Life Sciences Commons^™

Isinglass River Conservation Corridor Project, Daniel E. Kern

PREP Reports & Publications

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) provided a $9,075 grant to Bear-Paw Regional Greenways to support the Isinglass River Conservation Corridor Project. The grant helped fund some of the transaction costs associated with the project that protected high-value conservation land along the Isinglass River and in other areas of the watershed in Strafford, New Hampshire. The $2.9 million project was a collaboration of Bear-Paw, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), and the Town of Strafford that protected five properties and 868 acres of forest, over one mile of road frontage, more than three miles of frontage on streams and rivers …

Total Nitrogen Concentrations In Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent In The Great Bay Estuary Watershed In 2008, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

Nitrogen enrichment is a growing concern for the Great Bay Estuary. For the 2006 State of the Estuaries report (NHEP, 2006), the NHEP calculated the nitrogen load from wastewater treatment facilities (WWTF) using data on total dissolved nitrogen in WWTF effluent in 2002 from Bolster et al. (2003). The NHEP needs to update this indicator for the 2009 State of the Estuaries report. Not only is more recent data needed but also measurements of total nitrogen are needed to avoid assumptions about the ratio of dissolved to total nitrogen. Therefore, the NHEP allocated staff time to collect effluent samples from …

Integrating Landscapes That Have Experienced Rural Depopulation And Ecological Homogenization Into Tropical Conservation Planning, Aerin L. Jacob, Ismael Vaccaro, Raja Sengupta, Joel N. Hartter, Colin A. Chapman

Geography

If current trends of declining fertility rates and increasing abandonment of rural land as a result of urbanization continue, this will signal a globally significant transformation with important consequences for policy makers interested in conservation planning. This transformation is presently evident in a number of countries and projections suggest it may occur in the future in many developing countries. We use rates of population growth and urbanization to project population trends in rural areas for 25 example countries. Our projections indicate a general decline in population density that has either occurred already (e.g., Mexico) or may occur in the future …

Developing 1990, 2000, And 2005 Impervious Surface Estimates For Southern York County, Maine, David G. Justice, Fay A. Rubin

PREP Reports & Publications

Estimates of impervious surface acreage in 1990, 2000, and 2005 were generated for an 11-town region in York County, Maine, covered by the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP). The project extended previous work done in New Hampshire, relying on comparable satellite-based data sources and image processing methodologies. As a result, standardized impervious surface estimates are now available for the entirety of the PREP region. The impervious surface estimates were derived by applying both traditional and subpixel classification techniques to 30-meter Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) satellite image data. The classifications indicated that …

Restoration Of Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica) Habitat For Multiple Estuarine Species Benefits, Shachak Pe'eri, J. Ru Morrison, Frederick T. Short, Arthur C. Mathieson, Anna Brook, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

Increase in nitrogen concentration and declining eelgrass beds in Great Bay Estuary have been observed in the last decades. These two parameters are clear indicators of the impending problems for NH’s estuaries. The NH Department of Environmental Services (DES) in collaboration with the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) adopted the assumption that eelgrass survival can be used as the water quality target for nutrient criteria development for NH’s estuaries. One of the hypotheses put forward regarding eelgrass decline is that a possible eutrophication response to nutrient increases in the Great Bay Estuary has been the proliferation of nuisance macroalgae, which …

Macroalgae And Eelgrass Mapping In Great Bay Estuary Using Aisa Hyperspectral Imagery, Shachak Pe'eri, J. Ru Morrison, Frederick T. Short, Arthur C. Mathieson, Anna Brook, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

Increase in nitrogen concentration and declining eelgrass beds in Great Bay Estuary have been observed in the last decades. These two parameters are clear indicators of the impending problems for NH’s estuaries. The NH Department of Environmental Services (DES) in collaboration with the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) adopted the assumption that eelgrass survival can be used as the water quality target for nutrient criteria development for NH’s estuaries. One of the hypotheses put forward regarding eelgrass decline is that a possible eutrophication response to nutrient increases in the Great Bay Estuary has been the proliferation of nuisance macroalgae, which …

(2008) Northwood Stomwater Technologies And Town Of Northwood Buffer Ordinance, Ttg Environmental Consultants, Llc

PREP Reports & Publications

TTG Environmental Consultants, LLC (TEC), under contract to the New Hampshire Estuaries Project and in conjunction with the Northwood Water Resources Sub-Committee, has prepared this report on stormwater technologies appropriate for the Town of Northwood, NH. This report is divided into two (2) main sections with a number of subsections. The first section describes the need for stormwater management, and the second section describes stormwater management technologies that are appropriate for Northwood. Stormwater management has been evolving for many years, from a need to convey stormwater away from or through a developed site, to the realization that land development has …

