Publications

Organic acid charge groups in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contribute to total alkalinity (TA), i.e. organic alkalinity (OrgAlk). Its effect is often ignored or treated as a calculation uncertainty in many aquatic CO2 studies. This study evaluated the variability, sources, and characteristics of OrgAlk in estuarine waters exchanged tidally with a groundwater-influenced salt marsh in the northeas

The American eel (Anguilla rostrata ) is an imperilled fish hypothesized to use conspecific cues, in part, to coordinate long‐distance migration during their multistage life history. Here, holding water and tissue from multiple American eel life stages was collected and analysed for the presence, profile and concentration of bile acids. Distinct bile acid profiles were identified in glass, elver,

The topic of carbon sequestration in coastal salt marshes can serve as the basis of an investigation story line with plenty of authentic relevance and drama! Consider establishing the context with students as an introduction to this lesson. Many resources for teaching about carbon uptake and sequestration in coastal wetlands can be found at the Bringing Wetlands to Market website. Some of the elem

There is global interest in quantifying changing biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. Ecoacoustics may offer a promising pathway for supporting multi-taxa monitoring, but its scalability has been hampered by the sonic complexity of biodiverse ecosystems and the imperfect detectability of animal-generated sounds. The acoustic signature of a habitat, or soundscape, contains information about m

A rapid batch extraction method was evaluated to estimate potential for total dissolved solids (TDS) release by 65 samples of rock from coal and gas-bearing strata of the Appalachian Basin in eastern USA. Three different extractant solutions were considered: deionized water (DI), DI equilibrated with 10% CO2 atmosphere (DI + CO2), or 30% H2O2 under 10% CO2 (H2O2+CO2). In all extractions, 10 g of p

Although most countries banned manufacturing of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) over 40 years ago, PCBs remain a global concern for wildlife and human health due to high bioaccumulation and biopersistance. PCB uptake mechanisms have been well studied in many taxa; however, less is known about depuration rates and how post-exposure diet can influence PCB concentrations and immune response in fish

The transition from species in allopatry to sympatry, i.e., the co-occurrence zone of competing species, allows for investigation of forces structuring range limits and provides evidence of the evolutionary and population responses of competing species, including mechanisms facilitating co-occurrence (e.g., character displacement). The Shenandoah Salamander (Plethodon shenandoah), an endangered pl

Avian influenza (AI) affects wild aquatic birds and poses hazards to human health, food security, and wildlife conservation globally. Accordingly, there is a recognized need for new methods and tools to help quantify the dynamic interaction between wild bird hosts and commercial poultry. Using satellite-marked waterfowl, we applied Bayesian joint hierarchical modeling to concurrently model specie

Analysis of species abundance trends can inform an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. We evaluated spatial and temporal trends in fish species abundance in the non-tidal Potomac River (USA) from a dataset comprising 2841 seine-hauls with > 250,000 individual fish records across 10 sites and 43 years (1975-2017). The dataset contained 47 species from 7 taxonomic families, with species rich

The U.S. Geological Survey assessed undiscovered unconventional hydrocarbon resources reservoired in the Upper Cretaceous Tuscaloosa marine shale (TMS) of southern Mississippi and adjacent Louisiana in 2018. As part of the assessment, oil-source rock correlations were examined in the TMS play area where operators produce light (38–45° API), sweet oil from horizontal, hydraulically-fractured wells

Sediment budgets are a critical metric to assess coastal marsh vulnerability to sea-level rise and declining riverine sediment inputs. However, calculating accurate sediment budgets is challenging in tidal marsh-influenced estuaries where suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) typically vary on scales of hours and meters, and where SSC dynamics are driven by a complex and often site-specific inte

Random forests have become an established tool for classication and regres- sion, in particular in high-dimensional settings and in the presence of non-additive predictor-response relationships. For bounded outcome variables restricted to the unit interval, however, classical modeling approaches based on mean squared error loss may severely suer as they do not account for heteroscedasticity in the