McManus, L.C., Yurek, S., Teare, P.B., Dolan, T.E. and Serafy, J.E., 2014. Killifish habitat suitability as a measure of coastal restoration performance: integrating field data, behavioral trials and simulation. Ecological Indicators, 44, pp.173-181.
Simeon Yurek, Ph.D.
Biography
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Identifying optimal strategies for restoration decision making and adaptation planning in coastal areas, given uncertainty in environmental conditions and risk tolerance of decision makers
Ecological modeling of hydrologically pulsed ecosystems with complex geomorphology, dynamic food webs, animal movement, and predator-prey systems
Ensemble-style modeling of alternative scenarios of biophysical and ecological conditions and management decision making, with a goal of predicting ecological outcomes and identifying tradeoffs and risks associated with ecosystem services of interest
Science and Products
Date published: September 22, 2021
Status: Active Across Trophic Level System Simulation (ATLSS) Program for the Greater Everglades
Goals of the ATLSS Program are to help achieve a better understanding of components of the Everglades ecosystem, to provide an integrative tool for empirical studies, and to apply these tools to an adaptive management framework.
Contacts: Don DeAngelis, Ph.D., Simeon Yurek, Ph.D., Michelle E. Afkhami, Robert D. Holt
Attribution: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center
Date published: September 17, 2021
Status: Active North Carolina Sustainable Rivers Program
In 2002, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a collaborative effort to find more sustainable ways to manage river infrastructure to maximize benefits for people and nature. As of 2021, the Sustainable Rivers Program study area includes 40 rivers, 89 reservoirs, and 10,953 downstream river miles. The USGS South Atlantic Water Science Center and USGS Wetland and...
Contacts: Charles Stillwell, Ph.D., Simeon Yurek, Ph.D.
Attribution: South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC)
Date published: February 2, 2021
Status: Active Coastal Resource Evaluation for Management Application (CREMA)
Coastal environments are dynamic systems that provide high ecological, economical, recreational, and cultural value. Managing coastal systems requires a comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions between geological and ecological processes, as well as the ability to predict both the near-term and long-term impacts of storms and sea-level rise. The Coastal Resource Evaluation for...
Date published: April 20, 2020
Status: Active Real-time Coastal Salinity Index for monitoring coastal drought and ecological response to changing salinity values
Many coastal areas are experiencing departures from normal conditions due to changing land use and climate patterns, including increased frequency, severity, or duration of floods and droughts, in some cases combinations of the two. To address these issues, the U.S. Geological Survey developed the Coastal Salinity Index (CSI) to identify and communicate fluctuating salinity conditions due to...
Contacts: Simeon Yurek, Ph.D., Julien Martin, Ph.D.
Attribution: Community for Data Integration (CDI)
Date published: March 1, 2019
Status: Active Climate Change Adaptation for Coastal National Wildlife Refuges
National Wildlife Refuges provide habitat for important fish and wildlife species and services that benefit coastal communities, like storm-surge protection. USGS scientists are helping coastal refuges plan for and adapt to sea-level rise.
Year Published: 2021
SiteOpt: An open-source R-package for site selection and portfolio optimization
Conservation planning involves identifying and selecting actions to best achieve objectives for managing natural, social and cultural resources. Conservation problems are often high dimensional when specified as combinatorial or portfolio problems and when multiple competing objectives are considered at varying spatial and temporal scales....
Saghand, Payman G; Haider, Zulqarnain; Charkhgard, Hadi; Eaton, Mitchell; Martin, Julien; Yurek, Simeon; Udell, Bradley J.
Year Published: 2021
Cape Romain partnership for coastal protection
This final report summarizes activities, outcomes, and lessons learned from a 3-year project titled “Climate Change Adaptation for Coastal National Wildlife Refuges” with the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and local partners in the surrounding South Carolina Lowcountry. The Lowcountry is classified as the 10-county area encompassing...
Eaton, Mitchell J.; Johnson, Fred A.; Mikels-Carrasco, Jessica; Case, David J.; Martin, Julien; Stith, Bradley; Yurek, Simeon; Udell, Bradley; Villegas, Laura; Taylor, Laura; Haider, Zulquarnain; Charkhgard, Hadi; Kwon, ChanghyunView Citation
Eaton, M.J., Johnson, F.A., Mikels-Carrasco, J., Case, D.J., Martin, J., Stith, B., Yurek, S., Udell, B., Villegas, L., Taylor, L., Haider, Z., Charkhgard, H., and Kwon, C., 2021, Cape Romain Partnership for Coastal Protection: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021–1021, 158 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211021.
Year Published: 2021
Estimating the influence of oyster reef chains on freshwater detention at the estuary scale using Landsat-8 imagery
Oyster reef chains grow in response to local hydrodynamics and can redirect flows, particularly when reef chains grow perpendicular to freshwater flow paths. Singularly, oyster reef chains can act as porous dams that may facilitate nearshore accumulation of fresh or low-salinity water, in turn creating intermediate salinities that support oyster...
Alonso, Alice; Nelson, Natalie G.; Yurek, Simeon; Kaplan, David; Olabarrieta, Maitane; Frederick, Peter C
Year Published: 2021
Modeling structural mechanics of oyster reef self-organization including environmental constraints and community interactions
Self-organization is a process of establishing and reinforcing local structures through feedbacks between internal population dynamics and external factors. In reef-building systems, substrate is collectively engineered by individuals that also occupy it and compete for space. Reefs are constrained spatially by the physical environment, and by...
