Rutgers Oceanography - Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory
Rutgers Oceanography ISSUE 35 • NOV.
2015
Grant Awards
Enrique Curchister “Vulnerability Assessment of California Current Food Webs and Economics to Ocean Acidification” UW $9,566
Haskin Happenings A Good Year for Delaware Bay Oyster Fishery is a Good Problem
Scott Glenn “Towards a Comprehensive Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS)” NOAA $3,199,707 Kay Bidle “Collaborative Research:Elucidating algal host-virus dynamics in different nutrient regimes” NSF$481,873 Grace Saba“Indicators of habitat change affecting three key commercial species of the U.S. Northeast Shelf” NOAA $228,111 John Wilkin “Exploring how global climate change will affect The Delaware Bay Oyster fishery is one of the best managed shellfisheries in North Amerthe water quality of the New York City Harbor Estuary” Cornell ica and has provided a blueprint for other states to manage their oyster fisheries. It’s a point of pride for the Haskin Lab which has been quantitatively assessing the fishery since $27,868 1953. Annual quotas limit the harvest in Delaware Bay and carefully distribute it to ensure Scott Glenn “OOI Education quotas remain stable and population rebuilding happens automatically during good years. and Public Engagement ImpleThis was, by all accounts, a good year with high oyster survival, good growth and good menting Organization/OOI EPE- recruitment. Despite this good news, oyster fishermen in the Delaware Bay were upset. Oper. & Maintenance Est.” COL What was the hubbub about? The oystermen were distraught that they were catching their $1,212,583 quota too quickly because there were so many oysters in the Bay. They wanted an increase in their quota. The current system is not designed to take advantage of good years from the Oscar Schofield “Climate driven impacts on marine ecology, bio- perspective of increasing the harvest within the season, but rather to protect against large geochemistry, and carbon cycle decreases in quota after a bad year. Thankfully, the Shellfish Council, made up of practicing oystermen appointed by the Governor, stood behind the science and told those who were of the WAP” WHOI $70,948 calling for a mid-year quota increase that their efforts would be better spent participating in the annual stock assessment by the Haskin Lab, that invites industry participation.
World-Renowned Oyster Breeding Programs Continue to Thrive
Oyster breeding and production of fast-growing, disease-resistant lines of oyster remains a major activity of the Haskin Lab - a NJ Agricultural Experiment Station, and a Delaware Bay field station for DMCS. Outstanding survival and growth rates produced by the capable hands of our technical staff at the Cape Shore and the Aquaculture Innovation Center allowed an end of the year sale of excess ‘seed’ (juvenile oysters) to local NJ oyster farmers as well as the NY/NJ Baykeeper efforts in NY Harbor. The second most productive oyster researcher in the world, Ximing Guo, recently received two new grants to continue his internationally renowned research program: Genetic improvement of tetraploids and triploids for eastern oyster aquaculture. USDA NIFA Aquaculture Program, $309,151 and Advancing eastern oyster aquaculture through marker-assisted Selection (yr2). NOAA NJ Sea Grant, $60,000. In recognition of his expertise, Ximing was also recently invited to serve on the International Advisory Board of Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS). IOCAS is a major research institution in marine sciences, whose advisory board members are selected from leading oceanographic institutions of the world. Shellfish Students Engage in Cooperative Research This past season was a busy summer for graduate students at HSRL. Between cooperative research cruises,
aquaculture hatchery and nursery work, and lab analysis, students’ schedules were jam-packed. Jason Morson, a third year PhD student in Daphne Munroe’s lab led a collaborative field effort working with fishing crews from Viking Village to design a specially engineered net to study incidental mortality in the federal scallop fishery. Current estimates of incidental mortality in the sea scallop fishery are highly uncertain. Jason’s research is part of a project funded through NOAA, headed by Senior Marine Scientist and Fisheries Cooperative Center Director Dr. Eleanor Bochenek, to obtain empirical estimates of incidental mortality in the sea scallop fishery. Joe Caracappa is also working with an important fishery species in New Jersey – the iconic blue crab. He worked with automated imaging microscopy to better understand phenotypic variability in larval development. MSc student Sean Martin, in cooperation with the Northeast Fishery Science Center, collected samples from throughout the MidAtlantic to examine spatial structure of whelk populations on the shelf - the source of a potential new federal fishery. The newest graduate student to join the Munroe lab, Mike Acquafredda, worked with a local oyster farmer to sample and analyze water flowing through the farmer’s experimental nursery. The nursery system is being tested at the Aquaculture Innovation Center, and Mike is providing data that will help understand how this system may provide cleaner food to young oysters.
