Science

August 27, 2013 — Nova Scotia scientists believe they have located the breeding ground for the endangered North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of Maine.

The research increases the chances of survival for the species, says conservation biologist Tim Frasier of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

"The mating ground is particularly important," said Frasier from his DNA analysis laboratory. "If you want to conserve a species the main animals you want to protect are the ones that are reproducing."

Scientists believe the population of the ponderous mammals has dwindled to fewer than 500.

In recent years, the whales have been killed by entanglement in fishing gear, or by being hit by passing ships.

Read the full story from CBC News

August 28, 2013 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Intense interest in the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock is one driver behind a just-completed pilot research survey.  Two commercial trawlers, F/V Mary K and F/V Yankee Pride, worked about 175 stations over 12 days. The survey was coordinated and funded by NOAA Fisheries' Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and designed by a panel that included researchers, fishermen, and gear manufacturers.

Chief scientist Michael Martin of the NEFSC said the operations went well. “We were able to complete a very intensive survey of Georges Bank in a very short time thanks to the dedicated efforts of the captains, crews, and scientists aboard,” said Martin.

Once data are audited for quality, the NEFSC will release an informal report for this cruise as it does for all Center resource surveys.  The report is expected by early October.

By conducting this pilot survey, the NEFSC hopes to get a better idea of how an industry-based, dedicated survey for flatfish could augment other data collection in the region, and the resources required to establish and maintain such a survey.

Both the United States and Canada routinely cover Georges Bank during large-scale standardized research surveys for multiple species; however, none of these is specifically focused on flatfish like yellowtail flounder. Species-specific surveys such as this one can often reveal more about that species’ condition and help to better interpret data from the broad-scale survey.

“A directed industry-based flatfish research survey could certainly provide data useful in making baseline population estimates for Georges Bank yellowtail and winter flounder and help us monitor population changes in the future,” said Martin.

Information on the distribution, sizes, and ages of fish collected on the survey could provide some immediate insights into population condition. If the pilot survey evolves into an permanent, regular survey, results can be used to identify trends in Georges Bank flatfish abundance and biomass.  

The pilot survey used a modified version of a survey net built by Superior Trawl for an industry-based survey of southern New England yellowtail flounder conducted between 2003 and 2005.

The net is a two-seam, two-bridle flounder net with a 118- foot cookie sweep. Two modifications were made to the 2003-2005 survey net: the twine in the lower wings and first belly was reduced, and a codend liner was installed.  Both of these modifications are intended to improve the capture of smaller flounder, ensuring that even very small fish –the youngest in the population—would be represented in survey catches.

The pilot survey targeted areas of Georges Bank that were expected to have high flatfish concentrations.  The bank was divided into “high abundance” and “low abundance” areas based on input from fisherman. Stations were randomly selected within those areas, with numbers of stations heavily weighted towards high abundance zones. As on other resource surveys, the scientific party also collected biological samples.

Operations were conducted both day and night in depths of about 25 to 60 fathoms. The fishing vessel operators strove for consistency in tow time and speed and in setting and retrieving the net.  This helped to minimize the effects of net operation on catch rates, since the goal was to collect a consistent sample rather than to catch as many fish as possible, as would usually happen on a commercial trip.

Read the story from NOAA Fisheries

PORTLAND, OR. — August 29, 2013 — The Pacific Ocean off the Oregon Coast is really loud. That’s the finding of scientists working for Oregon State University, NOAA and the federal Energy Department.

For the past year, they’ve been listening to sounds picked up by a hydrophone sunk in about 50 meters of water, just off Newport.  What they’ve recorded is a vigorous symphony of natural and man-made noises.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from Oregon Public Broadcasting

August 25, 2013 — Mercury — a common industrial toxin — is carried through the atmosphere before settling on the ocean and entering the marine food web. Now, exciting new research from the University of Michigan and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) combines biogeochemistry and direct marine ecology observations to show how the global mercury cycle is colliding with ocean fish — and the human seafood supply — at different depths in the water.

