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20 June 2025. Members of the Baumann lab just returned from the 48th Annual Larval Fish Conference, which was organized this year by Early Life History Section members from the Université du Quebec in Quebec City. This small, international conference convened experts from 16 countries and all career stages dedicated to better understand processes governing fish early life stages (eggs, embryos, larvae, juveniles).
Le Chateau Fontenac is one of Quebec City's most distinctive landmarks
This year, our lab was represented by Hannes, Lucas, Emma, and Vicki - with the latter 3 doing a great job communicating the early findings of their PhD theses research via oral and poster presentations. Lucas shared genomic findings of sand lance in the Hudson Bay and from CO2-sensitivity experiments. Emma presented first insights of experimental research on the inshore sand lance species, and Vicki showed that in- and offshore sandlance species might mix more than previously thought. In addition, Emma helped organize and conduct a well received panel discussion for early career scientists about the art of reviewing and publishing.
Quebec is an incredibly picturesque, historic city - and all of us were lucky to be treated with a banquet dinner at the Quebec Parliament at the end of the conference. Well done, all!
Participants of the LFC48 at the meeting room at the Hotel Concorde
Conference banquet at the Quebec City Parliament
Hannes and Lucas at the revolving restaurant "La Ciel" on top of the hotel
Oral and Poster Presentations at LFC48
Jones, L.F., Schembri, S., Bouchard, C., and Baumann, H. 2025. What sand lance species inhabits the Hudson Bay System in the Canadian Arctic? Oral presentation.
You, V., Batta-Lona, P., O'Donnell, T., and Baumann, H. 2025. Identifying sand lance species and their distributions in the Northwest Atlantic using real-time PCR (qPCR). Poster. /li>
Jones, L.F., Murray, C.S., Zavell, M.D., Siegfried, E., Therkildsen, N.O., and Baumann, H. 2025. Is there a genomic basis to CO2 sensitivity in the Northern sand lance? Poster.
Siegfried, E. and Baumann, H. 2025. Temperature effects on the time to hatch in American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus). Poster.
Quebec City and the mighty St. Lawrence River at night
Fish that swam next to the dinosaurs are once again appearing in CT waters
After sightings of young sturgeon were reported, CT DEEP researcher Kelli Mosca ’22 MS and Professor Hannes Baumann began researching whether these ancient fish are making a comeback in the Connecticut River. (Credit Jacob Snyder)
By Elaina Hancock
For 160 million years, long-lived and highly migratory Atlantic sturgeons have made their way from the ocean to freshwater spawning grounds inland. The Connecticut River was one of the waterways sturgeon sought out – that is, until they were fished nearly to extinction in the early 20th century.
In 2014, however, researchers from the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) caught a few juvenile sturgeons in the Connecticut River, implying that sturgeons were spawning there again. More little sturgeon appeared in 2020 and again in 2022, leading some to wonder if this iconic fish that swam next to the dinosaurs was indeed making a comeback in our regional waters.
A new study from UConn professors Hannes Baumann from the Department of Marine Sciences and Eric Schultz from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, in collaboration with researchers from CT DEEP including Kelli Mosca ’22 MS, Jacque Roberts, Thomas Savoy and Evan Ingram from Stony Brook University, shows that we have much to learn about sturgeons and that it may not be too late to give them a chance for recovery. Their findings are published in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s open access journal, Fishery Bulletin.
CT Deep researchers including Jacque Roberts, pictured here, used acoustic telemetry to track the movements of sturgeons. For telemetry, the fish were equipped with a small transponder and CT DEEP responders mounted throughout the Connecticut River recorded signals whenever fish swam near. (Credit Jacob Snyder)
Baumann says the project started at a conference in 2019, when he connected with researchers at CT DEEP who pitched a potential collaboration with Mosca, who was a CT DEEP seasonal resource assistant at the time and was hoping to pursue a graduate degree and focus her research on sturgeon. Despite these sightings, Baumann says he was skeptical that the fish were having a comeback, but he was interested in the project.
