Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Site-Dependent Differences In Artificial Reef Function: Implications For Coral Reef Restoration, Robin L. Sherman, David S. Gilliam, Richard E. Spieler

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

There is an increasing use of artificial structure in coral reef restoration (for references, see Spieler et al., this volume). Often artificial reef structures are chosen for a restoration project simply because they were used elsewhere. However, it is questionable whether the results obtained at one restoration site can be extrapolated to another. In recent years, several studies have examined the effect of artificial reef site selection on formation of associated fish, algae, and/or invertebrate assemblages (Alevizon et al., 1985; Blinova et al., 1994; Bombace et al., 1994; Caley and St. John, 1996; Chang, 1985; Haughton and Aiken, 1989; Hixon …

Artificial Substrate And Coral Reef Restoration: What Do We Need To Know To Know What We Need, Richard E. Spieler, David S. Gilliam, Robin L. Sherman

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

To use artificial substrate effectively in coral reef restoration certain basic knowledge is required: (1) what is the artificial substrate expected to accomplish relative to the goals of the restoration effort and (2) what are the expected interactions of the selected substrate’s composition, texture, orientation, and design with the damaged environment and the biota of interest. Whereas the first point is usually clear, at least in general terms, the second is not. In this review, we examine: the functions of artificial substrate in restoration and some of the physical (i.e., composition; surface texture; color and chemistry; and design in terms …

Mapping And Monitoring Of Coral Communities And Their Spatial Patterns Using A Surface-Based Video Method From A Vessel, Bernhard Riegl, Jan L. Korrubel, Charles Martin

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

No Abstract Provided.

Degradation Of Reef Structure, Coral And Fish Communities In The Red Sea By Ship Groundings And Dynamite Fisheries, Bernhard Riegl

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Reef degradation was investigated on 66 Egyptian Red Sea reefs—60 reefs for dynamite damage (using line transects) and six ship grounding sites (using 1 m sample squares). Ship groundings and dynamite fishing caused similar damage, reduction of the reef to rubble (65% of reefs were dynamited, mostly leeward, 58%). Changes in coral (line transect study) and fish communities (point count study) in impacted sites were documented. On impacted reefs, coral cover decreased, bare substratum and rubble increased, and fish dominance shifted away from Pomacentridae. Oceanographic conditions result in a stable pattern of coral communities (windward Acropora, leeward Porites). …

Airglow Variations Associated With Nonideal Ducting Of Gravity Waves In The Lower Thermosphere Region, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D.

Publications

A numerical full-wave model is used to study the response of the O2 atmospheric airglow to ducted gravity waves in the mesopause region. For an isothermal, quasi-adiabatic, and motionless background atmosphere the calculated phase differences between airglow brightness fluctuations and fluctuations of temperatures derived from the airglow, as given by Krassovsky's ratio, are in good agreement with the predictions of published theory. Significant departures from the predictions of the basic theory are obtained when we consider ducting in the presence of the eddy and molecular diffusion of heat and momentum in a nonisothermal background atmosphere. Wind shears also affect the …

Biological Survey Report For The Calypso Natural Gas Pipeline: Shore Approach Route North Of Port Everglades Entrance Channel With Landing South Of Port Everglades Entrance Channel, Richard E. Dodge, Susan L. Thornton, David S. Gilliam, Richard Shaul

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Reports

The Calypso Natural Gas Pipeline Project (project) will include a 24-inch pipeline which will extend from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the southeast Florida coastline to a shore approach at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

This report, which was commissioned in May 2001 and completed in July, 2001, documents the results of a detailed biological survey of underwater marine habitats from 5 to 200 feet water depth for the pipeline route. The route, which was established based on the subsea survey that was completed in May 2001 by Williamson & Associates, Inc., includes a shore approach from the …

New And Export Productivity Regulation By Si And Fe In The Equatorial Pacific Ocean, Fei Chai

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

To identify and quantify the principal processes that control the partitioning of carbon among oceanic reservoirs and between the ocean and atmosphere on focal and regional scales, with a view towards synthesis and prediction on a global scale, is a specific goal of the U.S. JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Project. As a contribution towards achieving this goal, Drs. Barber, Peng, Chai and Dugdale will develop an ecosystem model for the equatorial Pacific Ocean, with a focus on how silicate and iron affect new and export productivity and the partitioning of carbon between the atmosphere, surface ocean and deep ocean. The …

