The National Status and Trends Program is comprised of three nationwide programs: Benthic Surveillance, Mussel Watch, and Bioeffects. These programs are in place to observe estuarine and coastal waters nationwide to describe the current status and detect changes in the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The current report summarizes Great Lakes mussel tissue contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) data obtained between 2013-2015. The study design informs MWP management, stakeholders and general public about the frequency of occurrence, and the magnitude of CECs in mussels. We ...

Low oxygen zones in coastal and open ocean ecosystems have expanded in recent decades, a trend that will accelerate with climatic warming. There is growing recognition that low oxygen regions of the ocean are also acidified, a condition that will ...

Coastal marine organisms experience dynamic pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions in their natural habitats, which may impact their susceptibility to long-term anthropogenic changes. Robust characterizations of all temporal scales of natural pH and DO fluctuations in different marine habitats ...

The effects of non-native invasive species are costly and environmentally damaging, and resources to slow their spread and reduce their effects are scarce. Models that accurately predict where new invasions will occur could guide the efficient allocation of resources to ...

Some nations, and the International Maritime Organization, are moving towards requirements for managing ballast water to reduce the number of alien species transported and released. These and other measures will be most efficient when targeted at ships posing the greatest ...