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JANUARY 2022
Do oyster farms have enriched soundscapes? As part of an independent research project during the summer of 2021, Ray Delvillar recorded the soundscapes of five different oyster farms in Pamlico Sound and compared them to nearby control areas. After filtering out a great deal of boat noise, he found that there is a lot more biological activity around oyster farms, compared to controls, including evidence for spawning aggregations (silver perch) and nesting behavior (oyster toadfish). See his poster here (LINK). |
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DECEMBER 2021 Dylan Whitt to examine trends in shrimp fishery The Marine Fisheries Ecology Lab has been examining shrimp populations in the southeast U.S. It is clear that the three dominant species of penaeid shrimp are sensitive to climate variation, and at least one species is responding to long term changes in climate. Dylan Whitt, a senior biology major in the Honors College, is examining effort and landings data from the commercial shrimp trawl fishery to determine how fishers have responded to these changes in their target catch. |
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Ecosystem status report for South Atlantic completed The NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center has published the Ecosystem Status Report for the southeast Atlantic region (LINK). The report contains a great deal of information suggesting large ecosystem changes in this region, including relatively warm ocean temperatures since 2014 and some profound changes in the fish community both inshore and offshore. Jim was a contributing author. |
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Article on cold-stunning in the North Beach Sun As we approach the winter season, cold-stunning events often appear in the news, as sea turtles get caught in rapidly declining water temperatures. However, as research in our Marine Fisheries Ecology Lab has shown, winter temps can have big impacts on many marine species in the region. In the latest issue of the North Beach Sun, an Outer Banks publication, Jim was interviewed to talk about why cold-stunning occurs in marine life. Take a look at the latest issue here (LINK). |
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NOVEMBER 2021
Meet the Scientist Video Series This month's episode of Meet the Scientist featured Lela, where she talked about her research with mahi-mahi, shrimp, and other topics like getting shocked by a torpedo ray. Meet the Scientist is a monthly live-broadcast interview with different CSI scientists. The recorded episode is available online (LINK). |
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Attending the American Fisheries Society meeting The Marine Fisheries Ecology Lab travelled to Baltimore, MD this month to attend the annual national meeting of the American Fisheries Society. Andrew, Verena and Lela (who gave two talks) each presented their research, and Maddie presented at the poster session. Our group was also represented on two other talks given by colleagues from the ECU Coastal Studies Department and from UNC-Chapel Hill. It was wonderful to catch up with old colleagues and also make many new connections, all in person (vaccines were mandatory). |
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OCTOBER 2021
Andrew interviewed on All Swell? podcast The All Swell? podcast, conducted by graduate students in the Department of Coastal Studies, interviewed Andrew and Samantha Farquhar (Heck Lab at CSI) about their graduate research (LINK). Andrew, spoke about his acoustic telemetry project and also his forthcoming project to study habitat function of coastal inlets. Samantha talked about her work interviewing NC shrimp fishers. |
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Biology Departmental seminar on Mahi-mahi The weekly biology department seminar was given by Lela and she spoke about her comprehensive research on mahi-mahi tagging, movements, physiology and genetic responses to oil spill exposure. |
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SEPTEMBER 2021 Lela wins award for presentation In a competition among ECU's postdocs, Lela Schlenker won the People's Choice Award for her 3-minute lightning-style presentation (slide at right). The slide shows long term increases in white shrimp in Pamlico Sound, and how interannual variation in abundance is effectively explained with population characteristics and climate variables. |
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Welcome Caid to the lab! Caid Menzel joined the lab this semester and is pursuing his M.S. degree. He was previously working for the NC Division of Marine Fisheries as a port agent, where he recorded data on marine recreational fisheries catches. He will be conducting research in marine fisheries ecology. |
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MAY 2021
Welcome Ray to the lab! Do oyster farms have a richer soundscape than control areas, suggesting more biological acitivity? Ray Delvillar is conducting an independent research project this summer to answer that question. He will be using passive acoustics to compare the soundscape between oyster farms, control areas, and an oyster sanctuary. This involves using a hydrophone (see pic) to record sound at these sampling areas and analyzing the acoustic data with specialized software. |
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Sheepshead batch fecundity estimated Garrett Sage completed his independent study this past spring, as part of the Semester at the Coast program at CSI. He determined the first estimates of batch fecundity for NC sheepshead. He made a poster summarizing his project. The next steps for this study will be combining Garrett's results with other data on sheepshead spawning aggregations and publishing a manuscript. |
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Lela wins award from SECOORA The Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) gives out an annual travel award for the Vembu Subramanium Ocean Scholar program. Lela received the award this year for using climate data from buoys and weather stations to model shrimp recruitment in NC. |
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APRIL 2021
Presentations and outreach during the past month Andrew gave a lightning talk at the Tidewater Chapter of the American Fisheries Society this month, on his acoustic telemetry experiment LINK. Maddie gave demonstrations about fish and the importance of nursery habitats to 6th graders as part of the NC Science Festival, which conducts science outreach each year across the state. Lela gave an invited seminar at UC-Davis. Finally, Jim was interviewed on CSI's Meet the Scientist series. |
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FEBRUARY 2021
Verena and Jim present launch of climate-fisheries study Lenfest Ocean Program hosted a webinar where Verena, Jim and collaborators presented the research that we will be conducting over the next three years on how marine species respond to climate change. Over 100 fisheries managers, researchers, NGO members, and other interested people attended. A recording of the webinar can be found here. |
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Welcome Garrett to the lab! Garrett Sage is an undergrad intern working in our lab this spring. He is at CSI this spring as part of the ECU Semester Experience at the Coast. His independent research project is analyzing gonad samples from sheepshead to determine batch fecundity of the NC spawning population. This involves digitizing images of samples and then counting and measuring oocytes with image analysis software. |
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JANUARY 2021
New paper out showing projected future economic impacts on commercial fisheries due to climate change Paper published in Climate Change Economics (LINK) that projects a 2 to 4 billion dollar negative impact of future climate change on key U.S. fisheries during the 21st century. This research was a collaborative effort between members of the EPA, NOAA, and Industrial Economics Inc., with scientists from ECU, Rutgers, and the University of Bern. |
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Welcome Verena to the lab! Verena Wang is joining the lab as a postdoc. She was previously a postdoc at the University of Southern Mississippi where she was working on habitat use of larval fishes. Before that she did her graduate work at UNC-Wilmington. At ECU she will be examining how life history and habitat requirements affect a species sensitivity to climate change. |
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DECEMBER 2020
New paper out showing that shifting species distributions should be considered when ocean planning for multiple sectors Paper published in Science Advances (LINK) that uses future projections of species distributions to quantify trade-offs associated with ocean planning including fishing, conservation, and energy development. The paper shows that planning for future species distributions does not require sacrificing present day management goals. |
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