Eelgrass Distribution In The Great Bay Estuary 2007, Frederick T. Short

PREP Reports & Publications

Eelgrass has now, in 2007, almost totally disappeared from Little Bay and the Piscataqua River. Despite these critical losses in mid-estuary, eelgrass distribution in the Great Bay Estuary (GBE) as a whole between 2006 and 2007 experienced an overall loss of 3% in area because of the areal dominance of Great Bay itself, where most of the eelgrass that remains in the GBE is found. Eelgrass area in Great Bay itself remained about the same between 2006 and 2007, with an increase in biomass due to some of the remaining beds becoming more dense. However, Little Bay and the Piscataqua …

Eelgrass Distribution In The Great Bay Estuary For 2006, Frederick T. Short

PREP Reports & Publications

Eelgrass in Great Bay itself decreased substantially (43%) between 2005 and 2006, due to losses in both biomass and distribution. Little Bay and the Piscataqua River showed greater change(loss of 40%) between 2005 and 2006 than previously, with very low levels of eelgrass compared to historical distributions and the large beds of ruppia in the Bellamy, Oyster and upper Piscataqua Rivers also diminished. The Portsmouth Harbor – Little Harbor area experienced a decrease in eelgrass abundance (14%) between 2005 and 2006. All of the Great Bay Estuary has decreased eelgrass beds compared to historic distributions. In the decade from 1996 …

The Asian Red Seaweed Grateloupia Turuturu (Rhodophyta) Invades The Gulf Of Maine, Arthur C. Mathieson, Clinton J. Dawes, Judith Pederson, Rebecca A. Gladych, James T. Carlton

New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station Publications

We report the invasion of the Gulf of Maine, in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, by the largest red seaweed in the world, the Asian Grateloupia turuturu. First detected in 1994 in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, south of Cape Cod, this alga had expanded its range in the following years only over to Long Island and into Long Island Sound. In July 2007 we found Grateloupia in the Cape Cod Canal and as far north (east) as Boston, Massachusetts, establishing its presence in the Gulf of Maine. Grateloupia can be invasive and may be capable of disrupting low intertidal and shallow …

Got Controversy - Milk Does, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes ongoing controversy over how to best label rBST-free milk. Recombinant bovine somatotropin is a genetically engineered drug administered by some farmers to their dairy herds to increase milk production. FDA first approved its use in 1994, despite great controversy. The FDA also issued labeling guidelines that allowed voluntary disclosure of rBST-free milk, so long as it carried the disclaimer that no difference could be detected between milk produced with rBST and rBST-free. The controversy continues today as consumers express a preference for rBST-free milk and many rBST-free producers label their milk this way. "Conventional" milk (with rBST) …

Portsmouth Vernal Pool Inventory, West Environmental Inc.

PREP Reports & Publications

West Environmental, Inc. (WEI) conducted a city-wide Vernal Pool Inventory to locate, document and map vernal pools in Portsmouth. This effort was coordinated with the Portsmouth Planning Department and Conservation Commission to help the City of Portsmouth in vernal pool identification and mapping. The goal of this project was to locate isolated wetlands that provide vernal pool habitat. Currently the City of Portsmouth’s wetland regulations exempt wetlands less than 5,000 square feet from the local 100’ buffer zone. This study identified smaller wetlands which have the potential to provide vernal pool habitat that may deserve the 100 foot buffer protection. …

Town Of Chester Stormwater Management Project, Nhep Community Technical Assistance Program

PREP Reports & Publications

Great Bay Environmental Consulting (GBEC) worked with the Town of Chester Planning Board to improve regulatory approaches to stormwater management. The project was conducted in two phases: Phase I involved an inventory and assessment of existing regulations for their treatment of stormwater management, with recommendations for an approach to improve stormwater management in the town. The Planning Board opted to focus on specific changes to existing subdivision and site planning regulations, so Phase II of the project involved the development of specific recommendations for those regulations.