Graduate student Mike Acquafredda counts a boatload of oyster seed for biomass estimates at a nursery at the AIC.
Rutgers Oceanography Undergrad courses with a shellfish flavor Aquaculture (11:628:317) taught by Drs. Ximing Guo and Dave Bushek take place during the first two weeks of January at the Haskin Lab and stresses the role of science in aquaculture. The course covers a wide swath of skills and expertise. Lectures and labs teach global aquaculture production methods, fish and shellfish growth and reproduction, nutrition, genetics, disease control, economics, environmental consequences of aquaculture and public policy issues. The course includes field trips to local aquaculture facilities, and gives students a unique opportunity to be immersed in the world of aquaculture.
Byrne Seminar: 11:090:101 Oysters Then and Now: Revolutionary Seafood Research at Rutgers – taught by Drs. Bushek and Munroe. Ever wonder where the shellfish on your plate comes from? If you are eating oysters, clams or scallops, the likely answer is New Jersey. Rutgers shellfish scientists have played a major role in the development and sustainability of the farms and fisheries that produce these delicious seafoods. Project PORTS reaches out and builds a living shoreline Promoting Oyster Restoration Through Schools (PORTS), is a community-based oyster restoration program that gives K-12 students an opportunity to experience stewardship first hand as they help enhance critical Delaware Bay oyster habitat. Students construct shell bags that will serve as settlement surfaces for juvenile oysters in the Bay. Developed by Lisa Calvo, Aquaculture Program Coordinator, the strategy of Project PORTS is to promote hands-on activities that present basic scientific concepts and emphasize local significance of the oyster resource. Since 2007, Project PORTS has been steadily building a 5 acre living oyster reef, made of shell bags created by students, in the upper Delaware Bay. The
project has seeded more than 20 million oysters to date using shells that are recycled from two restaurants in Atlantic City and generously donated by a clam processing plant in Millville, NJ. In 2015, Project PORTS partnered with 25 schools and 7 community groups to engage 2,500 students and 55 adults in building an impressive 9,965 shell bags. Project partners, The Nature Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will help deploy these bags in a special coastal resiliency project, a ‘living shoreline’, to determine their ability to attenuate waves and enhance diversity along eroding marsh edges of the Bay. The project is intended to help stabilize approximately 3,000 feet of beach and tidal marsh shoreline, while providing habitat for several important species.
Friends from the Boys and Girls Club of Vineland show off their finished shell bag. Photo credit: Jenny Paterno
Science guides summer/winter flounder management Sex discrimination in summer flounder: Faculty and staff at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory have been conducting cooperative research with the recreational and commercial fishing industries to understand how sexually dimorphic characteristics influence our understanding of population dynamics and fisheries management practices in the summer flounder fishery. Too hot for winter flounder: Dr. Eleanor Bochenek and Sean Martin were recognized for providing the science to inform decisions for dredging regulations. Until now, habitat maps showed spawning of winter flounder occurred all the way south to Cape May Point that determined the Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). Thanks to their work the dredging regulations are being updated with understanding of today’s winter flounder EFH.
marine.rutgers.edu
GET YOUR RU OCEAN SWAG!!!! Rutgers Oceanography tee-shirts are here. Proudly wear the Rutgers Oceanography tee-shirts - funds are raised to host science socials for the undergraduate and graduate students. Tee-shirts go for $15 and will make you look atheltic, smart, and dashing. Such a great deal for a great cause. Contact Sarah Kasule if interested ([email protected]). To see the quality people your contribution would support check out our featured graduate students at http://marine.rutgers.edu/main/ Featured-Student/.
Please help us enable Rutgers oceanography to support the next generation!
Rutgers oceanography needs your support to meet the environmental and educational challenges facing the world today. Your support is critical to enabling high risk and high reward research, developing students to be the leaders of tomorrow and bringing the public with our scientists into the ocean. Your private gifts will create new laboratories, student fellowships, endowments and feed ambitious new programs. Come join us! Even the smallest gifts have huge impacts by getting students out on the water or getting a student to a professional meeting. So please join us explore the world. Go RU!
