Science Communication: A Day at the Darling Marine Center

The sun shimmers across the water, creating a beautiful, iridescent dance through the waves that lap at the boat on the dock. A few laughing gulls fly overhead, proclaiming their excitement for a sunny day of crab-hunting.

That’s what we all wish this past week would have been like! Here on the island there seems to have been a consistent fog, and an occasional mist here and there. As I sit here on my computer, entering data from our sea scallop spat bags, I hear fog horns blaring in the distance from the lobstermen going to do their routine trap checks, rain or shine.

On Monday of last week, I had a nice change of scenery- taking off on the Vinalhaven Ferry to Rockland the night before, and then off in the morning to the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole. It was a brief back-road drive to the center, and I passed through a few cute cities which I hadn’t visited yet. The weather was slightly gloomy, but the wildflowers clinging to one another in their roadside clusters warmed my heart a bit. 

Once I arrived at the center, I joined interns from the AquEOUS program at the University of Maine, along with the rest of my Aquaculture Research Institute Externs for an awesome day learning about strategic and inclusive science communication. Throughout the day, we had a few sessions where we were led through engaging scenarios, which were facilitated by Sunshine Menezes and Katharine McDuffie from the Metcalf Institute. Later we were joined by two stellar panelists, Bill Trotter of Bangor Daily News and John Bear Mitchell of the University of Maine. They both discussed with us their perspectives of storytelling, and I came to realize how unique it was that even though they may work in different professions, their goals and audiences differ but can also overlap.

The three concepts that Sunshine and Katharine both emphasized to us to use in our science communication was intentionality, reciprocity, and reflexivity- and encouraged us to reflect on which we could better use on a daily basis, and which we felt were our strengths. One of my biggest takeaways from this workshop was that science communication happens for all of us- in lots of different ways. Especially as someone in a role that encompasses both educational and research aspects, it’s especially important that I’m able to explain my research in a way that makes sense to everyone. 
Coming back to the island Tuesday afternoon, I fell right back into my favorite place like I had never left. Being on the mainland made me realize how much I craved the simplicity of my quaint cabin by the sea, where it almost always felt as though the waves rocked me to sleep every night, somehow, through the dirt. Upon my return, it was a computer day from what the weather said to me. I worked on my tunicate species ID sheet, which will be helpful for me during my research to ensure thorough data collection. 

Throughout the rest of my week, I entered my first few columns of data into my tunicate-specific spat bag data sheet, enabling me to keep every number I could possibly need in one place. I’ve also been working on a fun blog post that’ll be coming sometime soon about the color variation on the shells of our baby scallops. It was an only natural question that popped into my mind after completing many-a-bag of spat, haha. I also spent a significant amount of time out on the aquaculture site, continuing with our deep clean and also grabbing some spat bags to bring back to the island for our education team. 

Also…I’ve finalized my research question! I’ll be working to find differences in tunicate species richness in our spat bags from different areas in the bay, as well as different positions in the water column. Super exciting stuff! In my research so far, I’ve identified five tunicate species, three of which are invasive to northern waters. They compete with our native species for natural resources, and take up lots of space on the seafloor that is important to native settler species. Invasive tunicate species are of special concern for the Gulf of Maine as it slowly has been warming. These little guys are broadcast spawners- so the warmer the water, the more they’re inclined to reproduce (See sources one and two). I’m hoping that the results of my project will help the Hurricane Island community and greater Maine coast better understand tunicate populations and their impact on our native species. 

Talk soon,

Olivia

(P.S., let me know in the comments if you have any questions about scallops, research on Hurricane, tunicates, or anything else!)

Sources: 

So you want to know: The terrible trouble with tunicates – Maine lobstermen’s community alliance. (2013, February 7). https://mlcalliance.org/2013/02/07/so-you-want-to-know-the-terrible-trouble-with-tunicates/

NY Sea Grant | NYSG: Research News—Invasive species a worry for scallop fisheries. (2017, September 7) https://seagrant.sunysb.edu/articles/t/invasive-species-a-worry-for-scallop-fisheries-aquatic-invasive-species-research-news

2023 Research Intern: Olivia Trahan

Hey everybody! My name is Olivia Trahan, and I’m the 2023 research intern! I’m here for the summer season all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina. Fun fact - I’ve never been up North, so I took a big jump coming all the way up to Maine! I’ve loved my time here so far and I’ve already had so many wonderful experiences, both on and off the island.

Back home, I go to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where I’m majoring in Environmental Science with a concentration in Conservation, and have two minors- one in Digital Art, the other in Coastal and Environmental Writing.

