UMaine School of Marine Sciences

Pettigrew in AP article on new marine research vehicle

Mon, 07 May 2012 08:42:46 -0400

Neal Pettigrew, a professor of physical oceanography at the University of Maine, was interviewed for an Associated Press article in the Portland Press Herald about a new unmanned ocean research vehicle, Wave Glider, launched Thursday near Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine. A result of a collaboration between UMaine's School of Marine Sciences and Wave Glider manufacturer Liquid Robotics Inc. in California, and coordinated by the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, the robotic vehicle is powered by waves and controlled remotely to collect data on ocean conditions and identify the locations of certain tagged fish. Portland television station Channel 13 (WGME) and the New England Cable News website also carried parts of the AP article.

Marine Sciences UMaine grad student symposium

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:47:19 -0400

marine sciences UMaine grad student symposium Graduate students in the University of Maine's School of Marine Sciences will have the opportunity to discuss their research at the 13th Annual Graduate Student Symposium, May 7-8 at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine.

Research presentations start each day at 9:30 a.m.

Oceanography and Marine Biology textbook

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:07:40 -0400

Dr. David Townsend, Professor in the School of Marine Sciences recently had his textbook published and will be using it this fall in his SMS 100 Introduction to Ocean Sciences.

Oceanography and Marine Biology preserves the basic elements of the physical, chemical, and geological aspects of the marine sciences, and merges those fundamentals into a broader framework of marine biology and ecology. This approach works. But existing textbooks on oceanography or marine biology address the companion field only cursorily: very few pages in oceanography texts are devoted to marine biology, and vice versa. This new book overcomes that imbalance, bringing these disparate marine science text formats closer together, giving them more equal weight, and introducing more effectively the physical sciences by showing students with everyday examples how such concepts form the foundation upon which to build a better understanding of the marine environment in a changing world.

http://www.sinauer.com/detail.php?id=6021

5th International Symposium on Deep Sea Corals - Rhian Waller

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:33:45 -0400

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edSsnWmIh68&feature=autoshare

In the last decade the global presence of deep sea, cold-water corals in a range of ocean margin settings has been established, and is still being expanded. The 5th International Deep Sea Coral Symposium addressed new developments and knowledge and took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from 1-7 April, 2012.

Tropical Depression: Hour Saltwater Fish Tank May Be Killing the Ocean

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:07:23 -0400

Tropical Depression: Your Saltwater Fish Tank May Be Killing the Ocean

Scientists are struggling to raise tropical fish on farms so that fishers who now poison coral reefs to catch them will no longer be needed

By Sujata Gupta April 6, 2012 | | 18

Photo of Søren Hansen and clown fish Image: Jennifer Muscato Hansen

Tropical fish tanks in restaurants, hospitals and homes evoke feelings of tranquility and beauty. They even lower stress levels prior to medical procedures and encourage Alzheimer's patients to eat sufficiently. But what's good for humans may be bad for the sea.

Most tropical fish sold in pet stores come from reefs in Indonesia and the Philippines, where fishermen stun the colorful dwellers with squirts of sodium cyanide. The potent nerve toxin causes the fish to float up out of the reefs so they can be easily scooped up, but it can also injure or kill them as well as trigger coral bleaching.

"What I find ironic is that people love the ocean. They want to keep a slice of it in their living room. But they're killing the coral reefs," says Søren Hansen a co-founder of Sea and Reef Aquaculture, LLC, in Franklin, Me., one of only a handful of tropical fish farmers in the U.S.

Why not breed the saltwater fish on farms everywhere? Most fish in freshwater tanks—which are much more common, less expensive and easier to maintain—are indeed farm-raised. But breeding saltwater fish in an industrial aquaculture facility requires re-creating the coral reef ecosystem, a technology that is just moving out of its infancy.

Improvement is urgently needed. Tropical fish sales are estimated at $200 million to $300 million a year worldwide. The U.S. imports about 11 million of the fish annually, out of 20 million sold globally. Estimates suggest that 70 to 90 percent of captured fish die before they ever reach a tank, and more perish within their first six months in captivity. "It's an overlooked industry," says Frank Baensch, a tropical fish farmer in Honolulu, adding that "If I wanted to, I could bring in species on the Red List [of endangered species] and nobody would know."

The demand for tropical fish soared in 2004, when Finding Nemo—an animated movie about father and son clown fish, Marlin and Nemo—prompted a buying frenzy. "Every kid wanted a Nemo and Dory [a regal tang that also stars in the movie] in their fish tank," recalls Andrew Rhyne, a marine biologist at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.. No one thought to measure the change in the number of wild-caught fish, Rhyne says. But clown fish sales at the world's largest fish hatchery—Ocean, Reefs & Aquariums in Fort Pierce, Fla.—jumped 40 percent.

Retailers are preparing for another sales spike this fall, when Finding Nemo 3-D will be released.

Luckily, clown fish are among the few tropical fish that breed in captivity. Like most demersal fish—those that spawn on hard surfaces—parents stick around to care for their young. Demersal larvae also emerge as fully formed miniature fish, making them relatively self-sufficient. Hobbyists have been breeding clown fish by trial and error for decades. These days, Hansen says, clown fish account for about 80 percent of all tropical fish sales.

Yet almost all of the other 1,500 or more species of tropical fish sold in stores are caught live in the ocean. That is because farmers have had much more limited success in breeding pelagic fish, which account for 90 percent of all tropical species. Pelagic fish spawn and then abandon their young. Larvae lack mouths, eyes and guts and are so fragile that colliding with an air bubble could kill them.

