Publications
Connecting Conservation Practices to Local Stream Health in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
The USGS publishes peer-reviewed reports and journal articles which are used by Chesapeake Bay Program resource managers and policy makers to make science-based decisions for ecosystem conservation and restoration. Use the Search box below to find publications on selected topics.
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Filter Total Items: 930
Chesapeake Bay: A case study in resiliency and restoration
Chesapeake Bay (“mother of waters” or the “great shellfish Bay” in Algonquin), is the largest estuary in the United States and arguably the best studied estuary in the world. Chesapeake Bay is immense, with the main stem stretching 200 nautical miles (315 km) from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to its terminus at the Atlantic Ocean and an overall watershed encompassing 64,000 mi2...
Authors
Richard R Arnold, William C. Dennison, Louis A. Etgen, Peter Goodwin, Michael Paolisso, Gary W. Shenk, Ann Swanson, Nguyen Vargas
Population genetics of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in the southern Appalachian Mountains
Broad-scale patterns of genetic diversity for Brook Trout remain poorly understood across their endemic range in the eastern United States. We characterized variation at 12 microsatellite loci in 22,020 Brook Trout among 836 populations from Georgia, USA to Quebec, Canada to the western Great Lakes region. Within-population diversity was typically lower in the southern Appalachians...
Authors
David C. Kazyak, Barbara A. Lubinski, Matt A. Kulp, Kasey C. Pregler, Andrew R. Whiteley, Eric M. Hallerman, Jason A. Coombs, Y. Kanno, Jacob M Rash, Raymond P. Morgan, Jim W. Habera, Jason Henegar, T. Casey Weathers, Matthew T. Sell, Anthony Rabern, Dan Rankin, Tim L. King
Watershed and estuarine controls both influence plant community and tree growth changes in tidal freshwater forested wetlands along two U.S. mid-Atlantic rivers
The tidal freshwater zone near the estuarine head-of-tide is potentially sensitive to both sea-level rise and associated salinity increases as well as changing watershed inputs of freshwater and nutrients. We evaluated the vegetation response of tidal freshwater forested wetlands (TFFW) to changes in nontidal river versus estuarine controls along the longitudinal gradient of the...
Authors
Gregory Noe, Norman Bourg, Ken W. Krauss, Jamie Duberstein, Cliff R. Hupp
Optimization of a suite of flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) microsatellite markers for understanding the population genetics of introduced populations in the northeast United States
Flathead catfish are rapidly expanding into nonnative waterways throughout the United States. Once established, flathead catfish may cause disruptions to the local ecosystem through consumption and competition with native fishes, including species of conservation concern. Flathead catfish often become a popular sport fish in their introduced range, and so management strategies must...
Authors
Shannon L. White, Michael S. Eackles, Tyler Wagner, Megan K. Schall, Geoffrey D. Smith, Julian Avery, David C. Kazyak
The Chesapeake Bay program modeling system: Overview and recommendations for future development
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest, most productive, and most biologically diverse estuary in the continental United States providing crucial habitat and natural resources for culturally and economically important species. Pressures from human population growth and associated development and agricultural intensification have led to excessive nutrient and sediment inputs entering the Bay...
Authors
Raleigh Hood, Gary W. Shenk, Rachel L Dixon, Sean M.C Smith, William P. Ball, Jesse Bash, R. Batiuk, Kathy Boomer, Damian C Brady, Carl Cerco, Peter R. Claggett, Kim de Mutsert, Zachary M. Easton, Andrew J. Elmore, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs, Lora A. Harris, Thomas F. Ihde, Iara Lacher, Li Li, Lewis C. Linker, Andrew J. Miller, Julia M. Moriarty, Gregory Noe, George Onyullo, Kenneth A Rose, Katherine Skalak, Richard Tian, Tamie L Veith, Lisa A. Wainger, Donald E. Weller, Yinglong J. Zhang
Supporting cost-effective watershed management strategies for Chesapeake Bay using a modeling and optimization framework
Extensive efforts to adaptively manage nutrient pollution rely on Chesapeake Bay Program's (Phase 6) Watershed Model, called Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool (CAST), which helps decision-makers plan and track implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs). We describe mathematical characteristics of CAST and develop a constrained nonlinear BMP-subset model, software, and...