My journey to Hurricane started when I flew into the Knox County Regional Airport on Saturday, June 3rd and then hopped right over to the island the next day. Starting June 5th, the entire staff came on island and we had staff training for a week. Big thanks to our galley staff for keeping us well-fed.

Earlier in June the research team was finally able to get into the swing of things as the island filled with the hustle and bustle that comes with having our awesome school groups. I had a full first day of work! I got to do some knot tying and boat driving practice with Fern, one of our captains. It was my first time learning to drive a boat and it was so much fun. I do have to admit, I was kinda nervous learning how to navigate and understand how boats reverse, as well as how to idle and switch gears. After that, I then went out with Phoebe, Chloe, Esther and Lucy on the skiff to the aquaculture farm to do some much needed cleaning. We took a few cages out of the water, and spent a while sexing and sorting scallops- most of which were for Esther’s stable isotope project (more on that in the next blog)! We deployed some cages that we had re-filled with scallops, and then I accidentally dropped one off of the float at the farm… good thing we’ve got a grappling hook. We’ve been having a lot of fun getting to know each other during our hours spent cleaning on the farm.

I’ve also started brainstorming my summer research project that I would like to complete this season. Since I’m employed by the University of Maine’s Aquaculture Research Institute, I’ll get to travel off-island in August to participate in the Student Research Symposium, held on campus, where I’ll present the findings of my project. Phoebe and I have brainstormed some potential research ideas and questions, and I’m particularly interested in why there’s such a high number of encrusting and stocked tunicate species that settle on our spat bags. From every lantern net filled with spat bags, I’m processing the top and bottom bags- so there’s some super exciting factors there that could be used for comparison. For example, is there a difference in tunicate numbers in the bags closer to the top of the water column, or the bottom?

Either way, it’s gonna be really hard to choose something that isn’t too niche of a research question, and will bring tangible results while also not having a research question that would be too broad and have too many factors that need to be assessed. Either way, I’m very excited about having a project that will be all my own hard work!

Enjoy the photos from the week of cool and funny things we’ve been up to. I plan to make our research blogs a weekly thing, so these will be up as regularly as we can manage. Have a great rest of your week, y’all!

Back in the Water

By Essie Martin

As we get into the 2023 season, we are looking forward to getting back in the chilly Maine waters!

Earlier this season we had our second (my first) dive of the season to collect wild scallops in our mooring field. During the summer season the research team spends several days a week SCUBA diving in Penobscot Bay. We do everything from population surveys, to wild scallop collections, to setting up gear on our aquaculture site.

Needless to say, diving is a big part of our jobs, and for me it is a major highlight of working with Hurricane Island. Many people have asked me what we see on the bottom in Penobscot Bay since most underwater media portrays colorful coral scenes with clear crystal blue waters.

While this is not exactly our reality, we are still privy to the kind of beauty only seen underwater.  This time of year is especially beautiful – the clear cold waters make all the life we see seem so purposeful. Kelps and irish moss are stunning shades of pink and orange while the shells of tiny hermit crabs are bright white. On almost all our dives we see lobsters that scuttle and hide under whatever they can find: rocks, abandoned traps, pieces of kelp.

We often see big jonah crabs burrowing into the mud to hide with just their eyes poking out. On our shallow dives when we survey for kelp, we see more fish than on our deeper scallop collection dives. Sometimes we’ll see schools of pollock in the distance, but often it's the smaller cunner we get to see up close in the kelp. When we are lucky, we’ve seen small bright lumpfish tucked between blades of kelp on ledges, or along a mooring line.

On my first dive off Hurricane Island, Phoebe and I saw a giant sea robin, lethargic in a hole just off our main pier. On sandy dives we see flounder, some the length of my pinky, some as big as my forearm, rushing off from place to place just above the sea floor. 

One of my favorite locations to dive is in Gaston Cove on the south end of the island. The sea floor there is completely covered in sand dollars and pastel colored seaweeds that sway with the water. As you get deeper away from the island there are ledges dotted with scallops on the sea floor around them. 

Diving Into Another Season

By Essie Martin

Welcome back to another Hurricane Island season with the research team! We are grateful this year to not only be returning to the familiarity of the island, but also the familiarity of our team which, with the exception of our intern joining in June, is made up entirely of returners. Our team arrives on the island this week after nearly six months of off island work and adventure. 

