Science

AMHERST, Mass. –- November 12, 2014 — The following was released by the University of Massachusetts Amherst:

A new grant will allow fisheries oceanographer Molly Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Gloucester Marine Research Station, with postdoctoral fellow Angelia Vanderlaan and colleagues, to design, conduct and analyze the first autonomous aerial vehicle surveys of Atlantic bluefin tuna to provide fishery-independent regional estimates of their numbers.

Funded recently by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) one-year, $145,694 grant, she and her team will develop new analytical techniques next season to provide a more quantitative method of estimating the size and number of individuals within surface schools of the most important commercial tuna species in the Atlantic. At present these estimates are made subjectively by observers and/or spotter pilots.

Lutcavage says, “The goal is to combine high-resolution, aerial imagery taken using an unmanned aerial vehicle with sonar acoustic surveys to improve the quality of Atlantic bluefin tuna stock assessments. To achieve this, we’ll need to complete some smaller pilot studies to make sure the techniques we plan to use are giving us accurate information and to allow us to remove biases inherent in aerial surveys.”

Lutcavage’s research group is one of NOAA’s pilot research groups in the use of a hexacopter, or remote-controlled aerial vehicle, to study fish in natural conditions at sea. These small, maneuverable craft carry a high-resolution camera mounted in the belly, to hover over schools of tuna, allowing researchers to photograph and later count individuals in the group. Coupled with sonar, the new aerial survey tool should offer an unmatched, detailed picture of bluefin tuna populations in the north Atlantic. They nicknamed their aerial vehicle WASABI, for Water Imaging Aerial Surveying Automated Biological Instrument.

She says, “We are doing this work in collaboration with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center fisheries acoustics expert, Mike Jech, and University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping staff, sonar expert Tom Weber and aerial ocean mosaic mapping expert Yuri Rzhanov. It’s the result of a 20-year attempt to focus on developing direct assessment capability.”

And as usual for the LPRC, Lutcavage’s Gloucester-based research team will collaborate with long-term tuna research partners and stars of television’s “Wicked Tuna” series, Captain Bill “Hollywood” Muniz and his spotter, Mark Brochu. Wayne Perryman, leader of a NOAA project using hexacopters to study killer whales off the coast of British Columbia, is advising the UMass Amherst group on this project.

NOAA Fisheries: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/podcasts/2014/10/aerial_vehicle_killer_whale.html#.VD6k1b5Nu-L

November 12, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC):

Spring and fall thermal transition dates, based on a benchmark of average temperature between winter and summer, continue to shift, according to the latest Ecosystem Advisory for the U.S. Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem from NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC).

Learn more at: Spring and Fall Thermal Transition Dates Continue to Shift; Sea Surface Temperatures Remain Warm as Bottom Waters in Mid-Atlantic Region Cool During First Half of 2014

November 10, 2014 — Cutting-edge research to understand fluctuations in sea levels caused by climate change looks like this: In a spartan, fluorescent-lighted laboratory, Tufts University researchers peer through microscopes to count microorganisms that resemble tiny snails.

These simple marsh-dwelling creatures called foraminifera, or forams, are choosy about how much time they spend underwater, so they turn out to be surprisingly precise indicators of ancient sea levels.

The unsophisticated foram census at Tufts shows that the quest to understand the impact of global-scale climate change can sometimes depend on fairly mundane clues.

Unlike many climate predictions, which describe average changes over the entire globe, tallying up forams to understand past sea level changes can provide clues to help predict the future on a smaller scale — narrowing the focus to specific regions and shorter time frames.

“The problem we have with predictions is our obsession with the year 2100 — that’s of little to no use for someone planning for the city of Boston,” said Andrew Kemp, assistant professor of geology at Tufts who has counted up tens of thousands of forams over the years.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

November 7, 2014 — While it's not quite like hitting the lottery, winning a $1 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is plenty of seed money for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to rev up a new pilot program to help coastal communities cope with sea level rise, changing water chemistry and climate.

The team of WHOI scientists has partnered with groups like the Nature Conservancy, Buzzards Bay Coalition and Commercial Fisheries Foundation to come up with solutions and strategies.

"Our focus is on Buzzards Bay and offshore waters," noted WHOI chemist Scott Doney, the head investigator.

But the approaches and tactics employed will be applicable up and down the coast.

"That's why the MacArthur Foundation was interested in this proposal. They viewed it as developing pilot technologies that could be translated to other communities," Doney explained.

They'll test informational outreach through libraries, local officials, public meetings, the Internet and citizen involvement.

"One focus is on sea level rise and storms," Doney explained. "One of our researchers, Jeff Donnelly, is doing a lot of work looking at the record of storms in history and before the historical record. He's taken cores from intertidal estuaries and he can see the big hurricane events because they wash sand from the beach back into the ponds. Taking numerical models of storm surge events from information that already exists he can communicate that to coastal property owners and community managers in a way that's more accessible. We focus on Buzzards Bay because it is so sensitive to storm surges."