A key challenge has been figuring out what to feed young saltwater fish. Unlike freshwater tank fish, which readily devour processed flake food, tropical fish prefer to eat their meal while it is still flapping. Luckily, breeders found that many demersal fish eat freshwater rotifers—microscopic animals that clone themselves every 24 hours and require little space. The demersal fish fare even better when the rotifers are soaked in nutrient-rich fats and proteins found in the sea.

That research has led to the successful raising of clown fish on farms. Intriguingly, the fish are also being selectively bred. At his farm in Maine, Hansen shows off his morphs, which include chocolate-brown Maine mocha Nemos, snow-white blizzard Nemos and mind-bending Picasso Nemos. Designer Nemos look cool and retail strong, Hansen says, with hobbyists paying hundreds of dollars for the newest hybrid iteration.

The tools developed to breed the clown fish have recently been successfully applied to several dozen demersal species. But breeders are not anywhere close to domesticating pelagic fish. Because pelagic fish larvae are so tiny, they can only ingest food smaller than 80 microns. (A micron is one millionth of a meter, or about 40 millionths of an inch.) Identifying and cultivating these microscopic food sources has proved difficult.

Several years ago, Baensch bred the pelagic pygmy angelfish by feeding the larvae with copepod nauplii—copepods in their earliest life stage. Besides being extremely small, copepod nauplii are packed with digestive enzymes, an essential ingredient for the gutless larvae.

Baensch initially fed the larvae wild-caught copepod nauplii from the Pacific Ocean. He now cultures the nauplii for the larvae's earliest days, but then switches to wild copepods. Copepods are a challenge, however, because unlike rotifers, they avoid crowded conditions and need time to reproduce sexually. The nauplii also outgrow pelagic larvae within a few hours.

To scale up production of pelagic larvae, farmers must learn how to breed food for them on a large scale. They are making some headway. A team in Italy shrank the copepod's space requirements by raising nauplii in a large tank and thenconcentrating them in seawater. Hansen, meanwhile, is tinkering with novel nutrition options. In unpublished work, he has cultured a species of zooplankton and successfully reared angel fish larvae on it for 15 days, the duration of his first experiment.

Hansen and others hope that identifying and rearing food for pelagic tropical fish will finally allow farmers to replace the wild-caught fish sold to retailers with species raised in captivity. That change would protect reefs from further cyanide poisoning. "Aquaculture, the way I see it, is the future," says Gayatri Lilley, founder of the Indonesian Nature Foundation, a group dedicated to developing sustainable fisheries in Indonesia. "But [currently] the biology of these reef fish remains too complicated to culture all aquarium species."

Aquaculture is therefore only a partial solution. Lilley dedicates her time to training fishermen to use underwater nets instead of the cyanide method. But the fishermen need to know that buyers will pay a higher price for fish caught using sustainable practices.

Better monitoring of the industry is also sorely needed, such as a labeling system for all fish entering the market that would indicate how they were caught or whether they were farm raised. Right now, says Rhyne and his colleague Michael Tlusty, most tropical fish entering the market simply get coded as "marine tropical fish." That, Tlusty says, "would be like bringing in salmon, pollock and tuna and calling them all seafood."

Perseverance will be key to expanding tropical fish aquaculture. Baensch recalls an experiment in which he started with 100 trigger fish, only to have their numbers dwindle to 12 overnight. "Everything was fine," he says, "until the fish started killing each other." Trigger fish, it turns out, grow up to be highly aggressive adults. But work in clown fish suggests that innate tendencies can be bred out during the domestication process—which can also lead to better pets. Back at his farm, Hansen shows me a tank filled with hundreds of clown fish. They would never school like this in the ocean, he says, adding: "Wild-caught fish come in skittish. They won't eat. They hide in a corner. My fish are used to the captive environment. They'll eat anything you throw at them. They're bulletproof."

Maine Sea Grant awards funding for marine research in the Northeast

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:37:29 -0400

The Maine Sea Grant College Program at the University of Maine has announced the recipients of the latest two-year research funding awards from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Sea Grant Office. More than $600,000 will support nine research projects in the Northeast.

“Science is an essential element of Sea Grant’s public service, and this suite of projects will provide important discoveries that will benefit the people who live, work, and recreate on the coast of Maine,” said Paul Anderson, director of the Maine Sea Grant program.

Researchers from UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences and Department of Communication and Journalism are involved in four of the five funded initiatives:

Neal Pettigrew, UMaine: “General circulation and exchange between isolated regions in Casco Bay,” $115,124. Building on previously generated and newly collected oceanographic data, Pettigrew will characterize the major circulation features within Casco Bay to inform efforts to address ecological and economic threats.
Richard Wahle and Charlene Bergeron, UMaine, and Christine Tilburg, Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment’s Ecosystem Indicator Partnership: “Maximizing the utility and impact of the American Lobster Settlement Index database,” $126,416.

The funds will support the first comprehensive analysis of the American Lobster Settlement Index database and its power to predict trends in juvenile and adult lobster populations.

Gayle Zydlewski, James McCleave and Haley Viehman, UMaine: “Fish distribution in relation to tidal hydropower in Downeast Maine,” $73,204. Zydlewski’s team plans to expand its existing tidal hydroelectric development research in the region to look at fish distribution and behavior in proximity to a cross-flow turbine device currently installed in Cobscook Bay.
Laura Lindenfeld, UMaine: “The Seafood Links Project: Promoting sustainable seafood in Maine’s inland areas,” $46,298. Using a mixed-methods social science approach, Lindenfeld will explore how consumers in Maine conceptualize seafood and its connections to “local” and “sustainable” food, and how this information can support new and expanded markets in inland areas.
William Ambrose, Bates College, and Brian Beal, UMaine-Machias, “Variation in the growth of the soft-shell clam along the coast of Maine,” $147,473. Ambrose and Beal will examine growth rates of wild clams and follow the growth of hatchery-reared juveniles in the wild.