Mercury accumulation in the ocean fish we eat tends to take place at deeper depths, scientists found, in part because of photochemical reactions that break down organic mercury in well-lit surface waters. More of this accessible organic mercury is also being generated in deeper waters.

"A few years ago we published work that showed that predatory fish that feed at deeper depths in the open ocean, like opah and swordfish, have higher mercury concentrations than those that feed in waters near the surface, like mahi-mahi and yellowfin tuna," said Brian Popp, professor of geology and geophysics at UH Manoa, and a co-author of a new paper scheduled for online publication August 25 in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. "We knew this was true, but we didn't know why."

"We knew that organic and inorganic mercury dissolved in seawater has a nutrient-like profile, with lower concentrations at the surface and higher concentrations at depth," said Anela Choy, a PhD candidate in oceanography at UH Manoa. "We saw it in the water, and we saw it in the fish. But we couldn't explain the gradient we saw, nor did we know exactly where and how the bioavailable organic mercury was entering the marine food web."

Bacteria in the oceans change atmospheric mercury into the organic monomethylmercury form that can accumulate in animal tissue. Large predatory fish contain high levels of methylmercury in part because they eat lots of smaller, mercury-containing fish. In 2009, researchers at UH Manoa determined that the depths at which a species feeds is nearly as important as its position in the food chain in determining how much methylmercury it contains.

Read the full story at e! Science News

August 23, 2013 — “As fish stocks migrate and as fish move north into colder water,” says Mike Conathan, who’s director of ocean policy at the Center for American Progress, “they're moving into areas where the industry is not necessarily set up with the proper gear to catch the species that are moving into their waters, and they also may not have permits to catch those fish.”

The changing environment isn’t even part of the computer models used to simulate fish populations and set catch limits.

Dr. Steve Cadrin of UMass Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology says there’s a reason for that. Modeling the full complexity of marine ecosystems is incredibly difficult. So fishery scientists focused on the factor that had the most influence over fish numbers – fishing. But as regulations have reigned in over fishing and the size of the fishing fleet has shrunk, environmental factors have become more prevalent.

For decades, fishery management has focused almost exclusively on the need to restrict fishing. Now, environmental changes are forcing fishermen and regulators to reevaluate their traditional practices.

Ernie Eldredge has been fishing all his life – clamming, long-lining cod, and crewing on sea scallop boats. But weir fishing is his love and mainstay. Last May, Eldredge pulled up something (or rather, two somethings) in his Chatham nets that even he’d rarely seen before – an Atlantic croaker and a grey triggerfish.

Weir fishing on Cape Cod is a tradition that dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The circular nets anchored by hickory poles are like underwater corrals that trap fish as they migrate along the coast. Eldredge still uses some of the gear his father did, and others before him. The chain stretches all the way back to the Native American inhabitants of Cape Cod.

Looking out over one of his weirs, Eldredge says he’s witnessed a major shift in recent years. The odd southern fish is part of it. The bigger problem, though, is that Eldredge’s traditional targets have moved offshore out of reach of his nets. This weir is empty, and he’s already disassembling his others two months earlier than usual. He blames climate change.

Rising carbon dioxide levels have profound consequences for ocean ecosystems. Water temperatures increase, ocean chemistry changes, and weather patterns shift. The microscopic plants and animals at the base of the food chain respond and the impacts reverberate through the ecosystem. The location, growth, reproduction, even behavior of fish is affected.

Coping with climate change will take an equally Herculean shift in fishery science and management. Many experts say the key to weathering climate change is something called ecosystem-based management. As the name implies, the idea is to base any one decision on a comprehensive understanding of the entire ecosystem. It’s a logical idea but far from simple.

The first step is getting a handle on the physical and chemical changes taking place in the ocean. Dr. Jon Hare and his colleagues at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center have documented deviations in temperature, salinity, acidity, and nutrient levels in New England’s waters. They’re also seeing shifts in wind patterns and ocean currents in the Gulf of Maine. And that translates into ecological changes.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at WGBH 

 

NEW BEDFORD, Mass., — August 22, 2013 — A scallop industry group has written to fisheries scientists declaring recent yellowtail flounder stock assessments "deeply flawed" and unsuitable for use as a regulatory tool.

