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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.
17 May 2024. Members of our Evolutionary Fish Ecology Lab had a blast attending this years 47th Larval Fish Conference in Huron, OH. Hannes, Emma, Max and alumnus Chris Murray (now at WHOI), went on a road trip from Connecticut to Lake Eerie to present and learn about all things larval fish. On Tuesday morning, the conference crowd enjoyed excursion or recreation options, all the while catching up with good old colleagues and making new connections and friends. A particular achievement: each of us presented research on a different fish species; while Hannes showed the first data emerging from his sabbatical research on Chilean silversides, Emma talked about baby California grunion development. Max presented a poster and two talks, the first about CO2 effects on the onset of schooling in Atlantic silversides and a second one one Black Sea Bass overwintering dynamics. Last, Chris Murray gave a fascinating first look into gene expression data from our most recent sand lance CO2 experiment. All around, a strong showing of our lab!
Contributions from our lab to the 47th Larval Fish Conference in Huron, OH
Baumann, H., Gallardo, A., Gallardo, C., and Urbina, M. 2024. First evidence for countergradient growth variation in the Chilean silverside Odontesthes regia. Oral presentation
Siegried, E. and Johnson, D. 2024. Eyes bigger than your stomach: developmental inaccuracy in larval California grunion. Oral presentation.
Zavell, M.D., Mouland, M., Barnum, D., Matassa, C., Schultz, E.T., and Baumann, H. 2024. Overwintering dynamics of northern stock Black Sea Bass, Centropristis striata, juveniles. Oral presentation.
Zavell, M.D., O'del, J., Mouland, M., Webb, J.F., and Baumann, H. 2024. Ontogeny of larval schooling and effects of ocean acidification in Atlantic Silversides (Menidia menidia). Oral presentation.
Murray, C.S., Jones, L., Siegfried, E., Zavell, M.D., Baumann, Z., Wiley, D., Therkildsen, N., Aluru, N., and Baumann, H. 2024. Examining the effect of ocean acidification on hatching enzyme gene expression in Northern sand lance (Ammodytes dubius). Oral presentation.
Long-time attendees of the LFC happy to meet again (fltr: Pascal Sirois, Dominique Robert, Hannes Baumann, Chris Chambers, Bill Leggett)
Proud members of the lab at the end of the LFC47
Extensive fields of water lilies in the Huron River, OH
A nice break from conference science, kayaking the Huron River
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
Black Sea Bass have rapidly increased in abundance particularly in Long Island Sound (LIS Trawl survey data).
27 December 2023. We are excited to announce that Transactions of the American Fisheries Society just published our first large experimental study on Black Sea Bass overwintering! The work is part of Max Zavell's PhD research and reports on temperature- and food-ration dependent overwinter growth in Black Sea Bass juveniles from Long Island Sound. We reared juveniles individually in two separate experiments, one applying three static temperature treatments (6, 12, 19°C) and another using a seasonal temperature profile to mimic the thermal experience of juveniles emigrating to their offshore overwintering grounds coupled with various food treatments.
We found that Black Sea Bass juveniles showed positive overwinter growth even at temperatures as low as 6°C. However, the best temperature for growth, survival, and lipid accumulation was 12°C, which is close to the presumed conditions at offshore overwintering habitats of this species.
Congratulations, Max, to this great paper! Also, congrats to undergraduate student Matthew Mouland, who helped tirelessly with the rearing and has now deservedly become a co-author.
(A) total length (TL) growth (mm/day), (B) weight-specific growth (%/day), and (C) growth efficiency (%) of juvenile Black Sea Bass reared at 6°C (blue circles), 12°C (green circles), and 19°C (orange circles) for 42–78 days. Each symbol represents an individual fish.
Juvenile Black Sea Bass rearing setup in March 2022 in the Rankin Lab. Each white bucket contained an individual fish.
November 26, 2023. Members of the Sand lance Mafia assembled onboard the F/V Miss Emily in hopes of finding spawning ripe fish for our 2023 experiment. After loading our gear, Captain Kevin navigated us towards the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank and deployed our beam trawl for our first 10-minute tow.