Using Moored Arrays And Hyperspectral Aerial Imagery To Develop Nutrient Criteria For New Hampshire's Estuaries, J. Ru Morrison, Thomas K. Gregory, Shachak Pe'eri, William H. Mcdowell, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

Increasing nitrogen concentrations and declining eelgrass beds in Great Bay, NH are clear indicators of impending problems for the state’s estuaries. A workgroup established in 2005 by the NH Department of Environmental Services and the NH Estuaries Project (NHEP) adopted eelgrass survival as the water quality target for nutrient criteria development for NH’s estuaries. In 2007, the NHEP received a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to collect water quality information including that from moored sensors and hyper-spectral imagery data of the Great Bay Estuary. Data from the Great Bay Coastal Buoy, part of the regional Integrated Ocean Observing …

Shellfish Tissue Monitoring In New Hampshire Estuaries, 2007, Phil Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

Conducted by a committee of Canadian and US government and university scientists, Gulfwatch examines the effects of decades of development and industrialization on the water quality of the Gulf as it relates to human health primarily through assessing contaminant exposure of marine organisms. Gulfwatch scientists collect blue mussels at over 60 US and Canadian sites Gulf- wide, and analyze the organisms’ tissue for potentially harmful levels and concentrations of toxins including heavy metals, chlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

New Hampshire increased the number of Gulfwatch sampling locations from two sites per year in 1997 to …

Water Quality Monitoring In North River And Little River In Nottingham, Nh, Deb Kimball

PREP Reports & Publications

The Town of Nottingham Conservation Commission (NCC) in New Hampshire purchased water testing equipment for monitoring the North and Little Rivers as part of the New Hampshire Volunteer River Assessment Program (VRAP). The equipment enabled NCC and Lamprey River Watershed Association (LRWA) volunteer water samplers to efficiently monitor water quality on the two rivers twice a month from May 2007 to June 2008.

Danville Town Forest Stewardship Plan, Ellen Snyder

PREP Reports & Publications

As a community resource the Town Forest offers many benefits and values to residents and visitors. The Forest provides wildlife habitat, scenic beauty, clean air, cool temperatures, hiking trails and other outdoor recreation, wood products, water supply protection, flood storage, historical artifacts, among others. People value the Town Forest for many different reasons. Fortunately, most of these are complementary benefits, each available without compromising the integrity of the others. A goal of this Stewardship Plan is to understand and appreciate the values of the Town Forest and to guide the use and management of these resources over time. This is …

Drift By Drift: Effective Population Size Is Limited By Advection, John P. Wares, James M. Pringle

Earth Sciences

Background: Genetic estimates of effective population size often generate surprising results, including dramatically low ratios of effective population size to census size. This is particularly true for many marine species, and this effect has been associated with hypotheses of "sweepstakes" reproduction and selective hitchhiking. Results: Here we show that in advective environments such as oceans and rivers, the mean asymmetric transport of passively dispersed reproductive propagules will act to limit the effective population size in species with a drifting developmental stage. As advection increases, effective population size becomes decoupled from census size as the persistence of novel genetic lineages is …

Hampton Falls' Prime Wetlands Designation, West Environmental Inc.

PREP Reports & Publications

West Environmental Inc staff (WEI) worked with Hampton Falls Conservation Commission to prepare a zoning amendment to designate 10 Prime Wetlands in the town, totally 1,270.8 acres. The amendment was approved by the citizens of Hampton Falls at the March 2008 town vote and WEI compiled and submitted the Prime Wetlands Designation application to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services on August 4, 2008.

Community Land Conservation In The Coastal Watershed, Brian Hart

PREP Reports & Publications

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) provided a $10,000 grant to the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire (SELTNH) to support the hiring of a Community Land Protection Specialist to expand the region’s capacity to implement and complete conservation efforts within the coastal watershed, and specifically within the Lamprey River and Exeter River corridors. Over a period of eighteen months (January 2007 through June 30, 2008), the Community Land Protection Specialist (Specialist) worked with the Town of Brentwood, the Lamprey River Advisory Committee, and other community partners to conserve critical lands along the Exeter River, Lamprey River, and other areas …

Unh Monitoring Activities That Support The National Coastal Assessment In 2007, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

The National Coastal Assessment is an Environmental Protection Agency program to monitor the health of the nation’s estuaries using nationally standardized methods and a probabilistic sampling design. Dedicated EPA funding for the National Coastal Assessment ceased after 2006. Therefore, the NH Department of Environmental Services and the New Hampshire Estuaries Project contributed funds to continue a portion of the National Coastal Assessment in 2007. Water quality measurements were successfully made during 2007 at 25 randomly located stations throughout the Great Bay Estuary and Hampton-Seabrook Harbor. These data will be combined with samples collected in 2006 for probabilistic assessments of estuarine …

Evaluation Of Nhep Outreach: A Survey Of Planning Boards And Conservation Commissions, Dave Kellam

PREP Reports & Publications

This report presents the findings of a survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center of planning board and conservation commissions in the 42 coastal watershed communities of New Hampshire from November 2007 to February 2008. Background information about a similar survey conducted in 2005 and a summary of New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) outreach activity from August 2005 to February 2008 is also provided to assist in the interpretation of the survey. Conclusions by NHEP staff are offered at the end of the report.