Emersion Stress In Intertidal Seaweeds: Role Of Active Oxygen, Ian R. Davison

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The study will examine stress-tolerance in two major groups of perennial intertidal macroalgae, the red and brown seaweeds. The research will test the hypothesis that active oxygen is involved in emersion stress of intertidal seaweeds. Damage due to active oxygen will be determined in stress-tolerant and stress- susceptible species exposed to emersion stress by measuring the peroxidation of membrane lipids. Plants will be grown in laboratory culture under conditions that increase their ability to withstand emersion stress. If the research hypothesis is correct, increases in stress tolerance should be associated with increased levels of antioxidants and/or protective enzymes. The proposed …

Improvement Of Image Alignment Using Camera Attitude Information, Yuri Rzhanov, Lloyd C. Huff, Randy G. Cutter Jr.

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

We discuss a proposed technique for incorporation of information from a variety of sensors in a video imagery processing pipeline. The auxiliary information allows one to simplify computations, effectively reducing the number of independent parameters in the transformation model. The mosaics produced by this technique are adequate for many applications, in particular habitat mapping. The algorithm, demonstrated through simulations and hardware configuration, is described in detail

School Of Marine Sciences / Darling Marine Center, Kevin J. Eckelbarger

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Over the last six years, the University of Maine has made an unprecedented investment in its marine laboratory, the Darling Marine Center to benefit both University faculty and visiting researchers and their students. Facility improvements include many new laboratory and offices spaces, more research instrumentation, and basic support facilities such as a dining hall and new classrooms. The inauguration of a Visiting Investigation Program in 1991, the expansion of educational offerings, and the growth of a large undergraduate internship program, have resulted in a population explosion that shows no sign of abating. To set priorities for improvements, the University has …

A Theory Of Global Climate Change On Millennial Time Scales, Kirk A. Maasch

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

A Theory of Global Climate Change on Millennial Time Scales In the northern hemisphere, large and rapid shifts in environmental conditions have occurred repeatedly over the last glacial- interglacial cycle. Indications are that climate change occurs on two characteristic time scales, roughly 1 - 3,000 years and 5 - 10,000 years. Evidence for millennial-scale climate variability has been found in ice cores drilled through the Greenland ice sheet, sediment cores from the North Atlantic Ocean, pollen records from both North America and Europe, and glacial deposits in North America. Paleoclimate records from the southern hemisphere also show climatic variability on …

Announcements: Summer/Fall 2001

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

Contents:

Allocating and Managing Water for a Sustainable Future: Lessons from Around the World

Defending the Integrity of Ground Water: Understanding the Impacts of Natural and Manmade Disasters

Conference on Energy Climate, Environment and Water—Issues and Opportunities for Irrigation and Drainage

Application Of Neuro-Fuzzy Technique+2:9s To Predict Ground Water Vulnerability In Northwest Arkansas, B. Dixon, H. D. Scott, J. V. Brahana, A. Mauromoustakos

Technical Reports

Contamination of ground water has been a major concern in recent years of local, state and federal agencies involved with the management, quality, and quantity of water and their relationships with human health. The Springfield Plateau aquifer, which lies beneath the study area in northwest Arkansas, has been shown to have higher nitrate-N (NO3-N) concentrations than the national median. The dominant landuse (LULC) of this area is agriculture (primarily pasture/cattle and woodlands) and an encroaching urbanization. The major sources of nitrogen in the study area are poultry/cattle wastes, inorganic fertilizers (Peterson et. al., 1998) and septic filter fields. Many of …

Moving Icons, Detection And Distraction, Lyn Bartram, Colin Ware, Tom Calvert

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

Simple motion has great potential for visually encoding information but there are as yet few experimentally validated guidelines for its use. Two studies were carried out to look at how efficiently simple motion cues were detected and how distracting they were in different task contexts. The results show that motion outperforms static representations and identify certain types of motions which are more distracting and irritating than others.