“These fish spawn in freshwater and then they develop until they are about 50 centimeters in size, then they travel to the ocean so if you find a little sturgeon in the Connecticut River, it must have been born there,” says Baumann. “We know there are sturgeon entering the Connecticut River; then the question is, how far do they go?”
For the project, Baumann secured funding from Connecticut Sea Grant, Mosca joined Baumann’s lab, and they started analyzing data to study sturgeon movement in the Connecticut River.
In 1998, sturgeons became a protected species but only after their situation had become dire. They are now heavily regulated, and even getting permits for research is not an easy task, says Baumann.
The researchers took samples of their pectoral fins that indicate the fish’s approximate age. Mosca looked at samples taken from the fish to determine the age,
“Ageing fish is often compared to ageing trees, in the sense that just as trees gain a ring in their trunk for each year they’re alive, a fish adds what we call an annulus (ring) to various hard parts in their body each year they are alive. In sturgeon’s case, they are not fully calcified, meaning there are not many hard bones to choose from to age. However, a small piece of their pectoral fin is hard enough to create those rings and can thankfully regrow so there is no deleterious effect on the fish. I am thankful to have access to such a large archive of these samples, which are rare given the endangered status of this species,” says Mosca.
People have also tagged these fish with acoustic transmitters, a specialized tag that send out a signal which is then picked up by listening equipment called receivers. CT DEEP deploys receivers anchored along the Connecticut River and within Long Island Sound that record the tag data as tagged sturgeon swim by.
The researchers used data on tracked sturgeons over the course of the three-year study, and over that period, sturgeons were detected as far upriver as Wilcox Island (Middletown, at river kilometer 52).
Abacus plots (left) allows following the seasonal movement of individual fish along the Connecticut River receiver array, from the mouth of LIS, to the brackish estuary and into the fresh, upper river. A Kernel density plot (right) is used to visualize the habitat occupancy of many telemetered individuals.
“In theory, it’s all very easy, you just have to download the data and look where the sturgeon are,” says Baumann. “In practice, there are lots of statistics and analytical steps to properly assess these data. There were something like 1.5 million detections, over the three years in total, so 1.5 million rows of data, where every ping was a sturgeon somewhere. This corresponded to 85 individuals tracked over three years.”
Tracking animals in this way is called acoustic telemetry, and Baumann says the technology has profoundly changed our understanding of animal movements in the wild. There were some surprises in this one, he notes.
“Instead of just episodic accounts of single individuals, this study stands out for the large number of tracked fish,” says Baumann. “It showed that sturgeons generally arrive in the estuary in spring and leave in fall and that most stay in the brackish estuary. But intriguingly, a lot of the fish are indeed making these long upstream excursions into the freshwater. Why would they do this?”
Baumann says that the initial, most intuitive explanation of the fish displaying spawning migrations appeared unlikely after closer inspection. This is because most of the fish were not of adult size and age and, therefore, too young to spawn.
“We always thought Atlantic sturgeon are only in the estuary when they are young, and it is only when they want to spawn that they go into the freshwater. But that appears to be false. Our study shows that almost every size of sturgeon travelled into the freshwater portion of the Connecticut River. We had two individuals in our data set who were 18 years old. Most of the fish that we caught were younger than 12 years, and the average was about eight years, so they’re youngsters,” says Baumann.
The data therefore revealed that Atlantic sturgeons are using the entire Connecticut River, not just the estuary. Baumann says their working theory is that the fish are exploring other areas to find food, since the estuary can become crowded in the summer.
“In the paper, we advanced a theory that some of these Atlantic sturgeons move further up the river due to competition because it’s getting too crowded. The gist is we now know that we need to protect sturgeons at least during these important summer months, when they are in the entire Connecticut River.”
These findings are promising and important for ensuring measures are in place to help give the sturgeons the best chance possible at making a recovery. Though Baumann cannot say with certainty that the population is growing, a hopeful indication is that sightings of juveniles likely born in the River are happening more frequently.
