Ocean Acidification Workshop

Participants listen to opening remarks.

On October 7, 2014, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop co-hosted by the Island Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council focused on "Increasing Community Resilience to Ocean Acidification in Maine: Analyzing and Responding to the Economic, Cultural, and Social Impacts." This event is part of broader efforts underway to understand and address ocean acidification effects in Maine. The Maine Ocean Acidification Commission, a 16-member panel, was established by the Legislature in early summer 2014 to synthesize our current understanding of the issue, its implications for Maine, and identify actions that can be taken to increase our knowledge base about ocean acidification, its effects, and options for remediation, adaptation, and mitigation. The Commission held it's first meeting on the state of ocean acidification science at the Darling Marine Center in August 2014. The October workshop focused on the human and community dimension of the ocean acidification issue.

The speaker lineup started with the mechanics of the acidification process and implications for marine species in response to changes in ocean chemistry. The next set of speakers focused on how communities can define vulnerability, resilience, and identify threats to coastal economic sectors such as fisheries or tourism and biodiversity. Once the morning session wrapped up, we broke into small groups to brainstorm the aspects of our coastal communities that we value and would like to maintain as well as indicators and data sources to measure those values. 

The afternoon speakers provided an overview on solutions, both regulatory and non-regulatory that have been implemented elsewhere to address ocean acidification. For example, local mitigation of ocean acidification is possible through certain measures. Since nutrients are known to increase the rate of ocean acidification, enforcement of regulations meant to control point and non-point pollution sources can reduce nutrient runoff thus eliminating a contributing factor to the acidification process. The break-out groups were tasked with developing strategies to implement in Maine. It was reassuring to see people from different sectors - nonprofit, government, industry - coming together to tackle a very serious issue for Maine. The work done throughout the day will be summarized in a report. We will plan to share the final products once they have been made available... stay tuned!

Schoodic Institute Science Symposium

On October 1 , 2014, Schoodic Institute hosted the Acadia National Park Science Symposium that highlighted research being done in and around the National Park with a focus on "our understanding of rapid environmental change." Speakers included Esperanza Stancioff, an Extension Educator with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Abe Miller-Rushing, Science Coordinator at Acadia National Park and a member of the National Park Service, Bob Page with the National Park Service's Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Jasmine Saros, a University of Maine Climate Change Institute researcher who has been monitoring Jordan Pond in Acadia, and Elizabeth Wolkovich, a researcher with Harvard University who focuses on phenology. Additional projects were highlighted during two poster sessions. 

Esperanza summarized the work of an interdisciplinary team and the town of Ellsworth to address storm water overflow and infrastructure vulnerability; an issue with ecological and economic ramifications if climate change predictions that Maine will experience more extreme rainfall events are realized. MPBN highlighted the project through a short documentary, "Culvert Operations."

Symposium attendees collecting phenology data.

During lunch, people were invited to collect phenology data for Acadia's monitoring program. The data are used to track changes in individual plants, but also to better understand how data collected by citizen scientists can be utilized. Park staff have also setup wildlife cameras at their phenology monitoring sites to capture footage of species interactions and couple bird behavior with plant phenology data. Shifts in the timing of different events like flowering or the production of fruit can have major implications for other species that might rely on that plant for a food source. For example, flowering and fruiting may be shifting earlier in the season due to warming temperatures, yet the timing of bird migration is not shifting at the same rate so migrating birds may miss a critical food source as they migrate to their seasonal nesting or wintering grounds. Elizabeth Wolkovich is researching how changes in temperature and phenology may give exotic species the competitive advantage of native plant species.

The science symposium was an inspiring event, and I am looking forward to collaborating with these speakers and researchers as we continue to grow and develop the field station's research agenda on Hurricane!

OBFS & NAML Annual Meeting in Woods Hole

View of Lillie Laboratory on MBL's campus in Woods Hole.

On September 22-23, 2014, I attended the joint annual meeting of the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) and the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML) at Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole. Field station and lab directors from across the country gathered together to discuss potential funding opportunities, infrastructure and equipment, research initiatives, the national policy landscape, the importance of these facilities in providing people with a connection to nature, and best practices for effectively communicating science. Much of the conversation focused on environmental monitoring networks and collaborative research: if field stations are able to link or install compatible environmental sensors and implement similar data collection protocols at each site, the data can be used both to answer questions at both a local and regional spatial scale. Additionally, collaboration between field stations will allow us all to capitalize on the strengths each facility has to tackle complex environmental problems and develop creative solutions. The group acknowledged that the funding landscape is changing and becoming more challenging as the Federal Government continues to reduce funds allocated to research; however, opportunities do exist for creative partnerships and funding models to continue the important scientific and educational work being done at field stations. 