Boom! From the first tow, fish in spawning condition were brought on board, counted and separated by sex. Now, we just needed to repeat this for 13 more trawls until we had a sufficient amount of fish to start the experiment. After collecting 40+ spawning ripe males and females, we headed back to port wile starting to strip-spawn. This is an all hands on deck process, where we need to work together to evaluate the fish in real time and use the most ripe fish available.
The successful strip-spawn event now marks the start of our most ambitious experiment to date, where DNA and RNA samples will help us further investigate potential mechanisms behind the sand lances high CO2 sensitivity.
Blastula stage sand lance embryos ~ 24h post fertilization
The sandlance 2023 team after the first trip to Stellwagen Bank this year (left to right: Sam, Emma Siegfried, Chris Murray, Lucas Jones, Zosia Baumann, David Wiley)
On 26 November, Lucas is back at the Rankin Lab with the goods!
This article has been reposted from UConn Today. Read the original here
October 12, 2023 | Elaina Hancock - UConn Communications
Snap Shot: How Will Organisms Adapt to Climate Change?
A UConn Marine Sciences researcher is spending time in Chile studying an important forage fish, and how this vital part of the food chain will adapt to a changing climate
The rocky and picturesque shores of the Pacific near Dichato
The world’s oceans have experienced record heat in 2023. With rising temperatures and increasing acidification, we don’t yet know the full extent these changes will have on marine ecosystems.
UConn Department of Marine Sciences Associate Professor Hannes Baumann studies fish, including important forage fishes such as sand lance and silverside, to see how they adapt to changes in environmental conditions. Many species are already adapted to temperature gradients that exist across latitudes on Earth, and Baumann believes that from these patterns, we can learn how fish may adapt to climate change – in time. This so-called “Space-for-Time” approach is one tool scientists use to predict the long-term consequences of climate change.
As part of his post-doctoral work, Baumann experimentally found similar climate adaptation patterns in Atlantic and Pacific silversides. He suspects that a higher-order relationship exists between the strength of adaptation and the strength of the underlying climate gradient.
Now, with a grant from the National Science Foundation, Baumann has the opportunity to return to and expand his study of silversides to a South Pacific species and study how they are adapted to their coastal latitudinal temperature gradient.
“We are hoping the prove the validity of a principle of evolutionary adaptation for the Southern Hemisphere. It will then allow us to compare and integrate the patterns with the silverside species from the Northern Hemisphere, which evolutionary ecologists have been studying for decades already,” says Baumann.
After a two-week proof-of-concept trip to Chile in the Fall of 2022, Baumann established connections with local fishermen and colleagues at the Universidad de Concepcion in Dichato, Chile.
“To get spawning fish, we visit fish markets – called here caletas de pescadores – and first establish a connection to those who make a living catching silversides (“pejerrey del mar”). We’re making friends to explain our unusual request to accompany a fisherman during the night. This is the best method to make sure that the eggs get fully fertilized," he says.
In the Summer of 2023, Baumann began his yearlong sabbatical and has now moved to Chile for five months to begin the main experimental work on Chilean silversides, their adaptations, and the strength of those adaptations to underlying climate change.
17 Juli 2023. Hannes just moved for 5 months to a small village called Dichato near Concepción in south-central Chile to build and then conduct a large common garden experiment on the Chilean silverside Odontesthes regia.
It's still early, disorienting days - but thanks to the ever optimistic Mauricio Urbina, the collaborator on this project, the mood is good and full of anticipation.
24 June 2023. We are overjoyed to be able to announce today that NSF's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems has awarded our proposed research to better understand sand lance CO2 sensitivity!
With a sense of pride and humility we will take on this intriguing case, follow it down some rabbit holes, while keeping in mind the big picture. This fall, our collaborative team will begin its renewed work, now on both congeneric sandlance species (Ammodytes dubius, A. americanus).
We already have two talented PhD students recruited to the task, Lucas Jones and Emma Siegfried. With curiosity and anticipation, we look forward to the next years of eco-evolutionary research on some of the most important forage fish species on the Northwest Atlantic Shelf.