Application Of A Watershed Model (Basinsim) And A Tidal Prism Water Quality Model (Tpwqm) To The Great Wicomico River, Virginia, Sung-Chan Kim, Richard Wetzel, Leonard Hass, Albert Kuo

Reports

The objective of this project is to develop a modeling package to assist in water quality management of small coastal basins (SCBs) of the Chesapeake Bay system. Efforts by the Commonwealth to address water quality and its effect on living resources in tidal, estuarine systems has focused primarily on the Chesapeake Bay and the major tributaries of the lower bay (James, York and Rappahannock Rivers), as evidenced by the extensive monitoring and modeling efforts directed to them. This has been at the expense of smaller coastal basins such as the Great Wicomico River and the numerous tidal creek systems of …

Responses Of Three Coral Communities To The 1997–98 El Niño–Southern Oscillation: Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, Joshua S. Feingold

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

One deep (13–15 m depth) and two shallow water (1.5 and 7 m) coral communities in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador were monitored for tissue response (bleaching, paling, morbidity) and secondary responses during and after elevated temperature stress associated with the 1997–98 El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event. Between March and May 1998, the fungiid coral Diaseris distorta paled and bleached (up to 88.0% of all individuals bleached) at 13–15 m depth. The small branching colonial coral, Psammocora stellata, paled (79.2% of all colonies) with very little bleaching (11.1%), also at 13–15 m depth. However, by May 1998 colonies of this …

An Analysis Of Recent Drought Conditions In Turkey In Relation To Circulation Patterns, Ali Umran Komuscu

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

Drought commonly is perceived to be a prolonged period with a significant reduction in precipitation. Namias (1985) argues that drought is associated with persistent or persistently recurring atmospheric circulation patterns. For example, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has a major role in controlling European climate and appears to exert a strong influence in modulating North Atlantic ecosystems. During the positive phases of NAO, the North Atlantic westerlies, which provide much of the atmospheric moisture to north Africa and Europe, shift northward. This, in turn, results in drier conditions over southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, and northern Africa (Hurrell, 1995; Hurrell …

Oregon Aquatic Nuisance Species Management Plan, Erik Hanson, Mark Sytsma

Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Publications and Presentations

Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) are a serious problem in Oregon. There are currently over 134 nonindigenous aquatic species reported in Oregon. More species are expected to arrive. Current state activities and authorities address some ANS, their prevention, and control. Yet, the activities are not coordinated or comprehensively managing the impacts of ANS. The importance of Oregon’s aquatic resources requires a coherent response to the threat posed by ANS. This management plan is the initial step in establishing a program in Oregon to specifically address ANS issues.

Ctd/O2 Measurements Collected Abroad The R/V Knorr, February-March 2001: Redsox-1, Williams Johns, Hartmurt Peters, Rainer Zantopp, Amy Bower, David Fratantoni

RSMAS Technical Reports

Summaries of Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD/ O2) measurements acquired on an oceanographic research cruise into the Gulf of Aden during February/March 2001 aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ship R/V Knorr are presented. The data acquisition and processing system is described and calibrartion procedures are documented.

Protection Of Cave Spring Cave Biota And Groundwater Basin, G. O. Graening, A. V. Brown

Technical Reports

This is the fourth in a series of reports on the status of endangered biota and of environmental quality in Cave Springs Cave (CSC), Benton County, Arkansas (Brown et al., 1998; Graening and Brown, 1999, 2000), funded by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission (ANHC). As a result of these studies, Cave Springs Cave is now one of the most thoroughly studied cave ecosystems in Arkansas. This series of studies has spawned a renewed interest in cave ecosystems and their vulnerable condition. There are now many projects focusing upon the documentation of subterranean biodiversity and its protection. Partners include the Arkansas …

Ozone And Tracer Transport Variations In The Summer Northern Hemisphere Stratosphere, E. C. Cordero, S. R. Kawa

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

Constituent observations from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) in combination with estimates of the residual circulation are used to examine the transport and chemical budgets of HF, CH₄ and O₃ in the summer Northern Hemisphere. Budget calculations of HF, CH₄ and O₃ show that the transport tendency due to the residual circulation increases in magnitude and is largely opposed by eddy motions through the summer months. Ozone budget analyses show that between 100 and 31 hPa, the magnitudes of the mean circulation and eddy transport terms increase through the summer months, producing tendencies that are …

Announcements: Spring 2001

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

Contents:

IAEM’s 49th Annual Conference and Exhibit

International Conference on Drought Mitigation and Prevention of Land Desertification

New Book

Results Of A Rapid Appraisal Study: Agricultural Producers’ Perceptions Of Drought Vulnerability And Mitigation—Howard County, Nebraska, Cody L. Knutson, Matthew L. Blomstedt, Kara Slaughter

