East Carolina University Archives

Research cruises assess North Carolina marine resources

March 27, 2025 — An East Carolina University professor is taking part in a series of interdisciplinary research cruises aimed at exploring biological organisms off the coast of North Carolina and gauging how climate and oceanic conditions affect marine resources.

Dr. Rebecca Asch, associate professor in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology, is a collaborator on the $1.5 million Research Opportunities Initiative grant. ROI grants are funded by the North Carolina General Assembly to encourage innovative and collaborative research projects across the state. Dr. Bradley Tolar, assistant professor of biology and marine biology at UNC Wilmington, leads the project with partnerships from ECU, UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University.

“It’s a really important initiative, and I am proud to represent ECU,” Asch said.

Transect Expedition to Assess Land-to-Sea Habitats via Interdisciplinary Process Studies (TEAL-SHIPS) is the name of the project. It involves researchers exploring the continental shelf of North Carolina to collect data and better understand physical, chemical and biological oceanographic processes. Surveys of the coast, from estuaries along the Cape Fear River near Wilmington to the Gulf Stream, will span two years of data collection throughout eight research cruises (four times per year, or once per season), with one year to analyze the data and findings. They will traverse the same locations, collect the same information and use the same equipment on each research cruise.

Asch said many of these offshore areas have not been surveyed by biologists since the 1990s.

Read the full article at East Carolina University

NORTH CAROLINA: Researchers talk coastal habitat risks from sea level rise, other hazards

April 22, 2021 — Coastal habitat loss may cost North Carolinians the natural benefits the habitat provides, but researchers are working to keep decision makers informed of the risks and potential solutions.

Representatives from Pew Charitable Trusts, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, Duke University and East Carolina University held an online workshop Monday discussing the hazards coastal habitat faces and how scientists and state officials are working to preserve and protect it. Pew Charitable Trusts Director Jennifer Browning said the workshop was a part of the trusts’ coastal habitat learning series and evolved from approximately three decades of fisheries management.

“It’s been wonderful to watch how the (N.C.) Coastal Habitat Protection Plan has evolved,” said Ms. Browning, who was on the team which developed the CHPP.

Duke University Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Ecosystem Services program director Lydia Olander said Duke researchers, in partnership with the U.S. Climate Alliance, have been taking part in a project to map the effects of sea level rise on coastal ecosystem services. She said the project focused on six Atlantic Coast states, including North Carolina.

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

Is climate change impacting fish along the NC coast?

January 14, 2021 — Twenty scientists from 13 institutes around the world now report that 2020 brought the highest ocean temperatures since 1955. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

While it is important that we continue to monitor the warming of the ocean temperatures, it is also important to understand the potential impacts that warming temperatures could mean for fisheries along the North Carolina coast.

I sat down with Dr. Rebecca Asch, a professor at East Carolina University, to discuss recent research led by one of her graduate students, Christopher Thaxton, in collaboration with NOAA to take a close look at fish larvae (juveniles) in Beaufort and the pattern changes happening due, in part, to warming water temperatures. Data has been collected on the amounts of fish larvae in this area since 1986 and they took a look at 10 species, including the American Eel, Pinfish, Croaker, and Flounder.

Read the full story at WRAL

Fewer fish may reach breeding age as climate change skews timing of reproduction, food availability

July 25, 2019 — The following was released by the The Princeton Environmental Institute:

Phytoplankton forms the base of the food chain in marine environments, transforming solar energy into plant matter. Their blooms provide vital nourishment to animals further up the food chain, including the larval stages of many fish species.

The researchers recently reported in the journal Global Change Biology that as Earth’s climate continues to warm, the occurrence of phytoplankton blooms have shifted from historic timelines, occurring earlier than normal. Supported by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), the scientists found that phytoplankton blooms could start approximately two to four weeks earlier in temperate and polar ecosystems under climate change. This could create hardships for developing fish as they struggle to find the phytoplankton they need to fuel their growth and survive into adulthood.

“Once fish larvae utilize all of the yolk that they received from their parents, they must learn how to hunt quickly — otherwise they risk starvation,” said first author Rebecca Asch, an assistant professor of biology at East Carolina University who began the work as a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

“Larvae that do not starve are slow to capture food and also likely to have lower survival because slower-growing fish are more likely to be eaten by predators,” explained Asch, who conducted the research with PEI associated faculty member Jorge Sarmiento, Princeton’s George J. Magee Professor of Geoscienceand Geological Engineering, Emeritus, and Charles Stock, a researcher at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory located on Princeton’s Forrestal Campus.

Fish develop in annual “classes,” with individuals reaching maturity and breeding age at roughly the same time. If enough larvae of a certain year class fail to make it to adulthood, that can affect the species’ future reproductive rates as there are fewer adults available to breed. Successive years of low adult populations could result in tighter fishing quotas that could create food shortages and economic hardship in communities that rely on fishing.

Read the full release here

Eating Fish May Help City Kids With Asthma Breathe Better

April 1, 2019 — It’s long been known that air pollution influences the risk — and severity — of asthma. Now, there’s emerging evidence that diet can play a role, too.

A new study finds that higher consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fish such as salmon, sardines and lake trout, and in some plant sources such as walnuts and flaxseed, is linked to reduced asthma symptoms in city kids who are exposed to fairly high levels of indoor air pollution.

“We know that asthma is a disease that’s driven by inflammation,” explains Dr. Emily Brigham, a pulmonologist at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of the study. As our bodies digest fish, the omega-3 fatty acids generate byproduct molecules known as “pro-resolving mediators” that make their way into our lungs. “They help to resolve inflammation,” Brigham says.

Given this anti-inflammatory effect, Brigham and her colleagues had a hunch that diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids may help attenuate the effects of air pollution on kids’ symptoms. To study this, they tracked the diets and indoor air pollution levels (from sources including smoke, dust and allergens) in the homes of 135 children, mostly African-American and all with asthma, in Baltimore, Md.

They measured two types of indoor air pollution, made up of different sizes of particulate matter: PM2.5 (fine inhalable particles that are 2.5 micrometers or smaller), and the somewhat larger PM10. These particulates are all too small for us to see, but they can make their way into our airways, and the smaller size — PM2.5 — can lodge deeply inside our lungs.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

Bull Shark Nursery Grounds Shifting North, a Result of Climate Change

April 20, 2018 — The report published this week in Scientific Reports notes that while bull sharks have large migratory patterns and move quite a bit, they are very loyal to their nursery grounds.

Prior to this discovery, the most northerly known nurseries in the Atlantic were located off Florida’s east coast. In recent years, however, nurseries have been relocated north to the Pamlico Sound, which lies between the Outer Banks and North Carolina’s coast.

The discovery was a fluke, the researchers said.

While working to characterize shark habitat in North Carolina, the researchers from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, Simon Fraser University and East Carolina University found that a greater number of juvenile bull sharks, which remain at nursery grounds during their formative years, were reported in the brackish waters of Pamlico Sound.

Read the full story at the Weather Channel