Incidence And Timing Of Low Dissolved Oxygen Events In The Squamscott River: 2005-07, Stephen H. Jones

PREP Reports & Publications

The Squamscott River has had extended episodes of low dissolved oxygen (DO) that have been recorded at a site near its mouth during the past few years. These episodes were recorded as a result of temporally intensive monitoring by a datasonde deployed through most of each year. Whereas low DO events can occur during April-November, events during the colder months are typically less frequent and are often caused by unusual natural or severe weather conditions. Low DO events occur most frequently during July-September when elevated levels of nutrients are most likely to contribute to their cause, and are thus of …

Thanks For The Maps And Reports. What Do We Do With Them?, Joyce El Kouarti

PREP Reports & Publications

The goal of this project was to assist local communities in establishing specific local priorities for land protection. MMRG staff conducted a total 32 meetings with conservation commissions, organized three regional workshops, created three sets of maps, conducted three field events, gave three presentations at lake association meetings, created six display booths and issued 12 press releases.

On The Nature Of Fur Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach In Actinobacteria, Catarina L. Santos, João Viera, Fernando Tavares, David R. Benson, Louis S. Tisa, Alison M. Berry, Pedro Moradas-Ferreira, Philippe Normand

Molecular, Cellular & Biomedical Sciences

Background: An understanding of the evolution of global transcription regulators is essential for comprehending the complex networks of cellular metabolism that have developed among related organisms. The fur gene encodes one of those regulators - the ferric uptake regulator Fur - widely distributed among bacteria and known to regulate different genes committed to varied metabolic pathways. On the other hand, members of the Actinobacteria comprise an ecologically diverse group of bacteria able to inhabit various natural environments, and for which relatively little is currently understood concerning transcriptional regulation. Results: BLAST analyses revealed the presence of more than one fur homologue …

Wetland Buffer Characterization And Public Outreach In North Hampton, Dave Kellam

PREP Reports & Publications

This report includes a characterization of wetland buffers and buffer protection in North Hampton and a community outreach newsletter that focuses on the protection of the North Hampton wetland buffers. Consultants from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc conducted field examinations of key North Hampton wetland buffer areas and issued a technical memorandium that characterize wetland buffer areas in the town and discusses of the value of these areas in terms of public interest and property values. Much of the information presented in the technical memo was communicated in an eight-page newsletter produced at Fosters Daily Democrate. Fosters produced 3,000 copies and …

Nhep Monitoring Plan - Version 5, July 2008, Philip Trowbridge

PREP Reports & Publications

The NHEP Management Plan presents a series of goals, objectives, and specific actions designed to improve, protect, and enhance the environmental quality of the state‟s estuaries, and outlines a process for implementing the Plan‟s most critical actions (NHEP, 2000; NHEP, 2005b). Measuring the effectiveness of these actions in achieving NHEP goals is an essential part of implementation that will be achieved through a suite of environmental and administrative indicators. This Monitoring Plan describes the methods and data for the indicators that will be used to answer the following question accurately and unambiguously: Are the goals and objectives of the Management …

Nhep Year 13 Work Plan, Jennifer Hunter

PREP Reports & Publications

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Estuary Program which is a joint local/state/federal program established under the Clean Water Act with the goal of protecting and enhancing nationally significant estuaries. The NHEP’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (Management Plan)for New Hampshire’s estuaries was completed in 2000 and updated in 2005. The Management Plan outlines key issues related to management of New Hampshire’s estuaries and proposes strategies (Action Plans) to protect, enhance, and monitor the state’s estuarine resources. Local stakeholders established the NHEP’s priorities, which include water quality improvements, shellfish resource …

Protecting Shoreland And Riparian Buffers Workshop (2007), Jennifer Hunter

PREP Reports & Publications

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) organized and implemented a workshop on protecting shoreland and riparian buffers. A number of other organizations, including three regional planning commissions, NH Fish and Game Department, NH Department of Environmental Services, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and UNH Cooperative Extension, were involved in the planning and execution of the workshop. The workshop was designed to provide information and tools to encourage greater municipal regulatory protections for buffers. The workshop was held three times in October and November 2007 and attended by 75 people, primarily planning board and conservation commission members.

Drug Resistance In Malaria: A Peruvian Research Experience, Ryan Haley

Inquiry Journal 2008

No abstract provided.