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Articles 961 - 990 of 10266

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Characterization And Interpolation Of Sediment Pcbs And Pbdes In Resident Killer Whale Habitat Along The Coast Of British Columbia, Canada, Dr. Joseph Kim Apr 2022

Characterization And Interpolation Of Sediment Pcbs And Pbdes In Resident Killer Whale Habitat Along The Coast Of British Columbia, Canada, Dr. Joseph Kim

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Characterization and Interpolation of Sediment PCBs and PBDEs in Resident Killer Whale Habitat along the Coast of The northeastern Pacific Northern and Southern Resident Killer Whale (NRKW and SRKW) (Orcinus orca) populations are listed as threatened and endangered in Canada, respectively, with persistent, bioaccumulative contaminants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) posing threats to their recovery. Concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs in subtidal surface sediments collected from 97 sites along the British Columbia (BC) coast were used to identify their distribution and profiles, and to assess killer whale habitat quality. Victoria Harbour (VH3(site ID: 1)) sediments …

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Salish Sea Initiative Interactive Map, Tamara Fraser, Dr. Kathryn Berry Apr 2022

Salish Sea Initiative Interactive Map, Tamara Fraser, Dr. Kathryn Berry

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Salish Sea Initiative (SSI) is a Government of Canada, Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) Accommodation Measure designed to respond to First Nations concerns about the potential environmental impacts of human activities on coastal and marine ecosystems in the Salish Sea. Led by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the SSI aims to support the capacity building of eligible First Nations within and around the Salish Sea to plan, develop and conduct marine stewardship activities, including environmental monitoring, traditional use studies, and cumulative effects assessments. Thirty-three First Nations are eligible to participate in SSI and the initiative runs until March 2024. A key …

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Monitoring Xenoestrogen Exposure And Endocrine Disruption In A Puget Sound Benthic Flatfish, English Sole (Parophrys Vetulus), Dr. Louisa Harding Apr 2022

Monitoring Xenoestrogen Exposure And Endocrine Disruption In A Puget Sound Benthic Flatfish, English Sole (Parophrys Vetulus), Dr. Louisa Harding

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Xenoestrogens, including natural estrogens and synthetic chemicals that mimic estrogens, can disrupt endocrine functions and reproduction in exposed fish. These chemicals are widespread, often entering the environment due to human activities such as industrial discharge, wastewater treatment plant effluents, stormwater or agricultural runoff. Vitellogenin (vtg) is an egg-yolk protein precursor synthesized in the liver of female fish in response to naturally produced estrogens during their normal reproductive cycle. However, vitellogenin can be abnormally induced in male fish if they are exposed to xenoestrogens, making this protein a suitable and widely used biomarker of xenoestrogen exposure. Vitellogenin in English sole is …

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Resilient Coasts For Salmon - Empowering Communities With Nature-Based Solutions To Adapt To Climate Change, Kyla Sheehan Apr 2022

Resilient Coasts For Salmon - Empowering Communities With Nature-Based Solutions To Adapt To Climate Change, Kyla Sheehan

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Coastal communities in the Salish Sea are facing unprecedented challenges as climate change continues to evolve. A five-year project collaboration between the Pacific Salmon Foundation and the Stewardship Centre for BC, called Resilient Coasts for Salmon: Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change (RC4S), is working to empower citizens by providing nature-based solutions that encourage resiliency for coastal communities and ecosystems. Utilizing a multifaceted approach, RC4S is raising public awareness about climate change impacts in local South and East Coast Vancouver Island communities and nature-based solutions to help adapt to those threats. RC4S is also building professional capacity in shoreline restoration through …

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Northern Salish Sea Vital Kelp Project - Cultivation And Out-Plant Of Kelp For Fish Habitat. Timing And Use By Fish., Lee-Ann Ennis Apr 2022

Northern Salish Sea Vital Kelp Project - Cultivation And Out-Plant Of Kelp For Fish Habitat. Timing And Use By Fish., Lee-Ann Ennis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Four years ago we began investigating ways we could restore critical kelp habitat to areas we observed decimated by urchin grazing and marine heat waves. We attended a 'Kelp Restoration Workshop' on Hornby Island where we were inspired by community members working on kelp restoration. We learned about seeding kelp on line, we did a literature review investigating kelp culturing techniques, we sought out the advice of academics and experts and then we took action. We have taken up the practice of nursery cultivation of kelp and out-planting of kelp on line at permitted aquaculture leases on the Sunshine Coast, …

