This article serves as an introduction to this special issue of Marine Biology, but also as a review of the key findings of the AQUASHIFT research program which is the source of the articles published in this issue. AQUASHIFT is an interdisciplinary research program targeted to analyze the response of temperate zone aquatic ecosystems (both marine and freshwater) to global warming. The main con...

The biotic and abiotic: processes involved in the environmental degradation of freshwater ecosystems are often complex, and their combined effects are not easily measured. Many human activities across the landscape contribute to degradation, including discharge of domestic, agricultural, and industrial effluents; cultural eutrophication; acidification; erosion and sedimentation following human ...

Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, and members of the Subcommittee. My name is Tracy Collier, I am the Director of the Environmental Conservation Division, in the Northwest Fisheries Science Center of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce. Research conducted within my Division focuses on the effe...

This lab uses freshwater sponges as model organisms to examine the biological effects of water pollution. Specifically, the focus of this laboratory module is on the effects that chemicals of environmental concern (e.g., endocrine disrupters) have on sponge growth and development. Contamination of aquatic ecosystems is a serious issue in environmental science. Identifying which chemicals we sho...

Background, Aim and Scope. Fresh water is a basic resource for humans; however, its link to human health is seldom related to lack of physical access to sufficient fresh water, but rather to poor distribution and access to safe water supplies. On the other hand, fresh water availability for aquatic ecosystems is often reduced due to competition with human uses, potentially leading to impacts on...

The salmon farming production chain is structured in four consecutive phases: freshwater, seawater, plant processing, and distribution and marketing. The phases interact in a pull manner, freshwater stocks fish to meet seawater’s demand, seawater produces to meet plant processing biomass demand, and the processing plant produces to satisfy consumers’ demand. Freshwater planning decisions are in...

Ecological monitoring and assessment is fundamental for effective management of ecosystems. As an introduction to this Special Issue, this editorial provides an overview of “Ecological Monitoring, Assessment, and Management in Freshwater Systems”. This issue contains a review article on monitoring surface waters, and research papers on data management, biological assessment of aquatic ecosystem...

We investigated the upper and lower vertical limits of the distribution of inhabitants of the most abundant freshwater habitat—groundwater. Distribution in photic habitats is limited by competition, predation, and risks of exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Nonetheless, a number of eyeless, depigmented subterranean species occur in twilight habitats, taking advantage of the higher food resource...

A decade-mean global ocean circulation is estimated using inverse techniques, incorporating air–sea fluxes of heat and freshwater, recent hydrographic sections, and direct current measurements. This information is used to determine mass, heat, freshwater, and other chemical transports, and to constrain boundary currents and dense overflows. The 18 boxes defined by these sections are divided int...

We present a minimal conceptual model for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation which incorporates the advection of salinity and the basic dynamics of the oceanic pycnocline. Four tracer transport processes following Gnanadesikan in Science 283(5410):2077–2079, (1999) allow for a dynamical adjustment of the oceanic pycnocline which defines the vertical extent of a mid-latitudinal box....