Joel Fodrie

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · September 1, 2026 Excess nitrogen is a driver of eutrophication and a threat to coastal water quality, ecosystems, and economies. Oyster reef habitat has been shown to enhance nitrogen removal processes, including denitrification (DNF), in adjacent sediments via nutrient-ri ... Full text Open Access Cite

DNA barcoding increases the taxonomic resolution of shark diet analysis compared to morphological stomach contents identification

Journal article Conservation Genetics Resources · June 1, 2026 Morphological identification of stomach contents is the most common methodology used for shark diet reconstruction. However, this approach often limits prey identification to low taxonomic levels (i.e., order or class) and is prone to inaccuracies due to s ... Full text Open Access Cite

Shell trace elemental fingerprints of the deep-sea methane seep mussel Gigantidas childressi vary by depth, site, and shell growth region

Journal article Deep Sea Research Part I Oceanographic Research Papers · April 1, 2026 Larval dispersal is a key driver of population persistence and resilience of numerous metapopulations and communities in marine ecosystems. Determining where and how larvae disperse in the deep sea is one of the most vexing challenges in deep-sea ecology. ... Full text Open Access Cite

Seasonal Residency and Movement Patterns of Bonnetheads (Sphyrna tiburo) in Two Subtropical Estuaries and Coastal Waters of the South Atlantic Bight

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · March 1, 2026 Tracking animal movements underpins our understanding of habitat linkages, stock definitions, and life-history vital rates. The bonnethead (Sphyrna tiburo) is abundant seasonally in southeastern United States (US) Atlantic coast estuaries; however, there i ... Full text Open Access Cite

Eavesdropping on estuaries: soundscape spatial variation explained by habitat metrics at multiple scales

Journal article Landscape Ecology · February 1, 2026 Context: Understanding how ecological patterns and processes are affected by spatial heterogeneity is a foundational goal of landscape ecology. Recent extensions of this field have explored how habitat-associated soundscapes could inform biodiversity asses ... Full text Open Access Cite

Interactions between dense seasonal macroalgal mats and oysters on natural and constructed shellfish reefs.

Journal article PeerJ · January 2026 Oysters are important coastal foundation species that provide valuable hard substrate for the recruitment of epibiotic organisms in environments otherwise dominated by soft sediment. Yet, their interactions with epibionts are relatively understudied. Despi ... Full text Open Access Cite

A Comparison of DNA Metabarcoding Cloacal Swabs and Stomach Contents for Shark Diet Reconstruction

Journal article Environmental DNA · January 1, 2026 Metabarcoding fecal matter is increasingly common in dietary studies across a variety of taxa. This approach assumes that enough prey DNA remains detectable in the fecal DNA (fDNA) as the prey DNA becomes degraded while passing through the digestive tract. ... Full text Open Access Cite

Habitat context affects sediment nitrogen burial by restored Eastern Oyster reefs.

Journal article PloS one · January 2026 Oysters perform essential functions in estuarine environments. Reef restoration has recently become the subject of significant attention to reestablish populations after historic losses and to restore valuable ecosystem functions and services, including ni ... Full text Open Access Cite

Seasonal asynchrony and harvest diversification contribute to demersal finfish fisheries stability in Chesapeake Bay.

Journal article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · September 2025 Biodiversity can confer temporal stability to ecosystem processes through asynchrony in species' abundances and may promote asynchrony and stability of commercial fishing harvests derived from exploited species. However, the linkages between asynchrony in ... Full text Open Access Cite

Host traits and temperature predict biogeographical variation in seagrass disease prevalence.

Journal article Proceedings. Biological sciences · February 2025 Diseases are ubiquitous in natural systems, with broad effects across populations, communities and ecosystems. However, the drivers of many diseases remain poorly understood, particularly in marine environments, inhibiting effective conservation and manage ... Full text Open Access Cite

A Latitudinal Cline in the Taxonomic Structure of Eelgrass Epifaunal Communities is Associated With Plant Genetic Diversity

Journal article Global Ecology and Biogeography · December 1, 2024 Aim: Biogenic structural complexity increases mobile animal richness and abundance at local, regional and global scales, yet animal taxa vary in their response to complexity. When these taxa also vary functionally, habitat structures favouring certain taxa ... Full text Open Access Cite

Demonstration of MicroPlastics Distribution Map in the Sediment and Water of Gorgan Bay, Caspian Sea

Journal article Water Air and Soil Pollution · December 1, 2024 Gorgan Bay is located along the southeast Caspian Sea and surrounded with significant agricultural and urban areas. Plastic pollution is a significant issue that affects aquatic ecosystems globally. The accumulation and degradation of plastics into micropl ... Full text Open Access Cite

Habitat area more consistently affects seagrass faunal communities than fragmentation per se

Journal article Ecological Monographs · November 1, 2024 Seminal ecological theories, island biogeography and the single large or several small (SLOSS) reserve debate, examine whether large contiguous habitats conserve biodiversity better than multiple smaller patches. Today, delineating the ecological effects o ... Full text Open Access Cite

Are nursery approaches maturing in their application to US fisheries management?

