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Publications

Explore WARC's science publications.

Filter Total Items: 3377

Communicating science

For science to have an impact, it must be communicated and easily accessible. The USGS National Wetlands Research Center communicates its research findings through several ways: publishing, the Web, the library, and education and outreach.
Authors
Gaye S. Farris

Leaf optical property changes associated with the occurrence of Spartina alterniflora dieback in Coastal Louisiana related to remote sensing mapping

In order to provide a remote sensing solution that would detect both the initial onset and monitor the early, as well as, the later stages of impact progression, changes in live leaf optical properties were compared along transects spanning impacted coastal Louisiana marsh sites. Green and red edge reflectance trends generally represented the early stages and fairly well the later stages of diebac
Authors
Elijah Ramsey III, Amina Rangoonwala

Effects of managed impoundments and herbivory on wetland plant production and stand structure

Managed impoundments, a form of structural marsh management, have been used to enhance plant production in the rapidly-eroding marshes of coastal Louisiana, USA, yet few studies have quantified their effects by measuring plant production before and after impoundment construction. We tested the effects of structural marsh management on the annual aboveground production and plant stand structure (st
Authors
Lori A. Randall Johnson, A. Lee Foote

Fine-scale spatial variation in plant species richness and its relationship to environmental conditions in coastal marshlands

Previous studies have shown that variations in environmental conditions play a major role in explaining variations in plant species richness at community and landscape scales. In this study, we considered the degree to which fine-scale spatial variations in richness could be related to fine-scale variations in abiotic and biotic factors. To examine spatial variation in richness, grids of 1 m2 plot
Authors
J.E. Mancera, G.C. Meche, P.P. Cardona-Olarte, E. Castaneda-Moya, R.L. Chiasson, N.A. Geddes, L.M. Schile, H.G. Wang, G.R. Guntenspergen, J.B. Grace

Estimating size and composition of biological communities by modeling the occurrence of species

We develop a model that uses repeated observations of a biological community to estimate the number and composition of species in the community. Estimators of community-level attributes are constructed from model-based estimators of occurrence of individual species that incorporate imperfect detection of individuals. Data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey are analyzed to illustrate the
Authors
Robert Dorazio, J. Andrew Royle

Implications of global climatic change and energy cost and availability for the restoration of the Mississippi delta

Over the past several thousand years, inputs from the Mississippi River formed the Mississippi delta, an area of about 25,000 km2. Over the past century, however, there has been a high loss of coastal wetlands of about 4800 km2. The main causes of this loss are the near complete isolation of the river from the delta, mostly due to the construction of flood control levees, and pervasive hydrologica
Authors
John W. Jr. Day

Depicting coastal Louisiana land loss

The Coastal Louisiana Land Loss map depicts historical (1932-2000) changes of land to water and water to land, as well as projected changes (2000-2050). Projections are based on the assumption of no future restoration.
Authors
Gregory J. Smith

Cryopreservation of sperm of red abalone (Haliotis rufescens)

Abalone culture, a developing industry in Baja California, Mexico, would benefit from genetic improvement and controlled breeding. The use of cryopreserved sperm would allow germplasm availability, and this study was designed to develop sperm cryopreservation protocols for red abalone Haliotis rufescens. The acute toxic effects of the cryoprotectants dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), propylene glycol (PG
Authors
L. Salinas-Flores, C. G. Paniagua-Chavez, J.A. Jenkins, T.R. Tiersch

Seed storage conditions change the germination pattern of clonal growth plants in Mediterranean salt marshes

The effect of salinity level and extended exposure to different salinity and flooding conditions on germination patterns of three salt‐marsh clonal growth plants (Juncus subulatus, Scirpus litoralis, and S. maritimus) was studied. Seed exposure to extended flooding and saline conditions significantly affected the outcome of the germination process in a different, though predictable, way for each s
Authors
J. L. Espinar, L. V. Garcia, L. Clemente

Predicted sex ratio of juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtles captured near Steinhatchee, Florida

The Kemp's Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) is one of the most endangered sea turtles in the world, and it possesses temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Sex ratios produced under TSD can vary widely and can affect the reproductive ecology of a population. Therefore, sex ratios produced from TSD are of ecological and conservation interest. The current study validated and utilized a testoster
Authors
A.A. Geis, W.J. Barichivich, T. Wibbels, M. Coyne, A.M. Landry, D. Owens