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Full-Text Articles in Marine Biology

Hiding In Plain Sight: Elopomorph Larvae Are Important Contributors To Fish Biodiversity In A Low-Latitude Oceanic Ecosystem, Jon A. Moore, Dante Fenolio, April Coan, Tracey Sutton Apr 2020

Hiding In Plain Sight: Elopomorph Larvae Are Important Contributors To Fish Biodiversity In A Low-Latitude Oceanic Ecosystem, Jon A. Moore, Dante Fenolio, April Coan, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Leptocephalus larvae of elopomorph fishes are a cryptic component of fish diversity in nearshore and oceanic habitats. However, identifying those leptocephali can be important in illuminating species richness in a region. Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, sampling of offshore fishes in the epi-, meso-, and upper bathypelagic depth strata of the northern Gulf of Mexico resulted in 8989 identifiable specimens of leptocephalus larvae or transforming juveniles, in 118 taxa representing 83 recognized and established species and an additional 35 distinctive leptocephalus morphotypes not yet linked to a known described species. Leptocephali account for ∼13% of the total …


Pelagic Habitat Partitioning Of Late-Larval And Juvenile Tunas In The Oceanic Gulf Of Mexico, Nina Pruzinsky, Rosanna Milligan, Tracey Sutton Apr 2020

Pelagic Habitat Partitioning Of Late-Larval And Juvenile Tunas In The Oceanic Gulf Of Mexico, Nina Pruzinsky, Rosanna Milligan, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Tunas are ecologically important in pelagic ecosystems, but due to their high economic value, large-bodied species are overfished. Declines in fishery landings of large-bodied tuna species in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) are expected to increase fishing pressures on unmanaged, small-bodied tuna species, whose life history traits are less known. While predicting spawning stocks and recruitment success typically focuses on estimates of larval abundances, juveniles may provide a better estimate of future adult stock sizes, as they are more likely to survive to adulthood because mortality rates scale inversely with body size. However, distributional studies on juveniles are rare, leading …


Microbial Symbionts And Ecological Divergence Of Caribbean Sponges: A New Perspective On An Ancient Association, Christopher Freeman, Cole Easson, Kenan O. Matterson, Robert W. Thacker, David M. Baker, Valerie J. Paul Mar 2020

Microbial Symbionts And Ecological Divergence Of Caribbean Sponges: A New Perspective On An Ancient Association, Christopher Freeman, Cole Easson, Kenan O. Matterson, Robert W. Thacker, David M. Baker, Valerie J. Paul

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Marine sponges host diverse communities of microbial symbionts that expand the metabolic capabilities of their host, but the abundance and structure of these communities is highly variable across sponge species. Specificity in these interactions may fuel host niche partitioning on crowded coral reefs by allowing individual sponge species to exploit unique sources of carbon and nitrogen, but this hypothesis is yet to be tested. Given the presence of high sponge biomass and the coexistence of diverse sponge species, the Caribbean Sea provides a unique system in which to investigate this hypothesis. To test for ecological divergence among sympatric Caribbean sponges …


Antibiotic Resistance In Marine Microbial Communities Proximal To A Florida Sewage Outfall System, Dale W. Griffin, Kenneth Banks, Kurtis Gregg, Sarah Shedler, Brian K. Walker Mar 2020

Antibiotic Resistance In Marine Microbial Communities Proximal To A Florida Sewage Outfall System, Dale W. Griffin, Kenneth Banks, Kurtis Gregg, Sarah Shedler, Brian K. Walker

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Water samples were collected at several wastewater treatment plants in southeast Florida, and water and sediment samples were collected along and around one outfall pipe, as well as along several transects extending both north and south of the respective outfall outlet. Two sets of samples were collected to address potential seasonal differences, including 38 in the wet season (June 2018) and 42 in the dry season (March 2019). Samples were screened for the presence/absence of 15 select antibiotic resistance gene targets using the polymerase chain reaction. A contrast between seasons was found, with a higher frequency of detections occurring in …


Light Organ Photosensitivity In Deep-Sea Shrimp May Suggest A Novel Role In Counterillumination, Heather D. Bracken-Grissom, Danielle M. Deleo, Megan L. Porter, Tom Iwanicki, Jamie E. Sickles, Tamara Frank Mar 2020