Journal article Bioscience · February 1, 2024 There have been significant conceptual advances for identifying nursery habitats within coastal systems used by juvenile fishes and crustaceans. The approaches for delineating nursery areas include measures of juvenile abundance, growth, or survival; habit ... Full text Open Access Cite

Tropicalization of mid-western Atlantic coastal bays by pinfish Lagodon rhomboides: a combined ecological and oceanographic perspective

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 1, 2024 As climate change continues to shift the distributions of species worldwide, understanding where, why, and how organisms move beyond their historical ranges is of critical importance. Here, we report on the expansion of pinfish Lagodon rhomboides poleward ... Full text Open Access Cite

Fishery Closures, More Than Predator Release, Increased Persistence of Nearshore Fishes and Invertebrates to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · November 1, 2023 The Deepwater Horizon disaster released 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite clear evidence of exposure and toxicity, there has been little evidence of population-level declines of most nearshore fish and invertebrate populations. Se ... Full text Cite

Ocean current patterns drive the worldwide colonization of eelgrass (Zostera marina).

Journal article Nature plants · August 2023 Currents are unique drivers of oceanic phylogeography and thus determine the distribution of marine coastal species, along with past glaciations and sea-level changes. Here we reconstruct the worldwide colonization history of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.), ... Full text Open Access Cite

Author Correction: Ocean current patterns drive the worldwide colonization of eelgrass (Zostera marina).

Journal article Nature plants · August 2023 Full text Open Access Cite

Contaminants disrupt aquatic food webs via decreased consumer efficiency.

Journal article The Science of the total environment · February 2023 Changes in consumer-resource dynamics due to environmental stressors can alter energy flows or key interactions within food webs, with potential for cascading effects at population, community, and ecosystem levels. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify ... Full text Cite

Anthropogenic impacts on tidal creek sedimentation since 1900.

Journal article PloS one · January 2023 Land cover and use around the margins of estuaries has shifted since 1950 at many sites in North America due to development pressures from higher population densities. Small coastal watersheds are ubiquitous along estuarine margins and most of this coastal ... Full text Open Access Cite

Trophic partitioning among seasonally resident predators in a temperate estuary

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 1, 2023 Many migratory coastal shark species enter temperate estuaries seasonally, tracking suitable environmental conditions (i.e. temperature) and food resources. Understanding the functional role that migratory sharks play in coastal food webs depends on inform ... Full text Cite

Assessing the catch efficiency of predators in the presence of prey using experimental gillnets in a temperate estuary

Journal article Fisheries Research · September 1, 2022 Fishery-independent sampling is designed to representatively sample faunal communities based on the effort-standardized catch rates of individual gears. In estuaries, experimental gillnets are widely used due to their ability to passively sample mobile fis ... Full text Cite

A Pleistocene legacy structures variation in modern seagrass ecosystems.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2022 Distribution of Earth's biomes is structured by the match between climate and plant traits, which in turn shape associated communities and ecosystem processes and services. However, that climate-trait match can be disrupted by historical events, with lasti ... Full text Open Access Cite

Coastal squeeze on temperate reefs: Long-term shifts in salinity, water quality, and oyster-associated communities.

Journal article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · July 2022 Foundation species, such as mangroves, saltmarshes, kelps, seagrasses, and oysters, thrive within suitable environmental envelopes as narrow ribbons along the land-sea margin. Therefore, these habitat-forming species and resident fauna are sensitive to mod ... Full text Cite

Fish and invertebrate use of restored vs. natural oyster reefs in a shallow temperate latitude estuary

Journal article Ecosphere · May 1, 2022 Coastal marine habitats continue to be degraded, thereby compelling large-scale restoration in many parts of the world. Whether restored habitats function similarly to natural habitats and fully recover lost ecosystem services is unclear. In estuaries, oys ... Full text Cite

Comparing edge and fragmentation effects within seagrass communities: A meta-analysis.

Journal article Ecology · March 2022 Examining community responses to habitat configuration across scales informs basic and applied models of ecosystem function. Responses to patch-scale edge effects (i.e., ecological differences between patch edges and interiors) are hypothesized to underpin ... Full text Cite

Remarkable euryhalinity of a marine fish Lutjanus novemfasciatus in mangrove nurseries.