“The sightings are still very sporadic and sort of ephemeral, but perhaps it’s a start.”
Protecting a highly mobile species like sturgeons can be tricky because they recognize no borders. Therefore, it takes national, federal, and international cooperation, but other measures are also important to ensure people are aware of their presence to help reduce accidental boat strikes or bycatch in commercial fisheries.
“From a logical perspective, they have been fished to quasi extinction in the beginning of the 20th century. Indeed, it would be a small miracle if these fish came back,” says Baumann. “At the end of the day, they made it 160 million years, and we need to just give them a chance to make it another 100. It doesn’t take much. It does take time, but if we allow it, I’m convinced that nature will find a way.”
Length (upper panel) and age distributions (lower panel) of Atlantic sturgeon in Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River (modified after Mosca et al. 2025)
10 December 2024. Emma and Hannes just returned from another trip to Wells Harbor in Maine, where we had been sampling and monitoring a local population of American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus) over the late summer and into fall. This was definitely a trip for the history books. Not because of the sand lance, mind you (we caught a total of 7), and certainly not for the beauty of the scenery either. We had hoped to catch these fish close to the begin of their spawning season (which starts around December) at low tide in the harbor, reasoning that our chances would be better at night. What we hadn't in mind was the snow storm that began walloping coastal Maine just as we arrived at the site. But what's a (slightly nutty) biologist to do? We gritted our teeth, hoped for the waders not to leak and braved the elements ...
On the night of December 9th, 2024, Emma stands on the docks of Wells Harbor - incredulous of the idea to go beach seining ...
Snow falls on the Christmas "tree" of Wells Harbor
The forecast was off by a few degrees ... and a lot of snow
Luckily, we were able to find a bed and a warm shower afterwards in the Alheim Commons of the Wells NERR. On the morning after, we walked into a frosty winter land, still somewhat incredulous that we actually went beachseining the night before. We believe that the drop in temperature has made the fish move to slightly deeper water that are not accessible via beachseine anymore. We learned something. Did we? But that's how science - sometimes - works.
On the morning of December 10th, 2024, the beach seine stands in front of the Alheim Commons dorms of the Wells NERR.
Snow dusts the lobster cages at Wells Harbor
We found out that sand lance do not like the coldness of the Wells Harbor much either
22 November 2024. We are happy to share that our paper on black sea bass stomach content metabarcoding has been published today in the traditional NOAA journal Fishery Bulletin. Our study used black sea bass juveniles caught in Mumford Cove to study their diet via a molecular approach known as metabarcoding. This method often detects rare or soft-bodied prey better than traditional morphological content analyses. We found that small, newly settled black sea bass eat mostly shrimp, but also many softbodied polychaetes. And weirdly, they seem to like one particular kind of (invasive) amphipod. Only larger juveniles seem to add fish to their diet.
Our study is a great first collaboration between our departments genomic experts (Ann Bucklin, Paola Batta-Lona) and the Evolutionary Fish Ecology Lab. The first product of our collaborative efforts has seen the light!
Fishery Bulletin is the 143 years old peer-reviewed journal managed and published by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It publishes Open Access at no costs to authors. Click the link below to download the paper.
Composition of prey detected in samples from stomachs of juvenile black sea bass (Centropristis striata), collected in Mumford Cove off Connecticut in August 2020, through metabarcoding with (A) the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene region and (B) the V9 hypervariable region of 18S rRNA. Bars represent the total number of COI and V9 gene sequences identified for each of 6 and 10 major prey taxa in DNA samples from 35 and 99 stomachs, respectively. In panel A, lists / pictures of the major prey species and their relative proportions for each prey taxon are provided (modified after Figure 1 in Batta-Lona et al. 2025)
6 September 2024. During the first research cruise of the CIEROW group on board the R/V Connecticut, our lab deployed a box trawl in- and outside the Revolution Wind field for a total of 7 times and 5 different locations. The box trawl had a 6 mm cod-end and tickler chains to catch small benthic fish – specifically sand lance of the genus Ammodytes.