In addition to the five Maine-based projects, Maine Sea Grant is supporting additional regional research projects through the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium. A total of $597,356 in NOAA funds will support social science research projects in coastal and marine spatial planning, fisheries management and climate change adaptation.

For more information go to http://www.seagrant.umaine.edu/research.

McCleave interviewed on elvers

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:49:26 -0400

McCleave interviewed on elvers

UMaine marine sciences professor emeritus James McCleave, a leading research authority on eels, was interviewed Wednesday for a Channel 7 (WVII) news report about elvers, the tiny eels harvested in Maine coastal waters, largely for sale to Asian markets where prices have exceeded $2,000 per pound recently.

Expert task force recommends halving global fishing for crucial prey species

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:45:13 -0400

Expert task force recommends halving global fishing for crucial prey species

Forage fish twice as valuable in the water as in the net



		IMAGE: Demand for forage fish in recent decades has greatly increased for use as fish meal and fish oil to feed farmed fish, pigs, and chickens that people consume on a... Click here for more information.

WASHINGTON – Fishing for herring, anchovy, and other "forage fish" in general should be cut in half globally to account for their critical role as food for larger species, recommends an expert group of marine scientists in a report released today. The Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force conducted the most comprehensive worldwide analysis of the science and management of forage fish populations to date. Its report, "Little Fish, Big Impact: Managing a crucial link in ocean food webs," concluded that in most ecosystems at least twice as many of these species should be left in the ocean as conventional practice.

A thriving marine ecosystem relies on plenty of forage fish. These small schooling fish are a crucial link in ocean food webs because they eat tiny plants and animals, called plankton, and are preyed upon by animals such as penguins, whales, seals, puffins, and dolphins. They are primary food sources for many commercially and recreationally valuable fish found around North America, such as salmon, tuna, striped bass, and cod. The task force estimated that, globally, forage fish are twice as valuable in the water as in a net—contributing US$11.3 billion by serving as food for other commercially important fish. This is more than double the US$5.6 billion they generate as direct catch.

These species play a growing role in the everyday lives of industrialized nations. Their demand in recent decades has greatly increased for use as fish meal and fish oil to feed farmed fish, pigs, and chickens that people consume on a regular basis. Fish oil is also used in nutritional supplements for humans.

"Traditionally we have been managing fisheries for forage species in a manner that cannot sustain the food webs, or some of the industries, they support," says Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, who convened and led the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force. "As three-fourths of marine ecosystems in our study have predators highly dependent on forage fish, it is economically and biologically imperative that we develop smarter management for these small but significant species."

Small schooling fish are an important part of the ecosystem on both coasts of North America. Many marketable species on the Pacific coast, such as salmon, lingcod, Pacific hake, Pacific halibut, and spiny dogfish, feed on them. A large number of seabird species relies on them as well, and research shows that the breeding success of the federally endan¬gered California least tern may depend on the availability of local anchovy populations. On the eastern seaboard, more menhaden are caught (by weight) than any other fish off the Atlantic coast. Taking out excessive amounts, however, means less food for tuna, bluefish, and striped bass â€• as well as whales, dolphins, and seabirds – and affects fisheries and tourism industries from Maine to Florida.

"Around the globe, we've seen how removing too many forage fish can significantly affect predators and people who rely on that system's resources for their livelihoods," said Dr. Edward D. Houde, a professor at the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science and task force member. "We need to be more precautionary in how we manage forage fish in ecosystems that we know very little about."

Made up of 13 preeminent scientists with expertise in a wide range of disciplines, the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force was established to generate specific and practical advice to support better management of forage fish around the world. This group of experts, with support from the Lenfest Ocean Program, synthesized scientific research and other information about these species and conducted original simulation modeling to reach their conclusions.

"The Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force has provided guidance on how to prevent overfishing of these small prey species," said Dr. P. Dee Boersma, professor and director of the Center for Penguins as Ocean Sentinels at the University of Washington and task force member. "Our hope is that fishery managers will put our recommendations into action to protect penguins, cod, whales, and a whole host of other creatures that need them to survive."

###

Find more information about:

Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force: http://www.oceanconservationscience.org/foragefish

Lenfest Ocean Program: http://www.lenfestocean.org

Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force Members:

Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch, chair, professor and executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, USA

Dr. P. Dee Boersma, professor and director of the Center for Penguins as Ocean Sentinels, University of Washington, USA

Dr. Ian L. Boyd, professor and director of the NERC Sea Mammal Research Unit and the Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, UK

Dr. David O. Conover, professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, USA

Dr. Philippe Cury, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, director of the Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale, France

Dr. Tim Essington, associate professor, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, USA

Dr. Selina S. Heppell, associate professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, USA

Dr. Edward D. Houde, professor, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, USA

Dr. Marc Mangel, distinguished professor and director of the Center for Stock Assessment Research, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Dr. Daniel Pauly, professor, Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Canada

Dr. Éva Plagányi, Marine and Atmospheric research scientist, CSIRO, Australia

Dr. Keith Sainsbury, professor, Institute of Marine and Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania, Australia, and director of SainSolutions Pty Ltd

Dr. Robert S. Steneck, professor, School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, USA

The Lenfest Ocean Program supports scientific research aimed at forging solutions to the challenges facing the global marine environment. The program was established in 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and is managed by the Pew Environment Group. http://www.LenfestOcean.org

The Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University is dedicated to advancing ocean conservation through science. The Institute transforms real-world policy while pursuing serious science, both of which are essential for ocean health. http://www.OceanConservationScience.org

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Gulf of Maine ocean temperatures above normal

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:30:24 -0400

Gulf of Maine ocean temperatures above normal

By Associated Press
Added 13 hours ago Thursday, March 29, 2012 -

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P ORTLAND, Maine — The winter’s warm air temperatures have helped drive up water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, in line with a continuing trend, and the warm waters could result in lobsters molting their shells earlier than usual and ocean algae blooming ahead of schedule.