Journal article Ecology · February 2022 Full text Cite

The biogeography of community assembly: latitude and predation drive variation in community trait distribution in a guild of epifaunal crustaceans.

Journal article Proceedings. Biological sciences · February 2022 While considerable evidence exists of biogeographic patterns in the intensity of species interactions, the influence of these patterns on variation in community structure is less clear. Studying how the distributions of traits in communities vary along glo ... Full text Open Access Cite

Tropical cyclone impacts on seagrass-associated fishes in a temperate-subtropical estuary.

Journal article PloS one · January 2022 Major storms can alter coastal ecosystems in several direct and indirect ways including habitat destruction, stormwater-related water quality degradation, and organism mortality. From 2010-2020, ten tropical cyclones impacted coastal North Carolina, provid ... Full text Open Access Cite

Body size, trophic position, and the coupling of different energy pathways across a saltmarsh landscape

Journal article Limnology and Oceanography Letters · December 1, 2021 Body size is considered an important structuring mechanism of food webs because consumers are usually larger and more mobile than their prey and may couple energy among habitats. We explored the links among trophic position (TP), body size, and the couplin ... Full text Cite

Passive acoustic monitoring complements traditional methods for assessing marine habitat enhancement outcomes

Journal article Ecosphere · November 1, 2021 Habitat enhancement, often accomplished through the introduction of artificial structures, is a common strategy used by marine resource managers to provide habitat subsidies, protect sensitive habitat, and create new fishing opportunities. Traditional moni ... Full text Cite

Gulf fisheries supported resilience in the decade following unparalleled oiling

Journal article Ecosphere · November 1, 2021 The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DwH) disaster challenged the integrity of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) large-marine ecosystem at unprecedented scales, prompting concerns of devastating injury for GOM fisheries in the post-spill decade. Following the catastrophe, p ... Full text Cite

Reversing a tyranny of cascading shoreline-protection decisions driving coastal habitat loss

Journal article Conservation Science and Practice · September 1, 2021 Shoreline hardening is a major driver of biodiversity and habitat loss in coastal ecosystems yet remains a common approach to coastal management globally. Using surveys of waterfront residents in North Carolina, USA, we sought to identify factors influenci ... Full text Cite

Potassium phases and isotopic composition in modern marine biogenic carbonates

Journal article Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta · July 1, 2021 To investigate isotope fractionation between biogenic carbonates and modern seawater, we measured K concentration, phase, and isotopic composition in calcified skeletons from a variety of calcifying species. Samples included deep-sea corals, hermatypic cor ... Full text Cite

Abiotic Cycles Mediate the Strength of Cross-Boundary Consumption Within Coastal Food Webs

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · June 1, 2021 Understanding the effect of habitat edges on species interactions (e.g. predation) is critical for determining landscape-scale patterns in productivity and the structuring of communities in an ever-changing environment. Both abiotic cycles and habitat stru ... Full text Cite

Size Changes within a Southeastern United States Coastal Shark Assemblage: 1975–2018

Journal article Marine and Coastal Fisheries · June 1, 2021 Harvest may have myriad effects on target species, including a change in population size structure. To assess whether size shifts have occurred among managed coastal species of shark (superorder Selachimorpha), we examined the population size structure of ... Full text Cite

Joint effects of patch edges and habitat degradation on faunal predation risk in a widespread marine foundation species.

Journal article Ecology · May 2021 Human activities degrade and fragment coastal marine habitats, reducing their structural complexity and making habitat edges a prevalent seascape feature. Though habitat edges frequently are implicated in reduced faunal survival and biodiversity, results o ... Full text Cite

Prospects for gulf of Mexico environmental recovery and restoration

Journal article Oceanography · March 1, 2021 Previous oil spills provide clear evidence that ecosystem restoration efforts are challenging, and recovery can take decades. Similar to the Ixtoc 1 well blowout in 1979, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was enormous both in volume of oil spilled and ... Full text Cite

Consumption rates vary based on the presence and type of oyster structure: A seasonal and latitudinal comparison

Journal article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · March 1, 2021 As oyster reefs continue to decline worldwide, interest has turned to restoration and aquaculture as ways to sustain the services derived from these ecologically and economically valuable habitats. While biogenic oyster reefs support a variety of ecologica ... Full text Cite

Influence of marsh island size on nekton communities: intermediate optima rather than Single-Large-or-Several-Small (SLOSS)

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 1, 2021 Habitat extent and configuration are critical drivers of faunal abundance, diversity, and ecosystem functioning. Evidence from terrestrial systems often suggests that large contiguous tracts of habitat generally support more species and individuals than se ... Full text Cite

Climate drives the geography of marine consumption by changing predator communities

