Climate change is projected to increase stress for many coastal plant communities. Along large portions of the North American coast, habitat degradation from anthropogenic changes to the environment already threaten the community structure of tidal marshes and submerged aquatic grass beds. The potential loss of ecological services historically provided by these communities has been a long-stand...

Chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities have a disproportionately high number of rare and endangered plants and thus are of particular conservation concern. Unnaturally high fire frequency has been a leading cause of degradation of chaparral and coastal sage scrub ecosystems. Although these shrublands are fire-adapted, below a certain threshold of fire frequency, resilience is inversely re...

RNA viruses infect marine organisms from bacteria to whales, but RNA virus communities in the sea remain essentially unknown. Reverse-transcribed whole-genome shotgun sequencing was used to characterize the diversity of uncultivated marine RNA virus assemblages. A diverse assemblage of RNA viruses, including a broad group of marine picorna-like viruses, and distant relatives of viruses infectin...

This project examined the effects of ecological factors and anthropogenic contaminants on benthic diatom communities near Casey Station, in the Windmill Islands, Antarctica. Preliminary sampling indicated significant compositional differences occurred between diatom communities in bays immediately adjacent to Casey Station and those more distant. Subsequently, a more detailed appraisal of spati...

This summer, Americans are experiencing climate change as record-breaking heat and drought. Our new normal, with its massive wildfires and severe storms, has given the whole nation a sense of the economic and social consequences of global warming that coastal communities around the world have been experiencing for decades. If you live near the sea, you’re probably witnessing the consequences of...

In nature reserves and habitat conservation areas, monitoring is required to determine if reserves are meeting their goals for preserving species, ecological communities, and ecosystems. Increasingly, reserves are established to protect multiple species and communities, each with their own conservation goals and objectives. As resources are always inadequate to monitor all components, criteria ...

In northern NSW, Australia, coastal populations are forecast to increase dramatically over the next 25 years (the "sea change"). However, management of the effects of development on marine communities is hampered by the lack of data on key habitats. Consequently, we developed a protocol to assess the biodiversity and current human impacts on nearshore reefs, habitats that will be readily affect...

Worldwide, humans are facing high risks from natural hazards, especially in coastal regions with high population densities. Rising sea levels due to global warming are making coastal communities’ infrastructure vulnerable to natural disasters. The present study aims to provide a coupling approach of vulnerability and resilience through restoration and conservation of lost or degraded coastal na...

In order to elucidate the distribution of soil nematodes in coastal wetlands and the effect of different distance from the sea line on soil nematode communities, we investigated the community structure of soil nematodes in one wetland perpendicularly oriented from Bohai sea coastline. In June 2006, soil samples were collected from the Yellow River Delta wetlands, in Dongying city of Shandong Pr...

The process of erosion and desertification affects social communities, agricultural lands and natural resources in coastal areas. The rapid coastline changes would cause social and economic issues in the coastal areas. In this study, Miankaleh coasts and the eastern coastlines of Amirabad port have been surveyed due to existing benchmarks since June 2013 until December 2015 in order to analyze ...