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[Lab news] Baumann and Dam labs at the Gordon Research Conference

GRC2018


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The beautiful venue of the Waterville Valley Hotel in New Hampshire

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Hannes introduced the Ocean Variability Hypothesis

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Phil Munday and Hannes chatting along the beautiful hike of Cascade Path
19 July 2018. Members of the Baumann and Dam labs cherished the opportunity to participate in the Ocean Global Change Biology Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley, NH.

The particularly intimate format of the Gordon Research Conference was wonderfully conducive to listening to groundbreaking science in form of keynote lectures and posters and to network with colleagues from all over the world. While Hannes gave a keynote lecture about experimental progress in assessing fish sensitivity to marine climate change, Chris, Emma, Jimmy and Hans presented their research all throughout the week during the poster sessions. The beautiful setting of the conference in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and the relaxed atmosphere were all contributing to one of the most unique conference experiences all year.


Talks and posters presented:

  • Baumann H. Using experiments to assess the sensitivity of fish to marine climate change: progress and knowledge gaps. Invited keynote talk.
  • Murray, C.S., Wiley, D., and Baumann H. Sand lance offspring (Ammodytes dubius) show high sensitivity to combined climate stressors. Poster.
  • Cross, E.L., Peck, L., and Harper, E. Brachiopod resilience: thicker shells offset dissolution under future ocean acidification and warming. Poster.
  • Dam, H.G., DeMayo, J.A., Park, G., He, X., Finiguerra, M., Baumann H., and Pespeni, M. Rapid adaptation of a marine copepod to a greenhouse world. Poster.
  • DeMayo, J.A., Park, G., Norton, L., Finiguerra, M., Baumann H., and Dam, H.G. Costs of adaptation to a greenhouse world for the copepod, Acartia tonsa. Poster.

GRC-posters


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The Baumann & Dam lab at the GRC hike
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[Lab news] Baumann lab attends the Larval Fish Conference in Victoria

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Holding the fort at the Rankin lab were Emma and Sydney, who did an excellent job. Thank you guys!

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The Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort was the conference venue

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Before the conference, we all attended a workshop on larval fish identification

https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/fisherbrand-class-a-clear-glass-threaded-vials-attached-caps-pe-poly-seal-cone-liner-8/14955326
Whale-watching with Corinne, Julie & Chris
Here is how Julie experienced her first LFC:

Ever since attending the American Fisheries Society conference in 2014, I’ve wanted to go to another fish-focused conference. I was lucky enough to attend the 42nd annual Larval Fish Conference this year in Victoria, British Columbia, and it surpassed all my expectations. The week started off with a larval fish identification workshop where we got to learn techniques from renowned larval fish experts (and see some really cool fish larvae!). The talks were impressive and thought-provoking, providing many new ideas for research and how to give an engaging talk. My favorite part was meeting all the larval fish ecologists whose publications I’ve been reading for my thesis. I spent most of my evenings exploring Victoria with other grad students attending the conference and left with many new friends from institutes all over the world! The trip ended with a whale watch, where we saw a pod of 5 Orcas. Overall, the Larval Fish Conference was a great experience that I hope to someday attend again!


Oral presentations:

  • Pringle, J. and Baumann, H. Sex-specific growth and mortality patterns in juvenile Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia) from Connecticut waters. Talk. 42nd Larval Fish Conference, Victoria, BC, Canada 24-28 June 2018
  • Murray, C.S., Wiley, D., and Baumann, H. Early life stages of the northern sand lance Ammodytes dubius show high sensitivity to acidification and warming in a CO2 × temperature factorial experiment. Talk. 42nd Larval Fish Conference, Victoria, BC, Canada 24-28 June 2018

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Water taxi in Victoria

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Old Victoria
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Beyond this point …
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Orca whale
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Harbor front with Parliament building
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Local celebrity, the one eyed seal

[Lab video] How a new silverside experiment starts

29 June 2018. A new experiment with Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia) starts and as usual, it’s an all hand on deck operation. This time, we have Chris Tsang shadowing all of us and Emma professionally explaining the process.

Have a look for yourself!

[Lab news] Video of Mumford Cove probe swap

14 June 2018. Members of the Baumann and Mason lab went on a trip to Mumford Cove, today, and Chris Tsang went along with his GoPro. Thanks to Charlie, the skipper, the ride was smooth and a pleasure, a swapping our pH, Temperature, oxygen, and salinity sensor was successfully swapped with a new one recording for the next weeks in 30 minute intervals. Wes Hoffman from the Mason lab, collected zooplankton with a Bongo-net. Sydney Stark, our NSF-REU student this summer, came along just for the fun.

See the fun for yourself!

