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NOAA, USGS and partners: Chesapeake Bay ‘dead zone’ to vary from average to slightly smaller: Scientists expect that this year’s mid-summer Chesapeake Bay hypoxic low-oxygen zone or “dead zone” – an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and aquatic life – will be approximately 1.58 cubic miles, about the volume of 2.3 million Olympic-size swimming pools. This is close to the long-term average as measured since 1950.

SARP Announces FY 2016 Aquatic Habitat Restoration Project Awards: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has approved National Fish Habitat Partnership (NFHP) projects to receive USFWS-NFHP FY 2016 funding.

LCC Boosts Relationships in the Ohio River Basin: The Ohio River Basin Fish Habitat Partnership convened its annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio this month and the Appalachian LCC was there to join the conversation.

Service and partners announce science-based tool to help prioritize and target fish habitat conservation: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) today announce the availability of an online tool that enables users to target and prioritize fish habitat conservation in the face of climate and land use change.

Power Companies, Tribe, Agencies Take Steps to Save Rare Fish: Power companies, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and state and federal agencies have come together to conserve the sicklefin redhorse, a fish found in only six Appalachian counties worldwide and being considered for the federal endangered species list.

The eDNA revolution & developing comprehensive aquatic biodiversity archives: Measuring & understanding the effects of climate change on aquatic life requires an accurate baseline status assessment that can serve as a benchmark for comparisons through time.

Tennessee River Basin Network Workshop and Awards Celebration: The Tennessee Valley Authority and the Tennessee Aquarium sponsored a first-of-its-kind meeting that gathered regional conservation partners to celebrate successes conserving aquatic biodiversity in the Tennessee River Basin and to facilitate discussions among partners for greater cooperation and strategic effectiveness.

FishBrain and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partner to Create App-powered Citizen Science Engagement Opportunity Tracking Endangered Species: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – the federal government agency dedicated to the conservation of fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats – has teamed up with FishBrain – the world’s largest free-to-use app and social network for anglers – to launch a new feature of the app that will help the American public identify and document threatened, endangered and candidate species.

Maryland DNR Helps Fund New Stream Restoration Monitoring Program: Efforts to produce measurable water quality data and results.

Genetics Provide New Hope for Endangered Freshwater Mussels: A piece of the restoration puzzle to save populations of endangered freshwater mussels may have been found, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey led study. Local population losses in a river may not result in irreversible loss of mussel species; other mussels from within the same river could be used as sources to restore declining populations.

Endangered Species Act Protections Proposed for Two Appalachian Crayfishes in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia: Just as the central Appalachian landscape was beginning to undergo changes related to early 20th century mining, logging and population growth, researchers documented a number of crayfish species in the streams of this area known for its natural beauty and diverse wildlife. Two of these crayfishes, the Big Sandy crayfish and the Guyandotte River crayfish, are now in danger of extinction.

SARP Celebrates Decade of Aquatic Habitat Conservation: A decade-long regional effort in the southeastern United States, led by the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership (SARP), to preserve globally significant aquatic species and the habitats they need to survive before they are lost forever have produced a sleuth of success stories.

Reviewing Existing Tools and Data on Hydrologic and Ecologic Flow Models: The Aquatic Ecological Flows project reviewed existing tools and gathered available data within the project area on hydrologic and ecological flow models that would be suitable to use for the region.

Primary Influences on Water Temperature for Inland Streams: The COMET Program is pleased to announce the publication of the new lesson, "Primary Influences on Water Temperature for Inland Streams". The temperature of inland streams, rivers, and reservoirs affects aquatic wildlife, riparian vegetation, and infrastructure.

Pricing the Priceless: Ecosystem Services Science at USGS: Nature's products and services are essential not only to the ecosystems that provide them, but also to the people and societies built on them. Factoring their value into cost-benefit analyses is an important part of smart planning. But that raises a new question—how to assign value to ecosystem services?

FY2015 Brook Trout Conservation Funding Opportunity: The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV) is seeking project proposals focused on conserving the habitats needed to support healthy and productive wild Brook Trout populations.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 5 Endangered Species Act Update: Featuring general news, incidental take permit, and classification information pertaining to the Endangered Species Act in Region 5.

Ecology Team Improves Understanding of Valley-wide Stream Chemistry: A geostatistical approach for studying environmental conditions in stream networks and landscapes has been successfully applied at a valley-wide scale to assess headwater stream chemistry at high resolution, revealing unexpected patterns in natural chemical components.

Restoration biologist Jess Jones receives Rachel Carson Award: Jess Jones, a restoration biologist in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, co-director of Virginia Tech’s Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Center, and an integral part of the Appalachian LCC, received the Rachel Carson Award for Scientific Excellence from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mapping Climate Change in the Oceans: NOAA Research and NOAA Fisheries collaborate on new method to assess fish vulnerability to climate change