Data and Reports Explorer

The continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico receives high dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus loads from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. The nutrient load results in high primary production in the river plumes and contributes to the development of hypoxia on the Louisiana shelf in summer. While phytoplankton ...

We hypothesized that the grazing on phytoplankton by the microzooplankton community is size-dependent and, therefore, the top-down control on phytoplankton by microzooplankton community could be one possible mechanism explaining why small phytoplankton become less abundant than large phytoplankton in eutrophic waters. We tested this hypothesis using the dilution method to ...

Simulation models coupling physics to biological processes in the ocean are central to many current programs. Ocean physical models have approached a high level of sophistication; the physical relationships are canonical, and modern computational technology for fluid mechanics has advanced steadily for two generations or more. The complexity of biological ...

Coupled biological/physical models of marine systems serve many purposes including the synthesis of information, hypothesis generation, and as a tool for numerical experimentation. However, marine system models are increasingly used for prediction to support high-stakes decision-making. In such applications it is imperative that a rigorous model skill assessment is conducted ...

A numerical hydrodynamic simulation of the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf circulation is compared with hydrographic and moored observations of temperature, salinity, and current velocity. The spatial and temporal structure of the model error suggests that the model is able to reproduce the observed broad-scale features and seasonal patterns faithfully. However, there ...

Since 2012, NOAA has generated model guidance for the probability of occurrence of the harmful marine bacteria Vibrio vulnificus in Chesapeake Bay. The system employs NOAAs Operational Forecast System for Chesapeake Bay (CBOFS) to force a statistical model developed by NCCOS and provides daily guidance for the entirety of the ...

Seasonal hypoxia [dissolved oxygen (DO)???2 mg?l?1] occurs over large regions of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf during the summer months (June–August) as a result of nutrient enrichment from the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River system. We characterized the community structure of mobile fishes and invertebrates (i.e., nekton) in and around the ...

A series of studies was initiated to assess the condition of benthic macroinfauna and chemical contaminant levels in sediments and biota of the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS) and nearby shelf waters off the coast of Georgia. Four key objectives of the research are (1) to document existing environmental ...

In 2016, NOAA launched a four-year initiative to study deep-sea coral ecosystems in waters off the southeast United States. This multidisciplinary effort, known as the Southeast Deep Coral Initiative (SEDCI), is led by a NOAA team from multiple offices and works in collaboration with partners from federal and academic institutions ...

Coral reefs are vibrant, productive ecosystems that face a variety of threats, including disease, temperature stress and pollution. In order to effectively manage coral reef resources, adequate data are required to assess status and track change in these systems. The state of Florida has over 100 linear miles of coral ...

Nearly every summer, a large hypoxic zone forms in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Research on the causes and consequences of hypoxia requires reliable estimates of hypoxic extent, which can vary at sub-monthly time scales due to hydro-meteorological variability. Here, we use an innovative space-time geostatistical model and data collected ...

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) are a growing problem in freshwater systems worldwide. CyanoHABs are well documented in Green Bay, Lake Michigan but little is known about cyanoHAB toxicity. This study characterized the diversity and spatial distribution of toxic or otherwise bioactive cyanobacterial peptides (TBPs) in Green Bay. Samples were ...

This report contains summary data of bottlenose dolphins stranded in South Carolina. The intent of this report is to provide data on bottlenose dolphin strandings in South Carolina to marine mammal researchers and managers. This report is an accumulation of 14 years of stranding data collected through the collaborations of ...

Coastal stewardship involves recognizing important aspects of landscape function in order to identify and mitigate impacts affecting the sustainability of ecosystems and communities. In collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), NOAA's National Ocean Service has worked to enhance our understanding of current conditions and potential impacts at ...

Effects of terrigenous sedimentation are considered a serious threat to Puerto Rico's coral reefs. This study assesses: 1) the composition of sediments accumulating at reef sites on the southwestern shelf of Puerto Rico; 2) the spatial extent to which terrigenous materials are reaching these reefs; and 3) the spatial and ...

Chesapeake Bay tidal wetlands are experiencing a broad-scale, aggressive invasion by the non-native, clonal grass Phragmites australis. The grass is often managed with herbicides in efforts to restore native plant communities and wildlife habitat. Management efforts, however, can act as a disturbance, resulting in increased light availability, potentially fostering reinvasion ...

We analyze the Gulf of Mexico brown shrimp fishery and the potential impacts of a large seasonal area of hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) that coincides with the peak shrimp season. A spatial-dynamic bioeconomic simulation embeds three biological impacts on shrimp: mortality, growth, and aggregation on hypoxic edges. Hypoxia creates feedbacks ...

To investigate the potential for mollusks to serve as proxies for benthic respiration and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), five gastropod (Conus austini Rehder and Abbott, 1951 and Strombus alatus Gmelin, 1791) and five bivalve (Pteria colymbus Röding, 1798 and Spondylus calcifer Carpenter, 1857) shells, from six Texas-Louisiana ...

Invasions are dynamic as both the invading organism and the invaded ecosystem change. Intrinsic changes to the invader (invasion process) can involve population level genetic and reproductive changes. Extrinsic changes (invasion effect) occur to the environment that is invaded (e.g., alterations to the physical environment), to the invaded plant community ...

In recent decades, there has been increasing interest in the application of ecological indices to assess ecosystem condition in response to anthropogenic activities. An Index of Waterbird Community Integrity was previously developed for the Chesapeake Bay, USA. However, the scoring criteria were not defined well enough to generate scores for ...