nitrogen can enter the environment from chemical fertilizers (residential, commercial and agricultural uses), industrial sources, animal waste, and human waste. Excess nutrient loads can impact coral both directly ...