Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Explore scientific publications from the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.

Filter Total Items: 910

Upwelling, climate change, and the shifting geography of coral reef development

The eastern tropical Pacific is oceanographically unfavorable for coral-reef development. Nevertheless, reefs have persisted there for the last 7000 years. Rates of vertical accretion during the Holocene have been similar in the strong-upwelling Gulf of Panamá (GoP) and the adjacent, weak-upwelling Gulf of Chiriquí (GoC); however, seasonal upwelling in the GoP exacerbated a climate-driven hiatus i
Authors
Victor Rodriguez-Ruano, Lauren Toth, Ian C. Enochs, Carly J. Randall, Richard B. Aronson

Dynamics of the wave-driven circulation in the lee of nearshore reefs

Nearshore rocky reefs with scales of order 10–100 m are common along the world's coastline and often shape wave-driven hydrodynamics and shoreline morphology in their lee. The interaction of waves with these reefs generally results in either two or four-cell mean circulation systems (2CC and 4CC, respectively), with diverging flows behind the reefs and at the shoreline in the 2CC case and flows th
Authors
Renan F. da Silva, Jeff Hansen, Ryan Lowe, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Mark L. Buckley

Sound-side inundation and seaward erosion of a barrier island during hurricane landfall

Barrier islands are especially vulnerable to hurricanes and other large storms, owing to their mobile composition, low elevations, and detachment from the mainland. Conceptual models of barrier-island evolution emphasize ocean-side processes that drive landward migration through overwash, inlet migration, and aeolian transport. In contrast, we found that the impact of Hurricane Dorian (2019) on No
Authors
Christopher R. Sherwood, Andrew C. Ritchie, Jin-Si R. Over, Christine J. Kranenburg, Jonathan Warrick, Jenna A. Brown, Wayne Wright, Alfredo Aretxabaleta, Sara Zeigler, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Daniel D. Buscombe, Christie Hegermiller

Bottled water contaminant exposures and potential human effects

Bottled water (BW) consumption in the United States and globally has increased amidst heightened concern about environmental contaminant exposures and health risks in drinking water supplies, despite a paucity of directly comparable, environmentally-relevant contaminant exposure data for BW. This study provides insight into exposures and cumulative risks to human health from inorganic/organic/micr
Authors
Paul M. Bradley, Kristin M. Romanok, Kelly L. Smalling, Michael J. Focazio, Nicola Evans, Suzanne C. Fitzpatrick, Carrie E Givens, Stephanie Gordon, James L. Gray, Emily M. Green, Dale W. Griffin, Michelle Hladik, Leslie K. Kanagy, John T. Lisle, Keith Loftin, R. Blaine McCleskey, Elizabeth Medlock-Kakaley, Ana Navas-Acien, David A. Roth, Paul F. South, Christopher P. Weis

Abundance and distribution of large thecosome pteropods in the northern Gulf of Mexico

The ecological role of large thecosome pteropods in the pelagic ecosystem of the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM) may be substantial, both in the food web and biogeochemical cycling. We analyzed species abundances, vertical and horizontal distributions of large species with calcareous shells (those collected in 3-mm mesh nets). Pteropod samples were collected following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil

Authors
Sarah Shedler, Brad Seibel, Michael Vecchione, Dale W. Griffin, Heather Judkins

Climate-modulated range expansion of reef-building coral communities off southeast Florida during the late Holocene

The Holocene reefs off southeast Florida provide unique insights into the biogeographical and ecological response of western Atlantic coral reefs to past climate change that can be used to evaluate future climate impacts. However, previous studies have focused on millennial-scale change during the stable mid-Holocene, making it difficult to make inferences about the impact of shorter-term variabil

Authors
Alex B. Modys, Anton E. Olenik, Richard A. Mortlock, Lauren Toth, William F. Precht

