Damian Coman Brady

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Verified

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• Ph.D.
• Agatha B. Darling Professor of Oceanography at University of Maine

Environmental DNA (eDNA) detection can be a powerful approach to detect organisms in low abundance and can be crucial for early invasive species detection. Despite its potential, the body plan diversity of invertebrates can pose significant challenges, notably arthropods with exoskeletons that may have low eDNA shedding rates. In this study, we val...

Some species are so linked to specific environments that their habitat association almost becomes a species-defining character and is used by managers and policymakers to direct their conservation. The American lobster Homarus americanus is among the most valuable fisheries species in North America and among the best studied benthic marine inverteb...

Synopsis As global temperatures continue to rise, accurate predicted species distribution models will be important for forecasting the movement of range-shifting species. These predictions rely on measurements of organismal thermal tolerance, which can be measured using classical threshold concepts such as Arrhenius break temperatures and critical...

Hypoxia in coastal waters is a pressing ecological problem caused by continued eutrophication and climatic change that has widespread consequences for metazoan life and biogeochemical cycles. Numerous studies have investigated the controls on seasonal hypoxia formation and persistence in many of the world’s large estuaries and coastal hypoxic zones...

Climate change is anticipated to alter the phenology of phytoplankton blooms in the ocean, making their recent dynamics of interest to inform models of future ocean states. We characterized temperature change in the North Atlantic using metrics that track the patterns of sea surface water temperature (SST) defined by quantiles. To complement these...

Diadromous fish use both freshwater and marine habitats to complete their life cycles, but dams restrict those connections, and as a result, many populations are historically low across their range. The Penobscot River, Maine, USA, once had large populations of diadromous fish and has recently been the focus of large restoration projects. Our objec...

Atlantic sea scallops, Placopecten magellanicus, are the most economically important marine bivalves along the northeastern coast of North America. Wild harvest landings generate hundreds of millions of dollars, and wild-caught adults and juvenile spat are increasingly being cultured in aquaculture facilities and coastal farms. However, the last tw...

Satellites have provided high-resolution ( < 100 m) water color (i.e., remote sensing reflectance) and thermal emission imagery of aquatic environments since the early 1980s; however, global operational water quality products based on these data are not readily available (e.g., temperature, chlorophyll- a , turbidity, and suspended particle matter)...

While the number of kelp farms have steadily increased, few have been deployed with sensors to measure mooring tensions with substantial biomass. During the kelp farming season of 2018–2019 in Saco Bay, Maine USA, a field study was conducted to assess mooring loads due to environmental conditions and kelp growth. The effort included the deployment...

As the world develops sources of renewable energy, there is an intensifying interest in offshore wind energy production. The Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf (NES) ecosystem has favorable wind dynamics, with active development of wind energy. In this study, we present species distribution models that consider both occupancy and biomass responses fo...

Predicting the impact of marine ecosystem warming on the timing and magnitude of phytoplankton production is challenging. For example, warming can advance the progression of stratification thereby changing the availability of nutrients to surface phytoplankton, or influence the surface mixed layer depth, thus affecting light availability. Here, we...

The movement responses of juvenile fishes exposed to intermittent hypoxia mediate the effects of impaired water quality on estuarine nursery habitat function. Twenty-five juvenile spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) were implanted with hydroacoustic tags and tracked in the Neuse River Estuary (NRE), NC during multiple hypoxic episodes (dissolved oxygen, DO...

Understanding the processes that influence recruitment variability in marine populations has been a long-standing challenge for resource management. Quantifying abundance at early life stages for marine fish and invertebrates with complex life histories can be difficult and require unconventional sampling approaches. However, the benefit of develop...

The planktonic copepod Calanus finmarchicus is a fundamental prey resource for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis . Incorporation of prey information into E. gla cialis decision support tools could improve management. Zooplankton time series are usually analyzed with respect to abundance, but predators such as...