New Publications
Kuykendall, K. M., Moreno, P., Powell, E. N., Soniat, T. M., Colley, S., Mann, R., Munroe, D. M. 2015. The Exposed Surface Area to Volume Ratio: Is Shell More Efficient than Limestone in Promoting Oyster Recruitment? Journal of Shellfish Research 34(2): 217–225. DOI: 10.2983/035.034.0203 Fuchs, H. L., A. J. Christman, G. P. Gerbi, E. J. Hunter and F. J. Diez (2015). Directional flow sensing by passively stable larvae. Journal of Experimental Biology 218: 2782-2792. PBailleul, B., Berne, N., Murik, O., Petroutsos, D., Prihoda, J., Tanaka, A., Villanova, V., Bligny, R., Flori, S., Falconet, D., Krieger-Liszkay, A., Santabarbara, S., Rappaport, F., Joliot, P.,Tirichine, L., Falkowski, P. G., Cardol, P., Bowler, C., Finazzi, G. 2015. Energetic coupling between plastids and mitochondria drives CO2 assimilation in diatoms . Nature. 524. doi:10.1038/nature14599 Kemp, A. C., Hawkes, A. D., Donnelly, J. P., Vane, C. H., Horton, B. P., Hill, T. D., Aniseld, S. C., Parnell A. C. 2015. Relative sea-level change in Connecticut (USA) during the last 2200 yrs. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 428: 217-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.07.034 Cahill, N., Kemp, A. C., Horton, B. P., Parnell, A. C. 2015. Modeling sea-level change using errors-in-variables integrated gaussian processes . The Annals of Applied Statistics 9(2):547-571. doi: 10.1214/15-AOAS824 Schofield, O., Jones, C., Kohut, J., Kremer, U., Miles, T., Saba, G., Webb, D., Glenn, S. 2015. Building a coordinated community fleet of autonomous gliders for sampling coastal systems. Marine Technology Society 49(3): 9-16. Dungan, C.F. and D. Bushek. 2015. Development and applications of Ray’s fluid thioglycollate media for detection and manipulation of Perkinsus spp. pathogens of marine molluscs. J. Invert. Pathol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2015.05.004.
2015
Grant Awards
Enrique Curchister “Vulnerability Assessment of California Current Food Webs and Economics to Ocean Acidification” UW $9,566
Haskin Happenings A Good Year for Delaware Bay Oyster Fishery is a Good Problem
Scott Glenn “Towards a Comprehensive Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS)” NOAA $3,199,707 Kay Bidle “Collaborative Research:Elucidating algal host-virus dynamics in different nutrient regimes” NSF$481,873 Grace Saba“Indicators of habitat change affecting three key commercial species of the U.S. Northeast Shelf” NOAA $228,111 John Wilkin “Exploring how global climate change will affect The Delaware Bay Oyster fishery is one of the best managed shellfisheries in North Amerthe water quality of the New York City Harbor Estuary” Cornell ica and has provided a blueprint for other states to manage their oyster fisheries. It’s a point of pride for the Haskin Lab which has been quantitatively assessing the fishery since $27,868 1953. Annual quotas limit the harvest in Delaware Bay and carefully distribute it to ensure Scott Glenn “OOI Education quotas remain stable and population rebuilding happens automatically during good years. and Public Engagement ImpleThis was, by all accounts, a good year with high oyster survival, good growth and good menting Organization/OOI EPE- recruitment. Despite this good news, oyster fishermen in the Delaware Bay were upset. Oper. & Maintenance Est.” COL What was the hubbub about? The oystermen were distraught that they were catching their $1,212,583 quota too quickly because there were so many oysters in the Bay. They wanted an increase in their quota. The current system is not designed to take advantage of good years from the Oscar Schofield “Climate driven impacts on marine ecology, bio- perspective of increasing the harvest within the season, but rather to protect against large geochemistry, and carbon cycle decreases in quota after a bad year. Thankfully, the Shellfish Council, made up of practicing oystermen appointed by the Governor, stood behind the science and told those who were of the WAP” WHOI $70,948 calling for a mid-year quota increase that their efforts would be better spent participating in the annual stock assessment by the Haskin Lab, that invites industry participation.
