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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Comparison Of Methods For Determining Biogeochemical Fluxes From A Restored Oyster Reef, Melanie Jackson, Michael S. Owens, Jeffrey C. Cornwell, M. Lisa Kellogg
Comparison Of Methods For Determining Biogeochemical Fluxes From A Restored Oyster Reef, Melanie Jackson, Michael S. Owens, Jeffrey C. Cornwell, M. Lisa Kellogg
VIMS Articles
Oyster reef restoration can significantly increase benthic denitrification rates. Methods applied to measure nutrient fluxes and denitrification from oyster reefs in previous studies include incubations of sediment cores collected adjacent to oyster clumps, benthic chambers filled with intact reef segments that have undergone in situ equilibration and ex situ incubation, and cores with single oysters. However, fluxes of nutrients vary by orders of magnitude among oyster reefs and methods. This study compares two methods of measuring nutrient and metabolic fluxes on restored oyster reefs: incubations including intact segments of oyster reef and incubations containing oyster clumps without underlying sediments. Fluxes …
Restoring The Eastern Oyster: How Much Progress Has Been Made In 53 Years?, Ab Hernandez, Rochelle Brumbaugh, P Fredrick, R Grizzle, Mark Luckenbach, Ch Peterson, C Angelini
Restoring The Eastern Oyster: How Much Progress Has Been Made In 53 Years?, Ab Hernandez, Rochelle Brumbaugh, P Fredrick, R Grizzle, Mark Luckenbach, Ch Peterson, C Angelini
VIMS Articles
Coastal ecosystem restoration is accelerating globally as a means of enhancing shoreline protection, carbon storage, water quality, fisheries, and biodiversity. Among the most substantial of these efforts have been those focused on re-establishing oyster reefs across the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Despite considerable investment, it is unclear how the scale of and approaches toward oyster restoration have evolved. A synthesis of 1768 projects undertaken since 1964 reveals that oyster substrate restoration efforts have primarily been concentrated in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf Coast, have been heavily reliant on oyster shell, and have re-established 4.5% of the reef area …
Fish Assemblage Change Following The Structural Restoration Of A Degraded Stream, Carl A. Favata, Anabela Maia, Manisha Pant, Vaskar Nepal
Fish Assemblage Change Following The Structural Restoration Of A Degraded Stream, Carl A. Favata, Anabela Maia, Manisha Pant, Vaskar Nepal
VIMS Articles
Decades of anthropogenic pressure have harmed riverscapes throughout North America by degrading habitats and water quality and can result in the extirpation of sensitive aquatic taxa. Local stream restoration projects have increased in frequency, but monitoring is still infrequent. In 2010, Kickapoo Creek in East Central Illinois was subjected to a stream restoration project that included implementation of artificial riffles, riprap, scouring keys, and riparian vegetation. We monitored the restoration efforts for 6years after the restoration through annual sampling efforts at restored and reference sites to determine changes in habitat and fish assemblage using standard habitat sampling and electrofishing techniques. …
Dermal Mycobacteriosis And Warming Sea Surface Temperatures Are Associated With Elevated Mortality Of Striped Bass In Chesapeake Bay, Maya L. Groner, John M. Hoenig, Roger Pradel, Remi Choquet, Wolfgang K. Vogelbein, David T. Gauthier, Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs
Dermal Mycobacteriosis And Warming Sea Surface Temperatures Are Associated With Elevated Mortality Of Striped Bass In Chesapeake Bay, Maya L. Groner, John M. Hoenig, Roger Pradel, Remi Choquet, Wolfgang K. Vogelbein, David T. Gauthier, Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs
VIMS Articles
Temperature is hypothesized to alter disease dynamics, particularly when species are living at or near their thermal limits. When disease occurs in marine systems, this can go undetected, particularly if the disease is chronic and progresses slowly. As a result, population-level impacts of diseases can be grossly underestimated. Complex migratory patterns, stochasticity in recruitment, and data and knowledge gaps can hinder collection and analysis of data on marine diseases. New tools enabling quantification of disease impacts in marine environments include coupled biogeochemical hydrodynamic models (to hindcast key environmental data), and multievent, multistate mark-recapture (MMSMR) (to quantify the effects of environmental …