Understanding shallow water biogeochemical dynamics is a challenge in coastal regions, due to the presence of highly variable land-water interface fluxes, tight coupling with sediment processes, tidal dynamics, and diurnal variability in biogeochemical processes. While the deployment of continuous monitoring devices has improved our understanding o...

To keep global surface warming below 1.5°C by 2100, the portfolio of cost-effective CDR technologies must expand. To evaluate the potential of macroalgae CDR, we developed a kelp aquaculture bio-techno-economic model in which large quantities of kelp would be farmed at an offshore site, transported to a deep water “sink site”, and then deposited be...

To keep global surface warming below 1.5 °C by 2100, the portfolio of cost-effective CDR technologies must expand. To evaluate the potential of macroalgae CDR, we developed a kelp aquaculture bio-techno-economic model in which large quantities of kelp would be farmed at an offshore site, transported to a deep water "sink site", and then deposited b...

Aquaculture of seaweeds, particularly in emerging farming regions such as North America, Europe, and South America, is steadily increasing. The growth of the sector has been supported by public and private R&D investment with the long-term goal of reducing farm-gate production costs. Reducing expenses would potentially allow growers to target high...

Aquaculture of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is an expanding industry in the US, particularly in the Gulf of Maine. High resolution ocean color satellites launched in the last decade potentially provide aquaculture-relevant water-quality parameters at farm scales. However, these parameters, such as temperature, suspended particulate ma...

Coastal and estuarine food webs receive large inputs of both autochthonous and allochthonous detritus, which serves as an important dietary input for a variety of detritivorous and omnivorous organisms. Surfactants, which aid digestion by solubilizing hydrophobic lipids, are found in the gut-fluids of many fish and invertebrate consumers. To develo...

Tidal impoundments have been used for centuries to enhance aquaculture production worldwide. Here, we examine the potential for lobster pounds, tidal impoundments common to Maine, USA, and Atlantic Canada, to serve as boundary objects that bridge the gap between the fishing and aquaculture industries. Proponents of coastal-economic diversification...

The Cold Pool feature of the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) is a body of cold bottom water that develops in the spring and persists through the summer‐autumn months. It is maintained by northerly currents and can be traced back to Arctic water masses. The Cold Pool provides habitat for many boreal species at latitudes far south of their normal range a...

Many studies have examined the vulnerability of calcifying organisms, such as the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica), to externally forced ocean acidification, but the opposite interaction whereby oysters alter their local carbonate conditions has received far less attention. We present an exploratory model for isolating the impact that net cal...

Climate change is impacting the function and distribution of habitats used by marine, coastal, and diadromous species. These impacts often exacerbate the anthropogenic stressors that habitats face, particularly in the coastal environment. We conducted a climate vulnerability assessment of 52 marine, estuarine, and riverine habitats in the Northeast...

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world and is quickly diversifying. In the Northwest Atlantic, interest in sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) (hereafter scallop) aquaculture has grown substantially. However, technical and economic challenges have hindered industry growth. We conducted bioeconomic simulations for...

Large marine ecosystems (LMEs) are highly productive regions of the world ocean under anthropogenic pressures; we analyzed trends in sea surface temperature (SST), cloud fraction (CF), and chlorophyll concentration (CHL) over the period 1998–2019. Trends in these parameters within LMEs diverged from the world ocean. SST and CF inside LMEs increased...

Small-scale fisheries, which are often distributed over large spatial scales and occur in rural settings, tend to lack financial resources and capacity to conduct research on local issues. One approach to overcome this challenge is to use relatively inexpensive environmental monitoring methods with stakeholder engaged science and participatory mode...

In fisheries acoustics, the target strength (TS; dB re m²) is used to compute biological metrics such as fish biomass and density. The TS is challenging to characterize because of its stochastic relationship with fish physiology, orientation, depth, species assemblage, and size distributions. These challenges were addressed by using acoustic and ph...

Ocean and coastal acidification (OCA) present a unique set of sustainability challenges at the human-ecological interface. Extensive biogeochemical monitoring that can assess local acidification conditions, distinguish multiple drivers of changing carbonate chemistry, and ultimately inform local and regional response strategies is necessary for suc...

