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Could Seaweed Save Oysters? Teacher-Fellow Jason Thomas Brings Science From Beach To Classroom

Friday, February 14th, 2020
Man standing on hill overlooking the ocean

Jason Thomas (Credit: Alison Haigh/SERC)

by Alison Haigh

If there’s any constant in SERC research fellow Jason Thomas’ diverse career, it’s that he’s always looking for opportunities to learn something new. He’s a science teacher, and that’s one thing that brought him to education: It keeps him in a constant state of learning.

Originally, though, he wanted to be a doctor. After getting a bachelor’s in sociology and a post-baccalaureate in biology, he worked in a molecular lab analyzing octopus eyes, and then in a mosquito hatchery. He then got a medical doctorate—but after having trouble securing a residency, he found himself going back to school for a master’s in teaching.

“Once, someone called me ‘Graduation Jason’ because all I do is graduate,” Thomas joked. Now that he’s a science teacher at Browning High School in Long Beach, California, he’s helping his students graduate with the skills they need to pursue careers in STEM.

But even on his summer breaks, he’s still learning. This summer, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s West Coast lab in Tiburon, California, hosted Thomas through the state’s STEM Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program. The program gives early-career science teachers authentic research opportunities. Now that he’s back at school in Long Beach, he’ll bring two summers of research experiences to inspire his students. Click to continue »

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Eight Ways We Can Save the Ocean’s Oxygen

Tuesday, December 10th, 2019

by Kristen Minogue

School of beige and blue fish swimming over a reef

Brown Chromis fish in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. (Credit: Emma Hickerson/NOAA)

The ocean is losing its breath. Two years ago, an international team of scientists known as GO2NE (the Global Ocean Oxygen Network) published a report in Science with a stark picture of oxygen loss in Earth’s waters: In the open ocean, the amount of water with zero oxygen has spiked fourfold since the mid-20th century. In coastal water bodies, places with dangerously low oxygen (2 milligrams per liter or less) have increased more than 10-fold. It’s a problem not just for animals, but for people and economies—especially those that rely on tourism or subsistence fishing.

On Dec. 7, a new report emerged from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The ocean could lose 3-4% of its total oxygen by the end of the century if nothing changes, with losses even higher in the top, biodiversity-rich 1,000 meters. Large fish like tuna, sharks and marlin are among the most vulnerable. In the closing chapter, led by Denise Breitburg of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, they created a massive blueprint for resuscitating the ocean.

We’ve pulled out the highlights below, but the key lies in cracking two global conundrums—nutrient pollution and climate change. Nutrient pollution happens when chemicals like nitrogen and phosphorus stream into the water and fertilize massive growths of algae, which suck oxygen out of the water. Climate change’s role is more subtle, but just as powerful: Warmer water can’t hold as much dissolved oxygen. Warm water also doesn’t mix as well, so oxygen from the atmosphere that’s abundant near the ocean surface doesn’t reach everywhere that needs it.

Fortunately, these two problems are linked. Cleaning up nutrient pollution can help solve climate change, and vice-versa—and the ocean will breathe easier for it. Here are eight highlights from the new report: Click to continue »

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Female Blue Crabs Are Running Low On Sperm—Unless They Die Young

Friday, October 25th, 2019

by Kristen Minogue

Blue crab with orange sponge on abdomen

A female blue crab can produce sponges like this three times a year, each with millions of eggs. But if male crabs are in short supply, she may not have enough sperm to fertilize all her eggs.
(Credit: SERC)

If you want to save a fishery, protect the females. That’s been the operating logic for decades among fishery managers, and with good reason: Females carry the next generation. Throw one mature female back, and she could produce thousands or millions more offspring. But for female blue crabs, the story isn’t always so simple.

In a study published Oct. 24, scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) confirmed that a potential snag is in fact happening in Chesapeake Bay. Without enough male blue crabs to go around, some females aren’t getting enough sperm to reach their full reproductive potential. If they survive past their first year of spawning, they risk running dry. Click to continue »

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Because of Her Story: Jane Lubchenco, Voice for the Ocean

Thursday, October 3rd, 2019
Woman in life preserver in front of iceberg

Jane Lubchenco in the Arctic. (Credit: NOAA)

by Kristen Minogue

This October, you’re invited to meet a woman who has spent decades working to save the ocean. The journey has taken her from the coasts of Oregon to Panama, New Zealand, South Africa and the Seychelles. Her name is Jane Lubchenco. In 2009, she broke ground as the first woman to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But her history with the ocean began long before that.

She’ll speak in person about the future of our global ocean on the evening of Oct. 15, as part of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the finale for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s 2019 evening lectures. The full details are here. (Spoiler: It’s free.) But if you’d like a preview, here are a few snapshots from Lubchenco’s life, and her unconventional path to become one the most powerful people speaking up for the seas: Click to continue »

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Q&A: Jon Lefcheck, MarineGEO Pioneer

Monday, November 26th, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Two men sitting on couch with mugs.
Jon Lefcheck (right) at Swansea University in Wales with colleague John Griffin. Lefcheck taught a course on mathematical modeling in Wales in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Jon Lefcheck)

Jon Lefcheck has spent most of his life on the East Coast. But as the new coordinating scientist for the Marine Global Earth Observatories (MarineGEO), he’s about to get a crash course in doing marine biology on the other side of the country and the other side of the globe. In this Q&A, learn about some of the weird discoveries and creatures he’s encountered so far, and why the coasts make society tick. Edited for brevity and clarity.

You were the first person in your family to go to college. What motivated you to push yourself in that way?