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · October 26, 2020 The global distribution of primary production and consumption by humans (fisheries) is well-documented, but we have no map linking the central ecological process of consumption within food webs to temperature and other ecological drivers. Using sta ... Full text Open Access Cite

Soundscapes of natural and artificial temperate reefs: similar temporal patterns but distinct spectral content

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · September 10, 2020 Marine soundscapes often differ among habitats; however, relatively little is known about whether soundscapes on naturally occurring habitats differ from soundscapes on human-made structures. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated whether temporal ... Full text Cite

Role of saltmarsh production in subsidizing adjacent seagrass food webs: Implications for landscape-scale restoration

Journal article Food Webs · September 1, 2020 Restoration is an increasingly employed method for rehabilitating and enhancing the ecosystem services of lost or degraded coastal habitats, such as supporting high faunal densities and biomass. In certain ecosystems, faunal densities along habitat ecotone ... Full text Cite

Predation patterns across states of landscape fragmentation can shift with seasonal transitions.

Journal article Oecologia · June 2020 Nested scales of habitat heterogeneity may independently or synergistically influence faunal interactions. Fragmentation effects (i.e., the breaking apart of landscapes) and edge effects (i.e., ecological differences between edges and interiors of patches, ... Full text Cite

Using multiple natural tags provides evidence for extensive larval dispersal across space and through time in summer flounder.

Journal article Molecular ecology · April 2020 Dispersal sets the fundamental scales of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and has important implications for population persistence. Patterns of marine dispersal remain poorly understood, partly because dispersal may vary through time and often homogen ... Full text Cite

Shark detection probability from aerial drone surveys within a temperate estuary

Journal article Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems · January 1, 2020 Drones are easy to operate over metres-to-kilometre scales, making them potentially useful to monitor species distributions and habitat use in shallow estuaries with widely varying environmental conditions. To investigate the utility of drones for surveyin ... Full text Cite

Dietary shifts across biogeographic scales alter spatial subsidy dynamics

Journal article Ecosphere · December 1, 2019 Over heterogeneous landscapes, organisms and energy move across ecological boundaries and this can have profound effects on overall ecosystem functioning. Both abiotic and biotic factors along habitat boundaries may facilitate or impede key species interac ... Full text Cite

Salt marsh shoreline geomorphology influences the success of restored oyster reefs and use by associated fauna

Journal article Restoration Ecology · November 1, 2019 Restoration is increasingly implemented as a strategy to mitigate global declines in biogenic habitats, such as salt marshes and oyster reefs. Restoration efforts could be improved if we knew how site characteristics at landscape scales affect the ecologic ... Full text Cite

Trait sensitivities to seagrass fragmentation across spatial scales shape benthic community structure.

Journal article The Journal of animal ecology · November 2019 The structure of local ecological communities is thought to be determined by a series of hierarchical abiotic and biotic filters which select for or against species based on their traits. Many human impacts, like fragmentation, serve to alter environmental ... Full text Cite

Simultaneous estimation of dispersal and survival of the gulf killifish Fundulus grandis from a batch-tagging experiment

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · August 15, 2019 The gulf killifish Fundulus grandis has been widely used as an indicator species for studying impacts of disturbance. However, such use requires an understanding of the spatial and temporal scales over which an individual may have been exposed to a disturb ... Full text Cite

Emergent intraspecific multiple predator effects shape estuarine trophic dynamics across a gradient of habitat complexity

Journal article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · February 1, 2019 Estuarine ecosystems are characterized by heterogeneity in species assemblages and habitat complexity, so prey in these systems are often threatened by multiple predators across a mosaic of habitats. When several predator species or conspecifics co-occur, ... Full text Cite

Modeling quantitative value of habitats for marine and estuarine populations

Journal article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2019 Coastal habitats (e.g., seagrass beds, shallow mud, and sand flats) strongly influence survival, growth, and reproduction of marine fish and invertebrate species. Many of these species have declined over the past decades, coincident with widespread degrada ... Full text Cite

Quantifying estuarine-scale invertebrate larval connectivity: Methodological and ecological insights

Journal article Limnology and Oceanography · September 1, 2018 The early life history of many marine organisms includes a dispersive planktonic larval phase which allows for the exchange of individuals among subpopulations. Knowledge of the degree of exchange, or connectivity, is critical to understanding the abundanc ... Full text Cite

Effects of landscape setting on oyster reef structure and function largely persist more than a decade post-restoration

Journal article Restoration Ecology · September 1, 2018 Long-term monitoring is vital to understanding the efficacy of restoration approaches and how restoration may enhance ecosystem functions. We revisited restored oyster reefs 13 years post-restoration and quantified the resident and transient fauna that uti ... Full text Cite