Read the full story from The Provincetown Banner

 

November 6, 2014 — The following was released by Ocean Trust:

Senior scientists and fishery managers from leading fishing nations concluded three days of talks on the status of fisheries and sustainability of seafood at the fourth annual Science and Sustainability Forum (SSF) which called for the re-evaluation of seafood ecolabelling guidelines that many say are being misapplied particularly in small scale fisheries and coastal communities. A major concern is that ecolabelling is creating market barriers for coastal fisheries and communities.

“What we have seen is that many of these [ecolabelling] schemes are creating difficulties for the access of small scale fisheries particularly in developing states to international markets,” said Fabio Hazin, Professor of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of Universidade Federal Rural of Pernambuco. “This is a very worrying trend and we have to come up with a solution for that.”   

Participants of the October 27-30 Forum noted that even in developed countries there are many well-managed fisheries which simply do not have funds to go through a private third-party ecolabelling scheme, and many question the need and additional costs of ecolabelling, especially when many management systems already have a thorough scientific review process. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on fisheries management, which involves extensive data collection, stock assessments, and teams of scientists and managers. Several forum participants discussed new programs at the national and state level to provide assurances that their fisheries are sustainably managed and conform with the principles within the FAO guidelines for ecolabelling.

“Only ten percent of global fisheries have gone through private ecolabelling programs,” said Thor Lassen, president of Ocean Trust and a co-convener and principle organizer for the Forum. “There simply is not enough money to certify all fisheries in the world, nor does it make sense. We have to be more pragmatic when it comes to the ecolabelling of seafood products.”

Globally, fish production has been steadily increasing for many decades and per capita fish consumption has more than doubled since 1973 from an estimated average 8.3% yearly growth in aquaculture during the period 1970 – 2010. This surge makes it the fastest growing food production system as reported by Lahsen Ababouch, FAO’s Division Director for Policy and Economics, who presented a global review on the management and status of fisheries and aquaculture.

Ray Hilborn, University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, reported that where we have data and fisheries are actively managed, stocks are being managed sustainably, refuting many claims expressed by environmental non-governmental organizations (eNGOs). As Hilborn noted, “in each case, science supports the ability of the existing management systems to sustain food from the sea:
– Overfishing is declining where fisheries are managed
– Marine Protected Areas do not improve fisheries yields where fisheries are well managed
– Environmental impacts of fishing are less than alternative food production systems
– Certification no longer seems to be about sustainability, but eNGO values of “acceptable” environmental impact”

In light of this progress, John Sackton from SeafoodNews.com asked: “Why are the public and media so wrong about fisheries?” Steve Cadrin, president of AIFRB, noted, “Misinformation needs to be corrected because an imbalanced agenda threatens the human aspects of sustainability.”

Several speakers challenged misleading information from NGOs regarding menhaden fisheries, the status of stocks, and bycatch, particularly in Oceana’s 2014 bycatch report. According to the Regional Fishery Management Councils, the report should be retracted. Benny Gallaway, representing LGL Ecological Research Associates, suggested it should be “carefully evaluated, especially when many of the claims are complete fabrications without any basis in fact.”

Defining sustainability is a large part of the problem. As Brian Rothschild, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, pointed out “the language of sustainability is fuzzy…a concept that is constantly changing rather than a well-defined goal. What we need,” Rothschild continued “is a concrete definition with clear performance measures and minimum ambiguity that tracks environmental change,” which Dick Beamish, the former AIFRB president and Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist, expanded upon in his discussion on the link between Pacific salmon abundance and climate regime shifts in the ocean.

How we measure sustainability was further discussed by many speakers who pointed out that sustainability is a process more appropriately tracked by evaluating the management and stock assessment system rather than the status of a stock (overfished) or fishing level (overfishing) at any given point in time. Programs for assessing the conformance of management systems to FAO sustainability criteria where presented by Ocean Trust, NOAA, and others.

Speakers also noted the mismatch of standards developed for data-rich, large-scale, single-species fisheries and small-scale, coastal, mixed fisheries often characterized as highly productive, short-lived and environmentally driven.

“Many sustainability standards in the National Standard 1 Guidelines of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and many guidelines for the ecolabelling of fishery products developed for large-scale, commercial fisheries are not suited for small-scale, coastal fisheries,” concluded Steve Cadrin, AIFRB. “These mismatched standards jeopardize all aspects of sustainability. Alternative standards that reflect and recognize the successful cooperative management of coastal fisheries are needed.” 
The forum also reviewed the status of Gulf of Mexico fisheries and management systems that are producing sustainable seafood. “The overall status of stocks in the Gulf are in the best shape they have been in the last 20-30 years,” said Roy Crabtree, Regional Administrator of NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office. “The stocks seem to be responding to management and are coming back.”

At the state level, Louisiana’s program presented an innovative approach to sustaining its coastal fisheries. Randy Pausina, Assistant Secretary for Fisheries at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), and his staff illustrated through several presentations how coastal states can integrate international sustainability criteria and tools into a comprehensive program for the sustainability of its seafood products and fisheries though partnerships, public outreach, product assurance, professionalism and traceability (http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov).

