Saving Seafood

Sea Grant Funds New Technology to Monitor for Harmful Algal Blooms

October 18, 2018 — A new system using next-generation robotic sensors to monitor coastal waters for disease-causing microalgae has been funded by the NOAA Sea Grant Program as part of a national strategic investment in aquaculture.

The PhytO-ARM (Phytoplankton Observing for Automated Real-time Management), under development by a team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Mike Brosnahan, will vastly improve our ability to detect harmful algal blooms (HABs) and the toxins they produce and provide aquaculturists, resource managers, and others detailed, real-time information about the bloom using a web-based, user-friendly dashboard.

“Clams and oysters grown in our coastal waters depend on phytoplankton as an important food source, yet some phytoplankton produce toxins, which accumulate in shellfish and pose a threat to humans and other animals that consume them,” says Brosnahan. “The information the system provides is very powerful and holds great potential for protecting human health and maximizing aquaculture operations.”

The project’s intent is to streamline the system so that it can be adapted for a range of uses, including by farmers to protect and maximize their shellfish yields; resource managers anticipating and responding to outbreaks to protect human health, and scientists working to better understand HAB dynamics in our changing environment.

In its most sophisticated form, the PhytO-ARM system couples two powerful sensors: the Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), which continuously records microscope images of phytoplankton and identifies them in real time; and a new high capacity Environmental Sample Processor (ESP), a “molecular lab in a can” that can positively identify species and toxins. “This system will provide rapid biotoxin measurements, alerting managers to the presence of biotoxins that cause severe, even fatal reactions in humans,” says Brosnahan.

A smaller scale version of the system couples the IFCB with a profiling conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) probe to provide rich pictures of the distribution of phytoplankton around shellfish beds, which can inform and trigger management actions.

“Many harmful algal bloom species migrate vertically through the water column,” says Brosnahan. “By combining these sensors we can focus sampling on where cells are most abundant. Knowledge of the vertical distribution of cells may also enable farmers to tweak nursery operations to limit the exposure of juvenile animals to harmful algae.”

Another powerful aspect of the system is in monitoring not only the organisms that are known to have caused problems for many decades, but also for detecting species that are nascent problems for the aquaculture industry. New England has a well-established biotoxin problem with Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning caused by the phytoplankton Alexandrium. But the region is experiencing emergent problems with biotoxins from Pseudo-nitzschia and Dinophysis, both of which have caused shellfish bed closures in recent years. With real-time data from PhytO-ARM sensors, resource managers can detect and monitor potentially toxic phytoplankton cells that are normally not part of their monitoring program.

Brosnahan has first-hand experience with this. In 2015, working with a proto-type PhytO-ARM system in Nauset Marsh on Cape Cod, Brosnahan and his team spotted some unusual cells. “We had finished with our work with the Alexandrium bloom and our IFCB was showing relatively high numbers of Dinophysis acuminata – a dinoflagellate that causes diarrhetic shellfish poisoning or DSP,” he says. “We were able to continue monitoring the development of the Dinophysis bloom throughout the summer and alerted the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries and collaborators at FDA to a potential hazard, which ultimately resulted in the first closure of a shellfish bed due to DSP in the northeast U.S.”

Read the full story at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

MASSACHUSETTS: New commission created to study ocean acidificaton

October 18, 2018 — David Ryan and Al Suprenant have a lot invested in their business.

The co-owners of Cape Cod Oyster Co. in Marstons Mills have eight full-time employees working 54 acres of ocean bottom on three sites; a 4,000-square-foot processing plant, two truck drivers, two bookkeepers, a fleet of refrigerated box trucks and five 28-foot vessels.

It takes careful planning, and a steady supply and demand for their product to keep it all rolling. They dread the reversals of fortune nature can dole out, such as occurred during a sudden onslaught of ocean acidification in the Pacific Northwest a decade ago that caused a 70 percent to 80 percent die-off of oyster larvae in Washington state hatcheries. One-quarter of the carbon in the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, forming an acid that inhibits shell building, particularly in larvae. Since the beginning of the industrial era 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide has been absorbed by the ocean, 22 million tons per day, according to a Smithsonian report.

“The West Coast was taken completely by surprise,” Ryan said Tuesday.

Washington was the largest aquaculture industry in the country with over 3,000 jobs but half the state’s production and hundreds of employees had to be relocated to Hawaii to avoid the acidic water that was delivered to the coastline by a slow-moving current.

