Ecological forecasting: new tools for coastal and marine ecosystem management

Policy makers, natural resource managers, regulators, and the public often call on scientists to estimate the potential ecological changes caused by both natural and human-induced stresses, and to determine how those changes will impact people and the environment. To develop accurate forecasts of ecological changes we need to: 1) increase understanding of ecosystem composition, structure, and functioning, 2) expand ecosystem monitoring and apply advanced scientific information to make these complex data widely available, and 3) develop and improve forecast and interpretative tools that use a scientific basis to assess the results of management and science policy actions. (PDF contains 120 pages

Effective strategies to manage dredge related threats to tropical seagrass systems based on seagrass ecological requirements

Major dredging projects have the potential to impact on tropical seagrass communities through direct removal and burial and indirectly through turbid dredge plumes reducing the amount of light available to seagrasses. This is a major concern in Australia and elsewhere in the Indo Pacific region where substantial expansion of tropical ports associated with the resources boom is occurring. In the majority of cases managing the impacts from turbid plumes has focussed on a turbidity threshold that has not been related to the true light requirements of the various seagrass species potentially impacted. Here we report on the value of an approach based on determining the minimum light requirements of species, their resilience to impacts and ability to recover and designing a dredge mitigation approach that is focussed on maintaining critical windows of light to support seagrass growth and longer term survival. Results show the value of experimentally determining locally relevant ecological requirements and the importance of understanding the relationships between light requirements, tidal exposure, shifts in spectral quality of light, seasonality and capacity for species to recover from light stress in determining ecologically relevant triggers. This information combined with a robust toolkit for assessing sub-lethal light stress provides an effective dredge mitigation strategy to protect seagrasses

Oyster Reef Habitat Restoration : a synopsis and synthesis of approaches; proceedings from the symposium, Williamsburg, Virginia, April 1995

This volume has its origin in a symposium held in Williamsburg, VA in April 1995, though most of the chapters have been significantly revised in the interim. The primary purpose of the symposium was to bring together state fisheries managers involved in fisheries-directed oyster enhancement and research scientists to refine approaches for enhancing oyster populations and to better develop the rationale for restoring reef habitats. We could hardly have anticipated the degree to which this been successful. In the interim between the symposium and the publication of this volume the notion that oyster reefs are valuable habitats, both for oysters and for the other ecosystem services they provide, has been gaining wider acceptance. . . . Table of Contents Introduction and Overview by Mark W. Luckenbach, Roger Mann and James A. Wesson Part I. Historical Perspectives Chapter 1 - The Evolution of the Chesapeake Oyster Reef System During the Holocene Epoch by William J. Hargis, Jr. Chapter 2 - The Morphology and Physical Oceanography of Unexploited Oyster Reefs in North America by Victor S. Kennedy and Lawrence P. Sanford Chapter 3 - Oyster Bottom: Surface Geomorphology and Twentieth Century Changes in the Maryland Chesapeake Bay by Gary F. Smith, Kelly N. Geenhawk and Dorothy L. Jensen Part II. Synopsis of Ongoing Efforts Chapter 4 - Resource Management Programs for the Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica,in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico ...Past, Present and Future by Richard L. Leard, Ronald Dugas and Mark Benigan Chapter 5 - Oyster Habitat Restoration: A Response to Hurricane Andrew by William S. Perret, Ronald Dugas, John Roussel, Charles A. Wilson, and John Supan Chapter 6 - Oyster Restoration in Alabama by Richard K. Wallace, Kenneth Heck and Mark Van Hoose Chapter 7 - A History of Oyster Reef Restoration in North Carolina by Michael D. Marshall, Jeffrey E. French and Stephen W. Shelton Chapter 8 - Oyster Restoration Efforts in Virginia by James Wesson, Roger Mann and Mark Luckenbach Part Ill. Reef Morphology and Function - Questions of Scale Chapter 9 - South Carolina Intertidal Oyster Reef Studies: Design, Sampling and Focus for Evaluating Habitat Value and Function by Loren D. Coen, David M. Knott, Elizabeth L. Wenner, Nancy H. Hadley, Amy H. Ringwood and M. Yvonne Bobo Chapter 10 - Small-scale Patterns of Recruitment on a Constructed Intertidal Reef: The Role of Spatial Refugia by Ian K. Bartol and Roger Mann Chapter 11 - Perspectives on Induced Settlement and Metamorphosis as a Tool for Oyster Reef Enhancement by Stephen Coon and William K. Fitt Chapter 12 - Processes Controlling Local and Regional Patterns of Invertebrate Colonization: Applications to the Design of Artificial Oyster Habitat by Richard W. Osman and Robert B. Whitlatch Chapter 13 - Reefs as Metapopulatons: Approaches for Restoring and Managing Spatially Fragmented Habitats by Robert B. Whitlatch and Richard W. Osman Chapter 14 - Application of Landscape Ecological Principles to Oyster Reef Habitat Restoration by David B. Eggleston Chapter 15 - Use of Oyster Reefs as a Habitat for Epibenthic Fish and Decapods by Martin H. Posey, Troy D. Alphin, Christopher M. Powell and Edward Townsend Chapter 16 - Are Three Dimensional Structure and Healthy Oyster Populations the Keys to an Ecologically Interesting and Important Fish Community? by Denise L. Breitburg Chapter 17 - Materials Processing by Oysters in Patches: Interactive Roles of Current Speed and Seston Composition by Deborah Harsh and Mark W. Luckenbach Chapter 18 - Oyster Reefs as Components in Estuarine Nutrient Cycling: fucidental or Controlling? by Richard F. Dame Part IV. Alternative Substrates Chapter 19 - Use of Dredged Material for Oyster Habitat Creation in Coastal Virginia by Walter I. Priest, III, Janet Nestlerode and Christopher W. Frye Chapter 20 - Alternatives to Clam and Oyster Shell as Cultch for Eastern Oysters by Haywood, E. L., III, T. M. Soniat and R. C. Broadhurst, III Chapter 21 - Dredged Material as a Substrate for Fisheries Habitat Establishment in Coastal Waters by Douglas Clarke, David Meyer, Allison Veishlow and Michael LaCroix Part V. Management Options and Economic Considerations Chapter 22 - Managing Around Oyster Diseases in Maryland and Maryland Oyster Roundtable Strategies by Kennedy T. Paynter Chapter 23 - Chesapeake Bay Oyster Reefs, Their Importance, Destruction and Guidelines for Restoring Them by William J. Hargis, Jr. and Dexter S. Haven Chapter 24 - Economics of Augmentation of Natural Production Using Remote Setting Techniques by John E. Supan, Charles A. Wilson and Kenneth J. Robert