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Plankton Biomass Decomposition Enriches For Methanogenic Archaea In Near-Shore Waters Of Puget Sound, Clarissa Troutman Apr 2022

Plankton Biomass Decomposition Enriches For Methanogenic Archaea In Near-Shore Waters Of Puget Sound, Clarissa Troutman

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Aerobic marine surface waters are typically oversaturated with the greenhouse gas methane. This phenomenon is known as the “ocean methane paradox” because of the existing paradigm that methanogenesis is restricted to anaerobic environments. As a result, the ocean emits large quantities of methane to the atmosphere. Near-shore and coastal waters are responsible for the majority of oceanic methane emissions. Yet the biological sources of methane remain poorly characterized. Resolving the biological underpinnings of coastal methane production is important for assessing its sensitivity to ocean change and predicting future contributions of coastal waters to global methane emissions. We explored decaying plankton …

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Examining Changes In Abundance And Distribution Of Zostera Marina (Eelgrass) Within The San Juan Islands., Robert Hoekendorf Apr 2022

Examining Changes In Abundance And Distribution Of Zostera Marina (Eelgrass) Within The San Juan Islands., Robert Hoekendorf

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Zostera marina (eelgrass) supports an integral estuarine and coastal ecosystem throughout the Salish Sea. A diverse and extensive array of organisms live within or utilize these undersea meadows in the Pacific Northwest including anemones, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, and sea birds. Eelgrass beds also provide habitat for species harvested by commercial and native fisheries including Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi), juvenile coho (Osteichthyes kisutch), and chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha). Extensive eelgrass meadows within the Salish Sea have important roles not only in the life cycles of these organisms, but also on the people who rely on them. Eelgrass …

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Restoring Damaged And Declining Eelgrass In The San Juan Archipelago: A Pioneering Program Using Seeds, Yuki Wilmerding, Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria Apr 2022

Restoring Damaged And Declining Eelgrass In The San Juan Archipelago: A Pioneering Program Using Seeds, Yuki Wilmerding, Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The importance of eelgrass (Zostera marina) comes alive through the Coast Salish people’s cultural stories and practices. The presence of these marine flowering plants is important for culturally iconic species such as the Dungeness Crab and Pacific Herring. In the San Juan Archipelago, loss of historical spawning sites for herring appears to coincide with eelgrass decline. In an effort to offset eelgrass decline, the Puget Sound Eelgrass Recovery Strategy outlines a program that includes a plan to “restore and enhance damaged or declining eelgrass beds”. The uprooting and replanting of adult eelgrass plants is commonly used as a restoration technique. …

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Earthquakes, Ecological Change, And Human Modification: Records In Sediments Of The Duwamish Delta At Seattle, Washington, Elizabeth Davis Apr 2022

Earthquakes, Ecological Change, And Human Modification: Records In Sediments Of The Duwamish Delta At Seattle, Washington, Elizabeth Davis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Sediments at the Duwamish delta record natural hazards, ecological change, and human modification of the landscape. We examine these deposits in former tidelands and beneath Elliott Bay to study records of earthquakes and set the geologic backdrop from which other influences can be distinguished. The delta crosses the Seattle Fault Zone, which has produced large earthquakes in recent millennia. Despite extensive study and substantial seismic hazard to Seattle and the surrounding region, the location, structure, and frequency of earthquakes in the Seattle Fault Zone is poorly-known, in part because the faults are obscured by complicated overlying sediments. To study these …

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A Persistent Mid-Water Column Hypoxic Zone With Low Ph And Caco3 Saturation State In Toba Inlet, Dr. Alex Hare Apr 2022

A Persistent Mid-Water Column Hypoxic Zone With Low Ph And Caco3 Saturation State In Toba Inlet, Dr. Alex Hare