Light Organ Photosensitivity In Deep-Sea Shrimp May Suggest A Novel Role In Counterillumination, Heather D. Bracken-Grissom, Danielle M. Deleo, Megan L. Porter, Tom Iwanicki, Jamie E. Sickles, Tamara Frank

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Extraocular photoreception, the ability to detect and respond to light outside of the eye, has not been previously described in deep-sea invertebrates. Here, we investigate photosensitivity in the bioluminescent light organs (photophores) of deep-sea shrimp, an autogenic system in which the organism possesses the substrates and enzymes to produce light. Through the integration of transcriptomics, in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry we find evidence for the expression of opsins and phototransduction genes known to play a role in light detection in most animals. Subsequent shipboard light exposure experiments showed ultrastructural changes in the photophore similar to those seen in crustacean eyes, …


Reproductive Ecology Of Dragonfishes (Stomiiformes: Stomiidae) In The Gulf Of Mexico, Alex Marks, David Kerstetter, David Wyanski, Tracey Sutton Mar 2020

Reproductive Ecology Of Dragonfishes (Stomiiformes: Stomiidae) In The Gulf Of Mexico, Alex Marks, David Kerstetter, David Wyanski, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The most abundant fishes on Earth live in the meso- and bathypelagic (deep-pelagic, collectively) zones of the open ocean, where they play a key role in deep-sea food webs by mediating energy flow from surface waters to great depth. Of these fishes, the most speciose taxon is the family Stomiidae (dragonfishes). Despite being the numerically dominant predators of the global mesopelagic zone, stomiid reproductive ecology is poorly known. Research surveys rarely catch larger adults, impeding reproductive ecology studies. Between 2010 and 2011, the Offshore Nekton Sampling and Analysis Program sampled the Gulf of Mexico using a research-sized, opening/closing trawl (10-m …


The Vertical And Horizontal Distribution Of Deep-Sea Crustaceans In The Order Euphausiacea In The Vicinity Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Tamara Frank, Charles Douglas Fine, Eric A. Burdett, April Cook, Tracey Sutton Feb 2020

The Vertical And Horizontal Distribution Of Deep-Sea Crustaceans In The Order Euphausiacea In The Vicinity Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Tamara Frank, Charles Douglas Fine, Eric A. Burdett, April Cook, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The vertical and horizontal distributions of Euphausiacea in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), including the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, were analyzed from 340 trawl samples collected between April and June 2011. This study is the first comprehensive survey of euphausiid distributions from depths deeper than 1000 m in the GOM and includes stratified sampling from five discrete depth ranges (0–200 m, 200–600 m, 600–1000 m, 1000–1200 m, and 1200–1500 m), and expands the depth ranges of 30 species. In addition, this study demonstrates significantly higher abundance and biomass of the euphausiid assemblage from slope vs. offshore …


Dispersion Overrides Environmental Variability As A Primary Driver Of The Horizontal Assemblage Structure Of The Mesopelagic Fish Family Myctophidae In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Rosanna Milligan, Tracey Sutton Feb 2020

Dispersion Overrides Environmental Variability As A Primary Driver Of The Horizontal Assemblage Structure Of The Mesopelagic Fish Family Myctophidae In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Rosanna Milligan, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The lanternfishes (Myctophidae) are a highly speciose, globally-distributed family of fishes that constitute a dominant component of the global pelagic fauna. As a vertically-migrating taxon of oceanic micronekton, myctophids play vital ecological roles in the biological carbon pump and as an important prey group for several commercially-important species. However, our knowledge of the ecology of this taxon remains incomplete, and as anthropogenic impacts continue to develop and extend into deeper waters, there is a clear need for a better understanding of its ecological role and assemblage dynamics. The aim of the present study was to examine the distribution patterns of …


Urgent Need For Coral Demography In A World Where Corals Are Disappearing, Peter J. Edmunds, Bernhard Riegl Feb 2020

Urgent Need For Coral Demography In A World Where Corals Are Disappearing, Peter J. Edmunds, Bernhard Riegl

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Coral reefs have long attracted attention because of their biological and economic importance, but this interest now has turned to examining the possibility of functional extirpation. Widespread declines in coral abundances have fueled the shift in motivation for studying reefs and catalyzed the proliferation of monitoring to record the changes underway. Despite appreciation of monitoring as a scientific endeavor, its primary use has continued to be the quantification of cover of coral, macroalgae, and a few other space holders. The limitations of coral cover in evaluating the consequences of changing coral abundance were highlighted decades ago. Yet neglect of the …