I always liked school—oddly enough, yeah, I know. I liked science. I pushed my parents to send me to private high school so that I could get more into my studies, and they were hugely supportive the entire way. I think that was their dream, that they would have a kid that would grow up to go on to college. My father said he wanted me to be a doctor when I was born. He meant medical doctor, so I’m not sure how he feels. But, you know, Ph.D.

Click to continue »
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eDNA emerges as powerful tool for tracking threatened river herring in Chesapeake Bay

Thursday, November 1st, 2018

Article contributed by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Using environmental DNA (eDNA) to track the presence of fish in waterways is emerging as a powerful tool to detect and understand the abundance of species in aquatic environments. However, relatively few studies have compared the performance of this emerging technology to traditional catch or survey approaches in the field.

Researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center field tested using eDNA—tracking the presence of fish by identifying DNA that has been left behind in the water—to detect river herring in tributaries of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. They found that tracking and quantifying herring DNA from the environment corresponded well to more traditional field methods and has great potential to assist future monitoring efforts of river herring abundance and habitat use.

“Sampling a single river, you need a net, crew, permits, it can be expensive,” said study author Louis Plough of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “The eDNA approach is an alternative where you just take water and you get an idea of the abundance of fish.” Click to continue »

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For The First Time, Biologists Track Cownose Rays to Florida and Back

Thursday, August 23rd, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Every summer, cownose rays stream into Chesapeake Bay to mate and give birth to their pups. When autumn comes, they disappear—presumably to migrate south, but no one knew for certain where they spent the winter. Now, after a three-year tagging study published Aug. 23 and led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), scientists have solved the mystery. Cownose rays all along the Atlantic winter near Cape Canaveral, Florida, and it’s likely they return to the same spots each summer. Click to continue »

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Understanding Sharks One Tag at a Time

Thursday, June 14th, 2018

by Mollie McNeel

Close-up of shark in profile, held by scientist

Smooth dogfish shark (Mustelus canis), one of four species Smithsonian scientists are tagging and tracking along the Atlantic. (Mollie McNeel)

Sharks. They’re everyone’s favorite underwater enemy. Between nerve-wracking dramas like Jaws to stories about prehistoric mega-sharks, we have all but made the shark species a completely fictionalized being. But scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) are hoping to change that.

Charles “Chuck” Bangley, a marine ecologist at SERC, travels up and down the East Coast catching and tagging four species of sharks found in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic: smooth dogfish sharks (Mustelus canis), bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) and dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus).

Click to continue »

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Six Reasons To Celebrate World Wetlands Day

Friday, February 2nd, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

SERC scientist Lisa Schile in a marsh in San Francisco. (Courtesy of Lisa Schile.)

February 2 is most widely known as Groundhog Day, the day people all over the U.S. look to a rodent in Pennsylvania to predict the future. But it also marks a less famous holiday: World Wetlands Day, celebrated around the world since 1997, to mark the first international agreement to protect wetlands on Feb. 2, 1971. Curious why anyone would make a holiday for wetlands? Here are a few reasons to celebrate the unsung guardians along our shores.

wetland covered by grasses and yellow flowers

A wetland by the Kenai River in Alaska (Dennis Whigham)

  1. They protect our homes from storms and floods. Standing between us and the elements, wetlands soak up destructive energy from waves and storm surges. In an extreme example, it’s estimated during Hurricane Sandy wetlands along the East Coast prevented $625 million in property damage.
  2. They help keep pollution out of Chesapeake Bay and other waterways. Wetlands are sometimes called the “kidneys” of the Bay, because they’re able to filter out pollution from fertilizers, sewage, pesticides and harmful toxins before it streams into the water.

    3. red-winged blackbird among reeds.

    Red-winged blackbird. Wetlands provide a home or resting point for many birds on their migrations. (Kristen Minogue/SERC)

  3. They’re good for our drinking water. Most of the water we drink comes from groundwater beneath the surface. But wetlands can replenish it as some of their water seeps underground. And because of their filtering powers, the water is cleaner after passing through a wetland.
  4. Birds and fish love them. Herons, egrets, ducks and bald eagles all pass through Chesapeake wetlands as visitors or year-round residents. Striped bass and other popular fish rely on them for spawning ground or nurseries, as do crabs and shellfish.
  5. They store carbon. Plants soak up carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, making them critical players in fighting climate change. “Blue carbon” is the official name for carbon stored in wetlands and other coastal ecosystems. At the same time, wetland soils can also emit methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, making it tricky to know how much carbon wetlands store overall. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are helping devise better ways to calculate this. So far they’ve found wetlands with more saltwater generally emit less methane and store more carbon.
  6. They’re natural air conditioning. With their lush plants and high water levels, wetlands can radiate moist air, cooling down areas nearby. This makes planting wetlands especially valuable near cities in tropical or dry climates.

Learn more:

Wetlands Can Resist Rising Seas, If We Let Them

The Blue Carbon Market Is Open

Coffee, Carbon and Crime: 22 Reasons to Love Trees

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Double Trouble? Tracking the Growth of Young Oysters Stressed by Acidity and Low Oxygen

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

by Cosette Larash

The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is one of the most important species in Chesapeake Bay. These shellfish filter the water, their reefs provide shelter for other marine species, and they’re an important seafood resource. But their numbers have hit a historical low due to overfishing, diseases like Dermo, and stressors such as hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) and acidification (low pH).

Biologists with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) want to find out whether the double stresses of low oxygen and acidification can stunt oyster growth. Studies have shown that juvenile oysters grown under low oxygen are generally smaller than oysters grown under normal oxygen conditions. However, scientists still don’t know how these oysters fare over the long term. The answers could help aquaculture and oyster restoration projects all over the Chesapeake adapt to the often extreme conditions beneath the surface. Click to continue »

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