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Biodiversity Makes Reefs Tick—But It Needs Big Players

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022

by Kristen Goodhue

Underwater photo of silver fish swimming over a reef, with orange, pink, brown and white coral.
A school of yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi) at Lord Howe Island in Australia. The presence of large fish like yellowtails can help keep ecosystems healthy and productive, a new study found. (Credit: Rick Stuart Smith, Reef Life Survey)

Three thousand reefs. (Technically 3,040 reefs, for those who like precision.) That’s how many underwater sites scientists and volunteers poured over in the latest effort to uncover how much biodiversity matters for reef health.

The answer: Quite a lot.

Scientists have known for years that diverse fish communities help ocean ecosystems flourish, even when facing rising temperatures and climate change. But the latest study, published in Nature Communications, reveals it’s about more than the numbers. Which species call a reef home can matter just as much as how many there are. And that holds especially true when it comes to large predator fish.

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For Bay Oysters, Protection Plus Restoration Creates Healthiest Reefs

Thursday, June 10th, 2021

by Kristen Minogue

Actively restoring oyster reefs—beyond simply protecting them from harvest—can create big payoffs for habitat quality and the other species that flock to them. A new study from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), published June 10 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, compared restored, protected and harvested areas using photos and video footage from roughly 200 sites.

Roughly a quarter of Maryland’s oyster habitat lies protected in oyster sanctuaries. But only a small fraction of those sanctuaries have undergone full-scale restorations, with reconstructed reefs and new live oyster plantings. The new paper offers an easier way to determine if those restorations are paying off.

“You’ve got to actively restore something,” said Keira Heggie, lead author of the study and a technician in SERC’s Fisheries Conservation Lab. “But if you actively restore something and then let it go by its wayside, then you’re not going to know exactly if it’s still doing well.” Click to continue »

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Recreational Crabbing in Maryland Higher Than Current Estimates

Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

by Kristen Minogue

Two blue crabs with pink tags on a wooden table

Biologists outfitted crabs with these pink tags, offering a reward to crabbers who found them and reported the catch. (Credit: Kim Richie/SERC)

When it comes to recreational crabbing—one of the most iconic pastimes along Maryland’s shores—the current estimate of 8% of “total male commercial harvest” runs just a little too low. Biologists, with local community support, found stronger evidence for the underestimate in the first tagging study to estimate the recreational blue crab harvest statewide. Click to continue »

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Stressed-Out Young Oysters May Grow Less Meat On Their Shells

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021

Early Exposure to Heat and Low Oxygen Makes Oysters More Vulnerable to Same Stressors Later On

by Kristen Minogue

Gloved hand holding up a brown and white oyster next to the water

Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) taken from the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. (Credit: Sarah Donelan)

Early exposure to tough conditions—particularly warmer waters and nightly swings of low oxygen—could leave lasting scars on oysters’ ability to grow meaty tissue. A team of biologists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) reported the discovery in a new study, published in the journal Ecological Applications.

Eastern oysters in Chesapeake Bay live mostly in shallow tributaries. It’s a rough environment for shellfish that can’t move. During hotter months, oxygen levels can swing drastically, from perfectly healthy levels in the day to near zero at night. To save energy, some oysters react by focusing more on shell growth than tissue growth. That could pose a problem for anyone involved in the seafood industry.

“What we all of course want to eat at the raw bar is the oyster tissue,” said Sarah Donelan, a SERC postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the new report. “Customers and restaurants might be less pleased if there’s less tissue in what looks to be a large oyster.”

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Seagrass Restoration Brings New Life To Virginia’s Once-Forsaken Bays

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020

by Kristen Minogue

Two decades ago, it was almost impossible to find eelgrass in Virginia’s South Bay—or many of the other small bays behind the barrier islands along the state’s eastern shore. After a barrage of disease followed by a powerful hurricane wiped them out by 1933, many thought the eelgrasses would never return. With the eelgrass went the brant goose, a popular waterfowl for sport hunting, and a lucrative bay scallop industry that had brought in millions of dollars per year.

“Because the bay scallop relies on the eelgrass as it’s growing up, it just completely disappeared and never came back,” said Jonathan Lefcheck, a marine biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

Today, a 20-year restoration has transformed South Bay and its neighboring bays into an oasis. But for the scientists leading the effort, restoring the eelgrass wasn’t enough. They wanted to find out if all the benefits eelgrasses provide would return as well. A new Science Advances report finally gave them their answer.
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Sharks Tags Reveal Endangered Species Returning To Natural Refuge

Wednesday, November 18th, 2020

by Kristen Minogue

In the coastal waters of the mid-Atlantic, an endangered shark is making a comeback. Led by former Smithsonian postdoc Chuck Bangley, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) tagged and tracked nearly two dozen dusky sharks over the course of a year as part of the Smithsonian’s Movement of Life Initiative. They discovered a protected zone put in place 15 years ago is paying off—but it may need some tweaking with climate change.

Dusky sharks are what Bangley calls “the archetypal big, gray shark.” Born three feet long, as babies they’re already big enough to prey on some other shark species. But they’re slow growing. It can take 16 to 29 years for them to mature. If their populations take a hit, recovery can take decades.

