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Publications

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

Filter Total Items: 912

Integrating high-resolution coastal acidification monitoring data across seven United States estuaries

Beginning in 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Estuary Program (NEP) started a collaboration with partners in seven estuaries along the East Coast (Barnegat Bay; Casco Bay), West Coast (Santa Monica Bay; San Francisco Bay; Tillamook Bay), and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Coast (Tampa Bay; Mission-Aransas Estuary) of the United States to expand the use of autono

Authors
Nicholas A Rosenau, Holly Galavotti, Kimberly K. Yates, Curtis Bohlen, Christopher W. Hunt, Matthew Liebman, A Brown, Stephen R. Pacella, John L. Largier, Karina Nielsen, Xinping Hu, Melissa McCutcheon, James Vasslides, Matthew Poach, Tom Ford, Karina Johnston, Alex Steele

Upwelling and the persistence of coral-reef frameworks in the eastern tropical Pacific

In an era of global change, the fate and form of reef habitats will depend on shifting assemblages of organisms and their responses to multiple stressors. Multiphyletic assemblages of calcifying and bioeroding species contribute to a dynamic balance between constructive and erosive processes, and reef-framework growth occurs only when calcium-carbonate deposition exceeds erosion. Each contributing
Authors
Ian C. Enochs, Lauren Toth, Amanda Kirkland, Derek P. Manzello, Graham Kolodziej, John T Morris, Daniel M Holstein, Austin Schlenz, Carly J. Randall, Juan L Mate, James J Leichter, Richard B. Aronson

Comparison of preservation and extraction methods on five taxonomically disparate coral microbiomes

All animals are host to a multitude of microorganisms that are essential to the animal’s health. Host-associated microbes have been shown to defend against potential pathogens, provide essential nutrients, interact with the host’s immune system, and even regulate mood. However, it can be difficult to preserve and obtain nucleic acids from some host-associated microbiomes, making studying their mic
Authors
Zoe A. Pratte, Christina A. Kellogg

An efficient method to calculate depth-integrated, phase-averaged momentum balances in non-hydrostatic models

Analysis of the mean (wave-averaged) momentum balance is a common approach used to explain the physical forcing driving wave set-up and mean currents in the nearshore zone. Traditionally this approach has been applied to phase-averaged models but has more recently been applied to phase-resolving models using post-processing, whereby model output is used to calculate each of the momentum terms. Whi
Authors
Renan F. da Silva, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe, Mark L. Buckley, Marcel Zijlema

Genetic structure and diversity of the mustard hill coral Porites astreoides along the Florida Keys reef tract

Increases in local and global stressors have led to major declines in coral populations throughout the western Atlantic. While abundances of other species have declined, however, the relative abundance of the mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides, has increased. Porites astreoides is relatively resilient to some stressors, and because of its mixed reproductive strategies, its populations often re
Authors
Dominique N. Gallery, Michelle L. Green, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Elizabeth A. Lenz, Lauren Toth

Climate and the latitudinal limits of subtropical reef development

Climate plays a central role in coral-reef development, especially in marginal environments. The high-latitude reefs of southeast Florida are currently non-accreting, relict systems with low coral cover. This region also did not support the extensive Late Pleistocene reef development observed in many other locations around the world; however, there is evidence of significant reef building in south
Authors
Lauren Toth, William F. Precht, Alexander B. Modys, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Martha L. Robbart, J. Harold Hudson, Anton E. Olenik, Bernhard M Riegl, Eugene A. Shinn, Richard B. Aronson

Physiological differences in bleaching response of the coral Porites astreoides along the Florida Keys reef tract during high-temperature stress

The Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT) has a unique geological history wherein Holocene sea-level rise and bathymetry interacted, resulting in a reef-building system with notable spatial differences in reef development. Overprinted on this geologic history, recent global and local stressors have led to degraded reefs dominated by fleshy algae, soft corals, and sponges. Here, we assessed how coral phys
Authors
Elizabeth A. Lenz, Lucy Bartlett, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Ilsa B. Kuffner

Assessing habitat change and migration of barrier islands

Barrier islands are dynamic environments that experience gradual change from waves, tides, and currents, and rapid change from extreme storms. These islands are expected to change drastically over the coming century due to accelerated sea-level rise and changes in frequency and intensity of storm events. The dynamic nature of barrier islands coupled with the importance of these environments make i
Authors
Nicholas Enwright, Lei Wang, P. Soupy Dalyander, Hongqing Wang, Michael Osland, Rangley C. Mickey, Robert L. Jenkins, Elizabeth Godsey

Processing coastal imagery with Agisoft Metashape Professional Edition, version 1.6—Structure from motion workflow documentation

IntroductionStructure from motion (SFM) has become an integral technique in coastal change assessment; the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) used Agisoft Metashape Professional Edition photogrammetry software to develop a workflow that processes coastline aerial imagery collected in response to storms since Hurricane Florence in 2018. This report details step-by-step instructions to create three-dimen

Authors
Jin-Si R. Over, Andrew C. Ritchie, Christine J. Kranenburg, Jenna A. Brown, Daniel D. Buscombe, Tom Noble, Christopher R. Sherwood, Jonathan A. Warrick, Phillipe A. Wernette

Lateral shoreline erosion and shore-proximal sediment deposition on a coastal marsh from seasonal, storm and decadal measurements

The persistence of coastal marsh is dependent on its ability to maintain elevation relative to sea level, particularly for marshes experiencing high rates of shoreline erosion due to wave-attack, storms, and sea level rise. Sediments eroded at the marsh edge are either delivered onto the marsh platform or into the estuary, the latter resulting in a net loss of marsh sediments and soil carbon. Know
Authors
Kathryn Smith, Joseph Terrano, Nicole S. Khan, Christopher G. Smith, Jonathan L Pitchford

Persistent multidecadal variability since the 15th century in the southern Barents Sea derived from annually resolved shell-based records

In the North Atlantic Ocean, multidecadal variability in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the past several centuries has largely been inferred through terrestrial proxies and decadally resolved marine proxies. Annually resolved proxy records from marine archives provide valuable insight into this variability, but are especially rare from high latitude environments, particularly for centennial
Authors
Madelyn Jean Mette, Alan D. Wanamaker, Michael J. Retelle, Michael L. Carroll, Carin Andersson, William G. Ambrose

Remote and local drivers of Pleistocene South Asian summer monsoon precipitation: A test for future predictions

South Asian precipitation amount and extreme variability are predicted to increase due to thermodynamic effects of increased 21st-century greenhouse gases, accompanied by an increased supply of moisture from the southern hemisphere Indian Ocean. We reconstructed South Asian summer monsoon precipitation and runoff into the Bay of Bengal to assess the extent to which these factors also operated in t
Authors
Steven C Clemens, Masanobu Yamamoto, Kaustubh Thirumalai, Liviu Giosan, Julie N. Richey, Katrina Nilson-Kerr, Yair Rosenthal, Pallavi Anand, Sarah M McGrath