The leading world venue for showcasing the latest research on oceans, coasts and lakes is the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic Sciences Meeting. The research programs sponsored by the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) lead management solutions for harmful algae, hypoxia and regional ecosystem-scale research. At the [...]
A new NOAA research report finds that both fish populations and commercial and recreational anglers have benefited from “no-take” protections in the Tortugas Ecological Reserve in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The report, “An Integrated Biogeographic Assessment of Reef Fish Populations and Fisheries in Dry Tortugas: Effects of No-take Reserves,” is the first to [...]
The U.S. benefits from a wealth of resources and activities that depend on healthy coastal habitats. However, these habitats are being degraded by extensive hardening of shorelines due to climate-driven sea level rise, increasing shoreline development, land use changes in coastal watersheds, pollution, and invasions of non-native species. In the Mid-Atlantic region alone, coastal development [...]
The threat of sea level rise and storminess poses many management challenges in North Carolina due to low elevation, extensive barrier islands and vulnerability to coastal storms. The long-term North Carolina Sea Level Rise Project, part of the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise (EESLR) program, has developed modeling and [...]
As part of a joint investigation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, researchers from the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science quantified pollutants that could contaminate the Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The agencies’ researchers analyzed water samples from test wells around a nearby farm and sites inside the reserve to look for the [...]
Since 2000, the National Ocean Service and its partners have mapped more than 3 million acres (12,100 km2) of shallow-water (0-30 meters) coral reef habitats spanning the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean. The results of this body of work are summarized in a new report released by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), National Summary [...]
To solidify the courtroom validity of wildlife forensic techniques, a scientific working group formed two years ago to standardize methodologies and establish best practices for handling many species and evidence types the discipline encounters. Last week the group convened to put final touches on the documents, which should address criticisms in a 2009 report by the National [...]
NOAA researchers recently published An Integrated Biogeographic Assessment of Reef Fish Populations and Fisheries in Dry Tortugas: Effects of No-take Reserves, an analysis of both biological and socioeconomic changes resulting from the remote Florida marine reserve during its first five years. The report indicates that there seemed to be an early increase in certain fish species within [...]