Human Influence At The Coast: Upland And Shoreline Stressors Affect Coastal Macrofauna And Are Mediated By Salinity, Rochelle D. Seitz, Kathleen E. Knick, Theresa M. Davenport, Gabrielle G. Saluta
Human Influence At The Coast: Upland And Shoreline Stressors Affect Coastal Macrofauna And Are Mediated By Salinity, Rochelle D. Seitz, Kathleen E. Knick, Theresa M. Davenport, Gabrielle G. Saluta
VIMS Articles
Anthropogenic stressors can affect subtidal communities within the land-water interface. Increasing anthropogenic activities, including upland and shoreline development, threaten ecologically important species in these habitats. In this study, we examined the consequences of anthropogenic stressors on benthic macrofaunal communities in 14 subestuaries of Chesapeake Bay. We investigated how subestuary upland use (forested, agricultural, developed land) and shoreline development (riprap and bulkhead compared to marsh and beach) affected density, biomass, and diversity of benthic infauna. Upland and shoreline development were parameters included in the most plausible models among a candidate set compared using corrected Akaike's Information Criterion. For benthic macrofauna, density …
Mitotic Instability In Triploid And Tetraploid One-Year-Old Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea Virginica, Assessed By Cytogenetic And Flow Cytometry Techniques, Jt De Sousa, Standish K. Allen Jr., Bm Wolfe, Ja Moss
Mitotic Instability In Triploid And Tetraploid One-Year-Old Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea Virginica, Assessed By Cytogenetic And Flow Cytometry Techniques, Jt De Sousa, Standish K. Allen Jr., Bm Wolfe, Ja Moss
VIMS Articles
For commercial oyster aquaculture, triploidy has significant advantages. To produce triploids, the principal technology uses diploid x tetraploid crosses. The development of tetraploid brood stock for this purpose has been successful, but as more is understood about tetraploids, it seems clear that chromosome instability is a principal feature in oysters. This paper is a continuation of work to investigate chromosome instability in polyploid Crassostrea virginica. We established families between tetraploids-apparently stable (non-mosaic) and unstable (mosaic)-and normal reference diploids, creating triploid groups, as well as tetraploids between mosaic and non-mosaic tetraploids. Chromosome loss was about the same for triploid juveniles produced …
Habitat Complexity And Benthic Predator-Prey Interactions In Chesapeake Bay, Cn Glaspie, Rochelle D. Seitz
Habitat Complexity And Benthic Predator-Prey Interactions In Chesapeake Bay, Cn Glaspie, Rochelle D. Seitz
VIMS Articles
In Chesapeake Bay, the soft-shell clam Mya arenaria (thin-shelled, deep-burrowing) exhibits population declines when predators are active, and it persists at low densities. In contrast, the hard clam Mercenaria mercenaria (thick-shelled, shallow-burrowing) has a stable population and age distribution. We examined the potential for habitat and predators to control densities and distributions of bivalves in a field caging experiment (Mya only) and laboratory mesocosm experiments (both species). In the field, clams exposed to predators experienced 76.3% greater mortality as compared to caged individuals, and blue crabs were likely responsible for most of the mortality of juvenile Mya. In mesocosm experiments, …
Antibiotic Effects On Microbial Communities Responsible For Denitrification And N2o Production In Grassland Soils, M Semedo, Bk Song, T Sparrer, Rl Phillips
Antibiotic Effects On Microbial Communities Responsible For Denitrification And N2o Production In Grassland Soils, M Semedo, Bk Song, T Sparrer, Rl Phillips
VIMS Articles
Antibiotics in soils may affect the structure and function of microbial communities. In this study, we investigated the acute effects of tetracycline on soil microbial community composition and production of nitrous oxide (N2O) and dinitrogen (N-2) as the end-products of denitrification. Grassland soils were pre-incubated with and without tetracycline for 1-week prior to measurements of N2O and N-2 production in soil slurries along with the analysis of prokaryotic and fungal communities by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and next-generation sequencing. Abundance and taxonomic composition of bacteria carrying two genotypes of N2O reductase genes (nosZ-I and nosZ-II) were evaluated through qPCR …
Estimating Fishing And Natural Mortality Rates, And Catchability Coefficient, From A Series Of Observations On Mean Length And Fishing Effort, Ay Then, Jm Hoenig, Qc Huynh
