Papers by Ronald Boustany
Journal of The American Water Resources Association, 2001
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Ecological restoration, North America, May 7, 2010
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Ecological restoration, North America, Jun 1, 2003
Ecological Restoration, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2003 ISSN 1522-4740 E-ISSN 1543-4079 ©2003 by the Board o... more Ecological Restoration, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2003 ISSN 1522-4740 E-ISSN 1543-4079 ©2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Communities of submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) provide critical habitat for wintering waterfowl and many commercially important fish species. Submersed aquatic vegetation also helps minimize storm damage by reducing wave action and stabilizing sediments, and they improve water quality by sequestering nutrients and contaminants (Zieman and Zieman 1989). Scientists have documented significant losses to SAV populations throughout the coastal waters of Chesapeake Bay (Orth and Moore 1981), the Gulf of Mexico (Turner and others 1980, Lewis and others 1985, Eleuterius 1987, Livingston 1987, Stout 1990, Pulich and White 1991), and in San Francisco Bay (Kitting and Wyllie-Echeverria 1992). Tremendous fluctuations in SAV biomass and species composition have also been observed in coastal North Carolina (Davis and Brinson 1983) and in the tidal Potomac River (Rybicki and Carter 1986). Submersed aquatic vegetation communities within the southwestern Louisiana chenier plain, for example, have fluctuated widely over twoto three-year periods (P. Yakupzack, personal communication). Since these SAV communities are ecologically and commercially important, and their natural revegetation process is slow and haphazard, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have an effective, rapid, and inexpensive means of restoring SAV-impoverished coastal areas. Fonseca and his collegues (1998) point out that although many attempts have been made to reestablish SAV by numerous methods (plugs, staples, peat pots, plastic pots, sods, wire mesh, iron rods, seeds, and winter buds), there has been very little documented success. They determined that SAV restoration projects have often failed as a result of poor selection of planting sites or plant material and incorrect use of planting methods. Differences in methodology and insufficient follow-up monitoring of the plantings have made it difficult to resolve problems associated with these SAV restoration efforts. Subsequently, there have been very few reported seagrass restoration projects that have created enough acreage to achieve the desired goal of 1:1 habitat replacement (Fonseca 1994). A primary problem in restoration is the physical destruction of the plants by waves and currents before they can become established. Fonseca (1994) noted that up to 50 percent of a planting might be lost to wave action alone and the rate of planting failures increases as wave energy increases. As early as 1980, Phillips (1980) developed wave and current energy threshold criteria to help qualify restoration sites for seagrass plantings. These criteria have since been challenged, and researchers now strongly suggest that these thresholds need to be even lower for SAV survival and growth A Pre-Vegetated Mat Technique for the Restoration of Submersed Aquatic Vegetation
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Journal of The American Water Resources Association, 1999
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Wastewater, even after secondary treatment, typically contains high concentrations of nutrients t... more Wastewater, even after secondary treatment, typically contains high concentrations of nutrients that can cause eutrophication of receiving waters and deterioration of water quality. Therefore, there has been much interest in the use of natural wetlands as a simple and ...
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Journal of The American Water Resources Association, 2002
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Seeking Balance: Conflict, Resolution, and Partnership, 1996
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Estuaries and Coasts, 2017
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Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 2002
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Ecological Restoration, 2010
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Wetlands Ecology and Management, 2009
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Wastewater, even after secondary treatment, typically contains high concentrations of nutrients t... more Wastewater, even after secondary treatment, typically contains high concentrations of nutrients that can cause eutrophication of receiving waters and deterioration of water quality. Therefore, there has been much interest in the use of natural wetlands as a simple and ...
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Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 2009
Accelerated eutrophication is common to many freshwater and marine environments and often co-occu... more Accelerated eutrophication is common to many freshwater and marine environments and often co-occurs with the presence of anthropogenic chemicals. However, the toxic effects of common chemical stressors such as herbicides in the presence of elevated nutrients are not well understood for most aquatic flora, particularly vascular species. To provide insight, field-collected Vallisneria americana Michx. (wild celery) were sequentially exposed to three nutrient concentrations for 3 months and then to nominal 11 and 110 microg L(-1) atrazine for 96 h. Nutrient concentrations (combined NH(4)(+), NO(2)(-), NO(3)(-), PO(4)(-)) were based on ambient concentrations in the St. Johns River (FL) and ranged from 0.013 to 0.668 mg L(-1). Nutrient pretreatment potentiated the toxicity of atrazine as determined by chlorophyll fluorescence activity. Electron transport rates (ETR) were significantly less (48-59%) for plants pretreated with low and ambient nutrient levels in the presence of an average of 107.5-128.1 microg L(-1) atrazine. Significant ETR reductions were also observed for plants exposed to an average of 11.4 microg L(-1) atrazine after exposure to nutrients three times the ambient concentration in the St. Johns River. The results indicate the importance of considering the presence of nutrients in chemical hazard assessments, particularly for phytotoxicants and nontarget vascular plants.
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Royal Society open science, 2015
We determined the interactive effects of nutrient loading and salinity pulsing on Vallisneria ame... more We determined the interactive effects of nutrient loading and salinity pulsing on Vallisneria americana Michx., the dominant submerged aquatic vegetation species in the lower St Johns River (LSJR), FL, USA, and its associated algal community. Five hundred and ninety 6-inch diameter intact plant plugs of Vallisneria were collected from the LSJR in March 2003 and transported to US Geological Survey mesocosm facilities in Lafayette, LA, USA. A 3×3 experimental design consisting of three nutrient levels (control, 1/3 control and 3× control) and three salinity pulsing regimes (no pulse, 1-pulse at 18 ppt and 2-pulse at 12 and 18 ppt) was implemented with three replicates per treatment for a total of 27 experimental tanks. Salinity pulsing significantly reduced all measured Vallisneria growth parameters including above- and below-ground biomass, areal productivity and leaf area index. Nutrient levels had little effect on plants subjected to salinity pulses, but in non-salinity pulse treat...
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Papers by Ronald Boustany