Publications

Despite decades of effort toward reducing nitrogen and phosphorus flux to Chesapeake Bay, water-quality and ecological responses in surface waters have been mixed. Recent research, however, provides useful insight into multiple factors complicating the understanding of nutrient trends in bay tributaries, which we review in this paper, as we approach a 2025 total maximum daily load (TMDL)

Advances in video technology enable new strategies for stream fish research. We compared juvenile (age‐0) and adult (age 1+) Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis abundance estimates from underwater video with backpack electrofishing and dive‐count methods across a series of stream pools in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia (n = 41). Video methods estimated greater mean abundance of adult...

Big Spring Run is a 1.68-square mile watershed underlain by mostly carbonate rock in a mixed land-use setting (part agricultural and part developed) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Big Spring Run is a subwatershed of Mill Creek, a tributary to the Conestoga River. These watersheds are known contributors of nutrient and sediment loads to the Chesapeake Bay and several stream reaches...

Raised mucoid skin lesions have been observed on smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) for years. Here we report a draft genome of a novel adomavirus (Micropterus dolomieu adomavirus 2) associated with this disease. The circular genome is 17,561 bp and most similar to that of alpha-Adomaviruses.

Chemical contaminants are a threat to the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with mercury (Hg) among the most prevalent causes of impairment. Despite this, large-scale patterns of Hg concentrations, and the potential risks to fish, wildlife, and humans across the watershed, are poorly understood. We compiled fish Hg data from state monitoring programs and recent research efforts to address this...

A study was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Washington, D.C., Department of Energy & Environment to estimate the loads of suspended-sediment-bound chemical compounds in five gaged tributaries and four ungaged tributaries of the Anacostia River (known locally as “Lower Anacostia River”) in Washington, D.C. Tributaries whose discharge is measured by...

Analysis of species abundance trends can inform an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. We evaluated spatial and temporal trends in fish species abundance in the non-tidal Potomac River (USA) from a dataset comprising 2841 seine-hauls with > 250,000 individual fish records across 10 sites and 43 years (1975-2017). The dataset contained 47 species from 7 taxonomic families, with...

Land‐use and climate change are significantly affecting stream ecosystems, yet understanding of their long‐term impacts is hindered by the few studies that have simultaneously investigated their interaction and high variability among future projections. We modeled possible effects of a suite of 2030, 2060, and 2090 land‐use and climate scenarios on the condition of 70,772 small streams...

Limited evidence for spatial patterns of denitrification in tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFWs), seemingly due to high spatial variability in the process, is surprising considering the various spatial gradients of its biogeochemical and hydrogeomorphic controls in these ecosystems. Because certain physical environmental gradients may be useful for the prediction of denitrification...

Executive Summary The New York-Pennsylvania area has a long history of hydrocarbon extraction, and the addition of shale gas extraction methods contributes to landscape disturbance borne by previously developed oil and non-shale gas resources. The main unconventional extraction method used to extract shale gas from the Marcellus Shale located in New York and Pennsylvania is hydraulic...

Public land managers have limited information to allow for the integration and balancing of multiple objectives in land management decisions including the social (cultural and health), economic (monetary and nonmonetary), and environmental aspects. In this article, we document an approach to consider the many facets of decision making by incorporating them into a decision context using...

In response to concerns regarding the health of streams and receiving waters, the United States Environmental Protection Agency established a total maximum daily load for nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay watershed for which practices must be in place by 2025 resulting in an expected 25% reduction in load from 2009 levels. The response of total nitrogen (TN) loads delivered to the Bay to...