Authors
Daniel E Kaufman, Gary W. Shenk, Gopal Bhatt, Kevin Asplen, Olivia H. Devereux, Jessica Rigelman, J. Hugh Ellis, Benjamin F Hobbs, Darrell J Bosch, George L Van Houtven, Arthur E McGarity, Lewis C. Linker, William P. Ball
USGS Chesapeake Science Strategy 2021-2025
The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is a national treasure that provides almost $100 billion annually of goods and services. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), is one of the largest federal-state restoration partnerships in the United States and is underpinned by rigorous science. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a pivotal role as a science provider for assessing ecosystem condition and...
Authors
Kenneth Hyer, Scott W. Phillips
U.S. Geological Survey landscape science strategy 2020–2030
Across our Nation, multiple Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments are working with stakeholders and landowners to restore, conserve, and manage lands and resources to benefit fish, wildlife, and people. One of the largest Federal efforts is led by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), with multiple DOI agencies working to conserve and manage public lands, resources, and...
Authors
Karen E. Jenni, Sarah K. Carter, Nicholas G. Aumen, Zachary H. Bowen, John Bradford, Michael A. Chotkowski, Leslie Hsu, Peter S. Murdoch, Scott W. Phillips, Kevin L. Pope, Rudy Schuster, Melanie J. Steinkamp, Jake Weltzin, George Z. Xian
Advancing estuarine ecological forecasts: Seasonal hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay
Ecological forecasts are quantitative tools that can guide ecosystem management. The coemergence of extensive environmental monitoring and quantitative frameworks allows for widespread development and continued improvement of ecological forecasting systems. We use a relatively simple estuarine hypoxia model to demonstrate advances in addressing some of the most critical challenges and...
Authors
Donald Scavia, Isabella Bertani, Jeremy M. Testa, Aaron J. Bever, Joel D. Blomquist, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs, Lewis C. Linker, Bruce Michael, Rebecca Murphy, Gary W. Shenk
Perfluoroalkyl substances in plasma of smallmouth bass from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu is an economically important sportfish and within the Chesapeake Bay watershed has experienced a high prevalence of external lesions, infectious disease, mortality events, reproductive endocrine disruption and population declines. To date, no clear or consistent associations with contaminants measured in fish tissue or surface water have been found...
Authors
Vicki S. Blazer, Stephanie Gordon, Heather L. Walsh, Cheyenne R. Smith
Time marches on, but do the causal pathways driving instream habitat and biology remain consistent?
Stream ecosystems are complex networks of interacting terrestrial and aquatic drivers. To untangle these ecological networks, efforts evaluating the direct and indirect effects of landscape, climate, and instream predictors on biological condition through time are needed. We used structural equation modeling and leveraged a stream survey program to identify and compare important...
Authors
Richard H Walker, Matthew J. Ashton, Matthew J. Cashman, Rosemary M. Fanelli, Kevin P. Krause, Gregory Noe, Kelly O. Maloney
Atlantic sturgeon status and movement ecology in an extremely small spawning habitat: The Nanticoke River-Marshyhope Creek, Chesapeake Bay
Biotelemetry of Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus has exposed spawning behaviors in ever-smaller estuaries, surprising for the NW Atlantic’s largest anadromous species. Small estuary — the Nanticoke River and Marshyhope Creek (Chesapeake Bay) — spawning-run adults and their habitat affinities are described based upon direct sampling and biotelemetry for the period 2014...
Authors
D. H. Secor, M. H. P. O'Brien, N. Coleman, A. Horne, I. Park, David C. Kazyak, D. G. Bruce, Chuck Stence