Adaptive management as a foundational framework for developing collaborative estuary management programs.

Collaborative nonregulatory programs can benefit the long-term sustainability of environmental resources. Such programs benefit from extensive planning and assessment relative to ecological systems as well as public participation. While many programs use adaptive management as a guiding programmatic framework, few programs successfully integrate social and human context into their adaptive management frameworks.

Short exposure to oxygen and sulfide alter nitrification, denitrification, and DNRA activity in seasonally hypoxic estuarine sediments.

Increased organic loading to sediments from eutrophication often results in hypoxia, reduced nitrification and increased production of hydrogen sulfide, altering the balance between nitrogen removal and retention. We examined the effect of short-term exposure to various oxygen and sulfide concentrations on sediment nitrification, denitrification and DNRA from a chronically hypoxic basin in Roskilde Fjord, Denmark. Surprisingly, nitrification rates were highest in the hypoxic and anoxic treatments (about 5 μmol cm-3 d-1) and the high sulfide treatment was not significantly different than the oxic treatment.

Living oysters and their shells as sites of nitrification and denitrification.

Oysters provide a critical habitat, are a food resource for higher trophic levels and support important commercial fisheries throughout the world. Oyster reefs can improve water quality by removing phytoplankton. While sediment denitrification may be enhanced adjacent to oyster reefs, little is known about nitrification and denitrification associated with living oysters and their shells.

Thunderstorms Increase Mercury Wet Deposition.

Mercury (Hg) wet deposition, transfer from the atmosphere to Earth's surface by precipitation, in the United States is highest in locations and seasons with frequent deep convective thunderstorms, but it has never been demonstrated whether the connection is causal or simple coincidence. We use rainwater samples from over 800 individual precipitation events to show that thunderstorms increase Hg concentrations by 50% relative to weak convective or stratiform events of equal precipitation depth. Radar and satellite observations reveal that strong convection reaching the upper troposphere (where high atmospheric concentrations of soluble, oxidized mercury species (Hg(II)) are known to reside) produces the highest Hg concentrations in rain.

Reconciling the temperature dependence of respiration across timescales and ecosystem types.

Ecosystem respiration is the biotic conversion of organic carbon to carbon dioxide by all of the organisms in an ecosystem, including both consumers and primary producers. Respiration exhibits an exponential temperature dependence at the subcellular and individual levels, but at the ecosystem level respiration can be modified by many variables including community abundance and biomass, which vary substantially among ecosystems. Despite its importance for predicting the responses of the biosphere to climate change, it is as yet unknown whether the temperature dependence of ecosystem respiration varies systematically between aquatic and terrestrial environments.

Ammonia oxidation and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea from estuaries with differing histories of hypoxia.

Nitrification, the oxidation of NH(4)(+) to NO(2)(-) and subsequently to NO(3)(-), plays a central role in the nitrogen cycle and is often a critical first step in nitrogen removal from estuarine and coastal environments. The first and rate-limiting step in nitrification is catalyzed by the enzyme ammonia monooxygenase (AmoA). We evaluate the relationships between the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) amoA genes; potential nitrification rates and environmental variables to identify factors influencing AOA abundance and nitrifier activity in estuarine sediments.

Production, respiration and net ecosystem metabolism in U.S. estuaries.

Primary production, respiration, and net ecosystem metabolism (NEM) are useful indicators of ecosystem level trophic conditions within estuaries. In this study, dissolved oxygen data collected every half hour between January 1996 to December 1998 by the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Wide Monitoring Program were used to calculate primary production, respiration, and net ecosystem metabolism. Data from two sites at each of 14 Reserves were analyzed.