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Oxygen concentrations in many coastal areas have declined over the last several decades, increasing the prevalence of low oxygen zones and hypoxia ([O2] < 63 µmol kg-1). This trend is driven by warming temperatures that decrease oxygen solubility, biological metabolism, and ocean stratification, as well as by anthropogenic nutrient loading. Coastal waters, however, also contain environments naturally predisposed to low-oxygen concentrations, particularly in fjords where sills restrict sub-surface water exchange and associated re-oxygenation, and geography constrains freshwater runoff and nutrient loadings. Low-oxygen waters are also commonly associated with low pH and conditions corrosive to CaCO3 through mechanistic links between processes related to both deoxygenation and the inorganic carbon system. Such settings are therefore sensitive to further oxygen decline and additional carbon inputs, making them vulnerable to both hypoxia and ocean acidification. Here, we identify and characterize a persistent mid-water column hypoxic zone with regionally low pH in Toba Inlet in the northern Salish Sea, and evaluate the processes controlling this feature. The hypoxic zone is present year-round and is most intense near the fjord head, but extends seaward across the entire fjord (~ 40 km) at its greatest extent, often encompassing > 200 m of the water column. However, in contrast with typical fjord systems, Toba Inlet does not contain a sill, but joins several deep channels that connect to the Strait of Georgia at roughly twice the oxygen minimum depth, commonly observed around 100 m deep. Together, these characteristics imply additional processes to sub-surface water exchange maintain the extent and intensity of hypoxia and low seawater pH conditions in Toba Inlet. We investigate a suite of processes including …

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The Impacts Of Historical Wood Storage On Nearshore Eelgrass (Zostera Marina) Habitat (Won't Present Live), Sonia Domarchuk-White Apr 2022

The Impacts Of Historical Wood Storage On Nearshore Eelgrass (Zostera Marina) Habitat (Won't Present Live), Sonia Domarchuk-White

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

There is an extensive history of log storage along the coasts of the Salish Sea. The protected bays and estuaries that are ideal for log booms are also prime locations for eelgrass beds. As such, considerable amounts of valuable salmon habitat have been destroyed due to the legacy of log storage activities. Many log storage areas are being decommissioned and have the potential to be eelgrass restoration sites, however, selecting suitable sites is challenging. Where logs have been stored there is often accumulated sloughed off bark that has settled on the sediment. This woody debris creates a cap over the …

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Plankton Presence And Gradients Along The Merge Between Estuary And River Water, Casandra Jade Laney Apr 2022

Plankton Presence And Gradients Along The Merge Between Estuary And River Water, Casandra Jade Laney

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Understanding plankton presence is essential for marine health, as they are the food of the ocean. They feed larger animals on the food chain and help bring nutrients to the water. If certain plankton species that are unusual to a particular ecosystem are present, or if a water system is missing an essential type of plankton, it could severely impact marine organism presence located further up the food chain. The goal of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between plankton species presence and the intersection of water systems. To examine this, chlorophyll, plankton, salinity, and temperature …

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Coastal Erosion Hazard Assessment Results Along Clallam County, Wa, Hannah Drummond Apr 2022

Coastal Erosion Hazard Assessment Results Along Clallam County, Wa, Hannah Drummond

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Washington State Department of Ecology performed an erosion hazard assessment for the coast of Clallam County, WA, from Cape Flattery to Diamond Point as part of a project for hazard mitigation planning funded by the Washington State Military Department Emergency Management Division. This shoreline receives among the highest wave energy for the Salish Sea and its rugged and remote coastline creates challenges for shoreline change assessments outside of developed areas. NAIP imagery from multiple years was compared to determine if an erosion risk was present based on vegetation line retreat. Oblique shoreline photos were used to help resolve imagery …

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Experimental Olympia Oyster Restoration At Penrose Point State Park, Stena Troyer Apr 2022

Experimental Olympia Oyster Restoration At Penrose Point State Park, Stena Troyer

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

To better understand the potential for an Olympia oyster restoration at Penrose Point State Park, this project utilized experimental test plots established in September 2020, recruitment monitoring over the last three years, and long-term monitoring efforts since 2013. The project found that the test plots varied both in the stability of shell substrate and the survival of outplanted oyster seed. This survival of seed was lower than anticipated after 9 months and therefore, the monitoring efforts did not detect any differences between Penrose Point and the reference site at Maple Hollow Park. Additionally, larval settlement of Olympia oysters at Penrose …

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2021 Particle Grain-Size And Total Organic Content Analyses Of Surface Sediments From Puget Sound And Elliot Bay Near Seattle, Wa, Jessica Wolford, Ethan Hoang, Julie Masura Apr 2022

2021 Particle Grain-Size And Total Organic Content Analyses Of Surface Sediments From Puget Sound And Elliot Bay Near Seattle, Wa, Jessica Wolford, Ethan Hoang, Julie Masura