A Revised Holocene Coral Sea-Level Database From The Florida Reef Tract, Usa, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Bernhard Riegl, Lauren T. Toth Jan 2020

A Revised Holocene Coral Sea-Level Database From The Florida Reef Tract, Usa, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Bernhard Riegl, Lauren T. Toth

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The coral reefs and mangrove habitats of the south Florida region have long been used in sea-level studies for the western Atlantic because of their broad geographic extent and composition of sea-level tracking biota. The data from this region have been used to support several very different Holocene sea-level reconstructions (SLRs) over the years. However, many of these SLRs did not incorporate all available coral-based data, in part because detailed characterizations necessary for inclusion into sea-level databases were lacking. Here, we present an updated database comprised of 303 coral samples from published sources that we extensively characterized for the first …


Analysis Of Surfactant-Associated Bacteria In The Sea Surface Microlayer Using Deoxyribonucleic Acid Sequencing And Synthetic Aperture Radar, Georgia Parks, Cayla W. Dean, John Alexander Kluge, Alexander Soloviev, Mahmood S. Shivji, Aurelien Tartar, Kathryn L. Howe, Susanne Lehner, Egbert Schwarz, Hui Shen, William Perrie, Paul Schuler Jan 2020

Analysis Of Surfactant-Associated Bacteria In The Sea Surface Microlayer Using Deoxyribonucleic Acid Sequencing And Synthetic Aperture Radar, Georgia Parks, Cayla W. Dean, John Alexander Kluge, Alexander Soloviev, Mahmood S. Shivji, Aurelien Tartar, Kathryn L. Howe, Susanne Lehner, Egbert Schwarz, Hui Shen, William Perrie, Paul Schuler

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The sea surface microlayer (SML) is the upper 1 mm of the ocean, where Earth’s biogeochemical processes occur between the ocean and atmosphere. It is physicochemically distinct from the water below and highly variable in space and time due to changing physical conditions. Some microorganisms influence the composition of the SML by producing surfactants for biological functions that accumulate on the surface, decrease surface tension, and create slicks. Slicks can be visible to the eye and in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery. This study focuses on surfactant-associated bacteria in the near-surface layer and their role in slick formation where …


Comparison Of Two Methods For Measuring Sea Surface Temperature When Surfing, Robert J. W. Brewin, Tyler Cyronak, Philip Bresnahan, Andreas J. Andersson, Jon Richard, Katherine Hammond, Oliver Billson, Lee De Mora, Thomas Jackson, Dan Smale, Giorgio Dall'olmo Jan 2020

Comparison Of Two Methods For Measuring Sea Surface Temperature When Surfing, Robert J. W. Brewin, Tyler Cyronak, Philip Bresnahan, Andreas J. Andersson, Jon Richard, Katherine Hammond, Oliver Billson, Lee De Mora, Thomas Jackson, Dan Smale, Giorgio Dall'olmo

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Nearshore coastal waters are among the most dynamic regions on the planet and difficult to sample from conventional oceanographic platforms. It has been suggested that environmental sampling of the nearshore could be improved by mobilising vast numbers of citizens who partake in marine recreational sports, like surfing. In this paper, we compared two approaches for measuring sea surface temperature (SST), an Essential Climate Variable, when surfing. One technique involved attaching a commercially-available miniature temperature logger (Onset UTBI-001 TidbiT v2) to the leash of the surfboard (tether connecting surfer and surfboard) and the second, attaching a surfboard fin (Smartfin) that contained …


Diel Temperature And Ph Variability Scale With Depth Across Diverse Coral Reef Habitats, Tyler Cyronak, Yuichiro Takeshita, Travis A. Courtney, Eric H. Decarlo, Bradley D. Eyre, David I. Kline, Todd R. Martz, Heather Page, Nichole Price, Jennifer Smith, Laura Stoltenberg, Martin Tresguerres, Andreas J. Andersson Dec 2019

Diel Temperature And Ph Variability Scale With Depth Across Diverse Coral Reef Habitats, Tyler Cyronak, Yuichiro Takeshita, Travis A. Courtney, Eric H. Decarlo, Bradley D. Eyre, David I. Kline, Todd R. Martz, Heather Page, Nichole Price, Jennifer Smith, Laura Stoltenberg, Martin Tresguerres, Andreas J. Andersson

