Matthew E. Kimball

USC Baruch Marine Field Laboratory

Estuarine nekton (fishes, crabs, and shrimps) play key ecological roles and support valuable commercial and recreational fisheries. Long-term research programs focused on nekton can provide insight into community and population-level changes over time, but are uncommon due to funding and logistical constraints. We describe patterns and changes in a...

Context Oysters provide structured habitat along coastal margins, but owing to the high turbidity of many estuaries, characterising the faunal communities that utilise oyster reefs typically requires direct capture, which is potentially lethal or destructive. Acoustic imaging sonar can non-destructively sample the abundance and size of swimming org...

The estuarine environments surrounding coastal Louisiana create favorable conditions for microbially mediated mercury (Hg) methylation and subsequent bioaccumulation by biota. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill released large amounts of oil which, despite having low Hg concentrations, had the potential to influence methylmercury (MeHg)...

There is a paucity of information on juvenile tarpon Megalops atlanticus habitat use at the northern edge of its distribution. Therefore, we investigated the timing of recruitment and the size distribution of juvenile tarpon in natural and managed marshes in coastal South Carolina. We monitored recruitment to salt marsh habitats during July through...

Much emphasis has been placed on challenges related to estimating ages of old fish, yet accurately estimating age for young individuals has proved equally challenging for some species. Indices of recruitment are often based on assigning ages to young fish to estimate the strength of a given year class. Similarly, growth is most commonly estimated u...

Animal groups are known to exhibit collective behaviours that allow for effective responses to predators and environmental factors. Habitats with high levels of structural complexity have been shown to influence the collective tendencies of these animal aggregations. However, the effect of anthropogenically induced habitat complexity on collective...

Connectivity among estuarine habitats can influence nekton vital rates, and studying these processes requires the ability to track individuals effectively. Passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags have been used to evaluate movement of juvenile fishes in estuaries, yet this technique remains untested for penaeid shrimp. We evaluated survival, grow...

Over the last 20 years, innovations have led to the development of exciting new technologies and novel applications of established technologies, collectively increasing the scale, scope, and quality of research possible in tidal marsh systems. Thus, ecological research on marshes is being revolutionized, in the same way as ecological research more...

The marsh-mangrove ecotone along the southeastern US Atlantic coast occurs in northeast Florida within the Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas (GTM) estuary, where emergent vegetation transitions from marsh-dominated in the north to mangrove-dominated in the south. Dominant vegetation type has been shown to influence creek bank slope, nekton access to refuge,...

Given recent trends of warming water temperatures and shifting fish distributions, detecting range expansion is important for resource management and planning. The subtropical common snook Centropomus undecimalis (hereafter referred to as snook) is an estuarine species that historically extended from the tropics to southern portions of Florida and...

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6517/670.1

Early life stage tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) have been collected in the western Atlantic Ocean north of Florida where it has been assumed that individuals migrate from estuarine areas at the onset of winter because water temperature during winter is too low for survival. However, there is anecdotal evidence of juvenile tarpon present during winter...

We evaluated spatial, short-term, and decadal-scale variability in the summer ichthyoplankton assemblages within the North Inlet-Winyah Bay estuarine system, Georgetown County, South Carolina, USA. Ichthyoplankton were collected weekly from late May to early September 2016 on nighttime flood tides using a 1-m diameter, 1-mm mesh plankton net at thr...

Coincidental long-term changes in estuarine nekton assemblages and environmental conditions are widely reported. In this study, from a warm-temperate, high salinity, salt marsh-dominated estuary in the southeastern USA, decreases in overall abundance, shifts in species and life stage composition, and changes in seasonal patterns of occurrence coinc...

We examined the effects of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags on the survival, growth, and tag retention for two common estuarine fishes, mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) and pinfish (Lagodon rhomboides). A separate laboratory experiment was conducted for each species where individuals, ranging in initial size from 45 to 82 mm standard leng...

In marine ecosystems, predator-prey interactions are known to structure critical processes (e.g., trophic transfer, nutrient regeneration) and have important implications for mediating community dynamics. However, the temporal and spatial scales over which these processes operate remain poorly understood mainly because the resolution provided by tr...

The extensive use of salt marsh creeks by nekton is widely recognized, yet few investigations have quantified the extent to which tidal migratory nekton make repeated visits to the same location within creek networks. An improved understanding of nekton movements and fidelity can improve insights into the nursery function and value of creek habitat...

Marsh pools are present in estuaries throughout the world and provide valuable habitat for fishes and decapod crustaceans (i.e., nekton). The purpose of our study was to examine the species composition and temporal variation of the nekton assemblage within marsh pools of a southeastern US estuary. We conducted weekly sampling of five marsh pools in...

The capability of early life history stage fishes to access nursery habitat within managed salt marshes is dependent on their ability to negotiate water control structures (WCSs). Knowledge of swimming ability and hydrodynamic preferences is essential to assess the impact of WCSs on fish movement in managed marshes. These data, however, are lacking...

Our study was designed to examine early life stage tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) recruitment, habitat use, and residency in coastal environments near the northern limit of their distribution in the western Atlantic Ocean. We employed a multi-faceted approach to (1) collect ingressing larval tarpon on nighttime flood tides at multiple sites, (2) docu...

Field stations and marine laboratories (FSMLs) are essential institutions for natural history education and research. Recently, the National Research Council suggested goals for FSMLs and that a metric be administered for their evaluation. We surveyed a non-random cross-section of 8 southeastern US FSMLs in different ecosystems to evaluate how they...

