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Pautzke, S. M., M. E. Mather, J. T. Finn, L. A. Deegan, R. M. Muth. 2010. Seasonal use of a New England estuary by foraging contingents of migratory striped bass. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 139: 257–269
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January 2010
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Mather, M. E., J. T. Finn, C. G. Kennedy, L. A. Deegan, and J. M. Smith. What happens in an estuary does not stay there: patterns of biotic teleconnectivity resulting from long term ecological research. Oceanography 26(3):168–179
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September 2013
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Mather, M. E, J. T. Finn, S. M. Pautzke, D. Fox, T. Savoy, H. M. Brundage III, L. A. Deegan, R. M. Muth. 2010. Destinations, routes, and timing of adult striped bass on their southward fall migration: implications for coastal movements. Journal of Fish Biology 77: 2326–2337.
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December 2010
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Mather, M. E, J. T. Finn, K. H. Ferry, L. A. Deegan, G. A. Nelson.. 2009. Use of non-natal estuaries by migratory striped bass (Morone saxatilis) in summer. Fishery Bulletin 107(3): 329-337
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July 2009
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Kennedy, C. G., M. E. Mather, J. M. Smith, J. T. Finn, L. A. Deegan. 2015. Discontinuities concentrate mobile predators: Quantifying organism-environment interactions at a seascape scale. Ecosphere 7(2):e01226. 10.1002/ecs2.1226.
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Abstract
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March 2016
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ABSTRACT
Understanding environmental drivers of spatial patterns is an enduring ecological problem critical to successful environmental conservation. Spatial discontinuities, both naturally occurring (e.g., river confluence, forest edge, drop-off) and anthropogenic (e.g., dams, roads), can strongly influence the distribution of highly mobile organisms that have land or seascape scale home ranges. Critical information about drivers of spatial patterns may be missed if only regularly-occurring environmental variables (e.g., depth, substrate, current velocity) are considered. A geomorphic discontinuity framework, expanded to include ecological patterns, provides a different way of examining organism-environment relationships that can capture the influence of these important but irregularly-distributed environmental conditions. Here, we test if highly mobile striped bass (Morone saxatilis) on a coastal feeding migration are consistently and predictably concentrated by spatial discontinuities. Specifically, we quantified the distribution of 50 acoustically-tagged striped bass relative to six types of physical features (sand bars, confluences, drop-offs, depth, channel proximity, region) during four monthly surveys at 40 sites within Plum Island Estuary (PIE). All striped bass survived tagging, were coastal migrants, displayed seasonal residency within PIE, and moved frequently within the estuary ecosystem. Striped bass were predictably and consistently clustered in the middle region of PIE at sites with high sandbar area, close to channel networks, adjacent to complex confluences, and at intermediate levels of bottom unevenness. In addition, the highest striped bass counts occurred at sites with the greatest additive heterogeneity (i.e., where multiple discontinuities co-occurred). Thus, the ecological discontinuity framework provided new insights about how mobile predators were distributed at the seascape scale that did not emerge from traditional habitat use perspectives. Consequently, our approach provides a fundamentally different way of looking at interactions among mobile animals and seascape-scale natural and anthropogenic physical features.
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Kennedy, C. G., M. E, Mather, and J. M. Smith. 2017. Quantifying integrated, spatially-explicit, ecologically-relevant, physical heterogeneity within an estuarine seascape. Estuaries and Coasts, 40(5): 1385-1397; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-016-0207-9; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12237-016-0207-9
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Abstract
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April 2017
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Abstract
In marine and estuarine ecosystems, quantifying spatially explicit patterns of physical heterogeneity is essential for meaningful ecological research and effective resource management. To identify site specific patterns of ecologically relevant heterogeneity, we asked three research questions for which we measured 23 geomorphic metrics at 40 sites within Plum Island Estuary (PIE), MA. Quantifying spatial patterns for complex physical features (e.g., confluences, bathymetric variation, channel networks, land features) provided several insights about seascape scale physical heterogeneity. First, individual metrics that described a single complex physical feature (e.g. confluence) showed different geographic patterns. When we used a cluster analysis to combine metrics from the same individual feature, we identified five patterns of confluences and three patterns of drop-offs throughout PIE. Second, because different types of physical features also varied in their geographic patterns, we developed and tested two indicators of overall physical heterogeneity. These overall heterogeneity indices combined physical features at specific sites via either a cluster analysis or an additive index. Third, these spatial patterns of overall physical heterogeneity were related to concentrations of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) within Plum Island Estuary. Specifically, more of these structure-oriented fish predators occurred at geographic locations with high overall heterogeneity (i.e., within a single heterogeneity cluster and at sites with the highest additive heterogeneity index values). With the creation and analysis of new metrics for individual and combined physical features, we have provided insights into spatially explicit patterns of physical heterogeneity that are relevant to seascape scale predator research and management.
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Ferry, K. H., and M. E. Mather. 2012. Spatial and temporal diet patterns of young adult and subadult striped bass feeding in Massachusetts estuaries: trends across scales. Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 4:30–45
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March 2012
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Adam E. Rosenblatt1,*, Michael R. Heithaus2, Martha E. Mather3, Philip Matich1, James C. Nifong4, William J. Ripple5, Brian R. Silliman6. 2013. Coastal top predators and long-term ecological research. Oceanography 26(3):156–167
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September 2013
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