Avoiding that kind of surprise in Massachusetts — where the aquaculture industry produced $28 million of oysters and other shellfish in 2017 — and in Barnstable County — with 270 licensed growers who produced over $12 million worth of shellfish — is why Ryan and Suprenant supported state Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, and state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, D-Woods Hole, in their pursuit of legislation to create an Ocean Acidification Commission in the Bay State.

The commission is intended to foster research as well as legislative and other solutions to a problem often described as the evil twin of the global warming caused by climate change. On Tuesday, Cyr and Fernandes chose Cape Cod Oyster Co. headquarters to announce the official launch of the acidification commission, which was authorized under the latest state environmental bond bill this summer.

“This is a real challenge for our burgeoning aquaculture industry,” Cyr said, promising to leverage the power of state agencies, the wealth of research being done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, and the fishing industry to offset the effects of ocean acidification.

It’s not just aquaculture in state waters, but larger federal fisheries that are potentially in peril, including sea scallops and lobsters. Massachusetts harvested 29.2 million pounds of sea scallops in 2016 worth over $350 million. State lobstermen caught 17.7 million pounds of lobster worth $82 million.

The problem has not been well publicized because the effects occur out of sight, said Laurence Madin, WHOI vice president of research.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Scallop fishery may be imperiled by acidic seas

October 16, 2018 — Increasingly acidic seas pose a serious threat to the sea scallop fishery, a recent collaborative study by the University of Virginia, the Ocean Conservancy, the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) concluded.

“As levels of carbon dioxide increase in Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans become increasingly acidic — a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50 percent in the next 100 years under a worst-case scenario,” the study states. Models from the study, which were published recently in the journal PLOS One, combine existing data with several factors that impact the fishery: “future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts, fisheries management policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.” Those factors were modeled out into 256 different possibilities.

Oceans absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide. Fossil fuel emissions exacerbate what the oceans take in, further acidifying the water. “That acidity can corrode the calcium carbonate shells that are made by shellfish like clams, oysters, and scallops, and even prevent their larvae from forming shells in the first place,” the study states.

“[The scallop fishery is] healthy and valuable today in part because it is very well managed,” says Scott Doney, a co-author from WHOI and the University of Virginia. “We also used the model to ask whether management approaches could offset the negative impacts of ocean acidification.”

It couldn’t. In every scenario, elevated carbon dioxide levels created acidiferous ocean water. The culprit, the study concluded, was “unabated carbon emissions.”

Read the full story at the MV Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Falmouth and New Bedford Battle Across Buzzards Bay for NOAA Headquarters

October 15, 2018 — A dispute across Buzzards Bay may break out between Falmouth and the City of New Bedford.

The Falmouth Board of Selectmen has been working to keep the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.

Other elected officials in the area have also been lobbying for NOAA to keep the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole for weeks.

In late September, Falmouth selectmen teamed up with Barnstable County state representatives and state senators, area chambers of commerce, directors from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the Woods Hole Research Center to pen a letter to the federal agency urging them to stay put in the small section of Falmouth.

Operations Chief of the NOAA Fisheries Science Center Garth Smelser responded to that letter, and met with Falmouth and Barnstable County officials on Friday to discuss the possible move.

“For almost 150 years we’ve been studying fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and the marine environments that sustain them, and right here in Barnstable County we have over 300 employees and contractors that complete that work. The Fisheries Commission started right here in our community. We’ve been doing wonderful marine science for those 150 years,” Smelser told elected officials. “Yes, we are very proud of our presence in Woods Hole, but we’re much bigger than just Woods Hole. We have 225 federal staff and 165 contract staff spread around the east coast from Orono, Maine all the way down to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The majority of our folks are centered in Woods Hole, but we’re just as proud of our other people.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

New Study Shows Climate Change Could Reduce Scallop Population

October 3, 2018 — Researchers in Massachusetts say under the worst case scenario, climate change could reduce the scallop population by more than 50 percent in just a few decades, which could be bad news for New Bedford’s lucrative fishing port.

In 2016, commercial fishermen landed more than $300 million worth of fish at the Port of New Bedford, and 85 percent of that value came from scallops.

A new study from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows as carbon emissions in the atmosphere increase, so does the acidity in the ocean.

Jennie Rheuban, lead author of the report, said that could affect how well scallops can grow.

“Adults may actually be growing slower and calcifying less quickly under these acidified conditions because it’s more difficult for them to lay down calcium carbonate as a shell,” Rheuban said.

Rheuban said ocean acidification could also cause scallops to become more vulnerable.

