The goal of this project is to identify and monitor long-term trends and variability in seagrass-dominated ecosystems in the gulf islands national seashore and identify drivers of change in…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the University of Southern Mississippi a $2.199 million Cooperative Agreement on October 1, 2025, under the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Science, Observation, Monitoring, and Technology program (CFDA 11.451) to identify and monitor long-term trends and drivers of change in seagrass-dominated ecosystems in the Gulf Islands National Seashore through September 30, 2030.

The recipient will expand hydrographic monitoring stations to track environmental conditions; map seagrass extent, landscape characteristics, and human impacts over time; map and monitor seagrass species distribution, production, reproduction, and condition; map, monitor, and identify drivers of seagrass-associated nekton community composition and abundance; characterize soundscapes and assess nekton behavior using passive and active acoustics; develop ecosystem models examining linkages between environmental variables, habitat characteristics, and nekton diversity; and implement knowledge transfer strategies for the management community and stakeholders. Work is performed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Florida International University serves as a sub-recipient, responsible for characterizing soundscapes and assessing nekton behavior through passive and active acoustic monitoring in the Gulf Islands National Seashore region. FIU will deploy 15 hydrophones continuously at a subset of monitoring stations, process recorded data to extract acoustic complexity indices, bandwidth-specific sound production levels and diversity, vocalizations and dolphin calls, and vessel-based noise, and combine acoustic data products with direct capture methods to examine spatial and temporal patterns in the nekton community.

The goal of this project is to identify and monitor long-term trends and variability in seagrass-dominated ecosystems in the gulf islands national seashore and identify drivers of change in biodiversity and productivity of these systems to address knowledge gaps and uncertainties prioritized by resource managers. By taking an integrative, ecosystem-based approach and using a CO-production of science framework, this project addresses the restore science programs three emphasis areas and will provide actionable data for managers to incorporate into regional planning efforts and development of the first marine management plan for guis. Specific objectives, identified and prioritized through discussions among project team members, are as follows: (1): expand an existing array of hydrographic monitoring stations to monitor environmental conditions in the study area; (2) map seagrass extent and landscape characteristics, including human impacts, and quantify change over time; (3) map, monitor, and identify drivers of seagrass species distribution, production, reproduction, and condition; (4) map, monitor, and identify drivers of seagrass-associated nekton community composition, abundance, and population characteristics; (5) characterize soundscapes and assess nekton behavior using passive and active acoustics; (6) develop ecosystem models to examine linkages between environmental variables, habitat characteristics, and nekton diversity, composition, and abundance, and (7) implement strategies for the transfer and application of project findings and products to the management community and other stakeholders.