Publications

This report summarizes the environmental settings of streams in New York and South Carolina, where the U.S. Geological Survey completed detailed investigations during 2005-09 into factors contributing to mercury bioaccumulation in top-predator fish and other stream organisms. Descriptions of location, land use/land cover, climate, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, hydrology, water...

Florida scrub-jays Aphelocoma coerulescens are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to loss and degradation of scrub habitat. This study concerned the development of an optimal strategy for the restoration and management of scrub habitat at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which contains one of the few remaining large populations of scrub-jays in Florida...

No abstract available.

Radon and radium isotopes are routinely used to quantify exchange rates between different hydrologic reservoirs. Since their recognition as oceanic tracers in the 1960s, both radon and radium have been used to examine processes such as air-sea exchange, deep oceanic mixing, benthic inputs, and many others. Recently, the application of radon-222 and the radium-quartet (223,224,226,228Ra)...

Habitat stability of coastal ecosystems, such as marshes and mangroves, depends on maintenance of soil elevations relative to sea level. Many such systems are characterized by limited mineral sedimentation and/or rapid subsidence and are consequently dependent upon accumulation of organic matter to maintain elevations. However, little field information exists regarding the contribution...

No abstract available.

No abstract available

Acute and chronic toxicity of copper (Cu) to a unionid mussel (Villosa iris) and a cladoceran (Ceriodaphnia dubia) were determined in water exposures at four concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC; nominally 0.5, 2.5, 5, and 10 mg/L as carbon [C]). Test waters with DOC concentrations of 2.5 to 10 mg C/L were prepared by mixing a concentrate of natural organic matter (Suwannee...

Understanding the effects of climate change on the vegetative growing season is key to quantifying future hydrologic water budget conditions. The U.S. Geological Survey modeled changes in future growing season length at 14 basins across 11 states. Simulations for each basin were generated using five general circulation models with three emission scenarios as inputs to the Precipitation...

Compensatory changes in juvenile survival allow fish stocks to maintain relatively constant recruitment across a wide range of stock sizes (and levels of fishing), but few studies have experimentally explored recruitment compensation in fish populations. We evaluated the potential for recruitment compensation in largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides by stocking six 0.4-ha hatchery ponds...

Okaloosa darters (Etheostoma okaloosae) are small fish found only in a few streams in the Florida panhandle. This species has been listed since 1973 as endangered due to habitat alteration resulting from erosion, the potential competition from brown darters (E. edwini), and a limited geographic distribution. In recent years, however, Okaloosa darters have benefited from improved resource

Albedo was monitored over a two-year period (beginning April 2008) at three forested wetland sites in Florida, USA using up- and down-ward facing pyranometers. Water level, above and below land surface, is the primary control on the temporal variability of daily albedo. Relatively low reflectivity of water accounts for the observed reductions in albedo with increased inundation of the...