Assigning causality to events in the Holocene record of coral reefs

The uncemented reef-frameworks of Pacific Panamá, which have been dominated throughout the Holocene by branching corals of the genus Pocillopora, experienced a hiatus in vertical accretion lasting c. 2300 years, beginning c. 4100 years ago. The hiatus has been attributed to an increase in variability of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We tested the alternative hypothesis that the hiatus w
Authors
Victor Rodriguez-Ruano, Lauren Toth, Richard B. Aronson

Biofilms as potential reservoirs of stony coral tissue loss disease

Since 2014, corals throughout Florida’s Coral Reef have been plagued by an epizootic of unknown etiology, colloquially termed stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD). Although in Florida the movement of this waterborne coral disease has been consistent with natural transport via water currents, outbreaks in the Caribbean have been more sporadic, with infections occurring in locations inconsistent

Authors
James S. Evans, Valerie J. Paul, Christina A. Kellogg

Growth portfolios buffer climate-linked environmental change in marine systems

Large-scale, climate-induced synchrony in the productivity of fish populations is becoming more pronounced in the world's oceans. As synchrony increases, a population's “portfolio” of responses can be diminished, in turn reducing its resilience to strong perturbation. Here we argue that the costs and benefits of trait synchronization, such as the expression of growth rate, are context dependent. C

Authors
Steven Campana, Szymon Smolinski, Bryan Black, John Morrongiello, Sella Alexandroff, Carin Andersson, Bjarte Bogstad, Paul Butler, Come Denechaud, David C Frank, Audrey Geffen, Jane Aanestad, Peter Gronkjaer, Einar Hjorleifsson, Ingibjorg G. Jonsdottir, Mark Meekan, Madelyn Jean Mette, Susanne E. Tanner, Peter van der Sleen, Gotje von Leesen

Integrating Bayesian networks to forecast sea-level rise impacts on barrier island characteristics and habitat availability

Evaluation of sea-level rise (SLR) impacts on coastal landforms and habitats is a persistent need for informing coastal planning and management, including policy decisions, particularly those that balance human interests and habitat protection throughout the coastal zone. Bayesian networks (BNs) are used to model barrier island change under different SLR scenarios that are relevant to management a
Authors
Benjamin T. Gutierrez, Sara Zeigler, Erika Lentz, Emily J. Sturdivant, Nathaniel Plant

Unified methods in collecting, preserving, and archiving coral bleaching and restoration specimens to increase sample utility and interdisciplinary collaboration

Coral reefs are declining worldwide primarily because of bleaching and subsequent mortality resulting from thermal stress. Currently, extensive efforts to engage in more holistic research and restoration endeavors have considerably expanded the techniques applied to examine coral samples. Despite such advances, coral bleaching and restoration studies are often conducted within a specific disciplin

Authors
R. Vega Thurber, E R Schmeltzer, A G Grottoli, R. van Woesik, R. J. Toonen, M E Warner, K L Dobson, R H McLachlan, K L Barott, D J Barshis, J H Baumann, L Chapron, D J Combosch, A M S Correa, T M DeCarlo, M Hagedorn, Laetitia Hedouin, K D Hoadley, T Felis, C Ferrier-Pages, C D Kenkel, Ilsa B. Kuffner, J L Matthews, Miguel Medina, C P Meyer, C Oster, J T Price, H M Putnam, Y Sawall

Wave-driven hydrodynamic processes over fringing reefs with varying slopes, depths, and roughness: Implications for coastal protection

Wave breaking on the steep fore-reef slopes of shallow fringing reefs is effective at dissipating incident sea-swell waves prior to reaching reef shorelines. However, wave setup and free infragravity waves generated during the sea-swell breaking process are often the largest contributors to wave-driven water levels at the shoreline. Laboratory flume experiments and a multi-layer phase-resolving no

Authors
Mark L. Buckley, Ryan L. Lowe, Jeff E. Hansen, Ap R. Dongeren, Andrew Pomeroy, Curt Storlazzi, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Renan F. Silva, Stephanie Contardo, Rebecca H. Green