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Coral reefs are facing intensifying stressors, largely due to global increases in seawater temperature and decreases in pH. However, there is extensive environmental variability within coral reef ecosystems, which can impact how organisms respond to global trends. We deployed spatial arrays of autonomous sensors across distinct shallow coral reef habitats to determine patterns of spatiotemporal variability in seawater physicochemical parameters. Temperature and pH were positively correlated over the course of a day due to solar heating and light‐driven metabolism. The mean temporal and spatial ranges of temperature and pH were positively correlated across all sites, with different regimes of variability …


Measuring Light Scattering And Absorption In Corals With Inverse Spectroscopic Optical Coherence Tomography (Isoct): A New Tool For Non-Invasive Monitoring, G. L. C. Spicer, A. Eid, D. Wangpraseurt, Timothy D. Swain, J. A. Winkelmann, J. Yi, M. Kuhl, L. A. Marcelino, V. Backman Oct 2019

Measuring Light Scattering And Absorption In Corals With Inverse Spectroscopic Optical Coherence Tomography (Isoct): A New Tool For Non-Invasive Monitoring, G. L. C. Spicer, A. Eid, D. Wangpraseurt, Timothy D. Swain, J. A. Winkelmann, J. Yi, M. Kuhl, L. A. Marcelino, V. Backman

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The success of reef-building corals for >200 million years has been dependent on the mutualistic interaction between the coral host and its photosynthetic endosymbiont dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae) that supply the coral host with nutrients and energy for growth and calcification. While multiple light scattering in coral tissue and skeleton significantly enhance the light microenvironment for Symbiodiniaceae, the mechanisms of light propagation in tissue and skeleton remain largely unknown due to a lack of technologies to measure the intrinsic optical properties of both compartments in live corals. Here we introduce ISOCT (inverse spectroscopic optical coherence tomography), a non-invasive approach to measure …


Seastar: A Mission To Study Ocean Submesoscale Dynamics And Small-Scale Atmosphere-Ocean Processes In Coastal, Shelf And Polar Seas, Christine Gommenginger, Bertrand Chapron, Andy Hogg, Christian Buckingham, Baylor Fox-Kemper, Leif Eriksson, Francois Soulat, Clement Ubelmann, Francisco Ocampo-Torres, Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli, David Griffin, Paco Lopez-Dekker, Per Knudsen, Ole Andersen, Lars Stenseng, Neil Stapleton, William Perrie, Nelson Violante-Carvalho, Johannes Schulz-Stellenfleth, David Woolf, Jordi Isern-Fontanet, Fabrice Ardhuin, Patrice Klein, Alexis Mouche, Ananda Pascual, Xavier Capet, Daniele Hauser, Ad Stoffelen, Rosemary Morrow, Lotfi Aouf, Øyvind Breivik, Lee-Leung Fu, Johnny A. Johannessen, Yevgeny Aksenov, Lucy Bricheno, Joel Hirschi, Adrien C. H. Martin, Adrian P. Martin, George Nurser, Jeff Polton, Judith Wolf, Harald Johnsen, Alexander Soloviev, Gregg A. Jacobs, Fabrice Collard, Steve Groom, Vladimir Kudryavtsev, John Wilkin, Victor Navarro, Alex Babanin, Matthew Martin, John Siddorn, Andrew Saulter, Tom Rippeth, Bill Emery, Nikolai Maximenko, Roland Romeiser, Hans Graber, Aida Alvera Azcarate, Chris W. Hughes, Doug Vandemark, Jose Da Silva, Peter Jan Van Leeuwen, Alberto Naveira-Garabato, Johannes Gemmrich, Amala Mahadevan, Jose Marquez, Yvonne Munro, Sam Doody, Geoff Burbidge Aug 2019