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest, most productive, and most biologically diverse estuary in the continental United States providing crucial habitat and natural resources for culturally and economically important species. Pressures from human population growth and associated development and agricultural intensification have led to excessive nutrien...

The Gulf of Maine has recently experienced its warmest 5-year period (2015–2020) in the instrumental record. This warming was associated with a decline in the signature subarctic zooplankton species, Calanus finmarchicus. The temperature changes have also led to impacts on commercial species such as Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and American lobster...

Scallops are one of the most heavily traded and widely consumed seafood in the world and the vast majority of production comes from aquaculture. In 2018, the global value of scallop aquaculture was over $5.8 billion USD with farms producing nearly three times the biomass as the entirety of the wild harvest. North American (specifically U.S. and Can...

Ocean and coastal acidification (OCA) present a unique set of sustainability challenges at the human-ecological interface. Extensive biogeochemical monitoring that can assess local acidification conditions, distinguish multiple drivers of changing carbonate chemistry, and ultimately inform local and regional response strategies is necessary for suc...

Characterizing relative temporal and spatial variations in both the living and detrital components of bivalve food is required to predict bivalve growth across environments with contrasting seston compositions. The present article describes how remote sensing can be applied for such characterization, both over large spatial scales and fine spatial...

Despite the profitability of the wild Atlantic Sea Scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, fishery, the U.S. still imports more than 26,000 tonnes of various scallop products annually. Atlantic Sea Scallop (hereafter referred to as scallop) aquaculture is one method of mitigating this imbalance. We examined scallop growth at three sites across the mouth...

As kelp cultivation increases around the world, so does the need for farm management strategies that produce specific crop characteristics, optimize yield, widen harvesting windows, and prevent biomass loss. Distal-end trimming of macroalgae has been recommended as a farm management method addressing these needs. In this study, we trimmed cultivate...

Ocean acidification (OA) is increasing predictably in the global ocean as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide lead to higher oceanic concentrations of inorganic carbon. The Gulf of Maine (GOM) is a seasonally varying region of confluence for many processes that further affect the carbonate system including freshwater influences and high pro...

States in the Northeast United States have the ambitious goal of producing more than 22 GW of offshore wind energy in the coming decades. The infrastructure associated with offshore wind energy development is expected to modify marine habitats and potentially alter the ecosystem services. Species distribution models were constructed for a group of...

We sought to investigate the impacts of nutrient loading, warming, and open‐water boundary exchanges on a shallow estuary through idealized numerical model experiments. We performed these simulations using a stand‐alone implementation of the Regional Ocean Modeling System‐Row‐Column AESOP biogeochemical model in the Chester River estuary, a tributa...

Coastal ecosystems are experiencing degradation from compound impacts of climate change and multiple anthropogenic disturbances. These pressures often act synergistically and complicate designing effective conservation measures; consequently, large-scale coastal restoration actions become a wicked problem. The purpose of this study was to use two d...

In-water remediation strategies, implemented in conjunction with traditional watershed management, could help minimize the impact of excess nitrogen (N) on marine ecosystems. Seaweed farming and harvesting may have potential as in-water N remediation tools in the Western Gulf of Maine (WGoM), but more understanding of the associated spatial and tem...

Comprehensive sampling of the carbonate system in estuaries and coastal waters can be difficult and expensive because of the complex and heterogeneous nature of near-shore environments. We show that sample collection by community science programs is a viable strategy for expanding estuarine carbonate system monitoring and prioritizing regions for m...

The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act mandates US fisheries minimize adverse effects of fishing on essential fish habitat (EFH). The Gulf of Maine (GoM) American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery is the most valuable US fishery and can deploy more than three million traps annually. To date, the impact of this fishery on be...

Detritus is a frequent, poorly defined, component of bivalve growth and carrying capacity models. The purpose of this study was to determine the proportional contributions of detrital material derived from primary producers (phytoplankton, macroalgae, Spartina alterniflora, and terrestrial leaf litter) to particulate organic matter (POM) and blue m...

Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and chlorophyll concentration (CHL) have changed in the US Northeast Shelf ecosystem over recent decades. The changes in these parameters were distinctly marked by change points around the year 2012 resulting in a 0.83°C increase in SST, a 0.3 PSU increase in salinity, and decrease in CHL in excess of 0.4 mg...

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing development and continuation of sustainable aquaculture in temperate regions. We primarily consider the ecological and physical resilience of aquaculture in the Gulf of Maine (GoM), where a thriving industry includes marine algae, extensive and intensive shellfish aquaculture, and a well‐establ...

Temperature is an important factor in defining the habitats of marine resource species. While satellite sensors operationally measure ocean surface temperatures, we depend on in situ measurements to characterize benthic habitats. Ship‐based measurements were interpolated to develop a time series of gridded spring and fall, surface and bottom temper...

Sediment biogeochemical processes impact pelagic ecosystems when the sediment receives particulate organic matter (POM) deposited from the water column above, consumes dissolved oxygen, and returns inorganic nutrients to the bottom water. However, an easy-to-apply sediment model is still lacking for pelagic biogeochemical modeling. In this study, w...

Aquaculture site selection, like most site suitability analyses, requires the assembly and combination of multiple variables. Geographic information systems GIS and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) based approaches are commonly used for aquaculture site selection and demonstrate the integration of various information sources relevant for siting aqua...

Adding to the challenge of predicting fishery recruitment in a changing environment is downscaling predictions to capture locally divergent trends over a species’ range. In recent decades, the American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery has shifted poleward along the northwest Atlantic coast, one of the most rapidly warming regions of the world's...

As oceans and many estuaries become more acidic, identifying adaptable or nonadaptable species (“winners” or “losers”) will enable better predictions of community and ecosystem function alterations due to climate change. Marine bivalves are frequently subjects of ocean acidification (OA) research because of their perceived vulnerability, which also...

Quantifying change after large habitat restoration efforts is critical to assessing the effort's success. After river restoration activities, fish abundance is expected to increase and also fluctuates naturally by season and with environmental conditions. A side‐looking hydroacoustic system was used to estimate fish abundance in the Penobscot River...

Adding to the challenge of predicting fishery recruitment in a changing environment is downscaling predictions to capture locally divergent trends over a species’ range. In recent decades, the American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery has shifted poleward along the northwest Atlantic coast, one of the most rapidly warming regions of the world's...

The expansion of oyster aquaculture relies on identifying and utilizing estuarine conditions that enable the economical production of a filter-feeding species. Detrital complexes may provide nutrition to oysters between beneficial phytoplankton blooms. The upper Damariscotta estuary is the most successful aquaculture site in Maine for eastern oyste...

Ocean warming can drive poleward shifts of commercially important species with potentially significant economic impacts. Nowhere are those impacts greater than in the Gulf of Maine where North America's most valuable marine species, the American lobster (Homarus americanus Milne Edwards), has thrived for decades. However, concerns are growing as mo...

Aquaculture has been responsible for an impressive growth in the global supply of seafood. As of 2016, more than half of all global seafood production comes from aquaculture. To meet future global seafood demands, there is need and opportunity to expand marine aquaculture production in ways that are both socially and ecologically sustainable. This...

This study uses the Maine Department of Marine Resources Lobster Sea Sampling data (2000–2016) and logistic models to develop the first time series for the timing and suddenness of onset of the initial intra‐annual molt of American lobster in the Gulf of Maine (GoM), an annual fishery recruitment event crucial to fishermen. Data from three GoM regi...

Farm-scale production models of bivalves have been used for site selection, optimization of culture practices, and the estimation of ecosystem goods and services. While all farm models require physical forcing through hydrodynamic models, the input of measured or modelled bivalve growth drivers, and a bioenergetic growth model which predicts indivi...