Living on the Edge: Increasing Patch Size Enhances the Resilience and Community Development of a Restored Salt Marsh

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · May 1, 2018 Foundation species regulate communities by reducing environmental stress and providing habitat for other species. Successful restoration of biogenic habitats often depends on restoring foundation species at appropriate spatial scales within a suitable rang ... Full text Cite

Movement ecology of a mobile predatory fish reveals limited habitat linkages within a temperate estuarine seascape

Journal article Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences · January 1, 2018 Large predatory fishes, capable of traveling great distances, can facilitate energy flow linkages among spatially separated habitat patches via extended foraging behaviors over expansive areas. Here, we tested this concept by tracking the movement of a lar ... Full text Cite

Latitude, temperature, and habitat complexity predict predation pressure in eelgrass beds across the Northern Hemisphere.

Journal article Ecology · January 2018 Latitudinal gradients in species interactions are widely cited as potential causes or consequences of global patterns of biodiversity. However, mechanistic studies documenting changes in interactions across broad geographic ranges are limited. We surveyed ... Full text Cite

Evidence of exceptional oyster-reef resilience to fluctuations in sea level.

Journal article Ecology and evolution · December 2017 Ecosystems at the land-sea interface are vulnerable to rising sea level. Intertidal habitats must maintain their surface elevations with respect to sea level to persist via vertical growth or landward retreat, but projected rates of sea-level rise may exce ... Full text Open Access Cite

Life stage and species identity affect whether habitat subsidies enhance or simply redistribute consumer biomass.

Journal article The Journal of animal ecology · October 2017 Quantifying the response of mobile consumers to changes in habitat availability is essential for determining the degree to which population-level productivity is habitat limited rather than regulated by other, potentially density-independent factors. Over ... Full text Cite

Effects of habitat fragmentation on Zostera marina seed distribution

Journal article Aquatic Botany · September 1, 2017 Habitat fragmentation is a process which can alter the spatial configuration and reduce the overall area of a habitat. This generally results in a degradation of habitat functioning. Fragmentation of seagrass (Zostera marina) beds has become increasingly c ... Full text Cite

Hurricane damage along natural and hardened estuarine shorelines: Using homeowner experiences to promote nature-based coastal protection

Journal article Marine Policy · July 1, 2017 Growing coastal populations, rising sea levels, and likely increases in the frequency of major storm events will intensify coastal vulnerability in coming decades. Decisions regarding how and when to fortify estuarine shorelines against coastal hazards, su ... Full text Open Access Cite

Oyster reefs as carbon sources and sinks.

Journal article Proceedings. Biological sciences · July 2017 Carbon burial is increasingly valued as a service provided by threatened vegetated coastal habitats. Similarly, shellfish reefs contain significant pools of carbon and are globally endangered, yet considerable uncertainty remains regarding shellfish reefs' ... Full text Open Access Cite

Salt Marsh and Fringing Oyster Reef Transgression in a Shallow Temperate Estuary: Implications for Restoration, Conservation and Blue Carbon

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · July 1, 2017 The importance of intertidal estuarine habitats, like salt marsh and oyster reef, has been well established, as has their ubiquitous loss along our coasts with resultant forfeiture of the ecosystem services they provide. Furthering our understanding of how ... Full text Cite

Key taxa in food web responses to stressors: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Journal article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · April 1, 2017 Identifying key taxa in the response of ecosystems to perturbations relies on quantifying both their sensitivity to stressors and their importance in the overall web of interactions. If sensitive taxa occupy key network positions, then they may decrease th ... Full text Cite

Threshold effects of habitat fragmentation on fish diversity at landscapes scales.

Journal article Ecology · August 2016 Habitat fragmentation involves habitat loss concomitant with changes in spatial configuration, confounding mechanistic drivers of biodiversity change associated with habitat disturbance. Studies attempting to isolate the effects of altered habitat configur ... Full text Cite

Environmental effects on elemental signatures in eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica shells: Using geochemical tagging to assess population connectivity

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · February 3, 2016 We evaluated the utility of geochemical tagging methods to discern larval connectivity among an invertebrate metapopulation within a large (∼5000 km2) temperate estuary. Specifically, we examined how estuarine-scale gradients in temperatures (21° to 26.5°C ... Full text Cite

Living shorelines can enhance the nursery role of threatened estuarine habitats.

Journal article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · January 2016 Coastal ecosystems provide numerous services, such as nutrient cycling, climate change amelioration, and habitat provision for commercially valuable organisms. Ecosystem functions and processes are modified by human activities locally and globally, with de ... Full text Open Access Cite

Is Exposure to Macondo Oil Reflected in the Otolith Chemistry of Marsh-Resident Fish?

