Month: May 2022

John and Hannes travel to Bermuda to install a new CO2 system

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BIOS-Explorer
The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) with its flagship the R/V 'Atlantic Explorer' in May 2022

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John Hamilton (right) and Hannes Baumann (left), the UConn team for the BIOS CO2 project

29 May 2022. When in a few months researchers and students at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science (BIOS) begin using their new outdoor mesocosm facility, they can now manipulate and control the CO2 levels in as many of 9 flow-through basins. The important new capacity of the system will allow realistic ocean warming and acidification experiments and has been the product of a wonderful collaboration between BIOS researcher Dr. Yvonne Sawall and our UConn Marine Sciences team consisting of John Hamilton and Hannes Baumann.

The newly developed system shares some of the design ideas with ALFiRiS, the factorial rearing system we developed and used over the past years at UConn's Rankin Seawater Lab. For example, we again developed and installed a central pH measurement hub that sequentially collects water samples via pumps from each of 12 independent basins, which is advantageous, because it only relies on a single, high-end pH sensor, therefore making measurements always comparable. Similarly, we are using LabView software (National Instruments) to switch pumps on and off and log, display, and graph the pH conditions in real time for researchers to have confidence in their chosen environmental parameters.

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A view over Mullet Bay from Slip Point Lane in St.George/Bermuda

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A downward view of BIOS' outdoor mesocosm facility, still in the middle of the major refurbishment

While most of the planning and design work was done remotely via frequent online meetings, Hannes and John worked with Yvonne during the past week at the BIOS station on installing and testing the systems major components. Working mostly out in the open under a warm and clear Bermudan sky was a particular treat of this assignment. Big shout-out, too, to facilities manager Kevin Hollis for his tireless onsite help!

Despite setbacks in form of supply chain delays and an unfortunate last moment COVID infection preventing team member Lucas Jones from traveling to Bermuda, soon the new outdoor mesocosm facility at BIOS will become operational and allow new and advanced kinds of experimental research on global change biology.

Staying at the Mary and James Buttler suite at BIOS was a particular treat

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The electronic box designed & assembled by John controls the sampling pumps

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On May 24th, John is explaining the workings of the software to Yvonne and Roderick

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On May 26, Yvonne measures pH in a mock-up of the CO2 header tanks for the mesocosm facility

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On May 28, our work is done and we enjoy the evening on the dock of Yvonne's place in St.George

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'Winky' is the queen of BIOS

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The R/V Atlantic Explorer is the flagship of BIOS and the main operation platform for the BATS time series

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John takes a picture of a Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia, Fabacea, Caesalpinioideae), a particularly stunning tree at the BIOS and all over Bermuda

Another crazy road trip for genetic silverside research

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15 May 2022. A full, blood red moon rises over Pine Island this Sunday evening. The sight makes not just humans swoon – its pull extents underwater to all kinds of critters that take it as cue for reproduction. Critters just like the Atlantic Silverside, which once again we pursue this season to extract more of its genomic 'secrets'.

Specifically, it is this weekend that we embark on yet another ambitious road trip to find and sample spawning-ripe silversides from two very far apart places: Morehead City, North Carolina and Beverly, Massachusetts. The goal: transport spawners live from each population to UConn's Rankin Seawater lab and produce calculated crosses that will allow studying the role of genomic inversions in local adaptation.

The crew this time are Maria Akopyan and Jessica Rick from Cornell University, along with Lucas Jones and Hannes Baumann from UConn. Big shout-out to Tara Duffy for her help with beach seining at Beverly, MA. During the spawning event on May 15th, Nina Therkildsen also joined the efforts. The design and experiment are part of Jessi's successful NSF post-doctoral fellowship proposal, which the whole UConn-Cornell silverside team supports.

Click through the pictures below to retrace the steps of an exhausting but so far successful effort. Fingers crossed that all goes well during the next weeks, when the fish need to hatch, survive and grow, so they can be assessed for their traits.

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The US east coast map illustrates our ambitious sampling plan.

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On 12th May, fog envelopes the Chesapeake Bridge on our drive south to Morehead City, NC.

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Maria, Hannes, Lucas, and Jessi getting ready to beach seine the Morehead City site

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Our 100ft beach seine is being laid out on the Morehead City site.

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On May 13th, Atlantic silversides caught in Morehead City swim in a bucket.

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Lucas checking whether the fish are properly prepared for transport.

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Ripe adult silversides are being transported in large coolers, with proper aeration and water changes underway.

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Maria driving through the night. The long trip back up north is especially taxing.

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On May 14th, Jessi and Tara pull our seine net up the beach on Obear Park, Beverly, MA.

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Maria bringing a new sampling bucket to Jessi and Tara (background) seining.

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Seining at low tide in Obear Park is made more difficult by ankle deep mud.

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On May 15th, at UConn's Rankin Seawater lab, Nina and Jessi strategize about designing crosses.

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On May 15th, Hannes, Jessi, and Nina spawn individual silversides.

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Jessi squeezing a silverside female for eggs in UConn's Rankin Lab.

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A 24 hours old silverside embryo developing at 26C.

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On May 15th, Jessi lays out individual crosses to be reared in the circle tanks in UConn's Rankin Lab.

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Nina and Maria extract DNA from male and female spawners to determine a specific regions homo- vs. heterozygosity.

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Screens with attached embryos are being suspended in buckets for development under two different temperatures.

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A specific capture probe (TARMS gel) allows the quick determination whether adult spawners were homo- or heterozygous for specific inversions on chromosomes 11, 18, or 24

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A silverside larva 6 days post hatch produced from NC spawners. The stomach is full of brine shrimp nauplii, pigmentation just started.

Unveiling a new sturgeon outreach sign at Hammonassett State Park

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On May 7th, project members, CTDEEP, and CT SeaGrant representatives unveil the new outreach sign about Atlantic sturgeon at Hammonassett State Park (f.l.t.r. Mason Trumble, CTDEEP deputy commissioner; Tom Savoy, CTDEEP scientist; Kelli Mosca, CTDEEP; Joe Cunningham, CTDEEP; Hannes Baumann, UConn; Sylvain Deguise, CT SeaGrant Director; Jacque Benway, CTDEEP

May 7th, 2022. Despite the chilly, rainy weather on Hammonassett Park's Meigs Point and the resultant lack of a beach crowd, the mood among the group was elated and proud. For over two years, our lab together with researchers from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CTDEEP, Tom Savoy, Jacque Benway) have worked tirelessly to better understand the growth and seasonal movement patterns of Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhynchus) in Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River. The research project was funded by Connecticut SeaGrant (NOAA Award NA18OAR4170081, Project R/LR-29).

Kelli Mosca did her M.S. thesis research using fin spine sections for growth analyses and telemetry data for movement patterns. After defending in March 2022, she immediately accepted an offer by CTDEEP to become a full time staff scientist. Congrats again, Kelli!

The sign was designed by Joe Cunningham with pictures from Jacob Snyder (RedSkiesPhotography.com). It combines several outreach goals. 1) Convey to people that these ancient, iconic fish actually occur in our waters, 2) teach the interested readers that sturgeon spawn in freshwater and then grow up in saltwater, 3) give readers a sense of the ongoing research on Atlantic sturgeon, 4) tell the public that sturgeon may come back to Long Island Sound and River, but need protection. Particularly, they rely on any accidental catches to be released and reported. The sign is also available in Spanish language to broaden its reach.

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The sturgeon outreach sign at Hammonassett State Park