[Lab news] The old swim flume coming back to life

4 April 2018. Today, Adelle Molina and Teresa Schwemmer from the Nye Lab at Stony Brook University visited us with a bunch of respirometry equipment in tow. We were trying to find out how to measure critical swimming speeds and oxygen consumption on individual silverside juveniles. This information, along with other individual traits such as growth, lipid content, and vertebral number will later be used in our new NSF-project examining the genetic underpinnings of local adaptation in this species.
One crucial piece of equipment to do this work is a swimming chamber, also called swim flume. The one we will use is almost 20 years old and has already been used for silverside work more than a decade ago. After a long odyssey through several labs and institutions in the US, we finally got hold of it again, gave it some serious TLC and now hope to resurrect it. Thanks to our pro’s from Stony Brook, the first tests were promising today! Thank you Adelle and Teresa.

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A ~ 3 cm juvenile silverside swimming against the induced current in the swim tunnel
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An old lady, but still shiny and good to go!
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Adelle and Teresa in the Rankin Lab

[Research news] Silversides in a CT scanner

26 March 2018. Today we got our first glimpse of an incredible new way of imaging the inner calcified structures of a fish body, particularly the ear bones (otoliths), of which every teleost fish has six, three on each side inside the skull. Otoliths are long known to fish ecologists for their properties to record and store information about a fish’s age, growth and habitat. With an adult Atlantic silverside, Hannes visited John Shepherd, facilities scientist and member of the Goldhamer lab at UConn, Storrs (Biology Physics Building), who showed us the use of a new, state-of-the-art micro CT-scanner (IVIS). Turns out, the system effortlessly imaged all six otoliths inside of the fish’s head. Later in the year, we will use the technique to image silversides reared at contrasting CO2 conditions to see whether they differ in their otolith size, volume, and structure. Thank you, John, for this truly inspiring demonstration!

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[Research news] Are sand lance embryos particularly sensitive to high CO2?

This article has been cross-posted at news sites of Connecticut SeaGrant, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and the Early Life History Section of the American Fisheries Society.


By Hannes Baumann

On this dimly lit November afternoon, rain mercilessly drenched scientists and crew on board the R/V Auk as it slowly navigated the waters of Stellwagen Bank. A world like a wet sponge. Sky and ocean, indistinguishable.

Thanksgiving, the next day.

Despite the circumstances, the team’s mood was nothing short of elated. Our small beam trawl had just spilled hundreds of silvery fish on deck, wriggling like eels. They were Northern sand lance (Ammodytes dubius).

Running ripe adults.

Spawning.

Apparently, they like Thanksgiving, too.

—————

As the ship docked back in the Scituate, Mass., harbor that day, the rain thinned to hazy darkness.

“Let’s get a coffee and then on the road,” mumbled Chris, who led the team, “the real work of the experiments has just begun.”

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Chris Murray, a member of the research team, checks the contents of a sediment grab for sand lance. Photo: Jacob Snyder / Red Skies Photography

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The RV Auk in early morning, getting ready for another sand lance sampling trip to Stellwagen Bank. Photo: Hannes Baumann
Stellwagen Bank, the National Marine Sanctuary just north of Cape Cod, is a true hotspot for some of the Atlantic Ocean’s most iconic creatures: whales, seals, tuna and seabirds, who all share a particular appetite for this one fish – sand lance. Some experts in the sanctuary’s ecosystem call this species its “backbone.” Others consider it a classic forage fish, responsible for transferring massive amounts of energy from lower to upper levels on the food chain.

Sand lance have a few interesting and rare characteristics. They alternate between schooling and foraging in the upper water column and extended periods of being almost completely buried in sand. For that, they rely on sand of a particular grain size and with very little organic content. It’s the kind of sand that defines large areas of the Stellwagen Bank.

Surprisingly little is known about the ecology and ecosystem importance of this sand lance species, although research on its European relatives (A. tobianus, A. marinus) is more advanced. In particular, experiments on early life stages of Northern sand lance have been lacking, save for some pioneering work on rearing methods of the related A. americanus (Smigielski et al. 1984). One question that was of particular interest to our lab involved the potential sensitivity of this fish species to carbon dioxide (CO2). That’s due to two other interesting and rare characteristics of sand lance. They spawn in late fall and winter in cold (and still cooling) waters, which is why their eggs and larvae develop extremely slow compared to other, more typical spring and summer spawning species. In addition, the species is found not in nearshore, but offshore coastal waters, where smaller seasonal and daily CO2 fluctuations more closely resemble oceanic conditions. Could sand lance offspring be particularly sensitive to higher levels of oceanic carbon dioxide predicted during the next 100 to 300 years as climate change effects intensify?