Journal article PloS one · January 2016 Genomic and physiological responses in Gulf killifish (Fundulus grandis) in the northern Gulf of Mexico have confirmed oil exposure of resident marsh fish following the Macondo blowout in 2010. Using these same fish, we evaluated otolith microchemistry as ... Full text Open Access Cite

Guidelines for evaluating performance of oyster habitat restoration should include tidal emersion: Reply to Baggett et al.

Journal article Restoration Ecology · January 1, 2016 Baggett et al. (2015) identified a set of three universal environmental variables to be monitored for evaluating all oyster habitat restoration projects: salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen. Perhaps evidencing a bias toward subtidal reefs, this set ... Full text Cite

Carbon export from fringing saltmarsh shoreline erosion overwhelms carbon storage across a critical width threshold

Journal article Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science · October 5, 2015 Saltmarshes are carbon storage hotspots and help to offset anthropogenic carbon emissions; however, marshes are threatened by sea-level rise, erosion, and human development. Recent efforts to constrain the saltmarsh carbon cycle have focused on the process ... Full text Cite

Maximizing oyster-reef growth supports green infrastructure with accelerating sea-level rise.

Journal article Scientific reports · October 2015 Within intertidal communities, aerial exposure (emergence during the tidal cycle) generates strong vertical zonation patterns with distinct growth boundaries regulated by physiological and external stressors. Forecasted accelerations in sea-level rise (SLR ... Full text Open Access Cite

Ecotone Effects on Seagrass and Saltmarsh Habitat Use by Juvenile Nekton in a Temperate Estuary

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · October 1, 2015 While considering important juvenile fish habitats individually, both seagrass and saltmarsh are often highly connected with other subtidal and intertidal habitats. As a result, juvenile fishes and crustaceans may utilize multiple habitats across tidal, di ... Full text Cite

Fish Assemblages in Louisiana Salt Marshes: Effects of the Macondo Oil Spill

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · October 1, 2015 Marsh-resident fishes play important roles as both predators and prey in coastal systems, influence secondary production, and are important trophic links to adjacent coastal waters. As such, they also serve as sentinel species in efforts to understand the ... Full text Cite

Engineering away our natural defenses: An analysis of shoreline hardening in the US

Journal article Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · August 1, 2015 Rapid population growth and coastal development are primary drivers of marine habitat degradation. Although shoreline hardening or armoring (the addition of concrete structures such as seawalls, jetties, and groins), a byproduct of development, can acceler ... Full text Cite

Measuring individuality in habitat use across complex landscapes: approaches, constraints, and implications for assessing resource specialization.

Journal article Oecologia · May 2015 Many mobile marine species are presumed to utilize a broad spectrum of habitats, but this seemingly generalist life history may arise from conspecifics specializing on distinct habitat alternatives to exploit foraging, resting/refuge, or reproductive oppor ... Full text Cite

Consumers mitigate heat stress and nutrient enrichment effects on eelgrass Zostera marina communities at its southern range limit

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · April 9, 2015 At the southern end of their range, eelgrass Zostera marina L. meadows in North Carolina, USA, are vulnerable to multiple stressors. These include eutrophication, which can promote the overgrowth of algal epiphytes, and heat stress, which causes significan ... Full text Cite

Seagrass consumption by native and a tropically associated fish species: Potential impacts of the tropicalization of the northern Gulf of Mexico

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · February 3, 2015 Temperatures are rising in most temperate and polar environments, and a welldocumented effect of this change is a poleward range shift by a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic species. In the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), an increasing number of tropi ... Full text Cite

Distribution and dynamics of habitat use by juvenile and adult flatfishes

Book section · January 20, 2015 This review incorporates the available published information on the distribution and dynamics of habitat use for flatfishes based on over 317 published papers in the peer-reviewed literature. This includes the abiotic (temperature, salinity, depth, substra ... Full text Cite

Classic paradigms in a novel environment: Inserting food web and productivity lessons from rocky shores and saltmarshes into biogenic reef restoration

Journal article Journal of Applied Ecology · October 1, 2014 Gradients in competition and predation that regulate communities should guide biogenic habitat restoration, while restoration ecology provides opportunities to address fundamental questions regarding food web dynamics via large-scale field manipulations. W ... Full text Cite

Integrating organismal and population responses of estuarine fishes in macondo spill research

Journal article Bioscience · September 1, 2014 Syntheses of research spanning diverse taxa, ecosystems, timescales, and hierarchies are crucial for understanding the cumulative impacts of the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Four years after the spill, responses of estuarine fishes to oil pollu ... Full text Cite