Research crew on CRW09-24 (fltr: Xavier Warren, Hannes Baumann, Evan Ward, Jessica Vorse, Michael Whitney, Bridget Holohan, Michael Cappola, Paola Batta-Lona)
On 4 September, the sun sets at the Revolution wind field, still under construction
The box trawl was deployed from the main deck winch of the R/V Connecticut, with approximately 200m of wire let out in stations with water depths ranging from 34 – 38m, trawl speeds of 2 – 2.5kn for 13-15 upon reaching full wire-out lengths. Total trawl time (trawl in water – out of water) was about 25 minutes. During light hours, the trawl was equipped with a GoPro (Hero 4) to obtain footage of the trawled seafloor and potential organisms.
Overall, the trawl worked well with the ship and deployed as intended over the bottom. The GoPro footage revealed mostly sandy/muddy substrates with surprisingly little benthic fish life. Sand lance were neither caught in the trawl nor seen on the videos. Most trawls caught only few organisms, with the exception of Trawl 3 at station R6, which collected a number of common benthic fishes such as two hake species, one skate, sea robin and scup.
The box trawl stands on the deck of the R/V Connecticut
Fish species caught at Trawl 03 at station R6 on 4th September 2024 (9:30 PM): Northern (1) red hake (Urophycis chuss), (2) thorny skate (Leucoraja erinacea), (3) silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis), (4) red hake juvenile, (5) butterfish (Peprilus triacanthus), (6) scup (Stenotomus chrysops), (7) Northern sea robin (Prionotus carolinus). Gridded background has 5 mm squares.
For this first deployment, we were cautious operating the gear in safe areas, but probably ended up trawling over sandy/muddy sediments that are not good habitat for sand lance. For the next cruise, we will therefore aim to alter trawl locations to include stations with known gravel or coarser sediment types.
A special thanks to Joel Llopiz and Lyndsey Lefebvre from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who kindly lent us the box trawl to fish for sand lance, and to Justin Suca for facilitating this. We are also grateful to Marco, Sam, John and Luke from the R/V Connecticut crew for helping to deploy this new gear, even in somewhat rougher seas.
20 August 2024. Emma and Hannes went on a road trip through New England to again visit our good friends and colleagues at the National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) in Wells, ME, Jeremy Miller and Jason Goldstein. Our mission this time was to try - for the first time - to find and collect American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus), the congener species to the Northern sand lance (A. dubius), which our lab has been investigating for now more than 7 years.
While the Northern sand lance can be reliably found on Stellwagen Bank in the southern Gulf of Maine, the specific whereabouts and promising collection sites for A. americanus are new, uncharted territory for us. They are often referred to as the inshore sand lance species, but where exactly would be a good spot to collect them?
On this late August week, we followed a tip from Jeremy from the Wells NERR to look at the harbor, where he had seen large schools near the docks all through summer.
After a good amount of scouting and trial (and error!) we ultimately got lucky at dead low tide, where we were able to use the beach seine to catch more than a thousand sand lance adults and eventually succeeded in transporting ~ 300 of them back to the Rankin Lab for further learning how to rear and keep them.
This was the first of a handful of upcoming trips, where we plan to catch sand lance closer and closer to the begin of their spawning season at the end of November.
We hope that the luck stays with us during the next trips.
The harbor of Wells, ME, on the afternoon of August 19th 2024
American sand lance swimming in our tank at Rankin Lab on 21 August 2024
20 May 2024. Who wouldn't want to trade the confines of a highschool classroom for a day on the ocean, particularly one packed with whales, dolphins and seabirds? On this Monday in May, 60 seniors of the Marine Magnet Highschool in Groton, CT and the Plainfield Highschool in Plainfield, CT were indeed lucky enough to enjoy such exceptional experience and a very special class out on the water.
