Anomalously High Recruitment of the 2010 Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) Year Class: Evidence of Indirect Effects from the Deepwater Horizon Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Gulf menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) exhibited unprecedented juvenile recruitment in 2010 during the year of the Deepwater Horizon well blowout, exceeding the prior 39-year mean by more than four standard deviations near the Mississippi River. Abundance of that cohort remained exceptionally high for two subsequent years as recruits moved into older age classes. Such changes in this dominant forage fish population can be most parsimoniously explained as consequences of release from predation.

Marsh macrophyte responses to inundation anticipate impacts of sea-level rise and indicate ongoing drowning of North Carolina marshes.

In situ persistence of coastal marsh habitat as sea level rises depends on whether macrophytes induce compensatory accretion of the marsh surface. Experimental planters in two North Carolina marshes served to expose two dominant macrophyte species to six different elevations spanning 0.75 m (inundation durations 0.