Oyster reefs can outpace sea-level rise

Journal article Nature Climate Change · January 1, 2014 In the high-salinity seaward portions of estuaries, oysters seek refuge from predation, competition and disease in intertidal areas, but this sanctuary will be lost if vertical reef accretion cannot keep pace with sea-level rise (SLR). Oyster-reef abundanc ... Full text Cite

Interactions between Northern-Shifting Tropical Species and Native Species in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · January 1, 2014 Niche models applied in the context of future climate change predict that as regional temperatures increase, the distribution of tropical species will shift poleward. While range expansions have been documented for a number of species, there is limited inf ... Full text Cite

Venting and Reef Fish Survival: Perceptions and Participation Rates among Recreational Anglers in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Journal article North American Journal of Fisheries Management · December 25, 2013 Fisheries scientists, managers, and industry have developed innovative tools and techniques to improve the survival of fishes captured and released in deepwater settings. Venting involves the insertion of a hollow needle to deflate a fish's swim bladder an ... Full text Cite

Temporal, spatial, and interspecific variation in geochemical signatures within fish otoliths, bivalve larval shells, and crustacean larvae

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · January 21, 2013 Geochemical signatures of early life stages are increasingly used to study population connectivity. This approach utilizes spatial variability in chemical signatures to predict natal or nursery origins of post-dispersal individuals by comparison with a che ... Full text Cite

Gulf-Wide Decreases in the Size of Large Coastal Sharks Documented by Generations of Fishermen

Journal article Marine and Coastal Fisheries · January 1, 2013 Large sharks are top predators in most coastal and marine ecosystems throughout the world, and evidence of their reduced prominence in marine ecosystems has been a serious concern for fisheries and ecosystem management. Unfortunately, quantitative data to ... Full text Cite

A Comparison of Otolith Geochemistry and Stable Isotope Markers to Track Fish Movement: Describing Estuarine Ingress by Larval and Post-larval Halibut

Journal article Estuaries and Coasts · January 1, 2013 Estuarine recruitment of fishes is a potential bottleneck in the life cycle of many coastal species. We investigated patterns of size-at-ingress for larval and post-larval California halibut entering the Punta Banda Estuary (PBE), Mexico, using both otolit ... Full text Cite

What controls connectivity? An empirical, multi-species approach.

Conference Integrative and comparative biology · October 2012 The exchange of individuals among habitat patches (connectivity) has broad relevance for the conservation and management of marine metapopulations. Elemental fingerprinting-based research conducted over the past 12 years along the open coastline and bays o ... Full text Open Access Cite

Friend or foe: Conflicting demands and conditional risk taking by opportunistic scavengers

Journal article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · July 1, 2012 To optimize individual fitness, prey should balance predation threats with their own foraging demands. For prey that have additional competitive or positive interactions with their predators, however, little is known about the dynamics that regulate risk m ... Full text Cite

Response of coastal fishes to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Journal article PloS one · January 2011 The ecosystem-level impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster have been largely unpredictable due to the unique setting and magnitude of this spill. We used a five-year (2006-2010) data set within the oil-affected region to explore acute consequences for e ... Full text Open Access Cite

Connectivity clues from short-term variability in settlement and geochemical tags of mytilid mussels

Journal article Journal of Sea Research · January 1, 2011 The use of geochemical tags in calcified structures of fish and invertebrates is an exciting tool for investigating larval population connectivity. Tag evaluation over relatively short intervals (weeks) may detect environmental and ecological variability a ... Full text Cite

Differential habitat use and antipredator response of juvenile roach (Rutilus rutilus) to olfactory and visual cues from multiple predators.

Journal article Oecologia · April 2010 The indirect, behavioral effects of predation and predator-predator interactions can significantly alter the trophic ecology of many communities. In numerous instances, the strength of these effects may be determined by the ability of prey to identify pred ... Full text Cite

Multiple prey effects: Agonistic behaviors between prey species enhances consumption by their shared predator

Journal article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · April 1, 2010 Multiple prey species may affect consumption by their shared predator in a non-additive fashion which cannot be predicted by summing pairwise predator-prey interactions within food webs. By manipulating prey species richness and identity in experimental me ... Full text Cite

Climate-related, decadal-scale assemblage changes of seagrass-associated fishes in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Journal article Global Change Biology · January 1, 2010 Global temperatures are rising, and are expected to produce a poleward shift in the distribution of many organisms. We quantified changes in fish assemblages within seagrass meadows of the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) between the 1970s and 2006-2007, and ... Full text Cite

High densities and depth-associated changes of epibenthic megafauna along the aleutian margin from 2000-4200m

Journal article Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom · December 1, 2009 The Aleutian margin is a dynamic environment underlying a productive coastal ocean and subject to frequent tectonic disturbance. In July 2004, we used over 500 individual bottom images from towed camera transects to investigate patterns of epibenthic megaf ... Full text Cite