“They aren’t able to swim quite as well when they’re experiencing acidified conditions, and so we hypothesize that under acidification, scallops may be more susceptible to predation,” she said.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

WHOI Warns Sea Scallop Fisheries of Rises in Ocean Acidification

September 26, 2018 — More than $500 million worth of Atlantic sea scallops are harvested off the east coast of the United States.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, warn that fisheries bringing in this massive catch might be in danger because of carbon-dioxide levels increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the upper oceans to become increasingly acidic.

“What’s novel about our work is that it brings together models of changing ocean environments as well as human responses. It combines socioeconomic decision making, ocean chemistry, atmospheric carbon dioxide, economic development and fisheries management, said the study’s lead author Jennie Rheuban.

“We tried to create a holistic view of how environmental changes might play out across different aspects of the sea scallop fishery.”

The scientists say the condition could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50-percent within the next 30 to 80 years.

The predictions were made using a model created by WHOI scientists, which combines existing data and models of four major factors: future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts, fisheries management policies, and fuel costs for commercial fishermen.

WHOI says that the ocean absorbs more than a quarter of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They say that the acidity caused by this can corrode the shells of clams, oysters, and scallops, and event prevent their larvae from forming shells at all.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Ocean acidification may reduce sea scallop fisheries

September 24, 2018 — Each year, fishermen harvest more than $500 million worth of Atlantic sea scallops from the waters off the east coast of the United States. A new model created by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, predicts that those fisheries may potentially be in danger. As levels of carbon dioxide increase in the Earth’s atmosphere, the upper oceans become increasingly acidic—a condition that could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50% in the next 30 to 80 years, under a worst-case scenario. Strong fisheries management and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, however, might slow or even stop that trend.

The , published in the journal PLoS One, combines existing data and models of four major factors: future climate change scenarios, ocean acidification impacts,  policies, and fuel costs for fishermen.

“What’s novel about our work is that it brings together models of changing ocean environments as well as human responses” says Jennie Rheuban, the lead author of the study. “It combines socioeconomic decision making, ocean chemistry, atmospheric carbon dioxide, economic development and fisheries management. We tried to create a holistic view of how environmental changes might play out across different aspects of the  fishery,” she notes.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

 

Scallop RSA Program: NEFMC and NOAA Announce 15 Awards Selected for 2018-2019 funding

May 16, 2018 — The following was released by New England Fishery Management Council:

 

The New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) are pleased to announce that 15 projects have been selected for 2018-2019 funding through the Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program.

“The Scallop RSA Program truly has become one of the flagships of the scallop fishery,” said New England Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn. “The collaborative efforts that take place at sea between fishermen and researchers go a long way toward enhancing our understanding of what’s happening with the resource. The results of this RSA work funnel back to the Council and support stock assessments. Without a doubt, the RSA program helps us better manage our – Virginia Institute of Marine Science photo extremely valuable scallop fishery.”

Projects will address research priorities established by the Council, with a particular focus on resource surveys. The awards are expected to generate more than $12 million: $3 million to fund research; and $9 million to compensate industry partners who harvest set-aside quota

“We are excited to be able to work with the New England Fishery Management Council, industry, and scientists to fund sea scallop science through the Research Set-Aside Program,” said NEFSC Science and Research Director Dr. Jon Hare. “The projects funded support surveys, bycatch mitigation, and biological studies, all with the purpose of improving the information used in the management of the sea scallop resource.”

The New England Council established the Sea Scallop RSA Program to address research questions that support management of the scallop resource. The Council sets the research priorities and researchers compete for funding through a federal grant competition managed by NOAA Fisheries.

No federal funds are provided to support the research. Instead, projects are awarded pounds of scallops, which have been “set aside” from the annual fishery quota for this purpose. Successful applicants partner with the fishing industry to harvest their set-aside award to generate funds for the research. There are active research set-aside programs for Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, and monkfish.

2018-2019 Scallop RSA Award Summary

The awards fall into three categories: scallop surveys (dredge, drop camera, and HabCam); bycatch mitigation; and sea scallop biology.

Scallop Surveys

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) received new awards to conduct dredge surveys in Closed Area I, Closed Area II, and the Nantucket Lightship. Under an existing award from last year, VIMS also will conduct a dredge survey of the Mid-Atlantic Bight. As part of ongoing efforts to better understand scallop survey dredge performance, VIMS investigators received an award to evaluate the hydrodynamic characteristics of both lined and unlined survey dredges in the largest flume tank in the world, located in St. John’s, Newfoundland at Memorial University’s Marine Institute.