World-Renowned Oyster Breeding Programs Continue to Thrive
Oyster breeding and production of fast-growing, disease-resistant lines of oyster remains a major activity of the Haskin Lab - a NJ Agricultural Experiment Station, and a Delaware Bay field station for DMCS. Outstanding survival and growth rates produced by the capable hands of our technical staff at the Cape Shore and the Aquaculture Innovation Center allowed an end of the year sale of excess ‘seed’ (juvenile oysters) to local NJ oyster farmers as well as the NY/NJ Baykeeper efforts in NY Harbor. The second most productive oyster researcher in the world, Ximing Guo, recently received two new grants to continue his internationally renowned research program: Genetic improvement of tetraploids and triploids for eastern oyster aquaculture. USDA NIFA Aquaculture Program, $309,151 and Advancing eastern oyster aquaculture through marker-assisted Selection (yr2). NOAA NJ Sea Grant, $60,000. In recognition of his expertise, Ximing was also recently invited to serve on the International Advisory Board of Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS). IOCAS is a major research institution in marine sciences, whose advisory board members are selected from leading oceanographic institutions of the world. Shellfish Students Engage in Cooperative Research This past season was a busy summer for graduate students at HSRL. Between cooperative research cruises,
aquaculture hatchery and nursery work, and lab analysis, students’ schedules were jam-packed. Jason Morson, a third year PhD student in Daphne Munroe’s lab led a collaborative field effort working with fishing crews from Viking Village to design a specially engineered net to study incidental mortality in the federal scallop fishery. Current estimates of incidental mortality in the sea scallop fishery are highly uncertain. Jason’s research is part of a project funded through NOAA, headed by Senior Marine Scientist and Fisheries Cooperative Center Director Dr. Eleanor Bochenek, to obtain empirical estimates of incidental mortality in the sea scallop fishery. Joe Caracappa is also working with an important fishery species in New Jersey – the iconic blue crab. He worked with automated imaging microscopy to better understand phenotypic variability in larval development. MSc student Sean Martin, in cooperation with the Northeast Fishery Science Center, collected samples from throughout the MidAtlantic to examine spatial structure of whelk populations on the shelf - the source of a potential new federal fishery. The newest graduate student to join the Munroe lab, Mike Acquafredda, worked with a local oyster farmer to sample and analyze water flowing through the farmer’s experimental nursery. The nursery system is being tested at the Aquaculture Innovation Center, and Mike is providing data that will help understand how this system may provide cleaner food to young oysters.
Graduate student Mike Acquafredda counts a boatload of oyster seed for biomass estimates at a nursery at the AIC.
Rutgers Oceanography Undergrad courses with a shellfish flavor Aquaculture (11:628:317) taught by Drs. Ximing Guo and Dave Bushek take place during the first two weeks of January at the Haskin Lab and stresses the role of science in aquaculture. The course covers a wide swath of skills and expertise. Lectures and labs teach global aquaculture production methods, fish and shellfish growth and reproduction, nutrition, genetics, disease control, economics, environmental consequences of aquaculture and public policy issues. The course includes field trips to local aquaculture facilities, and gives students a unique opportunity to be immersed in the world of aquaculture.
Byrne Seminar: 11:090:101 Oysters Then and Now: Revolutionary Seafood Research at Rutgers – taught by Drs. Bushek and Munroe. Ever wonder where the shellfish on your plate comes from? If you are eating oysters, clams or scallops, the likely answer is New Jersey. Rutgers shellfish scientists have played a major role in the development and sustainability of the farms and fisheries that produce these delicious seafoods. Project PORTS reaches out and builds a living shoreline Promoting Oyster Restoration Through Schools (PORTS), is a community-based oyster restoration program that gives K-12 students an opportunity to experience stewardship first hand as they help enhance critical Delaware Bay oyster habitat. Students construct shell bags that will serve as settlement surfaces for juvenile oysters in the Bay. Developed by Lisa Calvo, Aquaculture Program Coordinator, the strategy of Project PORTS is to promote hands-on activities that present basic scientific concepts and emphasize local significance of the oyster resource. Since 2007, Project PORTS has been steadily building a 5 acre living oyster reef, made of shell bags created by students, in the upper Delaware Bay. The
project has seeded more than 20 million oysters to date using shells that are recycled from two restaurants in Atlantic City and generously donated by a clam processing plant in Millville, NJ. In 2015, Project PORTS partnered with 25 schools and 7 community groups to engage 2,500 students and 55 adults in building an impressive 9,965 shell bags. Project partners, The Nature Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will help deploy these bags in a special coastal resiliency project, a ‘living shoreline’, to determine their ability to attenuate waves and enhance diversity along eroding marsh edges of the Bay. The project is intended to help stabilize approximately 3,000 feet of beach and tidal marsh shoreline, while providing habitat for several important species.
