DMS post-doctoral researcher Emma Cross publishes new brachiopod research

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15 April 2019. Dr. Emma Cross from the Baumann Lab just published her latest paper about brachiopod resilience to future ocean acidification in Environmental Science & Technology. The project involved long-term culturing of a polar and a temperate brachiopod under future ocean acidification and warming conditions during Emma’s PhD-research with the British Antarctic Survey. Substantial shell dissolution posed a threat to both species under ocean acidification, with more extensive dissolution occurring in the polar species.

Unexpectedly, however, the authors also discovered that brachiopods thicken their shell from the inner shell surface when extensive dissolution occurs at the outer shell surface under ocean acidification. This important finding furthers our understanding how predicted vulnerable marine calcifiers might cope under future environmental change.

Cross-ES&T-Graphical-abstract

Cross, E. L., Harper, E. M. and Peck, L. S. 2019. Thicker shells compensate extensive dissolution in brachiopods under future ocean acidification. Environmental Science & Technology (published online March 29, 2019).

New publication of mercury levels in aquatic wildlife and the atmosphere

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17 April 2019. Rob Mason was a co-author of a recent publication in Science of the Total Environment (How closely do mercury trends in fish and other aquatic wildlife track those in the atmosphere? – Implications for evaluating the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention) that provided a review of the potential timescale and magnitude of response of fish in different ecosystems to changes in inputs of mercury to the atmosphere from anthropogenic activities. The paper is a synthesis of information gathered for the 2018 Global Mercury Assessment Report, published by the United Nations Environmental Program as part of the activities of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a globally binding treaty that has been initiated to reduce anthropogenic mercury emissions to the biosphere.
    • Wang, F., Outridge, P.M., Feng, X., Meng, B., Heimbürger-Boavida, L.-E., and Mason, R.P. (2019)

How closely do mercury trends in fish and other aquatic wildlife track those in the atmosphere? – Implications for evaluating the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention
Science of The Total Environment 674:58-70

Canadian Journal of Zoology publishes perspective on experimental OA research by DMS faculty

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Fig01---breakthrough-themes_c
15 April 2019. Today, the Canadian Journal of Zoology published a perspective on the progress and challenges of experimental ocean acidification research, written by Hannes last year as an extension of keynote lectures on this topic given at the Annual meeting of the Canadian Zoological Society (St. John’s, NL, Canada) and the Gordon Research Symposium (Waterville Valley, NH). The perspective takes stock of the progress achieved in the field over past two decades in four key areas, hoping to inspire particularly new researchers to the field to build on this foundation.
Abstract: Experimental studies assessing the potential impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms have rapidly expanded and produced a wealth of empirical data over the past decade. This perspective examines four key areas of transfor- mative developments in experimental approaches: (1) methodological advances; (2) advances in elucidating physiological and molecular mechanisms behind observed CO2 effects; (3) recognition of short-term CO2 variability as a likely modifier of species sensitivities (Ocean Variability Hypothesis); and (4) consensus on the multistressor nature of marine climate change where effect interactions are still challenging to anticipate. No single experiment allows predicting the fate of future populations. But sustaining the accumulation of empirical evidence is critical for more robust estimates of species reaction norms and thus for enabling better modeling approaches. Moreover, advanced experimental approaches are needed to address knowledge gaps including changes in species interactions and intraspecific variability in sensitivity and its importance for the adaptation potential of marine organisms to a high CO2 world.
OVH-GRCtalk
Illustration of the Ocean Variability Hypothesis positing that the CO2 sensitivity of marine organisms is related to the magnitude of short-term CO2 fluctuations in their habitat (e.g., from nearshore to open ocean) and length of their early life stage durations. It suggests that the most CO2 tolerant marine organisms are those that develop fast and (or) in habitats with large contemporary CO2 fluctuations, whereas the potentially most vulnerable species are those that develop slowly in relatively stable open-ocean habitats.

Grad students Sean Ryan and Halle Berger win awards at 2019 Benthic Ecology Meeting

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Graduate students Sean Ryan and Halle Berger received Honourable Mention awards (top 10 graduate student presentations) for their presentations at the 2019 Benthic Ecology Meeting in St. John’s Newfoundland. Halle Berger, co-advised by Profs. Samantha Siedlecki and Catherine Matassa, was awarded for her interdisciplinary talk “Using regional oceanographic forecasts to assess the vulnerability of the Dungeness crab to climate change stressors.” Sean Ryan (advisor Catherine Matassa) was awarded for his poster “Induced herbivore resistance varies with latitude in the rockweed Fucus vesiculosus.” Sean and Halle were among ~180 student presenters at the meeting. Congratulations on your accomplishments, Halle and Sean!