Enzymatic microbial Mn(II) oxidation and Mn biooxide production in the Guaymas Basin deep-sea hydrothermal plume

Journal article Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta · November 1, 2009 Microorganisms play important roles in mediating biogeochemical reactions in deep-sea hydrothermal plumes, but little is known regarding the mechanisms that underpin these transformations. At Guaymas Basin (GB) in the Gulf of California, hydrothermal vents ... Full text Cite

Use of population fitness to evaluate the nursery function of juvenile habitats

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · July 21, 2009 Juveniles of many fish and invertebrate species are able to select among a diverse port folio of nursery habitat alternatives. Environmental heterogeneity among these habitats generates variation in the vital rates of young individuals that may influence o ... Full text Cite

Geological and biological heterogeneity of the Aleutian margin (1965-4822 m)

Journal article Progress in Oceanography · January 1, 2009 Geological, biological and biogeochemical characterization of the previously unexplored margin off Unimak Island, Alaska between 1965 and 4822 m water depth was conducted to examine: (1) the geological processes that shaped the margin, (2) the linkages bet ... Full text Cite

Short-term size-specific distribution and movement patterns of juvenile flatfish in a Pacific estuary derived through length-frequency and mark-recapture data

Journal article Ciencias Marinas · January 1, 2009 Evaluating small-scale distribution and movement patterns of juvenile fishes within estuarine systems is necessary for identifying favorable nursery habitats and adequately interpreting local instantaneous growth and mortality estimates. Fine-scale, size-s ... Full text Cite

Unintended facilitation between marine consumers generates enhanced mortality for their shared prey.

Journal article Ecology · December 2008 We manipulated predator densities and prey vulnerability to explore how interactions between two predators affect overall mortality of their shared prey. Our three-member study system included eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and two of its major co ... Full text Cite

Tracking juvenile fish movement and nursery contribution within arid coastal embayments via otolith microchemistry

Journal article Marine Ecology Progress Series · June 9, 2008 An increasingly common approach for examining the movement of fish involves elemental fingerprinting, which exploits variation in the chemical composition of otoliths induced by environmental gradients. We assessed the elemental signatures of recently depo ... Full text Cite

Linking juvenile habitat utilization to population dynamics of California halibut

Journal article Limnology and Oceanography · January 1, 2008 We investigated the nursery role of four coastal ecosystems for the California halibut (Paralichthys californicus) using the following metrics: (1) contribution in producing the fish that advance to older age classes, (2) connectivity of coastal systems re ... Full text Cite

Complex larval connectivity patterns among marine invertebrate populations.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · February 2007 Based on the belief that marine larvae, which can spend days to months in the planktonic stage, could be transported considerable distances by ocean currents, it has long been assumed that populations of coastal species with a planktonic larval stage are d ... Full text Cite

Intraspecific density regulates positioning and feeding mode selection of the sand dollar Dendraster excentricus

Journal article Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology · January 23, 2007 Dendraster excentricus is a common sand dollar of nearshore benthic habitats along the west coast of North America, and has the ability to feed either on deposited or suspended food particles. Field surveys and manipulative experiments demonstrated that in ... Full text Cite

Availability, usage and expected contribution of potential nursery habitats for the California halibut

Journal article Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science · June 1, 2006 Coastal ecosystems have been identified as important nursery habitats for many of the world's fishery species. Beyond this, there remain many questions about what exactly constitutes high-value, even critical, habitat for juvenile fish. A first step in inv ... Full text Cite

Spatial and temporal variation in trace elemental fingerprints of mytilid mussel shells: A precursor to invertebrate larval tracking

Journal article Limnology and Oceanography · January 1, 2005 Elements incorporated into developing hard parts of planktonic larvae record the environmental conditions experienced during growth. These chemical signatures, termed elemental fingerprints, potentially allow for reconstruction of locations of larvae. Here ... Full text Cite

The nearshore fish assemblage of the Scripps Coastal Reserve, San Diego, California

Journal article Coastal Management · October 1, 2004 Marine reserves are quickly becoming a primary tool in the management of coastal resources worldwide. With a growing demand for appropriate management strategies and enforcement of existing regulations, an urgent need has developed to obtain baseline data ... Full text Cite

Site-specific and density-dependent extinction of prey by schooling rays: Generation of a population sink in top-quality habitat for bay scallops

Journal article Oecologia · January 1, 2001 Bay scallops (Argopecten irradians concentricus) are patchily distributed on two dominant spatial scales: (1) geographically restricted to highly saline marine lagoons, and (2) locally abundant within such lagoons only in relatively discrete beds of seagra ... Full text Cite