Through sperm limitation, population density can be a critical variable in fertilization success of marine broadcast spawners. The broadcast‐spawning sea scallop Placopecten magellanicus is a commercially important species that has rebounded in population abundance within fishing closures imposed on Georges Bank (GB) and in the Mid‐Atlantic (MA). U...

The response of estuarine ecosystems to long-term changes in external forcing is strongly mediated by interactions between the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, oxygen, and inorganic nutrients. Although long-term changes in estuaries are often assessed at the annual scale, phytoplankton biomass, dissolved oxygen concentrations, and biogeochemical r...

Suggested Citation: Brady, D.C., J.V. DePinto, S.C. Chapra, D.M. Di Toro, M.A.M. Friedrichs, M.W. Gray, T. Jordan, M. Xia. 2018. Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee Chesapeake Bay Water Quality and Sediment Transport Model (WQSTM) Review. STAC Publication Number 18-002, Edgewater, MD. 40 pp.

Aim: This study examined phytoplankton blooms on a global scale, with the intention of describing patterns of bloom timing and size, the effect of bloom timing on the size of blooms, and time series trends in bloom characteristics. Location: Global. Methods: We used a change‐point statistics algorithm to detect phytoplankton blooms in time series...

Remote sensing data is useful for selection of aquaculture sites because it can provide water-quality products mapped over large regions at low cost to users. However, the spatial resolution of most ocean color satellites is too coarse to provide usable data within many estuaries. The Landsat 8 satellite, launched February 11, 2013, has both the sp...

We compared multiple modeling approaches in Chesapeake Bay to understand the processes controlling dissolved oxygen (O2) cycling and compare the advantages and disadvantages of the different models. Three numerical models were compared, including: (1) a 23-compartment biogeochemical model coupled to a regional scale, salt- and water-balance box mod...

The Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) is an advanced coastal circulation model widely utilized for its ability to simulate spatially and temporally evolving three-dimensional geophysical conditions of complex and dynamic coastal regions. While a body of literature evaluates model skill in surface fields, independent studies validating mod...

Benthic marine suspension feeders provide an important link between benthic and pelagic ecosystems. The strength of this link is determined by suspension-feeding rates. Many studies have measured suspension-feeding rates using indirect clearance-rate methods, which are based on the depletion of suspended particles. Direct methods that measure the f...

Maine has more than 3,000 miles of coastline and there is great interest in exploiting this region of the purposes of aquaculture. Because this area is so vast and many of the bays and estuaries throughout Maine have not been evaluated for their suitability, the University of Maine’s Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANet) program was e...

This presentation describes our effort to predict oyster growth metrics from environmental data. Models generated from this work can be used to estimate the potential yield within candidate sites for aquaculture and be incorporated into habitat suitability maps to help guide site selection.

Greater domestic aquaculture production is needed to meet the demand for seafood, shrink trade deficits, and create new jobs and infrastructure. To increase production in Maine, the Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANet; University of Maine) have been using remote sensing land/ocean biogeochemical observational (LOBO) buoys in estuarie...

Highlights: 1) Accurate estimations of BSA can prove useful for applied ecological research in aquaculture. The mass-power function is easily interpreted and accurate for estimating body surface area for multiple genera, including fish species. BSA would be another morphometric tool for scientists and farmers alike. 2) Provides an improved assessm...

We developed and tested a method to field test fertilization success, measured as the proportion of eggs fertilized, in the giant sea scallop Placopecten magellanicus, a commercially valuable and sedentary broadcast spawner in the northwest Atlantic. A laboratory sperm dilution series determined maximum fertilization success expected in the field a...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) should assist managers in guiding human activities towards sustainable practices and in minimizing user-conflicts in our oceans. A necessary first step is to quantify spatial patterns of marine assemblages in order to understand the ecosystem’s structure, function, and services. However, the large spatial scale, high e...

Facing challenges to the civic purpose of higher education, some scholars and administrators turn to the rhetoric of engagement. Simultaneously, the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism has gained intellectual favor, advocating openness to the lived experiences of distant others. We articulate linkages between these two discourses in an extended...