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Chemical And Toxicological Characterization Of The Lower Mobjack Bay, York River, Virginia Segment Of The Chesapeake Bay, Morris H. Roberts Jr., Mark A. Richards, Peter F. Delisle

Reports

The Chesapeake Bay segment called Lower Mobjack Bay Lower York River Virginia was found to have insufficient data to characterize in 1999. Therefore this area was selected for a chemical, toxicological, benthic community characterization study of the sediments in 2002. The segment was divided into 3 strata: the lower York River, the Poquoson River, and Back River, each with 4 randomly selected stations. Samples were collected in October 2002 for evaluation of conditions.

There were few significant chemical exceedances of the ER-L or ER-M in the three strata and no toxicologically effects from exposure to sediment samples from any stratum. …

Isolation And Characterization Of Serine Protease Gene(S) From Perkinsus Marinus, Gd Brown, Kimberly S. Reece

VIMS Articles

This study reports the first serine protease gene(s) isolated from Perkinsus marinus. Using universal primers, a 518 bp subtilisin-like serine protease gene fragment was amplified from P, marinus genomic DNA and used as a probe to screen a lambda-phage P. marinus genomic library; 2 different gamma-phage clones hybridized to the digoxigenin(DIG)-labeled subtilisin-like gene fragment. Following subcloning and sequencing of the larger DNA fragment, a 1254 bp open reading frame was identified and later confirmed, by 5' and 3' random amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) and northern blot analysis, to contain the entire coding-region sequence. Sequence analysis of the 3' RACE …

Evaluation Of Striped Bass Stocks In Virginia, Monitoring And Tagging Studies, 1999-2003 Annual Report, 1 August 2002 - 31 August 2003, Philip W. Sadler, Robert J. Latour, Robert E. Harris, Julia Ellis, John E. Olney

Reports

This report presents the results of striped bass (Marone saxatilis) tagging and monitoring activities in Virginia during the period 1 August 2002 through 31 August 2003. It includes an assessment ofthe biological characteristics of striped bass taken from the 2003 spring spawning run, estimates of annual survival based on annual spring tagging, and the results ofthe fall2002 directed mortality study that is cooperative with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The information contained in this report is required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and is used to implement a coordinated management plan for striped bass in Virginia, and …

Estimation Of Relative Abundance Of Recreationally Important Juvenile Finfish In The Virginia Portion Of Chesapeake Bay Projects Rf02- L L And Rf03-07 June 2002 - July 2003, Marcel M. Montaine, Herbert M. Austin, Patrick J. Geer, Wendy A. Lowery

Reports

No abstract provided.

Marine Resource Bulletin Vol. 35, No. 2, Virginia Sea Grant, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Virginia Marine Resource Bulletin

In This Issue

Surfacing for Science By Katherine Mansfield 2

Where Rail and Water Meet: A Look Back in Time at the Town of West Point By Billy Mills 9

High Stakes, High Hopes By Pauli Hayes 12

Master of the Reef By Charlie Petrocci 15

Education Corner 18

News from the Point 20

Form And Function Of The Bulbus Arteriosus In Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus Albacares): Dynamic Properties, M. H. Braun, Richard Brill, J. M. Gosline, D. R. Jones

VIMS Articles

The bulbus arteriosus of the teleost heart possesses a static inflation curve that is r-shaped over the in vivo pressure range. To examine the possible significance of this in living animals, we recorded arterial blood pressure from anaesthetized yellowfin tuna and utilized a video dimensional analyser to simultaneously record changes in bulbar diameter. By plotting the changes in pressure against the changes in diameter, it was possible to create dynamic pressure-diameter (P-D) loops as well as calculate the instantaneous volume changes within the bulbus. The dynamic P-D loops showed the same features exhibited by static inflation. When nearly empty, a …

Form And Function Of The Bulbus Arteriosus In Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus Albacares), Bigeye Tuna (Thunnus Obesus) And Blue Marlin (Makaira Nigricans): Static Properties, M H. Braun, Richard Brill, J M. Gosline, D R. Jones

VIMS Articles

The juxtaposition of heart and gills in teleost fish means that the Windkessel function characteristic of the whole mammalian arterial tree has to be subserved by the extremely short ventral aorta and bulbus arteriosus. Over the functional pressure range, arteries from blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) and yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) have J-shaped pressure-volume (P-V) loops, while bulbi from the same species have r-shaped P-V loops, with a steep initial rise followed by a compliant plateau phase. The steep initial rise in pressure is due to the geometry of the lumen. The interactions between radius, pressure and tension require a large …

The Crest, Fall 2003, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

Table of Contents:

• VIMS hires new Dean and Director
• Hurricane Isabel hinders research
• VIMS acquires unique new vessel
• Pair pursue promise of proteomics
• Research questions environmental safety of flame retardant
• VIMS scientists quantify Isabel's impact on Bay
• Schaffner Elected ERF President
• ABC continues oyster work with Academy validation
• Newman wins SETAC Founders Award
• Faculty help bring minorities to marine science
• Sea Grant sponsors seafood education programs
• VIMS hosts international sediment conference
• Students chosen as Knauss Fellows
• Aquanauts visit inner space
• Study highlights link between biodiversity and ecosystem function
• CCRM kicks off trans-Atlantic collaboration

Intensive Water Quality Mapping Of Nearshore And Mid-Channel Regions Of The James River Relative To Sav Growth And Survival Using The Dataflow Surface Water Quality Mapping System, Ken Moore, Britt Anderson, David J. Wilcox

Reports

No abstract provided.