We are lucky to have continued collaboration with Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, Bates College, and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) through our spat (baby scallops) project. This project has expanded spat collection to the entire Maine coast in an effort to understand their distribution and further develop scallop aquaculture (read Phoebe’s blog from the Fall here). Since then we’ve collected the first round of spat bags we deployed in the Fall. Our team, with other project partners, Bates students, fishermen, aquaculturists and other volunteers spent long cold days in January and February sorting spat from other critters that had settled on our bags, estimating numbers of spat collected, and collecting samples for later genetic analysis.  Many hands helped along the way– a big thanks to all that did! Our spat project continues as we head out over the next 4 weeks to collect bags deployed over the winter for spring sorting. I am looking forward to joining the fray and saying hello to the newest generation of scallops. 

Lucy and I successfully completed our advanced open water and rescue diver certifications in Key West in January. Thanks to the generosity of my uncle and aunt who live in Key West, Lucy and I were able to dive in warm water for the first time ever. The amount of color and biodiversity was a shock to our systems that had already settled into the monotone of winter in Maine. We are grateful that Hurricane Island was able to support these certifications which will ensure safety of future dives. While I can’t speak for Lucy, I am certainly ready to hop back in chilly Maine water, and say hello to the scallops. 

While my fellow research team tackled spat in Maine, I had the opportunity to travel to Africa for two months and visit family friends. Said family friends are big game veterinarians in South Africa, and I spent my time there on jobs catching and treating big game… needless to say it was not a boring trip. We traveled to Botswana where I spent an exciting afternoon lost in the bush, to South Africa where I sat on a live giraffe, and to Mozambique where I helped with cyclone repairs. My time there was filled with the staccato of never ending new experiences and automobile repair, and I am grateful for the tenacity I learned while away. 

This season we are looking forward to several Aquaculture Workshops and our Aquaculture Skills Sessions. The workshops are geared toward engaging the general public, K-12 teachers and researchers and offer an opportunity to join the research team for a day to learn about our 3.2 acre experimental aquaculture lease, aquaculture curriculum development, and research-based opportunities within aquaculture. The Skills Sessions are more focused on engaging new or current farmers and highlight development of the specific skills and knowledge needed on the farm. We are grateful for our Aquaculture Manager Madison Maier, who is the main organizer behind these events and worked hard off island to make them possible with funding from SEA Maine’s Marine Living Resources Economy Capacity Building Grants. 

We are excited to get back into the swing of things with on island research, and look forward to seeing new and old visitors to the island. 

Spat Research Takes A Leap Forward

By Phoebe Jekielek

We are lucky to be on Hurricane Island. We are lucky to be in Penobscot Bay.

We are lucky to be in Maine.

We’re lucky for many reasons, but one of my favorite reasons is all of the opportunities we have for collaboration with local aquaculturists, fishermen, resource managers and other organizations to answer locally-relevant questions. For example, we recently partnered with Dr. Carla Guenther from the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries and Dr. Caitlin Cleaver from Bates College to apply for funding to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). And guess what, we got the funding! 

Figure 1: Spat bags ready to be deployed

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is an interstate initiative that unites states along the eastern seaboard in the joint effort and shared vision to realize a sustainable and cooperatively managed fishery. Since the 1940s the Commission has served to coordinate the promotion and protection of the fishery through collaboratively overseen conservation and management practices, including through the disbursement of highly competitive grants.

Many of you are familiar with the spat collections efforts we’ve been doing around Muscle Ridge and Hurricane Island for a number of years (check out previous Research Intern Hallie Arno’s blog here). Our project is titled “Toward resolving wild sea scallop (P. magellanicus) larval spatial and temporal distribution along the Maine coast in support of developing scallop aquaculture.” The funds awarded by ASMFC support a community-based collaborative project that engages fishermen and farmers in a pilot investigation to determine patterns of larval abundance and distribution along the Maine coast.

The initiative has the goals of:

• Evaluating the variability in scallop larval supply

• Developing a low cost monitoring and data management system

• Strengthening relationships between fishermen and farmers as they team up to understand a resource upon which they both depend

• Providing authentic education experiences for high school and undergraduate students

• Determining patterns of larval abundance and distribution requires expertise from fishermen and farmers, oceanographers, marine ecologists and resource managers. 

Figure 2: Example of spat sorted from spat bags on Hurricane Island.

We worked with local scallop growers and fishermen to identify sites to deploy our spat lines in Casco, Muscongus, Jericho, and Narraguagus Bays. Each transect has ten lines deployed and each line line has 10 bags on it and a temperature logger, two lines in each transect have salinity loggers. Most of the lines were built on Hurricane Island by the Research Team and handed off to the fishermen who deployed them from their boats. All of our lines were deployed by October 1 and we’ll be retrieving this first set of lines at the end of January while deploying a whole new set to be retrieved in April. This will give us an idea of the seasonal variability of spat supply along the coast. When we retrieve them, we’ll have around 400 bags to sort through! But don’t worry, we’re working with the Eastern Maine Skippers Program and other local schools to help us sort the bags, count the baby scallops, and identify other species that settle in the bags.  