Jerry Schubel from the Aquarium of the Pacific and Chair of the Committee on Value and Sustainability of Biological Field Stations, Marine Laboratories, and Nature Reserves in 21st Century Science, Education, and Public Outreach gave a public briefing about a report recently released by the National Research Council of the National Academies entitled "Enhancing the Value and Sustainability of Field Stations and Marine Laboratories in the 21st Century," in which the committee provided recommendations to field stations and marine labs for innovative solutions to overcome current challenges. They also created a short video to promote the value of field stations, which you can view here.

It is always helpful to hear the perspectives of directors and researchers at other field stations, and I look forward to continuing to network and collaborate with the Gulf of Maine field stations as we form the Hurricane Island field research station.

The Height of Our Scallop Research Season

This summer has been not only busy on-island with student programs, but also a busy field season collecting data for our collaborative scallop research project. In July 2014, we were awarded a grant administered by Maine Sea Grant with funding from the Maine Community Foundation and the Broad Reach Fund. In early August, we started conducting our second year of dive surveys on Muscle Ridge and Ocean Point.  So far we have completed a total of 16 dive surveys on the Ocean Point scallop closure (you can read more about how this project has been set up here), and surrounding area to assess scallop abundance and to collect samples. These surveys have been conducted with the help of scientists from the Maine Department of Marine Resources and from our HIF science advisor, Dr. Rick Wahle's Lab based at the University of Maine's School of Marine Sciences. I've also been able to work alongside Susie Arnold, the Island Institute's marine scientist, to dive on Muscle Ridge. We've completed 8 sites so far and are hoping to get a few more days of diving in before fall officially arrives!

On September 11, 2014, a crew from Dr. Kevin Stokesbury's lab based at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth arrived in Maine and set up their drop camera rig on Tad Miller's dragger, F/V Julie Ann in Tenants Harbor. We then did three days of drop camera surveys on Muscle Ridge. To identify the sampling stations, we laid a 200 m x 200 m grid over the survey area and marked the center of each cell. We would then steam to the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of that center point and drop the camera to the bottom to take footage of the life below.  Fortunately, we did not have any major technical difficulties and were able to increase the number of sites we sampled this year as compared to October 2013 where we lost a cable which limited our ability to sample deeper sites. 

This weekend (September 19 - 21, 2014), I will work with one of our industry partners to set the spat bags out which will then be collected and processed next June. I hope we are able to wrap up the field work by the end of October then on to analysis and preparing for the 2015 field season!

Visit to Shoals Marine Lab, Appledore Island

At the end of July 2014, Sam Hallowell, the Director of the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership and I caught a boat out of Portsmouth, NH to visit the Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island off the coast of southern Maine. The University of New Hampshire and Cornell University operate the facility and host a series of two-week long summer courses for undergraduate students taught by visiting faculty from around the country. In addition to the courses, they also support undergraduate interns and visiting researchers. Many of the faculty we spoke with had an early career experience at Shoals and had opted to return as a professor or in some other capacity. This returning alumni base is what we're striving to achieve on Hurricane as well and I believe this approach will definitely help augment the existing educational community currently on the island. 

Sam was particularly interested in the infrastructure aspect of the facilities and was able to walk around the campus with one of their three facilities manager. They have a large solar array that powers their main building, the dorms, and classrooms as well as  a number of flowing seawater tables for teaching and short-term experiments in the lab. A dive program is up and running complete with a dive locker and an AAUS scientific diving course. 

I spent time with four interns and two instructors who were collecting data for the long-term intertidal monitoring on Shoals. Dr. Kathy Ann Miller allowed me to tag along with the group on their first day in the field. Our summer intern, Collin, worked to implement a similar protocol on Hurricane so we will eventually be able to compare changes in intertidal community composition over time between Appledore Island and Hurricane Island. We are currently working with Kathy Ann to continue the relationship between Shoals and Hurricane and we hope to host her summer interns next summer after their time on Shoals... stay tuned!