10 October 2017. Today, Chris, Emma, and Julie measured over 400 juvenile Atlantic silversides for their length and weight. This time, however, we did not euthanize the fish before, but successfully measured them while still alive, only a little drowsy from the mild anesthetic we administered before.
Click on the video below to have a look for yourself.
Congratulations all, for a job well done!
On 19-21 September 2017, Chris Murray and Hannes Baumann traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to attend the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) Annual Science Conference in order to present our ongoing NSF and NOAA funded research on potential ocean acidification effects in Atlantic Silversides and Northern Sand lance. Due to Hurricane Irma, which had impacted all of Florida just a week earlier, it was a great relief that the conference could actually be successfully held.
Together with Chris Chambers (NOAA), Ian Bradbury (DFO, Canada), and Richard McBride (NOAA), Hannes convened a theme session titled “Patterns, sources, and consequences of intraspecific variation in responses of marine fauna to environmental stressors“.
Chris gave a talk and a poster during this session, which was well received and thus a worthwhile exposure for Chris and our lab’s research.
From 11-16 July, Hannes, Chris, Jake (Baumann lab, UConn) and Teresa (Nye lab, Stony Brook) were presenting research from our common NSF project at the 41st Larval Fish Conference, organized by the Early Life History Section of the American Fisheries Society in Austin, TX.
Holding the fort and maintaining experiments at Avery Point were James, Julie, and Elle. Thank you for helping out.
We gave four talks in two sessions:
Here is how Jake rates his first international conference experience:
Jacob Snyder “Austin 2017” photoblog. RedSkiesPhotography
It’s the beginning of June, and in the Baumann lab that means: high time for experimental research on the Atlantic Silverside, the famous forage fish and important model species! This year, we have several major objectives; our NSF-sponsored research examines the sensitivity of offspring to the individual and combined effects of high CO2 and low oxygen (Chris Murray), while in collaboration with our colleagues from Cornell University we rear several families for genetic and transcriptomic studies. Elle Parks, our REU student just started her work on the effects of CO2 and temperature on the starvation resistance of silverside larvae. As always, the days when new experiments start are a group effort, where everybody including many volunteers help. Thanks to Peter Morenus (UConn) for the coming down for documenting the activities!
This story is also featured on UConn Today.
NOAA sanctuaries just published a little blurb online, introducing sand lance and it’s importance to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, including a small section on the current research efforts funded by NOAA Regional SeaGrant.
“To that end, the team is collaborating with scientists from the University of Connecticut (UConn). UConn study members transport live-caught sanctuary sand lance to their lab, where further generations of sand lance are raised. The resulting larval sand lance are raised in high-tech rearing facilities that can be adjusted to mimic future ocean conditions.”
The entire article can be accessed by clicking on the link below
http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/jan17/sand-lance-stellwagen-bank.html
Check out some footage of the trip and the beam trawl operation on board of captain Steve’s fishing vessel
October 10th 2016 was a special day for our still young lab here at the University of Connecticut, Today, the ICES Journal of Marine Science published the paper of Chris Murray et al., which is the first of hopefully many publications of our experimental findings originating out of our new laboratory facility here at UConn Avery Point.
Chris and his co-authors report on a large-scale, quantitative rearing experiment on Atlantic silversides eggs, larvae and juveniles under contrasting CO2 conditions that took place between May – September 2015. This novel experiment was designed to address three critical issues lacking in previous ocean acidification research on fish. First, the study spanned several ontogenetic stages. Second, it used very large numbers of individuals to robustly characterize not just potential shifts in mean responses, but also changes in the distribution of length, weight, and condition factor. Third, it provided food at standardized, non-excess levels to prevent that potential metabolic costs of high CO2 exposure could be compensated by survivors simply by eating more food.
Overall the study demonstrated seemingly small but significant growth reductions due to high CO2 and identified a small number of fatty acids that were of significantly different concentrations in high vs. control juveniles.
Murray, C.S.*, Fuiman, L., and Baumann, H. (2016)
Consequences of elevated CO2 exposure across multiple life stages in a coastal forage fish.
ICES Journal of Marine Science (published online 10 Oct 2016)
The Ocean & Atmospheric Research program (OAR) of NOAA and Sea Grant just announced the winners of its most recent round of research funding to better understand the consequences of ocean warming and acidification on key marine resources in U.S. Northeast coastal waters. We are happy and proud that our proposed work on the climate sensitivity of Northern sand lance (Ammodytes dubius) was one of the four projects selected for funding. This is particularly good news for Chris Murray, who for his PhD can now expand his experimental rearing expertise to this important species.
This work will be conducted collaboratively with colleagues from NOAA (David Wiley), USGS (Page Valentine), Boston University (Les Kaufman), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Scott Gallager).
You can read the official announcement as it appeared on 6 September 2016 on NOAA’s News site.
The 40th Larval Fish Conference of the American Fisheries Society‘s (AFS) Early life history section (ELHS) was held from 19 – 23 June 2016 at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, MD.
This small conference brought together approximately 150 international scientists to talk about larval fish growth, survival, maternal effects, dispersal, systematics to name just a few. It was held in special honor of Edward Houde, who over his long career has inspired generations of marine scientists.
While Chris was presenting last years data about growth consequences of high CO2 exposure across life stages in our model species, the Atlantic Silverside, Hannes participated in the Early Career workshop and gave a talk about how to approach the writing of a scientific manuscript (PDF).
http://media.befel.marinesciences.uconn.edu/public_html/docs/Baumann-LFC-Writing_workshop_web.pdf
Thanks to all the colleagues and friends for the great time and conversations. See you next year in Austin (TX)!
Jake reported back to his old undergraduate institution about his current research and how the University of Maine at Machias has inspired him to pursue a career in Marine Sciences.
This week’s Alumni Spotlight shines on Jake Snyder, UMM Class of 2014 with a degree in Marine Biology. Jake lives in Canterbury, Connecticut, and is a research assistant at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point.
Tell us a little bit about what you are doing now:
Currently, I am a research assistant at UConn Avery Point as part of my masters. I was accepted into the graduate program here in the fall of 2015, and I am now working towards my Masters in Biological Oceanography. Our lab is small, with myself, a doctoral student, and our advisor, but we’re ambitious. Our research is focused on the synergistic effects of ocean acidification, increased temperature, and decreased oxygen on the Atlantic Silverside (Menidia menidia), a near-shore schooling fish. We’ve also recently started working with the Northern Sandlance (Ammodytes dubius), a fish native to Stellwagen Bank. In addition to the lab-based research, I am also digitizing the ~40 year data set collected by Project Oceanology, and developing that into a searchable database as part of the LISICOS (Long Island Sound Integrated Coastal Observing System) system.
Read the whole feature here …