In the long run are questions around how rising ocean temperatures might affect the growth and reproduction cycles and distribution of fish and shellfish, whales, zooplankton and other marine life throughout the gulf.

Temperature affects all life processes, but it’s too soon to say if changes brought on by rising water temperatures will be good or bad, said Jeffrey Runge, a biological oceanographer at the University of Maine and a researcher at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.

"Higher temperature means higher growth rates, but it also means they require more food in order to attain those higher growth rates," he said. "But whether there’ll be more food around, I don’t know."

Gulf of Maine water temperatures have been rising gradually since at least the 1870s, with ups and downs along the way. But the increase has been pronounced in the past decade or so, in the general range of 2 to 5 degrees depending on the ocean depth, Runge said.

The temperature rise in recent years is similar to the 1950s, when the Gulf of Maine warmed up rapidly before falling later, Runge said Thursday in a phone interview from Spain, where he was attending a marine science meeting.

"The question now is whether this is something similar to that warm period in the ’50s, or if this is something different, because we have other forces, we have more (carbon dioxide) being put in the air than 50 or 60 years ago," he said. "You can’t say what happened in the ’50s will happen now, that it’ll go down. That’s not so clear. Who knows?"

For lobsters, the warmer temperatures could mean they molt their shells and make their annual trek from offshore to nearshore waters earlier in the year. Shrimp could hatch their eggs earlier in the winter. In time, cod and other fish could migrate to the eastern part of the gulf — or out of the gulf altogether — in search of colder waters.

If the waters keep heating up, some scientists speculate that a plankton species, Calanus finmarchicus, that is a key prey for herring, mackerel, right whales and other forage species, could diminish or even disappear from the Gulf of Maine.

And there are questions on ripple effects. For instance, warm water could result in shrimp eggs hatching earlier than in the past. But the hatching dates could come before the phytoplankton bloom that shrimp larvae feed upon.

"These are all angles that you’d need to look into to determine what the effects are going to be," said Dave Townsend, an oceanographer at the University of Maine.

Air temperatures in Portland have been well above normal for seven consecutive months, and last week’s regional warm spell shattered temperature records across the state for days in a row. Those warm temperatures can also be found in the ocean.

Last Friday, at the tail end of a warm streak, the surface water at a buoy in Casco Bay near Portland came in at 45.5 degrees, or roughly 6 to 10 degrees higher than the same date in any of the past 10 years. At another buoy in Penobscot Bay, off the state’s midcoast, the water temperature was 3 to 9 degrees warmer than readings in the past decade.

The Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal and Observing Systems monitors a series of buoys throughout the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. The association collects data on water and air temperatures, wind speed and direction, wave height, and salinity levels.

Water temperatures have been increasing in recent years at all buoys and at all water depths, said Ru Morrison, executive director of NERACOOS, based in Rye, N.H.

"It’s warming everywhere, at slightly different rates," he said.

Undergraduate Research Projects on Display Friday

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:17:14 -0400

Undergraduate Research Projects on Display Friday

Seven University of Maine undergraduates will take part in a research showcase Friday in the Hall of Flags at the Maine State House in Augusta.

The event, which includes undergraduates from all seven UMaine System schools, will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. UMaine System Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs James Breece will be on hand to answer questions. A handout profiling the undergraduate students and their projects on display will be available at the event.

The participating UMaine students and their research projects are:

Peter Brooks (fourth-year psychology and Spanish double major) and Christie Edwards (second-year biology major): “Exploring the Alcohol Deprivation Effect in Withdrawal-Seizure Prone and Withdrawal-Seizure Resistant Mice” (faculty mentor: Alan Rosenwasser).

Rachel M. Henderson (fourth-year mass communication major) and Lauren Thornbrough (fourth-year communication major), “Female College Students’ Perceptions of Body Image: Sociocultural Factors and Self-Esteem” (Claire Sullivan).

Shannon Brown (fourth-year marine science major), “Salinity tolerance of the oyster mudworm Polydora websteri” (Paul Rawson)

Joseph A. Rankin (third-year marine science major), “Experimental analysis of bacterial isolates from Porphyra umbilicalis Kützing (P.um.1) on growth and morphology of blade callus” (Susan Brawley).

Thomas Leeuw (fourth-year marine science major), “In-situ Measurements of Phytoplankton Fluorescence Using Low Cost Electronics” (Emmanuel Boss).

Marine Biologist Gains Funding for Deep Sea Coral Research

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:31:13 -0400

Coral communities are frequently associated with warm, shallow tropical waters. Yet corals survive and thrive in both deep and cold waters of regions such as the Gulf of Maine, the Arctic and the Antarctic. Just like tropical corals, cold-water corals play an important role in creating habitats that support thousands of species of ocean creatures.

Corals found in deep seas, however, are much less frequently studied than their shallow cousins because the depths needed to reach coral communities are often beyond the reach of traditional scuba gear. Just as tropical corals are being threatened, deep-sea corals are also vulnerable to environmental pressures and human impacts. It was discovered relatively recently that in a few high-latitude environments, deep-sea coral species can be found much shallower than usual, some even within the depths that scuba equipment can reach.

Rhian Waller, a University of Maine assistant research professor, has received grants to explore corals usually found in the deep sea but now living in shallower waters in the Gulf of Maine, Alaskan fjords and the Patagonian fjords in Chile.

Waller has received a $78,457 RAPID Grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society has awarded her $30,064 to establish three long-term monitoring sites in Chile where she will monitor and take samples of usually deep-sea corals for reproductive ecology. Waller has also received another $9,000 from UMaine to explore Maine’s coastal areas for deepwater emergent coral habitat sites, and $48,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to continue a long-time series of Red Tree corals in Alaska.