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Sediment characteristics are important to analyze to connect environmental conditions to sea floor sediments and characteristics of interest (i.e., benthic communities). Total organic carbon can represent oxygenated or reduced environments and/or biological vitality depending on water depth. Grain-size can represent high or low energy if sandy or silty, and the variability of grain-sizes (sorting) can indicate stormy conditions, landslides, or dumping. Washington State Department of Ecology’s Marine Sediment Monitoring Team has provided sediment samples to the University of Washington Tacoma for analysis since 2014, supporting undergraduate research efforts. This poster will present data on total organic carbon and particle grain-size …

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A Five Year Look At The Impacts Of Ph Seasonally And Spatially Within Possession Sound, Maxwell Bauccio-Teschlog Apr 2022

A Five Year Look At The Impacts Of Ph Seasonally And Spatially Within Possession Sound, Maxwell Bauccio-Teschlog

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The ability for an ecosystem’s organisms to adapt and thrive is dependent on the water chemistry. Capabilities for adaptation to the ever-changing environment are affected by the pH, or the acidity, of the water. Microorganisms, which are the foundation for a healthy ecosystem, are impacted by the pH of the water, and thus their ability to thrive depends on it. Globally, the pH of the ocean is decreasing as a result of ocean acidification caused by increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Within the Salish Sea, which is home to an abundance of life, lies Possession Sound, located off the shores of …

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West Whidbey Island Beach And Bluff Change Between 2015, 2018, And 2021 From Boat-Based Lidar, Amanda Hacking Apr 2022

West Whidbey Island Beach And Bluff Change Between 2015, 2018, And 2021 From Boat-Based Lidar, Amanda Hacking

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Washington State Department of Ecology Coastal Monitoring & Analysis Program (CMAP) collected high-resolution coastal topographic data along west Whidbey Island with boat-based lidar in 2015, 2018, and 2021. The high-density data acquired along the beach and bluff enabled detailed measurements of morphology and the generation of 0.5-meter digital elevation models (DEMs). The overlap between all three datasets, from Point Partridge north to West Beach County Park, is a 9-km reach dominated by feeder bluffs along the updrift end of a 23-km drift cell with relatively high wave exposure. The DEMs are compared along this updrift reach to reveal patterns …

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Prevalence, Distribution, And Control Of Shell-Boring Polychaetes On Oyster Farms From California To Alaska, Dr. Julieta Martinelli Apr 2022

Prevalence, Distribution, And Control Of Shell-Boring Polychaetes On Oyster Farms From California To Alaska, Dr. Julieta Martinelli

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Marine polychaetes in the genus Polydora (and other related genera) burrow into the shells of commercially important bivalves, creating unsightly blisters and burrows. Because they are unappealing to consumers, these blisters are an economic burden on producers whose stock goes to the half-shell market. The US west coast is the leading producer of aquaculture oysters in the country, making it important to understand the prevalence of these pests in Pacific oysters. We obtained over 3,000 oysters from 35 farms in four states (CA, OR, WA and AK) to determine infestation prevalence. Prevalence per state ranged from 13 to 37%. Polychaetes …

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How Does Stuff Wash Ashore In The Salish Sea?, Rich Pawlowicz Apr 2022

How Does Stuff Wash Ashore In The Salish Sea?, Rich Pawlowicz

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

How does stuff wash ashore in the Salish Sea? The shores of the Salish Sea are covered in logs and trash ranging from large half-destroyed floats down to small pieces of plastic. How does it all get there? Over the past 6 years nearly 500 drifters, equipped with GPS to record positions with an accuracy of a few meters every 10-20 minutes, have been released in these waters (see drifters.eos.ubc.ca), and they have washed ashore more than 700 times. This resulted in plenty of interesting anecdotes, as tracks show a variety of surprising behaviors (including getting run down by ships). …

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Tidal Influence On The Fraser River Plume, Shumin Li Apr 2022

Tidal Influence On The Fraser River Plume, Shumin Li

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

River plumes may affect shelf ecosystem processes in a variety of ways, from the suspended sediment transport to the carbon cycling and anthropogenic nutrient delivery. In the Strait of Georgia, the Fraser River outflow (plume) is the main source of fresh water, sediments, contaminants and nutrients, which are vitally important to the biological activities and the toxic plankton blooms in the Salish Sea. In the past decades, extensive studies have shown the wind, wave and river influence on the structure, shape and area of the Fraser River plume, but the tidal modulation of this buoyant water mass is less known. …

