Changing climatic conditions that can alter physical characteristics of surface waters may limit the effectiveness of conventional approaches to nutrient management. This study evaluated the competing effects of nutrient loads and changing salinity on chlorophyll-a dynamics in Tampa Bay (Florida, USA). This estuary has demonstrated long-term recovery of water quality primarily through wastewater infrastructure improvements, wh...

Impermeable infrastructure such as traffic causeways can reduce the natural hydrodynamic flushing of an estuary, resulting in reduced water quality and increased incidence of harmful algal blooms (HABs). A series of cuts through the three causeways spanning Old Tampa Bay, FL, (OTB) are being considered to help restore the natural circulation of the region, but the number of possible location combinations is computationally cha...

Seagrasses have long been a focal point for management efforts aimed at restoring ecosystem health in estuaries worldwide. In Tampa Bay, Florida (USA), seagrass coverage has declined since 2016 by nearly a third (11,518 acres), despite sustained reductions of nitrogen loads supportive of light environments for growth. Changing physical water quality conditions related to climate change may be stressing seagrasses beyond their...

For decades, federal protections were extended to wetlands adjacent to “waters of the US” by the Clean Water Act. In its Sackett v. EPA ruling, however, the US Supreme Court redefined the meaning of “adjacent,” eliminating protections to wetlands without a continuous surface connection to these waters (i.e., geographically isolated wetlands, GIWs). Yet it remains unclear how this continuous surface test will work in reality, w...

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a rapidly growing liver disease. The chemoattractant chemerin is abundant in hepatocytes, and hepatocyte expressed prochemerin protected from NASH. Prochemerin is inactive and different active isoforms have been described. Here, the effect of hepatocyte expressed muChem-156, a highly active murine chemerin isoform, was studied in the methionine–choline deficient dietary model of NASH. Mi...

The three contiguous National Estuary Programs of southwest Florida, along with partners from six coastal counties, have developed a tidal creek water quality assessment framework to help prioritize natural resource investigations across a large population of tidal creeks between Tampa Bay and Estero Bay, Florida. The assessment framework is based on outcomes of a multidisciplinary study and includes a nutrient based report ca...

Global climate change can significantly influence oceanic phytoplankton dynamics, and thus biogeochemical cycles and marine food webs. However, associative explanations based on the correlation between chlorophyll‐ a concentration (Chl‐ a ) and climatic indices is inadequate to describe the mechanism of the connection between climate change, large‐scale atmospheric dynamics, and phytoplankton variability. Here, by analyzing mu...

Biological invasions are projected to be the main driver of biodiversity and ecosystem function loss in lakes in the 21st century. However, the extent of these future losses is difficult to quantify because most invasions are recent and confounded by other stressors. In this study, we quantified the outcome of a century‐old invasion, the introduction of common carp to North America, to illustrate potential consequences of intr...