Summer 2004, Vol. 13, No. 5 | Return to Table of Contents

From Marine Resources…

Scott Lindell is now serving as Manager of Aquatic Resource Services and Interim Director of the Program in Scientific Aquaculture.  In addition to working on several aquaculture research projects (see below), Lindell and his team have been busy streamlining Marine Resources services, stepping up marketing efforts, and expanding live feed resources, such as microalgae, brine shrimp, and rotifers.

Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon and WHOI collaborator Ken Foote recently succeeded in developing acoustic technology to quantitatively assess the distribution and abundance of squid eggs, and their possible relation to “essential fish habitat” in the east and west coast squid fisheries in the U.S. In addition, research is continuing on the sensory and behavioral capabilities of the octopus arm.  Recent studies indicate the tight coordination of the suckers and arm to produce a multitude of flexible maneuvers and functionality of this remarkable appendage. The basic design principles will be applied to construction of a robotic arm that will begin later in 2004 by several teams of collaborators funded by the Department of Defense.

Staff Scientist Steven Roberts is using molecular genetic techniques in a U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded project to characterize genes involved in growth and development in the bay scallop. Using genetic information generated from that project, Roberts is working with Barnstable County to distinguish wild from hatchery-raised scallops, as a way to evaluate the success of the County’s scallop restoration efforts. Scott Lindell is assisting in those restoration efforts. In another project, funded by the Northeast Regional Aquaculture Center, Roberts is trying to develop a non-lethal diagnostic test for nodavirus, a devastating disease in cod hatcheries. In the same project, Lindell is examining ways of disinfecting cod eggs to keep the disease out of the hatcheries.

MBL Veterinarian Roxanna Smolowitz and other co-PIs were recently funded to study environmental reservoirs of the shellfish disease QPX in infected bays.  Smolowitz and Steven Roberts have each received preliminary approval for two projects to be funded from the Northeast Regional Aquaculture Center that will investigate the basis of disease in bivalves. Smolowitz and her colleagues will study the effects of temperature and clam strain on the development of QPX disease in hard clams. Roberts will develop genetic markers possibly associated with resistance to Dermo disease in oysters.

Assistant Scientist Gabriele Gerlach is applying her expertise in population genetics to projects funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in association with the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fisherman’s Association, to assess the reproductive life history and essential fish habitat mapping of Western Georges Bank cod. With funding from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, she is also examining the population genetics of U.S. spiny dogfish stocks.

Associate Scientist Alan Kuzirian’s work describing the memory stages in Hermissenda and the effects of various pharmacological inhibitors and promoters on memory acquisition, retention, and recall of consolidated memory, as well as memory extinction, is leading to new discoveries about possible cellular mechanisms for these events. Kuzirian is able to apply pharmacological agents to Hermissenda non-invasively by simply immersing the organism in seawater containing the agent, not by injection or ablation of a section of the nervous system as is required for some vertebrate research.  This technique gives clearly measurable behavioral results that occur very rapidly. Kuzirian and his colleagues are following up on the behavioral results with biochemical and immuno-cytochemical studies of the neural network involved with learning.

Superintendent of Aquaculture and Engineering Bill Mebane recently traveled to Haiti where he continues to collaborate with community development groups working on reforestation and tilapia aquaculture.  Mebane and Scott Lindell are developing a nutritious fish feed made from indigenous Haitian plants to boost local fish production and reduce widespread human malnutrition.

Beth Linnon continues to coordinate the very successful internship program which is providing critical support to Marine Resources researchers.  A dozen interns will particpate this summer. The intern program meets a tremendous need for scientists, while providing students with valuable, on-the-job training in hands-on research and animal care.

• Paul Barber of the Boston University Marine Program and MRC is using molecular genetic techniques to understand questions of marine larval dispersal, marine reserve design, and origins of marine biodiversity. This year he has received two NSF grants. The first ($50,000) will examine the importance of larval ecology and life history in the recovery of genetic diversity in marine taxa, using the 1883 eruption of Krakatau as a model system. The second is a prestigious NSF Career grant ($638,000) that will examine the relationship between physical oceanography and larval dispersal in the evolution of high marine biodiversity in the Indo-West Pacific. This five-year project will bring Indonesian scientists to Woods Hole to be trained in population genetic techniques and will bring graduate and undergraduate students to Indonesia to do research, fostering long term collaborations between U.S. and Indonesian scientists.


From The Ecosystems Center…

Publications:

Thomas, S. M., C. Neill, L. A. Deegan, A. V. Krusche, V. M. Ballaster, and R. L. Victoria. 2004. Influences of land use and stream size on particulate and dissolved materials in a small Amazonian stream network. Biogeochemistry 68:135-151.