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Analyzing Trends Of Dissolved Oxygen And Abundance Of Crab Zoea In Possession Sound, Thunder Lambright Apr 2022

Analyzing Trends Of Dissolved Oxygen And Abundance Of Crab Zoea In Possession Sound, Thunder Lambright

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Analyzing Trends of Dissolved Oxygen and Abundance of Crab Zoea in Possession Sound During the 2019/2020 recreational crab season, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported over 735,000 pounds of legal Dungeness crab harvested in Possession Sound and the Strait of Jan de Fuca. This enormous fishery relies on numerous variables to stay alive, including the essential factor, dissolved oxygen. Low levels of dissolved oxygen can lead to an increased risk of disease and suffocation for crabs during all stages of life. When the level of dissolved oxygen drops below 2 mg/L, crustaceans including crab do not have enough …

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Sedimentology And Citizen Science: Ecological Monitoring In Carpenter Creek, Kingston, Wa., Quinn Habedank Apr 2022

Sedimentology And Citizen Science: Ecological Monitoring In Carpenter Creek, Kingston, Wa., Quinn Habedank

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Monitoring is a key component of any successful ecological restoration project. Being able to see how an ecosystem responds to restoration treatments is not only vital for planning out future restoration work, but also for more fully understanding how an ecosystem functions. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between two culvert removals done in Carpenter Creek, a tidal creek feeding an estuarine wetland in North Kitsap, and the texture of the alluvial sediments bedded by the creek. To accomplish this task, we used the R programming language to analyze and visualize sediment texture data collected by …

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Cyst Mapping Of Alexandrium Catenella In Surface Sediments Of Puget Sound From 2013-2021, Dr. Cheryl Greengrove Apr 2022

Cyst Mapping Of Alexandrium Catenella In Surface Sediments Of Puget Sound From 2013-2021, Dr. Cheryl Greengrove

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Alexandrium catenella is a dinoflagellate that produces saxitoxin, a powerful neurotoxin, known to bioaccumulate in filter-feeding shellfish. Mammals consuming these shellfish can experience paralytic shellfish poisoning, a severe toxin-induced illness. Alexandrium overwinters in seafloor sediments as a cyst, and in the spring and summer, when environmental conditions are right, these cysts germinate and become vegetative cells within the water column. Identification and enumeration of cysts is used to determine regions where there is a greater potential for these harmful algae to bloom. Since 2013, the University of Washington Tacoma has received sediment from the Department of Ecology’s Puget Sound Marine …

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The Presence Of Alexandrium Catenella Harmful Algal Bloom Cysts In Port Gardner, Wa In 2019, Caitlyn Mcfarland, Julie Masura, Cheryl Greengrove Apr 2022

The Presence Of Alexandrium Catenella Harmful Algal Bloom Cysts In Port Gardner, Wa In 2019, Caitlyn Mcfarland, Julie Masura, Cheryl Greengrove

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Harmful algal blooms occur seasonally throughout the Salish Sea. By using yearly acquired data, cyst concentration maps can help to predict the likelihood of harmful algal blooms occuring the following year. Alexandrium catenella is one of the monitored toxin-producing dinoflagellate species that potentially cause outbreaks of paralytic shellfish toxins which can contaminate filter-feeding shellfish in Puget Sound. In 2019, Washington’s Department of Ecology’s Puget Sound Marine Monitoring Group collected sediment samples throughout Puget Sound, including a comprehensive collection of sediment samples in Port Gardner, an inlet of Possession Sound not previously studied for harmful algal blooms. These samples were sent …

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Monitoring Overwintering Shorebird Use Of Agricultural And Intertidal Habitats In The Fraser River Delta Key Biodiversity Area, James Casey, Amie Macdonald, Myles Lamont Apr 2022

Monitoring Overwintering Shorebird Use Of Agricultural And Intertidal Habitats In The Fraser River Delta Key Biodiversity Area, James Casey, Amie Macdonald, Myles Lamont

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Due in part to the abundance and diversity of migratory birds it supports the Fraser River Delta is a globally and regionally significant estuary. Globally the number of birds in the delta triggers Key Biodiversity Area criteria D1 associated with Species Aggregations. Three species of shorebirds, Dunlin, Western Sandpiper and Black-bellied Plover meet this criteria in the delta. Because of the abundance of Western Sandpiper and Dunlin the delta is also a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network Site of Hemispheric Importance. In combination, these designations ensure the conservation of the Fraser River Delta is a priority within Pacific Flyway scale …