Figure 3: Map of sites with deployed spat lines for this ASMFC-funded project.

This has truly been a collaborative effort that has required communication, coordination, and lots of logistics along the entire coast. The efforts of the fishermen, farmers, researchers and managers who have been involved illustrate the commitment to a cooperative approach to research, one that integrates knowledge from all of these stakeholders with a common goal of supporting our scallop industries. Stay tuned as we approach our first spat line retrieval…there will be a lot of scallops to sort!

UPG Leader: What I have learned on Hurricane Island

By Louize Oliveira

Last year, I was part of the UPG Sustainability Leadership Program, there were nine weeks of digital training with more than 500 young people from several countries. At the end of the training, 60 young people were selected to have an experience at Hurricane Island.

I had the honor to be selected and voyage to Hurricane this summer and I would like to share some insights I had:

1. Be Kind

People around the world have been working hard to do their best. Each country, each culture, and each person is peculiar. Being kind to ourselves to be kind to others. I realized that what we need to be to others is the same we need to be with us. If you want to be more patient with others, start with yourself. Many times, we reflect our own needs on others. 

2. Honor our history

If we respect people that came before us, we will honor the journey they had to do for us to be here. Therefore, we should think about everything that some people needed to face for us to be here today. Honor is a way of respect. If we respect our past, we can build a better future, with peace, values, and consideration for the environment.

3. Think about climate change

Thinking about "climate change" is not only the responsibility of people and companies that work with environmental topics. It is a responsibility for all of us. Climate change has been transforming our environment, our economy, our business, and our life. In Hurricane Island I realized that: to honor our past, we need to think about climate change. We need to talk about this. We need to act, each one in their context, we need to act.

4. Be open

In some times, building a network looks like a professional thing. However, this is not true. Being open to meeting people, talking about everything, and learning something different is a way to expand our minds and become better human beings.

Sometimes, I would like that the people who came before me could have the same opportunity to be at Hurricane Island and learn about all of this. Therefore, I realized that being there, was a way to honor these people. If I could give some advice, I would tell you to enjoy each minute of your journey.

Learn more about United People Global and how to apply to this amazing and unique partnership program with Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership

Louize Oliveira is a Project Manager and UPG Sustainability Leader based in São Paulo Brazil. Louize is Co-founder of SafePlace, a social digital platform with the purpose to promote gender equality in the work environment, in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 - Gender Equality, of UN 2030 Agenda.

Sorting Spat Bags with Commercial Growers

By Lucy Williams

Throughout the summer weeks you will find our educational programs on our main pier. Front and center, students, educators and researchers are sorting through muck, squishy tunicates, skeleton shrimp, and piles of clams. The goal is to find juvenile scallops in these green and blue mesh bags, called spat bags. 

Research Assistant Sam Poratti and (then) Research Intern Lucy Williams sorting spat on Hurricane in 2021

Every year in September, our research team sets out spat bag lines at twelve locations surrounding Hurricane and the Muscle Ridge. Last year, our Director of Education, John Van Dis, set out some additional educational spat bags with Belfast and Oceanside schools in October. These lines are usually retrieved in the late spring and organized on our aquaculture site. Our spat bag research is an undertaking that takes the entire summer for students, participants, the occasional island visitor, and the research team to sort through. While collecting the juvenile scallops, we count the precise amount of living scallops, measure a percentage of them, and account for other species present in the bags such as tunicates, sea stars, and mussels.

However, for commercial scallop farms like Pen Bay Scallops, the process is much faster and does not include precise counting, measuring, and biodiversity analysis like we do on Hurricane. Commercial farmers are usually most interested in the amount of scallops collected year to year wherever they set their bags. With dual commercial and research applications, spat bags are a great teaching tool for introducing students and interested growers to scallop aquaculture and the unique qualities of the animal that make farming different (and maybe a little more complex) from other bivalves.

On May 16th, Pen Bay Scallops farmers Marsden and Bob Brewer hosted the Eastern Maine Skippers Program, a high school collaboration with Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries,  as well as a few interested farmers for sorting their spat bags with the help of the Hurricane Island Research team. We were able to boat over from Rockland to Stonington in the morning fog in our new vessel, Sunny. On the Stonington public dock, three groups sorted through ten bags received by the Brewers from the approximate 200 they set out each year. Madison Maier, Aquaculture Manager on Hurricane, devised a scheme for estimating the total amount of scallops per bag. For perspective, our first few bags this season have had 170, 243, and even 434 scallops per bag. Pen Bay Scallop’s spat bags averaged 4,038 per bag! 