Seastar: A Mission To Study Ocean Submesoscale Dynamics And Small-Scale Atmosphere-Ocean Processes In Coastal, Shelf And Polar Seas, Christine Gommenginger, Bertrand Chapron, Andy Hogg, Christian Buckingham, Baylor Fox-Kemper, Leif Eriksson, Francois Soulat, Clement Ubelmann, Francisco Ocampo-Torres, Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli, David Griffin, Paco Lopez-Dekker, Per Knudsen, Ole Andersen, Lars Stenseng, Neil Stapleton, William Perrie, Nelson Violante-Carvalho, Johannes Schulz-Stellenfleth, David Woolf, Jordi Isern-Fontanet, Fabrice Ardhuin, Patrice Klein, Alexis Mouche, Ananda Pascual, Xavier Capet, Daniele Hauser, Ad Stoffelen, Rosemary Morrow, Lotfi Aouf, Øyvind Breivik, Lee-Leung Fu, Johnny A. Johannessen, Yevgeny Aksenov, Lucy Bricheno, Joel Hirschi, Adrien C. H. Martin, Adrian P. Martin, George Nurser, Jeff Polton, Judith Wolf, Harald Johnsen, Alexander Soloviev, Gregg A. Jacobs, Fabrice Collard, Steve Groom, Vladimir Kudryavtsev, John Wilkin, Victor Navarro, Alex Babanin, Matthew Martin, John Siddorn, Andrew Saulter, Tom Rippeth, Bill Emery, Nikolai Maximenko, Roland Romeiser, Hans Graber, Aida Alvera Azcarate, Chris W. Hughes, Doug Vandemark, Jose Da Silva, Peter Jan Van Leeuwen, Alberto Naveira-Garabato, Johannes Gemmrich, Amala Mahadevan, Jose Marquez, Yvonne Munro, Sam Doody, Geoff Burbidge

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

High-resolution satellite images of ocean color and sea surface temperature reveal an abundance of ocean fronts, vortices and filaments at scales below 10 km but measurements of ocean surface dynamics at these scales are rare. There is increasing recognition of the role played by small scale ocean processes in ocean-atmosphere coupling, upper-ocean mixing and ocean vertical transports, with advanced numerical models and in situ observations highlighting fundamental changes in dynamics when scales reach 1 km. Numerous scientific publications highlight the global impact of small oceanic scales on marine ecosystems, operational forecasts and long-term climate projections through strong ageostrophic circulations, large …


New Host Records And Range Extensions For Helminth Parasites From Wading Birds In Southeastern Florida, Sarah Gumbleton, David Kerstetter, Amy Hirons, Christopher Blanar Aug 2019

New Host Records And Range Extensions For Helminth Parasites From Wading Birds In Southeastern Florida, Sarah Gumbleton, David Kerstetter, Amy Hirons, Christopher Blanar

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Six species of wading birds collected from wildlife centers throughout South Florida were dissected for parasites. Twenty-six species of parasites represent new host records and five parasite species represent new geographic range extensions.


An Index To Better Estimate Tropical Cyclone Intensity Change In The Western North Pacific, Woojeong Lee, Sung-Hun Kim, Pao-Shin Chu, Il-Ju Moon, Alexander Soloviev Jul 2019

An Index To Better Estimate Tropical Cyclone Intensity Change In The Western North Pacific, Woojeong Lee, Sung-Hun Kim, Pao-Shin Chu, Il-Ju Moon, Alexander Soloviev

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

A revised predictor called the net energy gain rate (NGR) is suggested by considering wind dependent drag coefficient based on the existing maximum potential intensity theory. A series of wind speed dependent NGR, known as NGR‐w, is calculated based on pre‐tropical cyclone (TC) averaged ocean temperatures from the surface down to 120 m (at 10‐m intervals) to include the TC‐induced vertical mixing for 13 years (2004–2016) in the western North Pacific. It turns out that the NGR50‐w (NGR‐w based on temperature averaged over top 50 m) has the highest correlation with 24‐h TC intensity …


Some Environmental And Biological Determinants Of Coral Richness, Resilience And Reef Building In Galápagos (Ecuador), Bernhard Riegl, Matthew Johnston, Peter W. Glynn, Inti Keith, Fernando Rivera, Mariana Vera-Zambrano, Stuart Banks, Joshua Feingold, Peter J. Glynn Jul 2019

Some Environmental And Biological Determinants Of Coral Richness, Resilience And Reef Building In Galápagos (Ecuador), Bernhard Riegl, Matthew Johnston, Peter W. Glynn, Inti Keith, Fernando Rivera, Mariana Vera-Zambrano, Stuart Banks, Joshua Feingold, Peter J. Glynn