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

Drought is the leading natural disaster in the United States in terms of monetary losses. The National Research Council (1995) estimates that drought costs the United States an average of $6–8 billion per year. Because of these losses and the great effects of drought on many citizens’ quality of life, drought planning is gaining widespread support in the United States. However, U.S. drought planning within the agricultural sector has historically focused on response measures that help producers, primarily farmers, deal with and recover from drought. It has been found that these often ad-hoc drought responses are very expensive and do …

Droughts And Dew Bean Productivity In Northwestern Arid Rajasthan, India, Pratap Narain, R. S. Singh, D. Kumar

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

Arid ecosystems constitute an important part of the world’s dry climates. The Indian arid zone is characterized by a harsh and fragile system, which influences the productivity (both quantitative and qualitative) and socioeconomic status of the inhabitants. The study discussed in this article was conducted in the Bikaner region, which is one of the most drought-prone districts of Rajasthan (Figure 1). Annual rainfall in the district is 268 mm, of which 85% occurs during the southwest summer monsoon (July–September). The region is known to experience extreme variations in diurnal and seasonal temperatures and high wind velocity, particularly during summers, associated …

Winter Drought In Iran: Associations With Enso, M. J. Nazemosadat

Drought Network News (1994-2001)

The Islamic Republic of Iran (Figure 1) has an area of 1,648,000 km² and a population of 65 million people (1995 estimate). The country has arid and semiarid climates and the occurrence of rainfall is unreliable, with a coefficient of variation as high as 70%. The average annual precipitation over the country is around 250 mm. Two mountain ridges, the Alborz and Zagros (Figure 1), which run east and southeast from the northwest corner of the country, play an influential role in determining the amount and spatial distribution of rainfall. The peaks of Alborz and Zagros are about 5,700 …

Error Estimation Of Bathymetric Grid Models Derived From Historic And Contemporary Data Sets, Martin Jakobsson, Brian R. Calder, Larry A. Mayer, Andy Armstrong

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

The past century has seen remarkable advances in technologies associated with positioning and the measurement of depth. Lead lines have given way to single beam echo sounders, which in turn are being replaced by multibeam sonars and other means of remotely and rapidly collecting dense bathymetric datasets. Sextants were replaced by radio navigation, then transit satellite, GPS and now differential GPS. With each new advance comes tremendous improvement in the accuracy and resolution of the data we collect. Given these changes and given the vastness of the ocean areas we must map, the charts we produce are mainly compilations of …

Trophic Cascades, Nutrients, And Lake Productivity: Whole-Lake Experiments, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jonathan J. Cole, James R. Hodgson, James F. Kitchell, Michael L. Pace, Darren Bade, Kathryn L. Cottingham

Dartmouth Scholarship

Responses of zooplankton, pelagic primary producers, planktonic bacteria, and CO2 exchange with the atmosphere were measured in four lakes with contrasting food webs under a range of nutrient enrichments during a seven-year period. Prior to enrichment, food webs were manipulated to create contrasts between piscivore dominance and planktivore dominance. Nutrient enrichments of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus exhibited ratios of N:P > 17:1, by atoms, to maintain P limitation. An unmanipulated reference lake, Paul Lake, revealed baseline variability but showed no trends that could confound the interpretation of changes in the nearby manipulated lakes. Herbivorous zooplankton of West Long Lake (piscivorous fishes) …

Automatic Detection Of Outliers In Multibeam Echo Sounding Data, Tianhang Hou, Lloyd C. Huff, Larry A. Mayer

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

The data volumes produced by new generation multibeam systems are very large, especially for shallow water systems. Results from recent multibeam surveys indicate that the ratio of the field survey time, to the time used in interactive editing through graphical editing tools, is about 1:1. An important reason for the large amount of processing time is that users subjectively decide which soundings are outliers. There is an apparent need for an automated approach for detecting outliers that would reduce the extensive labor and obtain consistent results from the multibeam data cleaning process, independent of the individual that has processed the …

Groundwater Study Of The Piawaning Townsite, Russell John Speed, Ali S. Mahtab

Resource management technical reports

A groundwater study was carried out in and around the townsite of Piawaning. It aimed to accelerate the implementation of effective salinity management options. The study consisted of a drilling investigation, expansion of a piezometer network, a pumping test and a flood risk analysis.

Groundwater Study Of The Pingelly Townsite, Edward K. Crossley

Resource management technical reports

A groundwater study was carried out in the townsite of Pingelly, Western Australia. It aimed to accelerate the implementation of effective salinity management options. The study consisted of a drilling investigation, expansion of a piezometer network, groundwater flow modelling and a flood risk analysis.