“The discovery of deepwater emergent corals in areas such as Chile, Alaska and even here in the Gulf of Maine, make ecological research possible on species previously unobtainable in enough numbers and from enough times of year to say anything useful about their population processes,” Waller said.

More than 60 species of cold-water coral are known in the Gulf of Maine, but little is understood of their biogeography and diversity, primarily because it is thought that fisheries impacts may have been high in the past, and therefore pristine coral communities may be scare. However, anecdotal and other information gathered from fishermen indicate the distribution of coral communities may be wider than thought, particularly closer to shore and in areas not impacted by fisheries. Waller’s goals are to discover, characterize and map areas of gorgonian corals, also known as sea fans or sea whips, along the Maine coast at depths of 150 feet.

She intends to register the new locations and depth ranges in the U.S. Geological Survey Cold Water Coral Geographic Database and also hopes to discover a scuba-accessible site from which to launch future studies of deep-sea, cold-water coral ecology and physiology.

In Chile, Waller will launch her research from the Huinay Scientific Field Station and work in the waters of the northern Patagonian fjords, which are influenced by strong tides, large volumes of freshwater runoff, upwelling of deep ocean waters and steep climatic gradients from north to south. Species found in these fjords can more usually be found at depth of up to 3,000 meters, yet in these locations they can now be collected by scuba at just 10 meters. This presents researchers such as Waller with a unique opportunity to form baseline data on ecological and population processes – a sort of window into a deep-sea ecosystem.

Corals in the northern Patagonian fjords are facing pressures from activity such as intense salmon farming and logging, which is why there is an urgent need to document and understand the coral systems in this region. Quantifying reproduction is important because it is the fundamental ecological process that every species on the planet needs to undergo in order to survive through time. Measurements of reproduction provide information to understand recruitment, recolonization, population connectivity and recovery from damage.

In Alaska, Waller will continue a time series on deepwater emergent Red Tree corals in the Alaskan fjords. These corals form essential habitat in this region for rockfish and crustacean species. In 2010, Waller and NOAA collaborators established a site of 40 corals, which have since been sampled every three months for reproductive analysis. This site has provided the best time-series reproductive data on any deep-water coral species to date. Waller will return to investigate fertilization and larval dynamics in this species and continue the reproductive timeline to assess when and how much this species reproduces, with the goal of providing essential management information.

UMaine faculty meets with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:29:52 -0500

Please see below a picture of Associate Professor Lee Karp-Boss from the School of Marine Sciences explaining to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon how and why the oceans are density stratified (illustrated using colored fluids). Karp-Boss has co-authored a whole booklet on such activities which has been published by The Oceanography Society, and is available in pdf form on the WWW in 4 different languages (see http://www.tos.org/hands-on/teaching_phys.html ).

The Secretary General went on an hour and a half ride on the Tara today following a conference about the Tara project that took place in the UN Feb. 9th (see: http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/02/the-tara-oceans-expedition-press-conference.html , http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2012/120209_TARA.doc.htm ). Karp-Boss will be the chief scientist on the Tara's upcoming leg from NYC to Bermuda.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is one of the partners in the Tara Expedition and UMaine is one of the participating institution, see: http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/en/sciences/the-laboratories/scientific-institutions-and-laboratories.php?id_page=160&page=2 & http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/en/sciences/labs-and-teams/participating-institutions-and-laboratories.php?id_page=23).

For the Web Page...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr. William G. Ellis, Jr.

Associate Director and

Associate Professor of Oceanography

School of Marine Sciences

University of Maine

5706 Aubert Hall, Room 360

Orono, Maine 04469-5706

207-581-4360

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

----- Original Message -----

Ron,

For the Web Page...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr. William G. Ellis, Jr.

Associate Director and

Associate Professor of Oceanography

School of Marine Sciences

University of Maine

5706 Aubert Hall, Room 360

Orono, Maine 04469-5706

207-581-4360

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

----- Original Message -----

Ron,

Best,

Emmanuel

--------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Troublé Romain <romain@taraexpeditions.org>

Date: 2012/2/11

Subject: Fwd: Ban Ki Moon on board Tara in Manhatan Harbor

To: Emmanuel Boss <emmanuel.boss@maine.edu>

Cc: Lee Karp-Boss <lee.karp-boss@maine.edu>

And here is how the UN SG understood the Ocean....

We are stepping into history here !

-------------------------------

Romain

Début du message réexpédié :

De : christian sardet < csardet@gmail.com >

Date : 12 février 2012 01:14:18 HNEC

À : Eric Karsenti < karsenti@embl.de >, Gaby Gorsky < gorsky@obs-vlfr.fr >, Colomban de Vargas < c2vargas@gmail.com >

CCi : romain@taraexpeditions.org

Objet : Ban Ki Moon on board Tara in Manhatan Harbor

A very relaxed tour of Manhatan with the General secretary of United Nations on board Tara

He loved the UVP, the plankton and the Expedition

Christian

Christian Sardet

BioMarCell group UMR 7009 BioDev

CNRS / Univ P et M Curie Paris6

06230 Observatoire, Villefranche sur Mer BP 28

Portal: http://www.biologymultimedia.com

Tel: 33 0626287272 / lab 33 0493763770

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Emmanuel Boss, Professor

School of Marine Sciences

5706 Aubert Hall, University of Maine

Orono, ME 04469-5706

Tel: 207-581-4378, Cell: 207-356-9147

Fax: 207-581-4388

emmanuel.boss@maine.edu

http://misclab.umeoce.maine.edu/boss/boss.php

skype: emmanuel.boss

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For the Web Page...