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Throughout the Galápagos, differences in coral reef development and coral population dynamics were evaluated by monitoring populations from 2000–2019, and environmental parameters (sea temperatures, pH, NO3−, PO43−) from 2015–19. The chief goal was to explain apparent coral community differences between the northern (Darwin and Wolf) and southern (Sta. Cruz, Fernandina, San Cristóbal, Española, Isabela) islands. Site coral species richness was highest at Darwin and Wolf. In the three most common coral taxa, a declining North (N)-South (S) trend in colony sizes existed for Porites lobata and Pocillopora spp., but not for Pavona spp. …


Ocean Acidification Refugia In Variable Environments, Lydia Kapsenberg, Tyler Cyronak Jun 2019

Ocean Acidification Refugia In Variable Environments, Lydia Kapsenberg, Tyler Cyronak

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Climate change refugia in the terrestrial biosphere are areas where species are protected from global environmental change and arise from natural heterogeneity in landscapes and climate. Within the marine realm, ocean acidification, or the global decline in seawater pH, remains a pervasive threat to organisms and ecosystems. Natural variability in seawater carbon dioxide (CO2) chemistry, however, presents an opportunity to identify ocean acidification refugia (OAR) for marine species. Here, we review the literature to examine the impacts of variable CO2 chemistry on biological responses to ocean acidification and develop a framework of definitions and criteria that connects …


Fallen Pillars: The Past, Present, And Future Population Dynamics Of A Rare, Specialist Coral–Algal Symbiosis, Andrea Chan, Cynthia L. Lewis, Karen L. Neely, Iliana B. Baums May 2019

Fallen Pillars: The Past, Present, And Future Population Dynamics Of A Rare, Specialist Coral–Algal Symbiosis, Andrea Chan, Cynthia L. Lewis, Karen L. Neely, Iliana B. Baums

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

With ongoing changes in climate, rare and ecologically specialized species are at increased risk of extinction. In sessile foundation fauna that reproduce asexually via fragmentation of existing colonies, the number of colonies does not reflect the number of genets and thus can obscure genotypic diversity. Colonies that are the product of fragmentation are not visually distinguishable from colonies that stem from sexual recruits. For this reason, molecular markers are necessary to assess genotypic variation and population structure in clonal organisms such as reef-building corals and their endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. For the rare Caribbean pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus, and its endosymbiotic …


Indirect Legacy Effects Of An Extreme Climatic Event On A Marine Megafaunal Community, Robert Nowicki, Michael Heithaus, Jordan Thompson, Derek Burkholder, Kirk Gastrich, Aaron Wirsing Apr 2019

Indirect Legacy Effects Of An Extreme Climatic Event On A Marine Megafaunal Community, Robert Nowicki, Michael Heithaus, Jordan Thompson, Derek Burkholder, Kirk Gastrich, Aaron Wirsing

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

While extreme climatic events (ECEs) are predicted to become more frequent, reliably predicting their impacts on consumers remains challenging, particularly for large consumers in marine environments. Many studies that do evaluate ECE effects focus primarily on direct effects, though indirect effects can be equally or more important. Here, we investigate the indirect impacts of the 2011 “Ningaloo Niño” marine heatwave ECE on a diverse megafaunal community in Shark Bay, Western Australia. We use an 18‐year community‐level data set before (1998–2010) and after (2012–2015) the heatwave to assess the effects of seagrass loss on the abundance of seven consumer groups: sharks, …


High-Resolution Habitat And Bathymetry Maps For 65,000 Sq. Km Of Earth’S Remotest Coral Reefs, Samuel J. Purkis, Arthur C. R. Gleason, Charlotte R. Purkis, Alexandra C. Dempsey, Philip Renaud, Mohamed Faisal, Steven Saul, Jeremy M. Kerr Apr 2019

High-Resolution Habitat And Bathymetry Maps For 65,000 Sq. Km Of Earth’S Remotest Coral Reefs, Samuel J. Purkis, Arthur C. R. Gleason, Charlotte R. Purkis, Alexandra C. Dempsey, Philip Renaud, Mohamed Faisal, Steven Saul, Jeremy M. Kerr

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

With compelling evidence that half the world’s coral reefs have been lost over the last four decades, there is urgent motivation to understand where reefs are located and their health. Without such basic baseline information, it is challenging to mount a response to the reef crisis on the global scale at which it is occurring. To combat this lack of baseline data, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation embarked on a 10-yr survey of a broad selection of Earth’s remotest reef sites—the Global Reef Expedition. This paper focuses on one output of this expedition, which is meter-resolution seafloor habitat …