Sand lance caught on Stellwagen Bank in November 2014
Adult sand lance, shown here, is the favorite food for whales, seals, tuna and seabirds. Photo: Hannes Baumann
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Early results suggest that sand lance larva, shown in closeup, are particulary sensitive to higher levels of carbon dioxide. Photo courtesy of Hannes Baumann

Over the past two years (2016-17), we successfully found and sampled spawning ripe sand lance on Stellwagen Bank during a narrow window in late November. Eggs and sperm from adults were removed on board or after being transported live to our laboratory at UConn Avery Point. We reared newly fertilized embryos to hatch and to the feeding larval stage, under different sets of temperature and CO2 conditions, measuring survival and growth traits along the way.

Our experiments are still ongoing, and rearing protocols are being improved.

The preliminary findings, however, are stunning. Survival to hatch was dramatically reduced under elevated and high compared to baseline CO2 conditions. It was severely lowered at higher (10°C or 50°F) compared to lower temperatures (5°C or 41°F). Our second experiment this year appears to repeat this pattern. If these results continue, that would mean sand lance is one of the most CO2-sensitive species studied to date.

General interest in sand lance goes beyond its sensitivity to carbon dioxide. Given the species importance for the ecosystem and coastal economy, there are now increasing efforts to better understand sand lance feeding ecology, distribution and relationship to the rest of the food web. In this regard, funding of our project by the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium proved prescient and a seed for subsequent grants from MIT Sea Grant and the Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) to continue the work. Surely, the groundswell of interest in sand lance is commensurate with its importance and will enable insights into better management strategies for sensitive ecosystems like those along the U.S. Atlantic coast.


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This graphic shows survival to hatch rates of Northern sand lance embryos reared at three carbon dioxide levels and two temperatures. Graphic: Hannes Baumann

Collaborators on this project are: D. Wiley of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary; P. Valentine of the U.S. Geological Survey; and S. Gallagher and J. Llopiz, both of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

[Lab news] Baumann lab attends the CERF conference in Providence, RI

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Ashley van Etten designed the beautiful official artwork representing this years CERF conference. Thanks Ashley for letting our lab feature your art here!
On 5-9 November 2017, the Baumann lab attended the 24th Biennial Conference of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Foundation (CERF) in Providence, RI. The conference is a unique blend of academic and conservation science and comprises an ideal venue for students to present their thesis research to a broad national and international audience. Best of all this year: the conference logo featured a beautiful piece of art depicting an underwater scene with our most beloved, famous fish, the Atlantic silverside. Big shout out to Ashley van Etten and her inspiring artwork!

Together with Steve Litvin (Monterey Bay Aquarium) Hannes convened a theme session titled “Physiological ecology in the Anthropocene: linking the laboratory and field” and talked about our recently published paper on pH and oxygen fluctuations in nearshore coastal environments. Jake presented his Master thesis research on the newly digitized long-term time series of Project Oceanology, and Julie talked about the first aspect of her ongoing research on silverside otoliths and inferred patterns of growth and temperature-dependent sex determination. Well done, all!


  • Baumann H. and Smith, E.M. 2017. Quantifying the covariance of pH and oxygen conditions across the diversity of US nearshore habitats.
  • Pringle, J.W. and Baumann H. 2017. Sex-specific growth and mortality patterns in juvenile Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia) from Connecticut waters.
  • DeMayo, J.A., Park, G., Norton, L., Huffman, W., Finiguerra, M., Baumann H., and Dam, H.G. 2017. Combined effects of warming and acidification on life-history traits of the calanoid copepod Acartia tonsa.
  • Snyder, J.T. and Baumann H. 2017. A newly digitized 45-year dataset of environmental and biological observations from Long Island Sound.

[Lab news] Baumann lab participates in Avery Point Open House Event

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15 October 2017: All members of the Baumann lab – Hannes, Emma, Chris, Julie and Jake had fun at an Open House event at the Avery Point Campus as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations. The whole department participated with a flurry of educational activities and fun exhibitions.
Our lab manned a table outside the Rankin Lab, telling people about the nearshore fish community, the phenomenon of ocean acidification and the measurement of pH in water. Everybody chipped in, thanks!
Hannes also premiered reciting Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” in front of young and old in the AP auditorium.

Check out some of the fun around the “Ocean Acidification and our fish” table:

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There are fish!
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Jake and Emma assist a little scientist in measuring the pH in our two demonstration tanks


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Atlantic silversides from Mumford Cove, CT, swimming in our tanks. After the end of the demonstration, we released back into the wild.
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Prof. Rob Mason taking briefly over our display. Emerging topic apparently – Mercury and ocean acidification


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Fascinating sea life …

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What an incredible creature a sea star is!

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Hannes recited “The Lorax” – Dr. Seuss classic, comic-poetic tale of greed and environmental destruction

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Julie manning our Ocean acidification outreach table at the Rankin Lab on 15 Oct 2017