Logan Leach (left) and Emery Leach (right) sort through the netron mesh from one of the Brewer’s spat bags and the juvenile scallops fall into the barrel to be measured  (right image). 

To get this estimate, students collected 10 mL of scallops by scooping up from the piles of scallops that came out of every bag or by individually picking them up. Once they had 10 mL, they counted the total number of scallops that filled that 10 mL volume. Three measurements were made for each bag and the average number of scallops in 10 mL was calculated. Then, the total volume of scallops for each bag was measured using 1000 mL graduated cylinders. Once the total volume of scallops was obtained, the students simply multiplied the number of scallops in 10 mL by the number it would take to get to the total volume.

The total scallops in each bag ranged from 1700 scallops to 7160 scallops. The total scallops collected in all 10 bags was estimated to be 40,380! That is a lot of little scallops! Marsden and Bob, with the help of the students, sorted the juvenile scallops by size and then put them in appropriate gear for them to grow up on their commercial aquaculture lease near Crotch Island. 

Benthic Ecology Meeting Wrap Up

Lead Researcher Phoebe Jekielek brings us a great review of the Benthic Ecology Meeting - Not sure what that is? Read on!

The past few years have been years full of seclusion for everyone, including the scientific community. Meetings, conferences, and workshops were all moved to Zoom in order to keep us all safe as the pandemic unfolded. But now, the scientific community is also starting to “open up” with in-person events and the re-introduction to networking, sharing ideas, and debating research…it’s kind of anxiety-inducing and awkward and exhilarating all at once. The Hurricane Research Team got to participate in this re-introduction last week at the Benthic Ecology Meeting (BEM) in Portsmouth, NH. 

All in a day’s work - Lead Scientist Phoebe Jekielek reaching for the data on a research trip to Pen Bay Farmed Scallops’ aquaculture site near Stonington, ME. It all starts out in the field!

The BEM is put on by the Benthic Meeting Ecology Society (BEMS), a non-profit organization established to run a yearly meeting to exchange scientific information focusing on marine benthic ecosystems (e.g., rocky intertidal, coral reef) and to foster the next generation of benthic biologists. Their mission is to promote research in benthic ecosystems, support the exchange of information about benthic ecology, and encourage student participation to develop the next generation of benthic ecologists. This year there was a lot of representation from Hurricane Island staff, both past and present!! 

Hurricane Research Assistant Lucy Williams presenting at the Benthic Ecology Meeting

Our current Lead Scientist (Phoebe, me), our Aquaculture Manager (Madison), and our Research Assistant (Lucy) all got to attend. I was totally overwhelmed by the number of talks that I wanted to attend and had to make some hard decisions! Sessions spanned climate change, aquaculture and fisheries, invasive species, new technology and many more. Lucy also led the charge to create an amazing poster with Madison highlighting our scallop reproduction work and presented it during the poster session on Thursday night. Presenting posters is a great way to network, exchange ideas, and practice communicating about the research we and our partners are undertaking.

2021 Summer Intern and Bowdoin College junior Sophie Lisle presenting at the BEM

There were also presentations given at the conference by Carl Huntsberger and Sophie Lisle, two past Hurricane staff!! Carl was our Research Assistant during 2020 and is now a Research Biologist at the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF) in Rhode Island and leads the Sea Scallop Research Fleet effort and a project to assess fisheries species at the South Fork Wind Farm. He presented on lobster stock structure research with commercial harvesters. Sophie was an Education Intern on Hurricane last summer and is now a junior at Bowdoin College where she’s been working on evaluating microplastic consumption across trophic levels. Can’t wait to see what she does in her senior year and beyond. 

Aquaculture Manager Madison Maier gives students a tour of the 3.2 acre experimental aquaculture site on Hurricane Island

All in all it was really great to get back to a bit of in-person connection and information sharing. The conversations that arise when you’re getting your coffee or walking from your hotel to the conference might create new collaborations and generate new ideas in just a few minutes. This conference only stoked my fires about the work we’re doing on Hurricane, the role we’re playing to create sustainable solutions to the ecological, social, and economic challenges of a changing world, and how we can best mentor and prepare the next generation of scientists and change makers to face those challenges. Onward ever onward ☺

For more information on Lucy’s Research be sure to check out the recent blog posts and research pages on our website.