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Dr. William G. Ellis, Jr.

Associate Director and

Associate Professor of Oceanography

School of Marine Sciences

University of Maine

5706 Aubert Hall, Room 360

Orono, Maine 04469-5706

207-581-4360

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

----- Original Message -----

Ron,

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UMaine Hosting ‘Nor’Easter Bowl 2012′ Ocean Sciences Competition

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:12:57 -0500

UMaine Hosting ‘Nor’Easter Bowl 2012′ Ocean Sciences Competition

The University of Maine is hosting the ’Nor’Easter Bowl 2012 Regional Ocean Sciences Competition , a regional ocean sciences competition on Saturday, Feb. 4 with more than 100 top-achieving math and science high school students from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the UMaine D.P. Corbett Business Building on the Orono campus, students will compete in a Jeopardy-like Nor’Easter Bowl, answering a range of questions about ocean-related biology, chemistry, geology, geography and social sciences.

The annual event is hosted every third year by the UMaine School of Marine Sciences, and is intended to kindle students interest in marine sciences and in marine science careers. The event also fosters team-based camaraderie and fun with science, and it brings local and national recognition to the competing schools, according to the School of Marine Sciences. In addition, students who compete successfully in regional and national Ocean Sciences Bowlcompetitions receive thousands of dollars in scholarship funds each year.

Many of the questions require graduate school level knowledge and problem-solving skills. Competition rounds are fast-paced, exciting, and display the amazing knowledge and hard work students have invested to prepare for the event, according to Brenda Zollitsch, a Nor’Easter Bowl 2012 coordinator.

The winning team will be awarded an expense-paid trip to Baltimore, Md. in late April to compete in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl Competition. Second-through-sixth-place winners will receive field trip awards to ocean science laboratories with marine scientists and other prizes.

Maine teams participating include: Ashland Community High School, Belfast High School, Lewiston High School, Morse High School, Poland Regional High School, Sanford High School and Waterville Senior High School.

Contact: Brenda Zollitsch, (207) 240-0398 or bmzconsulting@aol.com George Manlove, (207) 581-3756

Tropical Fish ... In Maine?

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:17:56 -0500

Tropical Fish…In Maine?

by Muriel L. Hendrix

Maine-grown Picasso Clownfish. Photo courtesy of Soren Hansen

Near the entrance of the 12,000-square-foot building in Franklin that is home to Sea & Reef Aquaculture, numerous tanks hold thousands of brightly colored tropical fish destined for pet stores and wholesalers across the United States. In some, duplicates of Finding Nemo’s hero, the Tomato Clownfish, swim around each other, each confident in its own space; in others, shyer fish like the Percula Clownfish clump together and hide behind each other. Each tank holds ornamental wonders, including Sea & Reef’s popular Clownfish color morphs, the Maine Mocha Clownfish and Maine Blizzard Clownfish.

click to enlarge

Søren Hansen co-founded Sea & Reef Aquaculture while a graduate student at the University of Maine. Photo courtesy of Soren Hansen

All of the approximately 20 species (including color morphs) have been raised from eggs spawned at Sea & Reef, an achievement that ensures no tropical coral reefs have been harmed or fish species further depleted when these fish reach a hobbyist’s salt-water tank.

For Søren Hansen and Chad Callan, who started the company together while students at University of Maine at Orono, this sustainability was a major reason they moved from research with cod to focus on ornamental tropical fish. Hansen, now the sole owner since Callan moved to Hawaii, explains that millions of tropical fish imported each year to fill hobbyists’ reef tanks are harvested with harmful methods such as using sodium cyanide or dynamite to stun the wild fish. As many as 80 percent of the fish die during collection, in transport or while being held for sale. Sea & Reef and a handful of companies like it can help ease the stress on these species and coral reefs. Eventually, Hansen wants to culture every marine animal a hobbyist needs to stock a reef tank, including corals, anemones, ornamental shrimp and sea horses.

By next September, Hansen plans to be selling 16,000 tropical fish a month, a giant leap from the 1,000 a month he and Callan were selling from the Aquaculture Research Center in Orono. This growth has been made possible by multiple sources of support, including grants from Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, Maine Technology Institute, Efficiency Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The venture began 10 years ago when Hansen, then finishing up his masters degree, started a side project in aquariums located in his apartment closet, raising and selling the progeny of a breeding pair of Clownfish dubbed Moe and Louise. Callan had already graduated and was working in Hawaii. Together they formed a plan to begin a tropical fish hatchery in Hawaii.

David Townsend, who was Director of the School of Marine Sciences, heard about their plans and encouraged them instead to start the business in Maine while earning PhDs. With help from Jake Ward, the university assistant-vice-president for research, economic development and governmental relations, they formed Sea & Reef Aquaculture in 2003 and moved their small business to the campus Aquaculture Research Center.

Townsend says he was impressed by the promise and sustainability of raising tropical fish in Maine, although other faculty members were skeptical, considering the Maine climate. “Actually, Maine’s cold water is a positive factor,” he says, noting that “If any tropical fish escape from a Maine facility, they would not survive. They pose no threat as an invasive species, which is a big problem with tropical fish raised in warmer climates.”

Townsend added that the presence of tropical fish in the aquaculture center was beneficial because unlike cod, which spawn once a year, the tropical species produce thousands of eggs year round. The project provided a constant source of research opportunities and aquaculture training for other students.

Sea & Reef thrived in Orono, but Hansen needed to expand. In 2010, when Seabait, a company doing research and development in the culture of sand worms at the University’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research (CCAR) in Franklin moved out, CCAR director, Nick Brown, called Hansen and asked if he was interested in moving there.