Earlier work showed that sand lance embryos are unusually sensitive to high CO2
NSF-ORCC (Organismal Response to Climate Change): Collaborative Research: Mechanisms underpinning the unusual, high CO2 sensitivity of sand lances, key forage fishes on the Northwest Atlantic Shelf (#2307813, 2023-2026, $1,050,000)
The research team: Hannes Baumann (lead-PI, UConn), Zofia Baumann (UConn), David Wiley (NOAA), Nina Therkildsen (Cornell), Chris Murray (WHOI), Neel Aluru (WHOI)
*** Why are sand lance so sensitive to future high CO2 conditions in the ocean? ***
Public Award Abstract
Ocean warming and acidification are direct, predictable consequences of man-made climate change with likely vast but still insufficiently understood consequences for marine life.
So far, most tested fish species appear only mildly sensitive to ocean acidification, but sand lances are an exception. Sand lances are small, eel-like, schooling fishes of enormous importance as food for marine fish, seabirds and mammals in temperate to polar ecosystems, and recent research conclusively demonstrated that many sand lance embryos have trouble developing and hatching under predicted future ocean conditions.
This project uses modern experimental and molecular tools to understand exactly WHY sand lance embryos are so unusually sensitive and which genes and enzymes are responsible for this. Genes will also reveal whether some specific genotypes are less sensitive to warming and acidification, which can then be used to predict whether the species could evolve to be more tolerant over time.
Another important objective is to test a closely related sand lance species to find out, whether the high climate sensitivity might be of general concern in this important group of forage fishes. This project combines innovative ecological, evolutionary, and genomic research to help society anticipate looming marine ecosystem changes in the 21st century, while equipping the next generation of scientists with the needed tools and expertise to succeed in the challenges ahead.
The project also creates opportunities for high school students from underprivileged Connecticut schools to accompany the team on sand lance sampling trips to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus) swimming in surface waters of Wells Harbor, ME in November 2021
Technical Award Abstract
Two recent studies on Northern sand lance (Ammodytes dubius), a key forage fish on offshore sand banks across the Northwest Atlantic shelf (NWA), have robustly demonstrated that predicted future CO2 conditions induce some of the most severe reductions in embryo survival and hatching success seen yet among tested fish species. This project has four objectives for revealing the mechanisms underpinning this unusual, high CO2-sensitivity as well as the ubiquity and genetic basis of this phenomenon.
[1] For the first time, we will rear A. dubius offspring produced from wild spawners to late larval stages at factorial CO2 × temperature conditions to test whether sand lance larvae are as CO2-sensitive as embryos.
[2] For the first time, we will use transcriptomic tools (RNAseq, RT-qPCR) to elucidate mechanisms causing ‘CO2-impaired hatching’, focusing specifically on hatching enzymes, to better understand a newly discovered mortality mechanism due to high CO2 in fishes.
[3] Modern genomic approaches (low-coverage whole genome sequencing; allele frequency shifts, relatedness analyses) will reveal whether high CO2-sensitivity has a genetic basis in sand lance and could therefore evolve.
[4] And for the first time, we will extend CO2 × temperature experiments to a congener, the American sand lance (A. americanus), which provides an important scientific contrast between nearshore vs. offshore species CO2-sensitivities and will yield critical insights whether high CO2-sensitivity is a wider concern within the sand lance family.
23 March 2023. For almost 8 years now, the Evolutionary Fish Ecology Lab has conducted research in nearby Mumford Cove, a small, eelgrass covered embayment on eastern Long Island Sound. Using a set of battery-powered probes we have continuously measured temperature, pH, oxygen, salinity, and depth in 30 min intervals in the Cove - almost 120,000 times. This ongoing effort is not funded by any grant or institution; instead, it has been sustained over all these years by the firm belief in the prescient, if undervalued societal service of monitoring, an activity without short-term reward but important long-term benefits in understanding how ecosystems change on short and long time-scales. To commemorate the effort, we simply thought that it is time to show you some data, some pictures, and draw some early, cautious conclusions about the very interesting case of Mumford Cove. Have a look!
Fig.1: Schematic section of the upper part of Mumford Cove, showing the deployed probe (blue) between the bottom anchor (grey) and a subsurface float (orange), marked by a surface float (white). The probe sits in the deepest part of the Cove (Channel), at constant 50 cm distance to the bottom, but variable water level above (red histogram).
"Future generations will certainly have better theories, tools, models, and computers, but they will still depend on the data and measurements taken here and now."
Aerial view of Mumford Cove (Picture: Jamie Vaudrey)