Coastal Habitat Integrated Mapping and Monitoring Program report for the State of Florida

Mangrove swamps and salt marshes provide valuable ecological services to coastal ecosystems in Florida. Coastal wetlands are an important nursery for many ecologically and commercially important fish and invertebrates. The vegetation stabilizes shorelines, protecting the coast from wave energy, storm surge, and erosion. Coastal wetlands are also able to filter surface water runoff, removing excess nutrients and many pollutants. Peat deposits sequester large amounts of carbon, making coastal wetlands a key sink in global carbon cycles. Mangroves and salt marshes, however, are vulnerable to both direct and indirect threats from human development. Current threats include continued habitat loss, hydrologic alteration of surface and groundwater, sea-level rise, and invasive vegetation. ... Coastal wetland monitoring programs are often short-lived and vary widely in methodology. Monitoring most commonly occurs on protected public lands or at wetland mitigation or restoration sites. These monitoring projects are rarely long-term due to a lack of funding; restoration sites are generally monitored for only a few years. Although long-term funding is difficult to secure, monitoring over long time scales is increasingly important due to regional uncertainties as to how coastal wetland vegetation and substrate accretion will respond to sea-level rise, altered freshwater hydrology, and other disturbances. While periodic land cover mapping programs can capture large-scale changes in habitat extent, smaller-scale species shifts among mangrove and salt marsh vegetation are best captured by on-the-ground monitoring. The chapters in this report summarize recent mapping and monitoring programs in each region of Florida. Content of each chapter includes a general introduction to the region, location-specific threats to salt marshes and mangroves, a summary of selected mapping and monitoring programs, and recommendations for protection, management, and monitoring. Land cover maps in this report generally use data from the most recent water management district land use/land cover (LULC) maps

River Report. State of Lower St. JOhns River Basin, Florida: Water Quality, Fisheries, Aquatic Life, Contaminants, 2023

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