The tarpon Megalops atlanticus is a tropical to subtropical species whose pole-ward distribution is thought to be limited by low water temperatures. In the western north Atlantic Ocean juvenile tarpon occur in estuaries of the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) north of Florida near the northern limit of its distribution, but it is currently unknown whethe...

Estuaries along the US east coast serve as essential nursery habitats for the early life history stages of many marine fishes. In the South Atlantic Bight (SAB), many studies have demonstrated the importance of these habitats for juveniles, but larval fish communities have received little attention, particularly around northeast Florida. To determi...

Estuaries are composed of multiple interconnected habitat types used by transient fish species during their period of estuarine residency. Structural marsh management restricts habitat connectivity and impedes the movement of fishes among these habitat types by limiting access via water control structures (WCSs) between the managed area and the res...

Estuary plumes on the western Louisiana continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, outside of constricted channels of the Sabine and Calcasieu Lakes were observed on two RADARSAT-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The in situ data showed a change in salinity of $~ $2-3 PSUs across the front on the northwest edge of the plume, corresponding to l...

Numerical model experiments were conducted to examine how estuarine circulation and salinity distribution in the Calcasieu Lake Estuary (CLE) of southwest Louisiana respond to the passage of cold fronts. River runoff, local wind stress, and tides from December 20, 2011, to February 1, 2012, were included as input. The experiments showed an anticycl...

Tidally-driven fluctuations lead to rapid variations in hydrological properties that can have profound effects on the dynamic and functions of salt marshes. During low tides, many nektonic species find refuge from predatory fish in shallow intertidal pools. The utilization of shallow pool refuges also exposes fishes to fitness costs that fluctuate...

Water control structures (WCSs) restrict hydrological connectivity in salt marshes and thereby impede nekton movement within the greater habitat mosaic. Transient fishery species, which spawn outside salt marshes and must get past these barriers to reach spawning areas or salt-marsh nurseries, are especially vulnerable to these structures. Water co...

Florida’s sandy beaches are critical nesting habitat for multiple marine turtle species, all of which are federally listed as either endangered or threatened. Since 1989, marine turtle nesting surveys have been conducted daily from May 1st through October 31st on the 6.8 km of coastline in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Res...

Along the US Atlantic coast, oyster reefs support a large number of estuarine species including ecologically important and abundant mud crabs. Multiple factors including environmental conditions, the introduction of non-native species, parasites, and interspecific competition can change the structure of these communities over time. To examine long-...

Considered a keystone species in the southeastern US coastal plain, gopher tortoises occupy a variety of upland habitat types. Although upland pine-dominated habitats have received much attention, few studies have examined tortoises in nearby coastal beach dune habitats. To examine the distribution and abundance of gopher tortoises in northeast Flo...

The northern limits of three mangrove species-Avicennia germinans (Black Mangrove), Rhizophora mangle (Red Mangrove). Laguncularia racemosa (White Mangrove)-on the United States Atlantic coast are vouchered and described in comparison to previous boundaries defined in literature and herbarium collections. The location and general status of individu...

The Nassau River estuary is located in northeast Florida adjacent to the eutrophic St. Johns River. Historically, development has been sparse in the Nassau River's catchment; thus, the system may provide a relatively undisturbed aquatic environment. To monitor the condition of the Nassau River estuary and to discern spatial and temporal trends in w...

We couple a species range limit hypothesis with the output of an ensemble of general circulation models to project the poleward range limit of gray snapper. Using laboratory-derived thermal limits and statistical downscaling from IPCC AR4 general circulation models, we project that gray snapper will shift northwards; the magnitude of this shift is...

Climate change is expected to cause a poleward shift of many temperate species, however, a mechanistic understanding of how temperature and species' life histories interact to produce observed adult range is often lacking. We evaluated the hypothesis that juvenile thermal tolerance determines northern range in gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus), a spe...

Nekton tidal migration patterns were examined in oligo-mesohaline intertidal salt marsh creeks using underwater video observations collected throughout multiple tidal cycles (i.e., fl ood–ebb) during summer 2005–2006. Underwater video observations indi-cated that species composition and abundances varied with tide stage. Three intertidal salt marsh...

In the oligohaline Alloway Creek watershed of the upper Delaware Bay, invasive Phragmites australis (Common reed; hereafter Phragmites) has been removed in an attempt to restore tidal marshes to pre-invasion form and function. In order to determine the effects of Phragmites on nekton use of intertidal creeks and to evaluate the success of this rest...

This synthesis brings together published and unpublished data in an evaluation of restoration of former salt hay farms to functioning salt marshes. We compared nine years of field measurements between three restored marshes (Dennis, Commercial, and Maurice River Townships) and a reference marsh (Moores Beach) in the mesohaline portion of Delaware B...

Large-scale marsh restoration efforts were conducted to restore normal salt marsh structure and function to degraded marshes (i.e., former salt hay farms) in the mesohaline lower Delaware Bay. While nekton response has been previously evaluated for the marsh surface and subtidal creeks in these marshes, little effort has been focused on intertidal...

Intertidal creeks provide an extensive and direct interface with the marsh surface during periods of tidal inundation, and as such they represent a critically important corridor between the marsh surface and subtidal habitats. However, invasion by Phragmites can potentially alter this intertidal creek function. Habitat restoration was conducted in...

The occurrence of lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) complex on the southeast United States shelf represents one of the first documented invasions of a Pacific marine fish species into the western Atlantic Ocean. Temperature has been proposed as a possible factor limiting the range of this introduction. To examine this hypothesis, temperature-tolera...