Publications

The causative agents of most coral diseases today remain unknown, complicating disease response and restoration efforts. Pathogen identifications can be hampered by complex microbial communities naturally associated with corals and seawater, which create complicating “background noise” that can potentially obscure a pathogen’s signal. Here, we outline an approach to investigate...

In 2019, 254 samples were collected from five aquifer systems to evaluate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) occurrence in groundwater used as a source of drinking water in the eastern United States. The samples were analyzed for 24 PFAS, major ions, nutrients, trace elements, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pharmaceuticals, and tritium. Fourteen...

Since they were first introduced to the United States more than 50 years ago, invasive carp have rapidly colonized rivers of the Mississippi River Basin, with detrimental effects on native aquatic species. Their continued range expansion, and potential for subsequent invasion of the Great Lakes, has led to increased concern for the susceptibility of as-yet uncompromised lotic and lentic...

Many studies investigate river floods by analyzing annual maximum series that record the largest flow of each year, including many within-bank events inconsequential for human communities. Fewer focus on larger floods, especially at the continental scale. Using 473 streamgages across the conterminous United States with near-natural flow from 1966 to 2015, we characterized the seasonality

Aquatic ecosystems around the world are contaminated with a wide range of anthropogenic chemicals, including metals and organic pollutants, that originate from point and nonpoint sources. Many of these chemical contaminants have complex environmental cycles, are persistent and bioavailable, can be incorporated into aquatic food webs, and pose a threat to the health of wildlife and humans

Within the state of Arkansas there is an increasing number of aging dams and levees that have little to no documentation concerning their construction or composition. Surface geophysical surveys offer a non-intrusive method for investigating these structures: To describe their lithologic makeup, to evaluate the materials that they were constructed upon, and to identify potential flow...

Segmentation, or the classification of pixels (grid cells) in imagery, is ubiquitously applied in the natural sciences. Manual methods are often prohibitively time-consuming, especially those images consisting of small objects and/or significant spatial heterogeneity of colors or textures. Labeling complicated regions of transition that in Earth surface imagery are represented by...

Floods are the leading cause of natural disaster damages in the United States, with billions of dollars incurred every year in the form of government payouts, property damages, and agricultural losses. The Federal Emergency Management Agency oversees the delineation of floodplains to mitigate damages, but disparities exist between locations designated as high risk and where flood damages...

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) represents a quantitative methodology for specifying and evaluating causal network hypotheses. The application of SEM typically involves the use of specialized software packages that implement estimation procedures and automate model checking and the output of summary results. There are times when the specification details an investigator wishes to...

Predicting baseflow dynamics, protecting aquatic habitat, and managing legacy contaminants requires explicit characterization and prediction of groundwater discharge patterns throughout river networks. Using handheld thermal infrared (TIR) cameras, we surveyed 47 km of stream length across the Farmington River watershed (1,570 km2; CT and MA, USA), mapping locations of bank and waterline

Climate change is transforming ecosystems and affecting ecosystem goods and services. Along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States, the frequency and intensity of extreme freeze events greatly influences whether coastal wetlands are dominated by freeze-sensitive woody plants (mangrove forests) or freeze-tolerant grass-like plants (salt marshes). In...

The Interagency Ocean Observation Committee (IOOC) is chartered by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology (SOST). The purpose of the IOOC is to advise, assist, and make recommendations to the SOST on matters related to ocean observations via task teams such as the Biology - Integrating Core to Essential Variables (Bio...