New hydrothermal scavenging paper published in EPSL

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The Lund lab recently published a paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters on hydrothermal scavenging of trace metals at the East Pacific Rise. The results suggest that 230Th, a radionuclide commonly used to constrain sediment accumulation rates on the seafloor, is highly sensitive to changes in hydrothermal output, with important implications for the use of 230Th in paleoclimate and geochemical studies (https://davidlund.wixsite.com/averypointpaleo/page4).

Citizen science shows that climate change is rapidly reshaping Long Island Sound

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21 March 2019. Marine Environmental Research just published a study about long-term ecological change in eastern Long Island Sound based on data collected by Project Oceanology! This non-profit ocean literacy organization has educated middle and high school students on boat trips to nearby estuarine sites for decades. For the first time, the digitization of these data allowed their quantitative evaluation, offering insights into the abiotic and biotic changes in nearshore waters of Eastern Long Island Sound.

Highlights

    • Citizen-science observations revealed rapid warming, acidification, and dissolved oxygen loss over the past 40 years in eastern Long Island Sound
    • Otter trawl catches showed significant decreases in overall species diversity and richness
    • Cold-water adapted species (American lobster, winter flounder) decreased, but warm-water adapted species (spider crabs) increased since 1997

News3-400x428Fig_6-CPUEs_4-species

Undergraduate Students Unravel Challenges to Predicting Zooplankton Vulnerability to Warming

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Mentored by Professor Hans Dam and Ph.D. student Matthew Sasaki, Undergraduate students Sydney Hedberg and Kailin Richardson (participants in the UConn-Mystic Aquarium Research-Experience-for-Undergraduates Program, http://www.mysticaquarium.org/reu/) carried out experiments that yield important insights into how zooplankton respond to warming. The results of the work are now published in the journal Royal Society Open Science (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.182115). The research shows that predicting the vulnerability of populations to global warming involves complex interactions between evolutionary adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, and sex (females rule !). The paper has two important implications. Surprisingly, tropical populations are more at risk because animals are already living near their thermal limits. In addition, because of the low survival of males, populations facing warming may be limited by the ability of males to fertilize females.

Sydney-and-Kailin

Photos by Hans Dam

ASLO 2019 Aquatic Sciences Meeting well attended by UConn Department of Marine Sciences

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More than 15 faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduates from the Department of Marine Sciences presented their research at last week’s ASLO (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography) 2019 Aquatic Sciences Meeting in San Juan Puerto Rico.  DMS presentations reflected the diversity of our faculty’s research disciplines and approaches, including coral reefs, plankton ecology and physiology, nitrogen cycling, microplastics, salt marshes, and ecosystem impacts of storm events.

 

ASLO 2019 group picture ASLO 2019 booth

2019 Quahog Bowl

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Faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the Department of Marine Sciences participated in the 22nd annual Quahog Bowl held on UConn’s Avery Point campus.  This year, sixteen high-school teams competed in the event which is a regional competition for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl. Members of the Department served as science judges, science graders, score keepers, and in other capacities at the annual event.  The competition was fierce, and in the end the team from Science and Technology Magnet School A (New London, CT) won by besting the team from Coginchaug Regional High School (Durham, CT).  Overall, all teams had a fun and educational day.

https://seagrant.uconn.edu/2019/01/24/16-teams-to-compete-in-22nd-annual-quahog-bowl-on-feb-2/

 

https://seagrant.uconn.edu/2019/02/05/nl-team-captures-first-quahog-bowl-win-heads-to-nationals/

2018 AGU Fall Meeting had high turnout by UConn Department of Marine Sciences

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From December 10-14, 2018, students and faculty from the Department of Marine Sciences attended the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington D.C. This conference covers space, atmosphere, ocean, and earth sciences, as well as special sessions focusing on science policy, communication, and education. This year marked the start of AGU’s centennial, which introduced more unique programs. It is also one of the largest natural sciences conferences in the world, with an average attendance of 25,000 people.

The department’s presentations covered sea sprary chemistry, the Ocean Observatories Initiative, mercury in the Bering Sea, nutrient budgets in Long Island Sound, and more.

AGU 2018