Publications

Bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis is an Asian species that has been introduced to the United States and is regarded as a highly undesirable invader. Soft water has been said to cause the bursting of Asian carp eggs and thus has been suggested as a factor that would limit the spread of this species. To evaluate this, we subjected fertilized eggs of bighead carp to waters with a wide...

No abstract available.

We examined associations of fish assemblages and fish traits with urbanization and selected environmental variables in nine major United States metropolitan areas. The strongest relations between fishes and urbanization occurred in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Boston, Massachusetts; and Portland, Oregon. In these areas, environmental variables with...

Understanding storm-induced coastal change and forecasting these changes require knowledge of the physical processes associated with a storm and the geomorphology of the impacted coastline. The primary physical processes of interest are the wind field, storm surge, currents, and wave field. Not only does wind cause direct damage to structures along the coast, but it is ultimately...

Estimates of submerged aquatic vegetative (SAV) along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) generally focus on seagrasses. In 2000, we attempted a synoptic survey of SAV in the mesohaline (5–20 ppt) zone of estuarine and nearshore areas of the northeastern Gulf. Areas with SAV were identified from existing aerial 1992 photography, and a literature review was used to select those areas that were...

Hurricane Rita devastated gulf-front communities along the western Louisiana coast in 2005. LIDAR (light detection and ranging) topographic surveys and aerial photography collected before and after the storm showed the loss of every structure within the community of Holly Beach. Average shoreline change along western Louisiana's 140-km-long impacted shore was −23.3 ± 30.1 m of erosion...

The northern Gulf of Mexico and its diverse natural resources are threatened by population and development pressure, and by the impacts of rising sea level and severe storms. In the wake of the devastating 2005 hurricane season, and in response to the complex management issues facing the region, the U.S. Geological Survey organized the multidisciplinary “Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem...

The Everglades ecosystem contains the largest contiguous tract of mangrove forest outside the tropics that were also coincidentally intersected by a major Category 5 hurricane. Airborne videography was flown to capture the landscape pattern and process of forest damage in relation to storm trajectory and circulation. Two aerial video transects, representing different topographic...

This paper describes direct video observations of two manefishes, likely Paracaristius sp., from the mesopelagic waters of the north-central Gulf of Mexico. One fish was observed with a remotely operated vehicle at a depth of 829 m by an industrial ROV as part of the SERPENT Project. The second was observed at 496 m from a manned submersible. Little is known about the behavior of...

Short-term weathering rates (chemical denudation) of primary weathering products were derived from an analysis of fluxes in precipitation and streamwater. Rainfall, streamflow (runoff), and related water quality have been monitored at the Panola Mountain Research Watershed (PMRW) since 1985. Regression relations of stream solute concentration of major ions including weathering products...

Acidification of seawater owing to oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO 2 originating from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels and land-use changes has raised serious concerns regarding its adverse effects on corals and calcifying communities. Here we demonstrate a net loss of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) material as a result of decreased calcification and increased carbonate...

[1] Do the chronological methods used in the construction of paleoclimate records influence the results of the frequency analysis applied to them? We explore this phenomenon using the Dongge Cave speleothem record (U-series chronology with variable time steps, Δt) and the El Malpais tree-ring index (cross-dating of ring-width series). Interpolation of the Dongge Cave record to a constant...