Yurek, Simeon; Eaton, Mitchell; Lavaud, Romain; Laney, R. Wilson; DeAngelis, Don; Pine, William E.; LaPeyre, Megan K.; Martin, Julien; Frederick, Peter C; Wang, Hongqing; Lowe, Michael R.; Johnson, Fred; Camp, Edward V.; Mordecai, Rua
Year Published: 2020
Trends in oyster populations in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico: An assessment of river discharge and fishing effects over time and space
Within the Big Bend region of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, one of the least developed coastlines in the continental USA, intertidal and subtidal populations of eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica (hereafter referred to as “oyster”) are a critical ecosystem and important economic constituent. We assessed trends in intertidal oyster populations...
Moore, J. F; Pine, W. E; Frederick, P. C; Becker, Sarah; Moreno, Marcos; Dodrill, Michael; Boone, Matthew; Sturmer, L; Yurek, Simeon
Year Published: 2020
Spatial conservation planning under uncertainty using modern portfolio theory and nash bargaining solution
In recent years, researchers from interdisciplinary teams involving ecologists, economists and operations re- searchers collaborated to provide decision support tools to address the challenges of preserving biodiversity by optimizing the design of reserves. The goal of this paper is to further advance this area of research and provide new...
Sierra-Altamiranda, Alvaro; Charkhgard, Hadi; Eaton, Mitchell J.; Martin, Julien; Yurek, Simeon; Udell, Bradley J.
Year Published: 2019
Spatial conservation planning under uncertainty: Adapting to climate change risks using modern portfolio theory
Climate change and urban growth impact habitats, species, and ecosystem services. To buffer against global change, an established adaptation strategy is designing protected areas to increase representation and complementarity of biodiversity features. Uncertainty regarding the scale and magnitude of landscape change complicates reserve planning...
Eaton, Mitchell J.; Yurek, Simeon; Haider, Zulqarnain; Martin, Julien; Johnson, Fred; Udell, Bradley; Charkhgard, Hadi; Kwon, ChanghyunAttribution: Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Ecosystems, Land Resources, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 4: Mississippi Basin, United States of America
Year Published: 2019
Resource concentration mechanisms facilitate foraging success in simulations of a pulsed oligotrophic wetland
ContextMovement of prey on hydrologically pulsed, spatially heterogeneous wetlands can result in transient, high prey concentrations, when changes in landscape features such as connectivity between flooded areas alternately facilitate and impede prey movement. Predators track and exploit these concentrations, depleting them as they arise....
Yurek, Simeon; DeAngelis, Donald L.
Year Published: 2017
Spatially explicit modeling in ecology: A review
The use of spatially explicit models (SEMs) in ecology has grown enormously in the past two decades. One major advancement has been that fine-scale details of landscapes, and of spatially dependent biological processes, such as dispersal and invasion, can now be simulated with great precision, due to improvements in computer technology. Many areas...
DeAngelis, Donald L.; Yurek, Simeon
Year Published: 2016
Persistence and diversity of directional landscape connectivity improves biomass pulsing in expanding and contracting wetlands
In flood-pulsed ecosystems, hydrology and landscape structure mediate transfers of energy up the food chain by expanding and contracting in area, enabling spatial expansion and growth of fish populations during rising water levels, and subsequent concentration during the drying phase. Connectivity of flooded areas is dynamic as waters rise and...
Yurek, Simeon; DeAngelis, Donald L.; Trexler, Joel C.; Klassen, Stephen; Larsen, Laurel G.Attribution: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Ecosystems, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 4: Mississippi Basin
View Citation
Yurek, S., DeAngelis, D.L., Trexler, J.C., Klassen, J.A., and Larsen, L.G., 2016, Persistence and diversity of directional landscape connectivity improves biomass pulsing in expanding and contracting wetlands: Ecological Complexity, v. 28, p. 1-11, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2016.08.004.
Year Published: 2015
Equation-free modeling unravels the behavior of complex ecological systems
Ye et al. (1) address a critical problem confronting the management of natural ecosystems: How can we make forecasts of possible future changes in populations to help guide management actions? This problem is especially acute for marine and anadromous fisheries, where the large interannual fluctuations of populations, arising from complex...
DeAngelis, Donald L.; Yurek, SimeonAttribution: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Ecosystems, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
View Citation
DeAngelis, D. L., and S. Yurek. 2015 Equation-free modeling unravels the behavior of complex ecological systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112:3856-3857.
DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.1503154112
Year Published: 2015
Proposed best modeling practices for assessing the effects of ecosystem restoration on fish
Large-scale aquatic ecosystem restoration is increasing and is often controversial because of the economic costs involved, with the focus of the controversies gravitating to the modeling of fish responses. We present a scheme for best practices in selecting, implementing, interpreting, and reporting of fish modeling designed to assess the effects...
Rose, Kenneth A; Sable, Shaye; DeAngelis, Donald L.; Yurek, Simeon; Trexler, Joel C.; Graf, William L.; Reed, Denise J.Attribution: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Ecosystems, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
View Citation
Rose, K.A., Sable, S., DeAngelis, D.L., Yurek, S., Trexler, J.C., Graf, W., and Reed, D.J., 2015, Proposed best modeling practices for assessing the effects of ecosystem restoration on fish: Ecological Modelling, v. 300, p. 12-29, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.12.020.