Assessing Deep-Pelagic Shrimp Biomass To 3000 M In The Atlantic Ocean And Ramifications Of Upscaled Global Biomass, Alexander Vereshchaka, Anastasia Lunina, Tracey Sutton Apr 2019

Assessing Deep-Pelagic Shrimp Biomass To 3000 M In The Atlantic Ocean And Ramifications Of Upscaled Global Biomass, Alexander Vereshchaka, Anastasia Lunina, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

We assess the biomass of deep-pelagic shrimps in the Atlantic Ocean using data collected between 40°N and 40°S. Forty-eight stations were sampled in discrete-depth fashion, including epi- (0–200 m), meso- (200–800/1000 m), upper bathy- (800/1000–1500 m), and lower bathypelagic (1500–3000 m) strata. We compared samples collected from the same area on the same night using obliquely towed trawls and large vertically towed nets and found that shrimp catches from the latter were significantly higher. This suggests that vertical nets are more efficient for biomass assessments, and we report these values here. We further compared day and night samples from the …


Identifying Causes Of Temporal Changes In Acropora Cervicornis Populations And The Potential For Recovery, Elizabeth Goergen, Alison L. Moulding, Brian K. Walker, David S. Gilliam Feb 2019

Identifying Causes Of Temporal Changes In Acropora Cervicornis Populations And The Potential For Recovery, Elizabeth Goergen, Alison L. Moulding, Brian K. Walker, David S. Gilliam

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Corals, specifically the Atlantic staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis, are under major threat as disturbance events such as storms and disease and predation outbreaks increase in frequency. Since its population declines due to a wide spread disease event in the early 1980s, limited long-term monitoring studies describing the impact of current threats and potential recovery have been completed. The aim of this study was to document the impacts of environmental (tropical storms, increased wind) and biological (disease and predation) threats on A. cervicornis to further understand its population dynamics and potential for recovery. Two high-density A. cervicornis patches (greater than …


Report Of The Workshop Evaluating The Nature Of Midwater Mining Plumes And Their Potential Effects On Midwater Ecosystems, Jeffrey C. Drazen, Craig R. Smith, Kristina Gjerde, Whitlow Au, Jesse Black, Glenn Carter, Malcolm Clark, Jennifer M. Durden, Pierre Dutrieux, Erica Goetze, Steven Haddock, Mariko Hatta, Chris Hauton, Paul Hill, Julian Koslow, Astrid B. Leitner, Chris Measures, Audre Pacini, Frank Parrish, Thomas Peacock, Jessica Perelman, Tracey T. Sutton, Celine Taymans, Verena Tunnicliffe, Les Watling, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Emily Young, Amanda F. Ziegler Feb 2019

Report Of The Workshop Evaluating The Nature Of Midwater Mining Plumes And Their Potential Effects On Midwater Ecosystems, Jeffrey C. Drazen, Craig R. Smith, Kristina Gjerde, Whitlow Au, Jesse Black, Glenn Carter, Malcolm Clark, Jennifer M. Durden, Pierre Dutrieux, Erica Goetze, Steven Haddock, Mariko Hatta, Chris Hauton, Paul Hill, Julian Koslow, Astrid B. Leitner, Chris Measures, Audre Pacini, Frank Parrish, Thomas Peacock, Jessica Perelman, Tracey T. Sutton, Celine Taymans, Verena Tunnicliffe, Les Watling, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Emily Young, Amanda F. Ziegler

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is developing regulations to control the future exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources including sulphide deposits near hydrothermal vents, polymetallic nodules on the abyssal seafloor, and cobalt crusts on seamounts. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea the ISA is required to adopt are taking measures to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects arising from mining-related activities. Contractors are required to generate environmental baselines and assess the potential environmental consequences of deep seafloor mining. Understandably, nearly all environmental research has focused on the seafloor where the most direct …


Recurring Episodes Of Thermal Stress Shift The Balance From A Dominant Host-Specialist To A Background Host-Generalist Zooxanthella In The Threatened Pillar Coral, Dendrogyra Cylindrus, Cynthia Lewis, Karen L. Neely, Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty Jan 2019

