Bacterioplankton communities are deeply diverse within and across environments, yet also display repeatable patterns over seasonal and annual time scales. I assessed patterns of bacterioplankton community variability across the Columbia River coastal margin over space and time. Coastal zones encompass a complex spectrum of environmental gradients, which impact the composition of bacterioplankto...

Coastal aquatic environments are typically more highly productive and dynamic than open ocean ones. Despite these differences, cyanobacteria from the genus Synechococcus are important primary producers in both types of ecosystems. We have found that the genome of a coastal cyanobacterium, Synechococcus sp. strain CC9311, has significant differences from an open ocean strain, Synechococcus sp. s...

•Thin layers of plankton are commonly found in coastal environments, with a vertical scale ranging from centimeters to a few meters, but extending horizontally over kilometers. The abundance of organisms in these layers is several orders of magnitude higher than background levels1 and are persistent, lasting hours to days. These layers are highly productive and can contain 50-75% of the total b...

Increasing coastal space resource utilization (CSRU) activities and their impact on coastal environments has been recognized as a critical coastal zone stressor. Consequently, the need for sustainable and valid CSRU management has been highlighted. In this study, a highly-intelligent prototype decision-aided system for CSRU was developed. In contrast with existing coastal decision-aided systems...

Geographic environment is a combination of natural and cultural environments under which humans survive. Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE) is a new multi-disciplinary initiative that links geosciences, geographic information sciences and information technologies. A VGE is a virtual representation of the natural world that enables a person to explore and interact with vast amounts of natural ...

Road networks are important for modelling the urban geographic environment. It is necessary to determine the spatial relationships of road intersections when using maps to help researchers conduct virtual urban geographic experiments (because a road intersection might occur as a connected cross or as an unconnected bridge overpass). Based on the concept of using different map layers to organize...

Anthropogenic marine debris (AMD) is frequently studied on sandy beaches and occasionally in coastal waters, but links between these two environments have rarely been studied. High densities of AMD were found in coastal waters and on local shores of a large bay system in northern-central Chile. No seasonal pattern in AMD densities was found, but there was a trend of increasing densities over th...