Brown secured a $360,000 bond-funded Maine Technology Asset Fund grant to turn the Seabait facility, which was corroded from moisture, un-insulated and had a dirt floor, into an energy-efficient building. R35 insulation was installed in the walls and ceiling and a concrete floor was poured. With a $200,000 Maine Technology Institute development grant, which he will repay, Hansen funded production systems, including a water supply system with heat exchangers, high tech filtration, UV sterilization, and a 13-foot-tall water tank insulated with a covering of six-inch foam that looks like a monster paper mache project. Meanwhile, another Sea & Reef full-time employee, Jonathan Labrecque, who had been working with them at Orono while completing an undergraduate degree in marine science, took care of the operation there.

During a February, 2011 snowstorm, they transported fish in styrofoam boxes with heat packs to keep the water temperature up. Their temporary home was ready. Clownfish broodstock could swim in tanks where flower pots served as surrogate anemones (in the wild they have a symbiotic relationship with anemones), cylindrical tanks held algae to feed zooplankton which provide nutrients for fish larvae, and tanks were in place for larvae and growout.

Presently, Hansen is shipping around 1,500 to 2,000 fish a month, which he says will increase to 3,000 to 4,000 fish a month in the peak season, January through March. He is adding a web site (www.seaandreef.com) and a part-time salesperson by January. After conducting a shipping study funded by the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, he has developed a shipping protocol for fish densities, water volume and temperature that ensures safe delivery. He notes that his captive-raised fish are more suitable for hobbyist tanks than wild fish: “They’ve spent their entire life in tanks and are accustomed to people,” he says, “and they are free of parasites and diseases. They’re healthier.”

After the logistics of moving and further expanding production systems are complete, Hansen will begin to raise ornamental shrimp and sea horses and return to his research with multiple pairs of beautiful Flame Angelfish (Centropyge loricula). They are pelagic spawners, meaning that they lay their eggs in the water column, rather than on substrate like the clownfish and other species Hansen has been raising, which are known as demersal spawners. He has completed the first stage of successfully rearing pelagic larvae, a tricky process because pelagic fish eggs produce larvae that have such small mouths they are not able to consume the zooplankton normally fed to larvae at the earliest stage of growth. Hansen was able to discover and grow suitable feed to raise the pelagic larvae to the size where they could consume conventional feed. Because pelagics account for 90 percent of tropical species, developing a methodology to raise them will open the way for the culture of many additional species.

When Hansen came to Maine from Denmark to work on his MS in Marine Biology, he says he envisioned some day working outdoors in the field, not in a cavernous building with no windows. But, nearly all his life he has been fascinated by aquariums, both fresh-water and marine, and being indoors much of the time is his trade-off for pursuing this interest, and at the same time reducing stress on coral reefs and their popular inhabitants.

Muriel Hendrix is a freelance writer living in Bath.

Robotic devices

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:57:19 -0500

UMaine aquatic physicist Emmanuel Boss was quoted in a story on the website Miller-McCune about the use of robotic devices that are helping a researcher in California keep track of how tiny organisms and object travel in sub-surface ocean currents. Boss said if the devices work at a reasonable price, they could revolutionize oceanography.

MDI man builds reputation with whale bones

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:06:56 -0500

MDI man builds reputation with whale bones

By Bill Trotter, BDN Staff

Jan. 04, 2012, Posted 5:35 p.m. at
Last modified Jan. 04, 2012, at 6:45 p.m.

Kevin Bennett | BDN
Dan DenDanto removes a rib from a 50-foot-long right whale named Stumpy at his workshop in Tremont on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2011.Buy Photo

Kevin Bennett | BDN
The front spine section a 50 foot long right whale named Stumpy hangs by a chain at Dan DenDanto's workshop in Tremont on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2011. Buy Photo

TREMONT, Maine — Dan DenDanto did not construct his garage for this sort of thing.

Built about a decade ago to fit three vehicles, the structure from the outside resembles many other residential garages on the “quiet” side of Mount Desert Island, where pickup trucks and lobstermen workbenches are commonly found behind the overhead doors.

So when it comes to using the space to piece together the bones of a 52-foot-long right whale — larger than most school buses — it can get a little crowded.

“It won’t fit through the door with its rib cage assembled,” DenDanto said Tuesday about the skeleton as he weaved through a suspended maze of large bones spread about among the garage’s three bays. “It’s 10 feet wide.”

But for the carpenter and whale researcher, accumulating whale bones, some nearly 13 feet long, at his home in the local village of Seal Cove is worth the effort. The whale skeleton is one of two he is reassembling for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. After working on the project since last spring, DenDanto expects to finish preparing the skeleton, deliver it by truck and install it in the coming week. He’ll be paid $80,000 for his work, he said.

The adult whale, a female known since the 1980s as “Stumpy” by whale researchers for her damaged fluke, or tail, was killed in early 2004 by a ship strike off the mid-Atlantic coast. She was pregnant with a near-term fetus that did not survive the collision when she died. DenDanto and a few part-time assistants have been reconstructing the skeletons of both for the museum.

Stumpy was estimated to be approximately 35 or 40 years old by researchers on the East Coast who keep track of the endangered North Atlantic right whale population, which is believed to consist of approximately 400 individual whales.

“This particular right whale was studied pretty intensively,” said DenDanto, a graduate of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. “This is an iconic individual.”

In addition to being a carpenter and rearticulator of whale bones, DenDanto is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maine and a research associate at COA’s Allied Whale.

Stumpy, DenDanto said, was known to have given birth to other right whales over her lifetime, which scientists view as a crucial contribution to the population’s critically low numbers. He said researchers believe the injury that provided Stumpy her name was caused by a previous ship strike early on in her life. Right whales have a reputation to be slow moving and particularly vulnerable to ship strikes, he said, and female right whales even more so, because of the coastal areas where they tend to be found when pregnant or with young offspring.