Décamps, H., G. Pinay, R. J. Naiman, G. E. Petts, M. E. McClain, A. Hillbricht-Ilkowska, T. A. Hanley, R. M. Holmes, J. Quinn, J. Gibert, A. -M. Planty Tabacchi, F. Schiemer, E. Tabacchi, and M. Zalewski. 2004. Riparian zones: where biogeochemistry meets biodiversity in management practice. Polish Journal of Ecology 52: 3-18.

Slavik, K., B. J. Peterson, L. A. Deegan, W. B. Bowden, A. E. Hershey, and J. E. Hobbie. 2004. Long-term responses of the Kuparuk River ecosystem to phosphorus fertilization. Ecology 85(4): 939-954.

Clement, J., R. M. Holmes, B. J. Peterson, and G. Pinay. 2003. Isotopic investigation of denitrification in a riparian ecosystem in western France. Journal of Applied Ecology 40:1035-1048.

Zhulidov, A. V., R. D. Robarts, R. M. Holmes, B. J. Peterson, J. Kamari, J. J. Merilainen, and J. V. Headley. 2003. Water Quality Monitoring in the Former Soviet Union and Russian Federation: Assessment of Analytical Methods. Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki. 48 pp.

Benstead, J. P., and C. M. Pringle. 2004. Deforestation alters the resource base and biomass of endemic stream insects in eastern Madagascar. Freshwater Biology 49:490-501.


Publication:

Laderman, Aimlee D. 2003. Why does the freshwater genus Chamaecyparis hug marine coasts? Keynote. Pages 1-30 in Atlantic White Cedar Resoteration Ecology and Management. Proceedings of a Symposium, May 31-June 2, 2000, R. B. Atkinson, R. T. Belcher, D. A. Brown and J. E. Perry, editors. Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA.


From The Boston University Marine Program…

• Fieldwork in the laboratory of Les Kaufman this year includes projects in Lake Victoria, the coral reefs of Indonesia, and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Much of the time spent on Stellwagen Bank is onboard fishing vessels, investigating how fish communities and the food web may have changed on a portion of Stellwagen Bank after nearly six years of closure to commercial fishing. The project is headed up by graduate student Elizabeth Soule, and is a collaboration among Boston University, the Massachusetts Fishermens’ Partnership, and the NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Graduate student William Ojwang has returned to the Kenyan waters of Lake Victoria to complete his doctoral research. Ojwang is studying the effects of biodiversity loss, watershed development, and exotic introductions on food webs and food production in the Lake, the scene of a modern mass extinction. Ojwang was the inaugural recipient of BUMP’s Award for Excellence in Conservation Science. Ojwang’s work continues the lab’s longtime effort to shed light on species such as the Nile tilapia, which helps to provide food, but threatens native species around the world.

Graduate student Jean-François Bertrand will travel to Indonesia in June to study coral reef fish recruitment. Les Kaufman will join him while once again on assignment for National Geographic magazine. In September Kaufman will be in residency in Woods Hole, teaching the Aquatic Diversity course for BUMP and working with his MBL, NMFS, and WHOI colleagues.

With funding from the Cooperative Research Program of the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Conservation, Food and Health Foundation, the Kaufman lab will be assessing new parameters this summer that could prove useful in tracking human impacts on marine ecosystems. These parameters are essential to “ecosystem-based management.”

• Phillip Lobel, Professor in the Boston University Marine Program has been working with National Geographic Society’s remote imaging lab to study sharks in the south Pacific nation, Palau. They have been attaching acoustic tags and a small specialized camera developed by NGS called the Crittercam to sharks. The camera gives a fish-eye view of their world without human influence. The research is designed to both increase basic scientific understanding of sharks and to add critical habitat use information that will be used by resource managers in Palau to establish marine protective areas.

Lobel has conducted similar studies at Johnston Atoll which will be featured in an upcoming NGS Television production of the “Crittercam Chronicles.”

Lobel is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) shark specialist panel.


Other Science News…

MBL Corporation Member Aimlee Laderman is a member of the newly formed West Nile Virus (WNV) Working Group of the Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS). Their objective is to devise best management practices to minimize disease transmission.

Laderman, with David Domozych (Skidmore College) and Gabrielle Sakolsky (Cape Cod  Mosquito Control) presented a poster titled, “Desmidiaceae and Mesotaeniaceae of Barnstable County, MA, Chamaecyparis wetlands” at the annual meeting of the Northeast Algal Society (NEAS), April 23-25, at Avery Point, in Groton, Connecticut.