Just like any other ecosystem, coastal and estuarine ecosystems are complex and dynamic in terms of their species structure and functioning. The resilience of the different types of coastal ecosystem to change depends on the structural complexity of the different trophic relationships within the local food web, the connectivity between habitats and larger (eco)system units, and the ecological a...

Otolith shape analysis is one way to identify stocks of different fish species in the marine environment. Length, width, area, perimeter, form factor, aspect ratio, roundness, circularity, ellipticity and rectangularity analyses of otoliths were undertaken to assess patterns of spatial and temporal stock structure of a wide-ranging fish, the Arabian yellow fin sea bream Acanthopagrus arabicus. ...

STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE The northern Gulf of Mexico (i.e., U.S. Gulf of Mexico) continental shelf bottlenose dolphin stock inhabits waters from 20 to 200 m deep in the northern Gulf from the U.S.-Mexican border to the Florida Keys (Figure 1). Both “coastal” and “offshore” ecotypes of bottlenose dolphins occur in the Gulf of Mexico (Hersh and Duffield 1990; LeDuc and Curry 1998). T...

"Roughly 98% of the world’s oceans and coastal waters fall into the Case 1 category, and almost all bio-optical research has been directed toward these phytoplanktondominated waters. However, near-shore and estuarine Case 2 waters are disproportionately important to human interests such as recreation, fisheries, and military operations. It is therefore likely that Case 2 waters will receive inc...

Analysis of the shape properties of fish otolith is one way to identify stocks of different species in the marine environment. Length, width, area, perimeter, form factor, aspect ratio, roundness, circularity, ellipticity and rectangularity analyses of otoliths were undertaken to assess patterns of spatial and temporal stock structure of a wide-ranging fish, the Arabian yellow fin sea bream Aca...

The impact of anthropogenic activities on coastal waters is a cause of concern because such activities add to the total suspended sediment (TSS) budget of the coastal waters, which have negative impacts on the coastal ecosystem. Satellite remote sensing provides a powerful tool in monitoring TSS concentration at high spatiotemporal resolution, but coastal managers should be mindful that the sat...

Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (AD-N) is a significant source of nitrogen enrichment to nitrogen (N)limited estuarine and coastal waters downwind of anthropogenic emissions. Along the eastern U.S. coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, AD-N currently accounts for 10% to over 40% of new N loading to estuaries. Extension of the regional acid deposition model (RADM) to coastal shelf waters indicate...

We present a new approach to retrieve Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over the turbid coastal water. This approach supplements the operational Dark Target (DT) aerosol retrieval algorithm that currently does not conduct AOD retrieval in shallow waters that have visible sediments or sea-floor (i.e., Class 2 waters). Over the global coas...

Algal blooms occur frequently in the coastal waters of the western South China Sea (SCS). This paper reports spatial and temporal variations of algal bloom events in these waters from 1993 to 2007. Twenty-five algal bloom events occurred in summer in the coastal waters of South and Central Vietnam where they were associated with wind-induced, coastal, nutrient upwelling and river discharges; a ...