Putting Stumpy’s skeleton on display, and that of her 17-foot fetus, should help draw attention to the plight of North Atlantic right whales, he said.

“They stand to have a pretty emotional impact by displaying the two [skeletons] together,” DenDanto said. “Because of her story, the conservation message will have more impact.”

The MDI man is familiar with museum displays of whale skeletons. By his estimate, he has rearticulated roughly a dozen whales since 1993, the first being a relatively small minke whale he assembled for the Bar Harbor Whale Museum.

Since then he has rearticulated the skeletons of four humpback whales, a killer whale, a pilot whale, two other minkes, a northern bottlenose whale, another right whale and a sperm whale. He now has a business, Whales and Nails, specifically dedicated to this kind of work.

Museums where some of DenDanto’s work is on display include the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Mass., the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Biology, the Nantucket Whaling Museum and the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, N.H. The two skeletons he is finishing up will be the first two to be shipped outside New England, he said.

“I’ve garnered a reputation now,” DenDanto said. “Most of it is by word of mouth.”

He guessed that, nationwide, there are maybe between 60 and 70 rearticulated whale skeletons on display at museums and similar institutions.

Assembling the skeletons requires more than just an understanding of whale anatomy, according to DenDanto. He is not an engineer, he said, so his clients usually rely on architecture firms to determine whether a museum ceiling can support a three-ton whale skeleton.

Most of the whale skeletons he gets already have been cleaned of flesh and cartilage, usually by being buried in a manure pile for a year or two, but he sometimes has to clean or bleach them further, depending on the client’s wishes. He frequently replaces missing bones with plastic replicas made from other skeletons. For example, the fetus skull was never recovered, he said, and will be substituted with a model right whale calf skull provided by the North Carolina museum.

Piecing the bones together, he said, is a matter of getting the spacing right, securing them to one another with carefully welded and concealed pieces of steel piping and rebar, and filling in the sections where cartilage used to be. These sections, he said, are usually filled in with expanding foam that doubles as glue and a layer of papier-mache to help minimize the weight load, before being coated with a light gray epoxy.

The skeletons are never really complete until they are installed in the display institutions, he said. They are transported by truck usually in three or four sections to the display site, where DenDanto and his helpers secure the final connections before hoisting the skeleton into place. He estimated that to unload the bones of Stumpy and her fetus, assemble them into two whole skeletons and secure them in their display positions in the museum’s new 80,000 square-foot addition will take five days.

DenDanto said he is eager to be finished with the project, which kept him busy through the holidays. His wife, he added, is eager to get the mother whale’s rebuilt flipper, which resembles a giant human hand and is as big as a twin bed, out of the hallway of their house.

He said he has another project lined up that involves rebuilding two pilot whale skeletons for the Seacoast Science Center, but that one is not due until April.

“We’ll take a breather,” DenDanto said. “I want to celebrate Christmas.”

UMaine to lead new razor clam research

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:33:16 -0500

UMaine to lead new razor clam research

Paul Rawson of the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences is leading an effort to develop ways to grow razor clams on shellfish farms. With a $93,616 award from the Northeast Regional Aquaculture Center (NRAC), Rawson will work with Roger Williams University, Woods Hole Sea Grant and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, Maine Sea Grant and UMaine Cooperative Extension. A news release has details.

Ocean monitoring project

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:04:03 -0500

AP story on funding for ocean monitoring project

The Boston Globe website included an Associated Press story about $1.7 million in funding for the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, known as NERACOOS, which includes UMaine's Physical Oceanography Group and UMaine Professor Neal Pettigrew. The Bangor Daily News also ran the AP story, which mentioned the funding will enable researchers to collect data that will be used to benefit the fishing industry and commercial shippers.

Working Waterfront features UMaine scallop research

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:27:55 -0500

UMaine researchers Rick Wahle and Paul Rawson was included in a Working Waterfront story about the upcoming re-opening of several scallop fishing grounds in Maine. Rawson's work is in connectivity among different scallop grounds, while Wahle has been conducting a study of whether scallop density on the sea floor affects spawning effectiveness.

Research to prevent toxic red tide

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:53:38 -0500

Research to prevent toxic red tide

6:58 PM, Nov 7, 2011 | 0 comments

Written by

Danielle Waugh

FILED UNDER
WCSH 6 News
WLBZ 2 News

ORONO, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- After the toxic algal bloom called "red tide" closed nearly all Maine fisheries in 2009, researchers at the University of Maine are looking for better ways to detect it.

UMaine has received $574,028 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop new technology to monitor for red tide.

Not visible, the algal bloom can contiminate shellfish. If consumed, the fish can be deadly.

Researchers Amber Bratcher and Janice Duy are developing a testing kit that uses a dye to detect the bloom's genetic code.

"We're trying to be able to go out to specific areas, [to see] if there is a red tide presence," said Bratcher.

She said she hopes better methods of detection will eliminate the spread of the toxin, "so that we don't end up closing down the whole coastline and stopping a lot of the clamming."

The project is funded for three years.

As UMaine develops this technology, some are worried that funding for the Maine Department of Marine Resource's Red Tide Detection program will run out.

Darcy Couture, spokesperson for the DMR Shellfish Monitoring Program, said the new research is vital, but is also worried about immediate needs for detection.

The DMR received federal funding during the 2009 disaster season, but that funding is projected to run out by August, when the clamming season is underway.

Some clammers are also worried about where the money will come from.

"There's a definite cause for concern," said shellfish harvester Joe Porada.

"If the DMR water quality people and public health aren't funded properly, it could really cut back their ability to monitor red tide and other bio toxins."

Porada said he is hopeful that UMaine research will produce new, and more efficient ways to detect ride tide.