The forum, the fourth in its series, was sponsored by Ocean Trust, American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, Bonefish Grill, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, Omega Protein, and Sea Port Products.

View a PDF of the release from Ocean Trust

 

November 6, 2014 — An on-going NOAA Fisheries marine mammal and ecosystem survey off the West Coast has sighted several surprising species of tropical cetaceans and birds, including pygmy killer whales and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, never before documented so far north, and loggerhead turtles, likely attracted by unusually warm Pacific Ocean waters.

The survey has encountered strikingly warm sea surface temperatures as high as 23˚ Celsius (74˚ Fahrenheit), which NOAA Fisheries researchers have been watching for months. The warm conditions have been linked to other recent sightings of unusual species of seabirds, fish and marine mammals rarely seen in the northern Pacific.

The recent sightings are part of the four-month California Current Cetacean and Ecosystem Assessment Survey (CalCurCEAS), conducted every three to six years by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC). The CalCurCEAS assesses marine mammals off the U.S. West Coast and tracks conditions that affect the ecosystems in which they live. The findings inform NOAA decisions on West Coast fisheries, ensuring safeguards to protect marine mammals and other protected and endangered species, such as marine turtles and seabirds.

Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries

 

November 6, 2014 — The bones of sea turtles have annual rings like those found in trees, and chemical markers within them give scientists a detailed view of the animal's life history.

Where have you been all these years?

That's a question scientists have been asking sea turtles for a long time. After the turtles hatch and waddle into the sea, they're pretty much off the radar until they turn up as juveniles on beaches that might be half a world away. But thanks to new technology, scientists are finally getting some answers.

One of those new technologies involves skeletochronology. "Just like trees have annual rings, so do the bones of sea turtles," said Cali Turner Tomaszewicz, a scientist at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. "And you can analyze those rings to get all kinds of information about the animal's life history."

The rings are most visible in the humerus bones, which form the upper arms of humans but in sea turtles are found in the flipper. Turner Tomaszewicz collects the bones from the bodies of sea turtles that are found dead on beaches in Northern Mexico and California. She works mainly with Eastern Pacific green turtles and North Pacific loggerheads, both of which are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries 

 

November 6, 2014 — Experts have long known that human activity can influence how local animals live, including their habitats, food sources, and even behavior. However, a new study has found that we can even impact how an animal procreates, changing the size and structure of specific fish species' genitalia in only a few decades.

The study, recently published in the journal Evolutionary Applications, details how the male genitalia of three different species of Bahamian mosquitofish (Gambusia) living in water heavily influenced by human activity have undergone a rapid and surprising change.

Stunningly, the highlighted changes are not mere mutations risen from chemical dumping or other taboo industrial activities. Instead, these appear to be natural changes, and the waters in question were simply split from larger habitats with the building of roads in a process called "fragmentation."

Fragmentation is not a new concept for researchers. Nature World News has previously reported on how fragmentation is leading to massive declines in New England cottontail populations. Similarly, the once proud mountain lions of the Santa Monica Mountains have degraded to inbreeding and patricide to survive, cut off from the rest of the world by the Southland freeways.

However, according to researchers from North Carolina State University, this latest fish study provides the first example of rapid physiological accompanying fragmentation.

Read the full story at Nature World News

November 5, 2014 — The following was released by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation:

Attached please find the October 2014 edition of a newsletter developed and distributed by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF).

Visit our website at http://cfrfoundation.org/s/CFRF-October-2014-Newsletter.pdf to view online.

To request a hard copy of this newsletter, please contact the CFRF office at (401) 515-4892 or admin@cfrfoundation.org.

View the newsletter here

November 3, 2014 — Since 2005, professor of marine biology Fred Scharf along with his team of UNCW undergraduates and graduate students, have been studying the migration patterns and genetics of flounder in the New River Estuary of North Carolina.

The team has been studying southern flounder which are found in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and into the Gulf of Mexico. Fish are kept track by a system called tagging. A tag is implanted into the flounder in order to record the level of mixing that is taking place between the flounder in each state. When a fish is caught, the tag has a number that the fisherman can call to report it has been caught.

“By returning the tags and calling it in, the fishermen earn a reward amount from 50 dollars up to 200 dollars on rare occasions,” Scharf said. “The amount of the reward depends on the fish. Rewards are used to ensure the reporting rates are high.”

Along with the tagging method to keep track of the flounder, the team is also using acoustic tracking. A special tag is placed inside the fish and various listening stations are positioned throughout the estuary. When a fish swims through a detection stage of one of the listening stations, it will pick up the signal from the tag.

“We are trying to see if we can get a better handle on when they leave and which way they go so we can better predict when most of the flounder leave the system,” Scharf said. “There are season closures when they can’t be caught. If we had a better understanding of when they migrated, we could time those closures better and also protect them during certain migratory windows.”

Read the full story from University of North Carolina at Wilmington's The Seahawk