Project Explorer

The project team will quantify the effects of oyster reef closures and other drivers on oyster reef functioning to help managers decide which reefs to close and when restoration is needed.

This project conducted a comprehensive review and assessment of ecosystem modeling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Managers needed to know if the Bahia Grande ecosystem was functioning as a nursery and/or foraging grounds for fish to make informed decisions regarding whether to open Bahia Grande to public use.

This project scoped and designed a plan to address the uncertainties of restoring seagrasses and associated communities along barrier islands in Louisiana, which informed the restoration and long-term adaptive management of the Chandeleur Islands.

This project investigated the link between nutrients, food availability, and the survival of Atlantic bluefin tuna larvae to improve stock assessments for this commercially and recreationally important species.

The project team will address existing limitations and uncertainties in fisheries stock assessments by developing novel model diagnostics and interim assessment methods, which will be incorporated into active stock assessments to reduce the error, uncertainty, and throughput delays associated with overfishing limits and acceptable biological catch estimates.

The project team identified challenges to sustaining sport fish nursery habitats, mapped out realistic management strategies, and planned research that informs management choices.

This project identified uncertainties around the effects of coastal bird stewardship and habitat management actions.

This project developed a research plan addressing conservation grazing, or the use of livestock as an alternative or complementary habitat management strategy, in coastal uplands of the northern Gulf.

This project team of scientists, fishers, and resource managers will work cooperatively to verify, characterize, monitor, and model multi-species fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) in the Gulf aiming to produce actionable science to facilitate FSA management and conservation.

This project identifies long-term trends in fish, shrimp, cephalopods, and other fauna in the deep-pelagic Gulf (open ocean midwaters beyond the continental shelf, from just below the surface to just above the bottom) and provides this information to resource managers responsible for the numerous species that rely on deep-pelagic fauna as prey, including marine mammals.

This project determined where the corals in different mesophotic and deepwater populations in the Gulf of Mexico originated from, which is critical information for conserving and restoring these important habitats that were damaged by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The project team seeks to develop statistical models, analyses, and conceptual models based on laboratory and survey data to help managers conduct more targeted and specific risk assessments of Houston-area bottlenose dolphins potentially injured by releases of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins.

This project developed a new and innovative approach for attaching satellite-linked tags to small cetaceans without having to capture them.

The project team will use drone observations and NOAA forecasts to develop technology that seeks to improve manager response decisions to future oil spills in Galveston Bay and surrounding Texas coasts.

This project created a comprehensive guide for management using indicators of five common coastal habitats: salt marsh, mangrove, seagrass, oyster beds/reefs, and coral reefs.

This project will develop cutting-edge epigenetic ageing methods for Gulf fishes to improve the efficiency and accuracy of stock assessments.

This project integrated information on ecosystem stressors and predator-prey interactions into the fisheries assessment and management process in the Gulf of Mexico.

This project will estimate historical, current, and future trends in the targeting, distribution, and growth of select fish species and changes within fish communities along the latitudinal gradient of Florida’s west coast in relation to changing ocean conditions to support adaptive management of recreational and commercial fisheries.

This project resulted in a management and forecast system that allows resource managers to explore tradeoffs from restoration strategies as well as examine and optimize various riverine inflows.

This project explored the feasibility of a freshwater inflow decision tool to provide managers with a better understanding of the impact of allowing water to flow to the coast, and how to maximize environmental, social, and economic benefits while adapting to changing conditions over time.

The objective of the proposed project was to provide a transparent decision support framework to make optimal recommendations for listed species with conflicting habitat needs while also considering landowner objectives using a case study at the Gulf Islands National Seashore complex.

This project will identify drivers of change in seagrass communities by monitoring water quality, mapping seagrass extent, characterizing soundscapes and nekton communities, and developing ecosystem models to examine linkages between these variables and detect changes in habitat structure and function over time.

Stakeholder engagement informed the development of a conceptual model to help environmental managers forecast how Gulf habitats and wildlife may respond to various island and beach restoration management actions.

The project characterized the temporal and spatial variability of physical and biochemical oceanographic parameters in the Gulf of Mexico.