The Fisheries Survival Fund wrote to NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) Director Dr. Bill Karp. It said the uncertainty factor in the assessments is so great that they are effectively useless.

The science center reports yellowtail populations are about as low as they have ever been and recommends another year of sharp quota cutbacks.

The scallopers are concerned because yellowtail are typically found living in scallop beds and come up as bycatch. In recent years, the bycatch has been limited by an avoidance scheme developed by the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.

If yellowtail bycatch exceeds the very low quotas, scallop fishing will have to stop.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 

August 5, 2013 — NOAA is requesting proposals for the FY2013 Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program. The solicitation will be open for 60 days, and closes September 29, 2013.

esearch priorities for 2013 include: aquaculture, optimum utilization of harvested resources under federal or state management, fisheries socioeconomics, conservation engineering, ecosystem studies and territorial science. Details about these priority areas can be found in the grant solicitation.

The Saltonstall-Kennedy Act established a fund used by the Secretary of Commerce to provide grants or cooperative agreements for fisheries research and development projects addressing aspects of U.S. fisheries, including, but not limited to harvesting, processing, marketing and associated business infrastructures. The objective of the Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program is to address the needs of the fisheries and fishing communities in optimizing economic benefits within the context of rebuilding and maintaining sustainable fisheries and in dealing with the impacts of conservation and management measures.

A Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) document is associated with this competition and is available at www.grants.gov (FFO# – NOAA-NMFS-FHQ-2013-2003834) along with the full application for download. The FFO provides important information for grant applicants, including program priorities, eligibility requirements, amount of available funding, instructions for submitting proposals, review criteria and review process, and more. Prior to submitting proposals, the FFO should be read in its entirety.

For further information on research priorities and details on how to apply, please visit the Grants.GOV weblink.

Read the full release from NOAA

 

 

August 17, 2013 — The keystone of the South Georgia ecosystem, the secret to the miraculous abundance of wildlife on this stark, cold, windswept island—the foundation, indeed, for almost all vertebrate life in the Antarctic—is krill.

On the Antarctic island of South Georgia, in February, toward the middle of what passes for summer at the bottom of the world, I hurried through the ruined whaling station of Grytviken.

I had an appointment at the British Antarctic Survey station on the opposite side of King Edward Cove. I was to interview a marine ecologist working on krill. I did not want to be late.

The keystone of the South Georgia ecosystem, the secret to the miraculous abundance of wildlife on this stark, cold, windswept island—the foundation, indeed, for almost all vertebrate life in the Antarctic—is krill.

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are administered from the Falkland Islands as a British Overseas Territory, in which the little outpost of Grytviken is the only inhabited spot. The inhabitation is very marginal. In southern winter there are just eight staff members of the British Antarctic Survey, including a doctor, a government officer, and a postal clerk. A handful of visiting scientists augment this skeleton crew in southern summer.

Grytviken is gritty and grim. The name means "Pot Bay," a reference to the cauldrons in which the Norwegian whalers here rendered oil from blubber. It is apt. The rusting vats, boilers, ramps, chimneys, and ramshackle buildings of the long-abandoned whaling station; the wrecks of the catcher boats stranded on the waterfront; and the rows of giant whale-oil tanks upslope are all the apparatus of a genocide, in the literal, Latin sense of the word. The genus was Balaenoptera, the baleen whale.

From the whale's upper jaw, in place of teeth, hang long, fringed curtains of keratin—baleen—used to seine krill. The largest member of the genus and the biggest creature ever to live, the blue whale gets that way from its ability to process eight tons of krill a day.

The Antarctic, in its remoteness, girded by pack ice, abloom in summer with phytoplankton and coursing with torrents of krill, was the stronghold of the blue whale. The invention of the steam-powered catcher boat and the explosive harpoon ended all that. Today in the Southern Ocean, where a century ago 200,000 blue whales fed on the krill swarms of austral summer, only a few hundred are left. (Related: "Catching Copepods: Charasmatic Microfauna of the Arctic")

A Game of Chinese Boxes

If William Blake thought he had seen "dark satanic mills" in England, then he should have taken a stroll through Grytviken. After the darkness of the whaling station, and the black, snow-seamed rock of the encircling mountains, and the somber sky, the white interior of the British Antarctic Survey laboratory was dazzling.