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Delineating And Monitoring Bluff Toe Positions From Boat-Based Lidar To Quantify Morphology Change At Edgewater Beach, Wa, Phd, Pe George Kaminsky, Heather Weiner, Hannah Drummond Apr 2022

Delineating And Monitoring Bluff Toe Positions From Boat-Based Lidar To Quantify Morphology Change At Edgewater Beach, Wa, Phd, Pe George Kaminsky, Heather Weiner, Hannah Drummond

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Washington State Department of Ecology Coastal Monitoring & Analysis Program (CMAP) has performed a total of four boat-based lidar surveys of a shoreline restoration project at Edgewater Beach in South Puget Sound where approximately 800 feet of shoreline armor was removed in 2016 from the base of a historic feeder bluff. Surveys were conducted in 2015 approximately one year before the restoration, 2017 approximately one year after the restoration, and additional surveys in 2019 and 2021. Boat-based lidar data were collected along the entire length of the drift cell to generate digital elevation models to determine beach morphology change …

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How Will Climate Change Affect Estuarine Nursery Quality? Findings From A Spatially Explicit Bioenergetics Model In The Nisqually River Delta, Dr. Melanie Davis Apr 2022

How Will Climate Change Affect Estuarine Nursery Quality? Findings From A Spatially Explicit Bioenergetics Model In The Nisqually River Delta, Dr. Melanie Davis

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Estuaries support the reproduction, growth, and survival of Pacific salmon by providing a diverse portfolio of unique habitats with varying physical and biological features. Global climate change is expected to have profound effects on estuarine nursery quality through increasing water temperatures, rising sea levels, and changes in riverine hydrology. We used a spatially explicit bioenergetics model to assess how different climate change and management scenarios might affect juvenile salmon growth relative to present day conditions in the Nisqually River Delta, Washington. The model indicated that reductions in the extent and accessibility of prey-rich habitats such as emergent salt marshes and …

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Effects Of Hypoxia And Acidification On The Swimming Behavior Of Calanus Pacificus: Lethal And Sublethal Responses To Stressors, Amy Wyeth Apr 2022

Effects Of Hypoxia And Acidification On The Swimming Behavior Of Calanus Pacificus: Lethal And Sublethal Responses To Stressors, Amy Wyeth

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Hypoxia and acidification are chemical stressors that are increasing in duration and extent in many coastal waters, including regions of the Salish Sea. Copepods, which play major roles in marine food webs and biogeochemical cycling, increasingly encounter water columns with these chemical stressors located at depth. Many copepods undergo diel vertical migration (DMV), swimming downwards during the day to avoid visual predation and upwards at night to feed on phytoplankton near the surface. Understanding behavioral responses of copepods to coastal stressors—particularly whether they avoid stressful conditions but potentially increase predation risk by altering DMV behavior—is important to anticipate impacts of …

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Estuary Acidification: A Five-Year Perspective On Ph In Possession Sound, Washington, Alexa Haucke Apr 2022

Estuary Acidification: A Five-Year Perspective On Ph In Possession Sound, Washington, Alexa Haucke

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

pH is the primary factor in ocean acidification. It is influenced by water chemistry, biological aspects, seasonal changes, and human activity. Low pH (acidic conditions) can contribute to hypoxia, coral bleaching, and other dangerous conditions for the ecosystem. In this study, the effects of ocean acidification in Possession Sound were examined over a five-year period, with the context of seasonal plankton blooms and changes in river discharge. This was accomplished using a YSI EXO Sonde periodically deployed nearshore in Mukilteo, Washington, USA used in partnership with Ocean Research College Academy. This site, being within the Snohomish River Estuary, is affected …

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Variations In Ph And Nutrients In Relation To Snohomish River Discharge In Possession Sound, Emma Lesueur Apr 2022

Variations In Ph And Nutrients In Relation To Snohomish River Discharge In Possession Sound, Emma Lesueur

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Nutrients support the lifecycles of marine organisms, making them an important factor in the health of an estuary. To maintain a hospitable environment in an estuary, the pH is required to stay within the range of 7.5-8.5. Certain nutrients have strong correlations to pH, such as silicon, whose production is driven by acidic rainwater. Rainwater is one of the key elements that drives the discharge of the Snohomish River. In this research, nutrient concentrations were gathered at the mouth of the Snohomish River, at the Port of Everett within Possession Sound. These levels were compared to pH and river discharge …

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