Friends from the Boys and Girls Club of Vineland show off their finished shell bag. Photo credit: Jenny Paterno
Science guides summer/winter flounder management Sex discrimination in summer flounder: Faculty and staff at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory have been conducting cooperative research with the recreational and commercial fishing industries to understand how sexually dimorphic characteristics influence our understanding of population dynamics and fisheries management practices in the summer flounder fishery. Too hot for winter flounder: Dr. Eleanor Bochenek and Sean Martin were recognized for providing the science to inform decisions for dredging regulations. Until now, habitat maps showed spawning of winter flounder occurred all the way south to Cape May Point that determined the Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). Thanks to their work the dredging regulations are being updated with understanding of today’s winter flounder EFH.
marine.rutgers.edu
GET YOUR RU OCEAN SWAG!!!! Rutgers Oceanography tee-shirts are here. Proudly wear the Rutgers Oceanography tee-shirts - funds are raised to host science socials for the undergraduate and graduate students. Tee-shirts go for $15 and will make you look atheltic, smart, and dashing. Such a great deal for a great cause. Contact Sarah Kasule if interested ([email protected]). To see the quality people your contribution would support check out our featured graduate students at http://marine.rutgers.edu/main/ Featured-Student/.
Please help us enable Rutgers oceanography to support the next generation!
Rutgers oceanography needs your support to meet the environmental and educational challenges facing the world today. Your support is critical to enabling high risk and high reward research, developing students to be the leaders of tomorrow and bringing the public with our scientists into the ocean. Your private gifts will create new laboratories, student fellowships, endowments and feed ambitious new programs. Come join us! Even the smallest gifts have huge impacts by getting students out on the water or getting a student to a professional meeting. So please join us explore the world. Go RU!
New Publications
Kuykendall, K. M., Moreno, P., Powell, E. N., Soniat, T. M., Colley, S., Mann, R., Munroe, D. M. 2015. The Exposed Surface Area to Volume Ratio: Is Shell More Efficient than Limestone in Promoting Oyster Recruitment? Journal of Shellfish Research 34(2): 217–225. DOI: 10.2983/035.034.0203 Fuchs, H. L., A. J. Christman, G. P. Gerbi, E. J. Hunter and F. J. Diez (2015). Directional flow sensing by passively stable larvae. Journal of Experimental Biology 218: 2782-2792. PBailleul, B., Berne, N., Murik, O., Petroutsos, D., Prihoda, J., Tanaka, A., Villanova, V., Bligny, R., Flori, S., Falconet, D., Krieger-Liszkay, A., Santabarbara, S., Rappaport, F., Joliot, P.,Tirichine, L., Falkowski, P. G., Cardol, P., Bowler, C., Finazzi, G. 2015. Energetic coupling between plastids and mitochondria drives CO2 assimilation in diatoms . Nature. 524. doi:10.1038/nature14599 Kemp, A. C., Hawkes, A. D., Donnelly, J. P., Vane, C. H., Horton, B. P., Hill, T. D., Aniseld, S. C., Parnell A. C. 2015. Relative sea-level change in Connecticut (USA) during the last 2200 yrs. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 428: 217-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.07.034 Cahill, N., Kemp, A. C., Horton, B. P., Parnell, A. C. 2015. Modeling sea-level change using errors-in-variables integrated gaussian processes . The Annals of Applied Statistics 9(2):547-571. doi: 10.1214/15-AOAS824 Schofield, O., Jones, C., Kohut, J., Kremer, U., Miles, T., Saba, G., Webb, D., Glenn, S. 2015. Building a coordinated community fleet of autonomous gliders for sampling coastal systems. Marine Technology Society 49(3): 9-16. Dungan, C.F. and D. Bushek. 2015. Development and applications of Ray’s fluid thioglycollate media for detection and manipulation of Perkinsus spp. pathogens of marine molluscs. J. Invert. Pathol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2015.05.004.
