Publications

A non-lethal biopsy method for monitoring mercury (Hg) concentrations in smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu; smallmouth) from the Eleven Point River in southern Missouri USA was evaluated. A biopsy punch was used to remove a muscle tissue plug from the area immediately below the anterior dorsal fin of 31 smallmouth. An additional 35 smallmouth (controls) were held identically except...

Years of sediment accumulation and dry conditions in recent years have led to the decline of water levels and capacities for many water-supply reservoirs in Missouri, and have caused renewed interest in modernizing outdated area/capacity tables for these reservoirs. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, surveyed the bathymetry of...

Strategies to control invasive lionfish in the western Atlantic and Caribbean are likely to include harvest and consumption. Until this report, total mercury concentrations had been documented only for lionfish from Jamaica, and changes in concentrations with increasing fish size had not been evaluated. In the Florida Keys, total mercury concentrations in dorsal muscle tissue from 107...

Mangrove forests are highly productive ecosystems, but the fate of mangrove-derived carbon remains uncertain. Part of that uncertainty stems from the fact that gas transfer velocities in mangrove-surrounded waters are not well determined, leading to uncertainty in air-water CO2 fluxes. Two SF6 tracer release experiments were conducted to determine gas transfer velocities (k(600) = 8.3 ±...

This report summarizes pesticide and nitrate (as nitrogen) results from quarterly sampling of 31 surficial-aquifer wells in the Lake Wales Ridge Monitoring Network during April 1999 through January 2005. The wells, located adjacent to citrus orchards and used for monitoring only, were generally screened (sampled) within 5 to 40 feet of the water table. Of the 44 citrus pesticides and...

A diverse group of coral reef organisms, representing several phyla, possess fluorescent pigments. We investigated the potential of using the characteristic fluorescence emission spectra of these pigments to enable unsupervised, optical classification of coral reef habitats. We compiled a library of characteristic fluorescence spectra through in situ and laboratory measurements from a...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) requested that as part of the remedial investigation for the Anniston, Alabama Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Site (Anniston PCB Site), that Pharmacia Corporation and Solutia Inc. (P/S) perform long-term reproduction toxicity tests with the amphipod, Hyalella azteca, and the midge, Chironomus dilutus, and bioaccumulation tests with the...

The implementation characteristics of two method of L-moments (MLM) algorithms for parameter estimation of the 4-parameter Asymmetric Exponential Power (AEP4) distribution are studied using the R environment for statistical computing. The objective is to validate the algorithms for general application of the AEP4 using R. An algorithm was introduced in the original study of the L-moments...

Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) provides highly sensitive and precise spatial resolution of cation content in individual annual growth rings in trees. The sensitivity and precision have prompted successful applications to forensic dendrochemistry and the timing of environmental releases of contaminants. These applications have highlighted the need to distinguish...

Streamflow and concentrations of sodium and chloride estimated from records of specific conductance were used to calculate loads of sodium and chloride during water year (WY) 2012 (October 1, 2011, through September 30, 2012), for tributaries to the Scituate Reservoir, Rhode Island. Streamflow and water-quality data used in the study were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) or...

We aimed to verify the effectiveness of semi-permeablemembrane devices (SPMDs) formonitoring hydrophobic organic compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), that are not easy to detect using conventional grab samples (because of their low concentrations), in water.We used SPMDs and grab samples to monitor PCBs and PBDEs upstream and...

Mangroves are species of halophytic intertidal trees and shrubs derived from tropical genera and are likely delimited in latitudinal range by varying sensitivity to cold. There is now sufficient evidence that mangrove species have proliferated at or near their poleward limits on at least five continents over the past half century, at the expense of salt marsh. Avicennia is the most cold...