For a moment I lost my bearings. Bright fluorescent light glinted from microscopes. Martin Collins turned away on a swivel stool from his laboratory workbench and stood to greet me. In his immaculate white lab coat he was incandescent, an angelic figure of medium height, pale-skinned, with semi-curly hair of indeterminate color. This might have been the start of the Rapture, with Collins as my heavenly guide—until I chanced to glance down. Beneath his white lab coat the ecologist was wearing muddy trousers and gumboots streaked with penguin guano.

He mimed an apology for not shaking hands, holding up both of his own to show blue rubber gloves. Just now he had been rooting around in fish stomachs. Pulling over a bucket of offal, he groped about inside and extracted a half-digested mackerel icefish. "That's come out of a skate's stomach," he said.

"A little worse for wear," I suggested.

Collins agreed and he dug again in the offal, searching for a more intact specimen. His bucket of guts was bloody, but not in the normal, crimson sense, for icefish have no hemoglobin. Their plasma is full of antifreeze but no red cells, so their blood runs clear.

"This one's probably slightly better," he said, holding up a less eroded fish. "There's a fishery for these mackerel icefish. We've done a trawl survey for icefish all around South Georgia to estimate the stocks. Icefish are krill feeders—80 percent of their diet is normally krill—so their stomachs can tell us what's happening with krill. I've done something like 650 icefish in the last couple of weeks. It's been a slightly strange year for the krill around South Georgia."

"Strange," I said. "In what way?"

"You get odd years, and 2004 was one of those, when there's a little bit less krill. This year seems to be fairly extreme. There's very little krill and scarcely any icefish at all. We're seeing the gentoo penguins struggling a little bit this season, as well. Not enough krill. The gentoos don't seem to be giving the food to their chicks that they normally do."

From his workbench Collins retrieved a glass dish of krill. He had extracted this handful—eight or nine little shrimplike crustaceans—from the stomach of an icefish, which he had previously extracted from the stomach of a skate, and had counted, weighed, and measured each one.

In death the krill were bright red. They were big Euphausia superba, the king of krill, probably the most successful species on Earth by measure of sheer biomass: roughly twice the weight of humanity, thronging in "swarms" as dense as 10,000 individuals per cubic meter.

In Norwegian, kril means "small fry." The noun is almost always a collective plural in that language, as it is in English. And as it is in the grammar of Nature herself, where krill are collective like no other organism. The name has an onomatopoeic rightness; "krill" seems to boil, seethe, swarm.

Collins's game of Chinese boxes—his opening of stomachs to investigate the stomachs within—had ended with this dish of krill. No further dissection was necessary, for krill are translucent, and the green contents of the gastric mill and the hepatopancreas were visible through the exoskeleton. In the middle of krill mating season, the last meal—interrupted by a hungry icefish—for these krill had been phytoplankton.

Read the full story from National Geographic

LOWER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — August 16, 2013 —  The next time Lund's Fisheries wants to land a particular species of fish while avoiding other species they aren't supposed to catch, a new high-tech system aboard the boats could point them in the right direction.

That's the promise of a system currently being installed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on all 12 vessels owned by Lund's Fisheries, as well as independent fishing boats docked locally.

Identifying fish locations is only one of the many benefits being touted for a system that has been used on boats in New England but never before in southern New Jersey.

"This is the first installation in New Jersey and in the Mid-Atlantic," said Wayne Reichle, whose family owns Lund's Fisheries.

"This is the future. It's something really needed by our industry and to give (NOAA) more real-time information to react to changing conditions in the ocean. It can hopefully make us more productive," Reichle said.

Water temperature, recorded electronically by sensors on the fishing gear and delivered to a laptop computer, is only one of the data points the system delivers. It's an important one. Fish are cold-blooded and water temperature happens to be the key feature in where they concentrate.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City