Publications

The persistence of freshwater degradation has necessitated the growth of an expansive stream and wetland restoration industry, yet restoration prioritization at broad spatial extents is still limited and ad-hoc restoration prevails. The River Basin Restoration Prioritization tool has been developed to incorporate vetted, distributed data models into a catchment scale restoration...

Effective management of human activities affecting listed species requires understanding both threats and animal habitat-use patterns. However, the extent of spatial overlap between high-use foraging areas (where multiple marine species congregate) and anthropogenic threats is not well known. Our modeling approach incorporates data on sea turtle spatial ecology and a suite of threats in...

Because coastal areas in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts were heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), under a mission agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, collected storm tide high-water marks in those coastal areas. This effort was undertaken to better understand the areal extent and impact of storm tides...

Antillean manatees (Trichechus manatus manatus), a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, is listed as endangered species in the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The aims of this research were to survey on the possible regional genetic structure in the southern Gulf of Mexico and to compare genetic status of a landlocked population in...

The following standard operation procedure (SOP) outlines the procedure for collecting physical habitat data from previously selected and benchmarked wadeable streams. The purpose of this SOP is to ensure that data are collected using methods that are consistent between reaches and years. Using the methods described in this SOP will also ensure that the data will be comparable to data...

The following standard operating procedure (SOP) outlines the procedure for selecting stream reaches to be used in Monitoring Wadeable Stream Habitat Conditions in Southeast Coast Network Parks: Protocol Narrative (McDonald et al. 2018a). The techniques and procedures outlined in this SOP are based on methods used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA 2013), the U.S...

The following standard operating procedure (SOP) outlines the process for setting up and configuring a total station to collect accurate x, y, and z coordinate data. Total stations allow accurate spatial data to be collected and tied to a permanent benchmark. These data can be used to detect small geomorphic changes between site surveys. Many different types of total stations and...

The invasive Burmese python (Python bivittatus) has been reproducing in the Florida Everglades since the 1980s. These giant constrictor snakes have caused a precipitous decline in small mammal populations in southern Florida following escapes or releases from the commercial pet trade. To better understand the invasion pathway and genetic composition of the population, two mitochondrial...

Mammals diversified by colonizing drastically different environments, with each transition yielding numerous molecular changes, including losses of protein function. Though not initially deleterious, these losses could subsequently carry deleterious pleiotropic consequences. We have used phylogenetic methods to identify convergent functional losses across independent marine mammal...

Aim Correlative distribution models have been used to identify potential climatic controls of mangrove range limits, but there is still uncertainty about the relative importance of these factors across different regions. To provide insights into the strength of climatic control of different mangrove range limits, we tested whether temporal variability in mangrove abundance increases near...

Effective conservation of endangered North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) requires information about their spatio-temporal distribution. Understanding temporal distribution is particularly important, because a portion of the population migrates between high latitude summer feeding grounds off the northeastern U.S. and Canadian Maritimes coasts and lower latitude calving and...

A Delft3D model was developed to evaluate the potential effects of proposed navigation channel deepening and widening in Mobile Harbor, Alabama. The model performance was assessed through comparisons of modeled and observed data of water levels, velocities, and bed level changes; the model captured hydrodynamic and sediment transport patterns in the study area with skill. The validated...