The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) received three awards to conduct surveys using a drop-camera array. Through these awards, researchers plan to conduct high-resolution surveys of the Nantucket Lightship, Closed Area I, Great South Channel, and select portions of the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will conduct Habitat Camera Mapping System (HabCam) optical surveys throughout the Mid-Atlantic Bight and on the northern flank of Georges Bank. In addition to these surveys, researchers will continue to evaluate dredge effects on habitat and habitat recovery in the Closed Area II Habitat Area of Particular Concern. Coonamessett Farm Foundation will conduct a HabCam survey of the Nantucket Lightship and Southern Flank of Georges Bank.

Bycatch Mitigation

Coonamessett Farm Foundation will continue its seasonal survey on Georges Bank, collecting information on bycatch rates for yellowtail flounder and other species relative to scallop meat yield. These data also will be used to evaluate sea scallop health and meat quality, biological questions about several flounder species, and to examine lobsters for shell disease.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation will continue its loggerhead sea turtle tagging program, receiving funds to tag up to 20 loggerheads with water activated tags. Tag data will be used to evaluate spatial and temporal overlap between loggerhead sea turtles and the scallop fishery.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation also will be testing a dredge twine-top cover net in an attempt to quantify dredge selectivity characteristics.

Sea Scallop Biology

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science will investigate sea scallop density-dependence factors that may be affecting growth, mortality, and reproduction of scallops in the Nantucket Lightship and Elephant Trunk areas. In addition, VIMS will conduct a pilot study to extend the current stock assessment model to better account for sea scallop ages with a particular focus on the Mid-Atlantic Bight and Nantucket Lightship areas.

WHOI will receive support to determine if a gonadosomatic index (GSI) can be calculated from Light Field 3D images of shucked scallops collected during fishing operations. The GSI is used to assess maturity and spawning events in many species of fish and shellfish, including scallops. If successful, this could improve the ability to collect and quantify scallop maturation and spawning data during the course of routine fishery sampling procedures.

The 2018-2019 award listings can be found on the Northeast Fisheries Science Center website at: https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/coopresearch/news/scallop-rsa-2018-2019/.

RSA award announcements and answers to “frequently asked questions” also are available at https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/coopresearch/rsa_program.html.

Visit the New England Council’s scallop webpage: https://www.nefmc.org/management-plans/scallops.

View the release in its entirety here.

 

Scientists study how marine mammals survive at great depths

April 30, 2018 — Whales, dolphins and seals have evolved to hunt prey deep in the ocean, an environment that would otherwise prove deadly to animals that depend on breathing air to live. Until recently, scientists believed marine mammals’ known physical adaptations protected them from the effects of such punishing depths.

But scientists were baffled by computer models that showed that, even with the known adaptations, 50 percent of animals studied still should have experienced the bends. Researchers concluded there must be some else going on.

A new study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Oceanographic Foundation of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, may provide an answer. The study, funded by the U.S. Navy, found that deep-diving marine mammals use a physical adaptation — the collapse of one portion of the lungs — to block the flow of nitrogen into the blood and prevents the animals from getting the bends, the crippling release of nitrogen gas that can occurs when surfacing from dives deeper than 130 feet.

“If you get the conditions right, you can get a nice exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide but block the nitrogen,” said Michael Moore, a WHOI senior scientist who specializes in the analysis of marine mammal mortalities. Moore is a co-author of the study, which was published April 25 in the journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B.”

The mammals have other physical adaptations that help them survive the depths when they exhaust available oxygen in their lungs, including a high amount of proteins in blood and muscle that bind oxygen and a higher ratio of red to white blood cells. Their ribs and lungs can collapse under pressure without breaking and their airways are hardened bunkers that remain partially open to power the signals they use to locate one another and their prey.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Woods Hole group granted $35M to explore ocean’s twilight zone

April 13, 2018 — One of Earth’s “hidden frontiers,” where the only light comes from flashes of bioluminescence and the creatures that call it home are largely unknown. It is … the ocean’s twilight zone.

That vast unexplored realm is the focus of a multi-year project announced Wednesday by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, which has been awarded $35 million to plumb the depths in hopes of learning more about the organisms that live there and how the region affects the planet’s climate.

The ocean’s twilight zone extends around the world from about 200 to 1,000 meters below the ocean’s surface, WHOI said, and is also known as the “mid-water region” of the ocean.

With the $35 million gift from the Audacious Project, WHOI plans to use “next-generation robotic vehicles and sensors” to study what lives in the twilight zone, how the organisms interact with each other and the surface waters, how to design tools to further explore the depths and how the zone controls the rate at which the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times