The sharks’ numbers plummeted in the 1980s and 1990s, when well-intentioned managers offered sharks as an “alternative fishery” while other stocks, like cod, were collapsing. The overfishing that followed wiped out anywhere from 65 to 90 percent of the Chesapeake’s duskies, said Bangley, now a postdoc at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Managers banned all intentional dusky shark fishing in 2000. Five years later, they created the Mid-Atlantic Shark Closed Area encompassing most of the North Carolina coast. The zone prohibits bottom longline fishing, which can accidentally ensnare dusky sharks, for seven months of the year.

But is the partial refuge working?

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Global “BiteMap” Reveals How Marine Food Webs May Change With Climate

Monday, October 26th, 2020

by Kristen Minogue

Blue and yellow fish approaching stick in sandy, turquoise water

A yellowtail fish approaches a “squid pop” in the coastal waters off Mexico. By planting squid pops (stakes with dried squid bait) in coastal waters around the world, ecologists were able to sketch a global “BiteMap” of fish feeding. (Credit: Brigitta van Tussenbroek/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Where are small marine animals most vulnerable to getting eaten? The answer has big consequences for coastal ecosystems, where most of the world’s fishing takes place, since predators can radically change underwater communities. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct. 26, an international team of scientists sketched the first global “BiteMap” showing where the ocean’s mid-sized predators are most active. By fishing with dried squid baits called “squid pops,” they discovered rising temperatures can shape entire communities of predators and have potential impacts lower down the food web.

“We know that communities around the world are changing with climate warming,” said Emmett Duffy, co-author on the paper and director of the Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory program. But while warmer temperatures generally increase animal activities like eating, researchers are only just starting to grasp what those changes mean for marine ecosystems as a whole. “We might expect a soccer team, for example, to perform better in warm weather than in really cold conditions. But what if in the warmer conditions, the team switches out for different players? That can completely change the game.”

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U.N. Report Puts Spotlight on Seagrasses

Friday, July 31st, 2020

by Isabella Eclipse

Video created by United Nations Environment Programme

Appearances can be deceiving. At first glance, the humble seagrass meadow resembles a weedy underwater lawn. A closer look reveals one of the most important—and threatened—marine ecosystems in the world. Unfortunately, conservation efforts have often overlooked seagrass habitats.

“For a long time, people saw seagrass as a nuisance,” explained Jonathan Lefcheck, a biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. It had a reputation for clogging boat propellers and washing up on beaches. “Tropical resorts would hire people to dig up seagrass in front of their beach because people would complain,” he added.

Though public perceptions have been changing, many people today are still unaware that seagrass meadows are rich and vibrant ecosystems like coral reefs or rainforests. A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme hopes to change that. Released June 8 on World Oceans Day, Out of the Blue compiles the latest findings from around the world on seagrasses and the valuable services they provide. SERC biologist Emmett Duffy served on the steering committee and helped synthesize the report.

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Preserving Salmon in Alaska’s Kenai Lowlands

Wednesday, April 15th, 2020

by Kristen Minogue

“Not everybody in Alaska is a fisherman. But all of us live on salmon land….If you look at a map of the Kenai Peninsula, it just looks like a cardiovascular system. Salmon are like the heartbeat.”

These words, spoken by a young Alaska fisherwoman named Hannah Heimbuch, open a short documentary the Smithsonian created called The Heartbeat. Featured in the D.C. Environmental Film Festival this March, it tells the story of Alaska’s Kenai Lowlands—one of the few places on Earth where sustainable salmon management remains possible. Click to continue »

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Intern Jessenia Suarez Talks Heatwave Biology, Being Latina in STEM

Friday, February 14th, 2020

by Alison Haigh

Young woman in a blue jacket standing on hill overlooking ocean

Jessenia Suarez (Credit: Alison Haigh/SERC)

Science comes with some wacky challenges. In the world of marine invasions, that might include sunburns from afternoons tying equipment to docks or worrying about how much seafood powder to feed a plate of invertebrates. But when someone dons a lab coat, they don’t shed their homelife, background, and personal responsibilities. At SERC-West, intern Jessenia Suarez got to know some of those unique challenges while working on her research project. But one of her biggest challenges was outside the lab.

Suarez is a senior marine biology major at San Francisco State University who found her passion for biology in her second year at community college. In summer 2019, she studied how a group of underwater creatures known as the fouling community responds to changes in water temperature. She found the work exciting and refreshing—but she admits that her biggest challenges were balancing the internship with a two-hour commute and finding childcare for her two-year-old daughter, Leia.

“I would spend about an hour and a half with her when I got home, and then it would be time to sleep,” she said. “Not only that, but I was still working my other job [as a CVS pharmacy technician]—very few hours, but it’s still time away from her. It was hard for me, and it was hard for her too.”

Besides caring for her daughter and working a second job, she also had to balance classes. Yet despite a heavier workload than the average intern, Suarez loved the internship experience, and she’s passionate about pursuing research after her degree.

“I had an idea that I liked doing research, but being in charge of my own project brought it to a whole new level, ” Suarez said. “I now know what to expect, and have a feeling that I can handle it.” Click to continue »

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