Publications

Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting has increased dramatically in Florida over the past two decades, ranking the Florida nesting aggregation among the largest in the Greater Caribbean region. Individual beaches that comprise several hundred kilometers of Florida’s east coast and Keys support tens to thousands of nests annually. These beaches encompass natural to highly developed...

I review the primary literature to ascertain the status of amphibian monitoring efforts in the southeastern USA, a “hotspot” for biodiversity in North America. This effort revealed taxonomic, geographic and ecological disparities in studies of amphibian populations in this region. Of the species of anurans and caudates known to occur in the Southeast, 73.8 and 33.3 %, respectively, have...

Isolation of environmental DNA (eDNA) is an increasingly common method for detecting presence and assessing relative abundance of rare or elusive species in aquatic systems via the isolation of DNA from environmental samples and the amplification of species-specific sequences using quantitative PCR (qPCR). Co-extracted substances that inhibit qPCR can lead to inaccurate results and...

An exhaustive guide to all aspects of the freshwater mussel fauna in Florida,Freshwater Mussels of Florida covers the ecology, biology, distribution, and conservation of the many species of bivalve mollusks in the Sunshine State. In the past three decades, researchers, the public, businesses that depend on wildlife, and policy makers have given more attention to the threatened natural...

The federally endangered Tar River spinymussel (Elliptio steinstansana) is endemic to the Tar River and Neuse River systems in North Carolina. The extent to which water quality limits Tar River spinymussels’ recovery is important to establish, and one aspect of that is understanding the species’ pollutant sensitivity. The primary objectives of this study were to 1) develop captive...

A fundamental goal of wetland restoration is to reinstate pre-disturbance hydrological conditions to degraded landscapes, facilitating recolonization by native species and the production of resilient, functional ecosystems. To evaluate restoration success, baseline conditions need to be determined and a reference target needs to be established that will serve as an ecological blueprint...

On July 5–19 (cruise 13BIM02) and August 22–September 1 (cruise 13BIM07), 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted geophysical surveys to investigate the geologic controls on barrier island evolution and medium-term and interannual sediment transport along the oil spill mitigation sand berm constructed at the north end and offshore of the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana. This...

A groundwater flow model for east-central Florida has been developed to help water-resource managers assess the impact of increased groundwater withdrawals from the Floridan aquifer system on heads and spring flows originating from the Upper Floridan aquifer. The model provides a probabilistic description of predictions of interest to water-resource managers, given the uncertainty...

No abstract available.

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is the largest public investment in the Great Lakes in two decades. A task force of 11 Federal agencies developed an action plan to implement the initiative. The U.S. Department of the Interior was one of the 11 agencies that entered into an interagency agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the GLRI to complete...

The long-term balance between net precipitation and net groundwater exchange that maintains thousands of seepage lakes in Florida’s karst terrain is explored at a representative lake basin and then regionally for the State’s peninsular lake district. The 15-year water budget of Lake Starr includes El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related extremes in rainfall, and provides the longest...

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation needs to characterize their existing surface-water and groundwater resources in and near their tribal jurisdictional area to complete a water-resource management plan. Water resources in this area include surface water from the North Canadian and Little Rivers and groundwater from the terrace and alluvial aquifers and underlying bedrock aquifers. To assist...