Recurring Episodes Of Thermal Stress Shift The Balance From A Dominant Host-Specialist To A Background Host-Generalist Zooxanthella In The Threatened Pillar Coral, Dendrogyra Cylindrus, Cynthia Lewis, Karen L. Neely, Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Most scleractinian corals form obligate symbioses with photosynthetic dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae), which provide differential tolerances to their host. Previously, research has focused on the influence of symbiont composition and the dynamic processes of symbiont repopulation during single episodes of hyperthermal events, followed by years of less-stressful conditions. In contrast, this study characterized for the first time, the role of Symbiodiniaceae species changes in response to annually recurring hyperthermal events, a scenario soon expected to become the norm. Consecutive hyperthermal events during summer 2014 and 2015 along the Florida Reef Tract offered a unique opportunity to study bleaching susceptibility and recovery …


Spectral Sensitivity In Ray-Finned Fishes: Diversity, Ecology And Shared Descent, Lorian E. Schweikert, Robert R. Fitak, Eleanor M. Caves, Tracey Sutton, Sonke Johnsen Dec 2018

Spectral Sensitivity In Ray-Finned Fishes: Diversity, Ecology And Shared Descent, Lorian E. Schweikert, Robert R. Fitak, Eleanor M. Caves, Tracey Sutton, Sonke Johnsen

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

A major goal of sensory ecology is to identify factors that underlie sensory-trait variation. One open question centers on why fishes show the greatest diversity among vertebrates in their capacity to detect color (i.e. spectral sensitivity). Over the past several decades, λmax values (photoreceptor class peak sensitivity) and chromacy (photoreceptor class number) have been cataloged for hundreds of fish species, yet the ecological basis of this diversity and the functional significance of high chromacy levels (e.g. tetra- and pentachromacy) remain unclear. In this study, we examined phylogenetic, physiological and ecological patterns of spectral sensitivity of ray-finned fishes (Actinoptergyii) via …


The Octocoral Fishery In The Southeastern U.S. And Gulf Of Mexico, Mark Chiappone, Paola Espitia, Leanne M. Rutten, Steven Miller Oct 2018

The Octocoral Fishery In The Southeastern U.S. And Gulf Of Mexico, Mark Chiappone, Paola Espitia, Leanne M. Rutten, Steven Miller

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Octocorals, also known as gorgonians and soft corals, were previously managed by the U.S. South Atlantic (SAFMC) and Gulf of Mexico (GMFMC) Fishery Management Councils through a joint Coral Fishery Management Plan (FMP). Because octocorals are mostly collected from Florida waters, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is currently tasked with managing octocoral collection, including the monitoring of colony landings, in the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) adjacent to Florida. Collection of 70,000 colonies per year total, which applies to both state and EEZ waters off Florida, is permitted under Rule 68B- 42.006 of the Florida Administrative Code, but …


Hypoplectrus Liberte, A New And Endangered Microendemic Hamlet From Haiti (Teleostei: Serranidae), Benjamin C. Victor, Kenneth W. Marks Sep 2018

Hypoplectrus Liberte, A New And Endangered Microendemic Hamlet From Haiti (Teleostei: Serranidae), Benjamin C. Victor, Kenneth W. Marks

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The hamlets of the genus Hypoplectrus comprise a species flock of about 20 species found on coral reefs of the tropical western Atlantic Ocean, distinguished by complex color patterns and sharing mitochondrial DNA haplotypes within the Caribbean Sea (Gulf of Mexico and Florida-centered species are about 3% divergent in the COI marker). The species show a variety of biogeographic patterns, from widespread common species to relatively rare species limited to small parts of the Greater Caribbean region. We describe here a distinctive striped morph of barred hamlet, apparently limited to Fort-Liberté Bay in northeastern Haiti, as the new species Hypoplectrus …


Impacts Of A Regional, Multi-Year, Multi-Species Coral Disease Outbreak In Southeast Florida, Charles Walton, Nicole K. Hayes, David S. Gilliam Sep 2018

Impacts Of A Regional, Multi-Year, Multi-Species Coral Disease Outbreak In Southeast Florida, Charles Walton, Nicole K. Hayes, David S. Gilliam

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Globally coral reefs have been declining at alarming rates as a result of anthropogenic stressors, leading to increased frequency and severity of widespread bleaching and disease events. These events are often associated with increased water temperatures due to climate change as well as regional and local stress from nutrient enrichment through runoff and sedimentation from coastal development. In late 2014, a white syndrome disease outbreak was reported off the coast of southeast Florida and was subsequently documented spreading throughout the region. This study examined the regional impacts of the disease event on the southeast Florida stony coral population utilizing stony …