Because this was no ordinary whale watch. Our team from the NSF-funded sand lance project (Hannes, Zosia, Lucas, and Emma) accompanied the highschoolers and together boarded the "Tails of the Sea" (Captain John Boats, Plymouth, MA). While the vessel navigated the route to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Zosia, Emma and Lucas assembled small groups of students to tell them more about what extraordinary fish sand lance are, why they are so important, and why ocean acidification may be a troublesome issue for these forage fish.
On 20 May 2024, Emma Siegfried explains the importance of sandlance to highschool students
What we hoped but couldn't have known for sure: nature spectacularly cooperated with our curriculum. We observed large numbers of minke, fin, and humpback whales as well as a large pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins chasing schools of sand lance all around the ship, while gannets, seagulls and terns were trying to get their share of the feast from above. Mesmerized, nobody could get away without learning the central lesson of this day. Sand lance are the backbone of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and there are still too many things we do not know about these fish.
Lucas Jones introduces Stellwagen Bank to students of the Marine Magnet Highschool in Groton, CT
Zosia teaching students from Plainfield Highschool about ocean acidification and potential impacts on the food web
On May 20th 2024, students stand on the bow of the 'Tails of the Sea' to spot whales and dolphins
A special thanks for a flawless coordination and logistics to highschool teachers Amy Ferland from Groton, Stephanie Pye and Anita Japp (supporting this event despite her recent retirement) from Plainfield. This NSF-funded outreach activity will now be repeated for two more years! At least all our team can't wait to get out there again. Have a look at the days pictures and a video of some of the most memorable moments.
Returning from a successful class two teachers from the Marine Magnet Highschool and UConn's Zosia Baumann
28 May 2024. The latest issue of Wrack Lines, the in house magazine of Connecticut Sea Grant, just published a nice feature article about our recent and ongoing research on Black Sea Bass in Long Island Sound. Written by Paul Choiniere, the article explains the background and the research in an easy, accessible way, while introducing our lab and its main actors.
18 April 2024. Today we are happy and proud to announce that Max Zavell has successfully defended his dissertation titled "Experimental assessment of ocean warming and acidification effects on multiple life stages of Black Sea Bass, Centropristis striata". A big, heartfelt congratulations from the entire lab!
Max Zavell had started as a PhD student in our lab in fall 2020, and his thesis research broke new ground by working experimentally with Black Sea Bass, a grouper species of great interest because of its recent, explosive increase in abundance in Long Island Sound and the larger northwest Atlantic shelf. Over two fall and winter seasons, Max conducted ambitious long-term rearing experiments on juveniles and adults to study how overwintering could be the key to understand these new dynamics. Now, after only three and a half years, Max has stepped up to the plate and showed his peers and colleagues the fruits of the work.
We were particularly delighted that all this committee members - Profs. Jacqueline Webb (URI), Catherine Matassa (UConn), and Eric Schultz (UConn) - were able to attend in person!
Well done, Max! Your team spirit and unwavering energy will be missed! We wish you all the best for your next career steps!
On April 18th, Max begins presenting his PhD research at UConn's Department of Marine Sciences
Done! Max and Hannes savor a moment of pride in the Rankin Lab
Max Zavell and Matt Mouland, who were a great team in the Rankin Lab and beyond
Max with Hannes and Prof. Jacqueline Webb from the University of Rhode Island
16 April 2024. After a 9-month sabbatical stay at the University of Concepcion in Chile, Hannes returned to US soil today, full of experiences, data, and a chest full of samples of larval, juvenile, and adult Chilean silversides. Grateful to the many helpful colleagues and friends, a first year of experiments are in the bag, resulting in a number of interesting findings that await further analysis and - crucially - a second, replicate experiment in the year to follow. In other words, while the sabbatical is now over - the project of revealing co- and countergradient variation in the Chilean silverside is still very much underway. On to the next chapter!
The cove of Puda near Dichato to the north of Concepcion, Chile