Estimating Fishing And Natural Mortality Rates, And Catchability Coefficient, From A Series Of Observations On Mean Length And Fishing Effort, Ay Then, Jm Hoenig, Qc Huynh
VIMS Articles
Gedamke and Hoenig (2006) (Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 135: 476-487) developed a non-equilibrium version of the Beverton and Holt estimator of total mortality rate, Z, based on mean length and thereby increased the usefulness of length-based methods. In this study, we extend their model by replacing period-specific Z parameters with the year-specific parameterization Z(y) = qf(y) + M where q is the catchability coefficient, f(y) is the fishing effort in year y, F (= qf) is the fishing mortality rate, and M is the natural mortality rate. Thus, the problem reduces to estimating just three parameters: q, M …
Saltmarsh Plants, But Not Fertilizer, Facilitate Invertebrate Recolonization After An Oil Spill, David S. Johnson, Jw Fleeger, Mr Riggio, Ia Mendelssohn, Qx Lin, Dr Deis, A Hou
Saltmarsh Plants, But Not Fertilizer, Facilitate Invertebrate Recolonization After An Oil Spill, David S. Johnson, Jw Fleeger, Mr Riggio, Ia Mendelssohn, Qx Lin, Dr Deis, A Hou
VIMS Articles
Foundation species contribute to the recovery of animal communities from disturbance by engineering, by improving habitat quality, and by regulating food availability. In a salt marsh impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we tested the hypothesis that nutrient subsidies would enhance the positive effects of the foundation species Spartina alterniflora on the initial recolonization of benthic invertebrate communities (e.g., copepods, annelids, nematodes) by augmenting food (i.e., microalgae) availability. After two months, plantings of S.alterniflora significantly elevated the densities of the polychaete Capitella capitata, meiofauna-sized annelids, and total macroinfauna over unplanted plots. After 7months, the significant effect of plantings persisted …
Biotime: A Database Of Biodiversity Time Series For The Anthropocene, M Dornelas, Lh Antao, F Moyes, Ae Bates, Ae Magurran, Et Al., Jonathan S. Lefcheck
Biotime: A Database Of Biodiversity Time Series For The Anthropocene, M Dornelas, Lh Antao, F Moyes, Ae Bates, Ae Magurran, Et Al., Jonathan S. Lefcheck
VIMS Articles
Motivation: The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Main types of variables included: The database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains …
Wetlands In A Changing Climate: Science, Policy And Management, Wr Moomaw, Gl Chmura, Gt Davies, Cm Finlayson, Ba Middleton, Sm Natali, Je Perry, N Roulet, Ar Sutton-Grier
Wetlands In A Changing Climate: Science, Policy And Management, Wr Moomaw, Gl Chmura, Gt Davies, Cm Finlayson, Ba Middleton, Sm Natali, Je Perry, N Roulet, Ar Sutton-Grier
VIMS Articles
Part 1 of this review synthesizes recent research on status and climate vulnerability of freshwater and saltwater wetlands, and their contribution to addressing climate change (carbon cycle, adaptation, resilience). Peatlands and vegetated coastal wetlands are among the most carbon rich sinks on the planet sequestering approximately as much carbon as do global forest ecosystems. Estimates of the consequences of rising temperature on current wetland carbon storage and future carbon sequestration potential are summarized. We also demonstrate the need to prevent drying of wetlands and thawing of permafrost by disturbances and rising temperatures to protect wetland carbon stores and climate adaptation/resiliency …
Long-Term Nutrient Reductions Lead To The Unprecedented Recovery Of A Temperate Coastal Region, Js Lefcheck, R J. Orth, Wc Dennison, D. J. Wilcox, Rr Murphy, K. Moore, Et Al.
Long-Term Nutrient Reductions Lead To The Unprecedented Recovery Of A Temperate Coastal Region, Js Lefcheck, R J. Orth, Wc Dennison, D. J. Wilcox, Rr Murphy, K. Moore, Et Al.
VIMS Articles
Humans strongly impact the dynamics of coastal systems, yet surprisingly few studies mechanistically link management of anthropogenic stressors and successful restoration of nearshore habitats over large spatial and temporal scales. Such examples are sorely needed to ensure the success of ecosystem restoration efforts worldwide. Here, we unite 30 consecutive years of watershed modeling, biogeochemical data, and comprehensive aerial surveys of Chesapeake Bay, United States to quantify the cascading effects of anthropogenic impacts on submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV), an ecologically and economically valuable habitat. We employ structural equation models to link land use change to higher nutrient loads, which in turn …