Freshwater

USGS will provide support to the Large-scale Marsh Creation – Upper Barataria Component Project by monitoring change in the area of land and water, and recovery of vegetation and elevation over time.

USGS researchers and their partners will develop a coupled hydrodynamic and water quality modeling system; calibrate and validate the models; assess and predict outcomes of a canal backfilling restoration project on key water quality attributes; and run the modeling system under a suite of climate change scenarios.

The USGS Joint Ecosystem Modeling team will use Bayesian networks to build a spatially explicit Everglades Vulnerability Analysis module based on current knowledge and existing data on fish density and biomass trends on the landscape.

USGS is collaborating with partners to develop a scientific vision for freshwater Mussel research.

Fifty-four biologists from nine organizations, including USGS, participated in a two-day Fish Slam event on December 13 - 14, 2023 in Southwest Florida.

Fish Slam events link research institutions such as museums and universities with federal, state, and local government agencies that possess expertise and field equipment to collect nonnative fishes, providing unique access to specimens for these institutions.

Fifty-seven fish biologists from 12 organizations participated in a three-day Fish Chat and Slam event in South Florida.

USGS scientists are working to determine the baseline population numbers of the Razor-backed Musk Turtle.

Forty-two fish biologists from seven organizations participated in a two-day Spring Fish Slam event in southwest Florida. Fourteen species of non-native fishes were collected or observed.

WARC researchers partnered with Gulf Sturgeon decision makers and biologists to develop a Bayesian network model that uses habitat characteristics to predict the quantity of juvenile winter foraging habitat under alternative river discharge and timing of juvenile arrival scenarios.

WARC Researchers are studying carbon, water, and nutrient cycling in upper estuarine wetlands.

Researchers will develop and optimize an eDNA assay to delineate the current distribution of P. inflatus . The assay will then be used to provide up-to-date distributional information and detection rates for P. inflatus in the Pearl River basin.