An Experimental Evaluation Of The Effects Of Scale On Oyster Reef Restoration, Mark W. Luckenbach, Paige G. Ross

Reports

We investigated the effects of spatial scale, ranging from 10’s of meters to several km’s, on the development of oyster populations and other reef-associated organisms during the early stage of reef restoration. Employing a block design, experimental reefs were constructed at four sites in the lower Rappahannock River, VA. We tested the effects of sites (scale ≈ 1 – 10 km), reef sizes (scale ≈ 100 m) and locations within reef (scale ≈ 10 m) on the settlement, survival and growth of oysters and on the abundance, biomass, species richness and diversity of developing communities utilizing the reefs.

The project …

Biodiversity Of Bear Seamount, New England Seamount Chain: Results Of Exploratory Trawling, Ja Moore, M Vecchione, R Gibbons, Jk Galbraith, M Turnipseed, M Southworth, E Watkins

VIMS Articles

Bear Seamount (39°55′N 67°30′W) is an extinct undersea volcano located inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone south of Georges Bank. The fauna associated with the seamount was little known until twenty trawl stations were made 2-7 December 2000, by the NOAA ship R/V Delaware II. The objective of the survey was to begin to document the biodiversity on and over the seamount, particularly of fishes, cephalopods, and crustaceans. Representatives of most species were preserved as vouchers and for subsequent definitive identification. This report presents a description of the biodiversity. A total of at least 274 species were collected. Preliminary identifications …

Abundance And Distribution Of Planktonic Archaea And Bacteria In The Waters West Of The Antarctic Peninsula, Matthew Church, Edward F. Delong, Hugh Ducklow, Markus Karner, Christian Preston, David M. Karl

VIMS Articles

Polyribonucleotide probes targeting planktonic archaeal (Group I and II) and bacterial rRNA revealed that Archaea comprised a significant fraction of total prokaryote cell abundance in the marine waters west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Determinations of Archaea and Bacteria cell abundances were made during two research cruises to the Palmer Long‐Term Ecological Research region during the austral winter and summer of 1999. During the austral summer, surface water abundances of Group I (GI) Archaea were generally low, averaging 4.7 x 103 cells ml−1 and accounting for 1% of the total picoplankton assemblage. The abundance of GI Archaea increased significantly with depth, …

A Novel Tag-Recovery Model With Two Size Classes For Estimating Fishing And Natural Mortality, With Implications For The Southern Rock Lobster (Jasus Edwardsii) In Tasmania, Australia, Rj Latour, Jm Hoenig, Da Hepworth, Sd Frusher

VIMS Articles

Multi-year tag-recovery models can be used to derive estimates of age- and year-specific annual survival rates and year-specific instantaneous fishing and natural mortality rates. The latter, which are often of interest to fisheries managers, usually can only be estimated when the tag-reporting rate (lambda) and the short-term tag-induced mortality and tag-shedding rate (phi) are known a priori. We present a new multi-year tagging model that permits estimation of instantaneous mortality rates independently of philambda provided tagged animals from two adjacent size groups are released simultaneously. If the two size groups comprise animals just above and below the minimum harvestable size …

Recognizing Chromosomes In Trouble: Association Of The Spindle Checkpoint Protein Bub3p With Altered Kinetochores And A Unique Defective Centromere, Oliver Kerscher, Luciana B. Crotti, Munira A. Basrai

Arts & Sciences Articles

Spindle checkpoint proteins monitor the interaction of the spindle apparatus with the kinetochores, halting anaphase even if the microtubule attachment of only a single chromosome is altered. In this study, we show that Bub3p of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an evolutionarily conserved spindle checkpoint protein, exhibits distinct interactions with an altered or defective kinetochore(s). We show for the first time that green fluorescent protein-tagged S. cerevisiae Bub3p (Bub3-GFP) exhibits not only a diffuse nuclear localization pattern but also forms distinct nuclear foci in unperturbed growing and G₂/M-arrested cells. As Bub3-GFP foci overlap only a subset of kinetochores, we tested …

The Effect Of Circle And Square Escape Vents On Discard Reduction In The Black Sea Bass, Centropristis Striata, Trap Fishery, Robert A. Fisher, David Rudders

Reports

No abstract provided.

Systematic Evaluation Of Factors Controlling Perkinsus Marinus Transmission Dynamics In Lower Chesapeake Bay, Lm Ragone Calvo, Cf Dungan, Bs Roberson, Em Burreson

VIMS Articles

The transmission of Perkinsus marinus in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica in relation to water temperature, host oyster mortality, and water-column abundance of anti-P. marinus antibody-labeled cells was systematically examined for 20 mo at a site in the lower York River, Virginia, USA. Uninfected sentinel oysters were naturally exposed to the parasite at 2 wk intervals throughout the course of the study to determine the periodicity and rates of parasite transmission. The timing and magnitude of disease-associated oyster mortalities in a local P. marinus-infected oyster population were estimated by monitoring a captive subset of the local oyster population. Flow cytometric immunodetection …

Detection Of The Oyster Parasite Bonamia Ostreae By Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization, Ryan Carnegie, Bj Barber, Dl Distel

VIMS Articles

Bonamia ostreae is an economically significant protistan parasite of the flat oyster Ostrea edulis in Europe and North America. Management of this parasite depends partly upon its reliable identification in wild and aquacultured oyster populations, but B. ostreae is small and difficult to detect by traditional microscopic methods. We designed a fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) assay to sensitively detect B. ostreae in standard histopathological sections of B. ostreae-infected oysters using fluorescently labeled DNA oligonucleotide probes. Hybridization using a cocktail of 3 presumptively B. ostreae-specific, fluorescein iso(thio)cyanate (FITC)-labeled oligonucleotides produced an unambiguous staining pattern of small green rings inside infected …

Grazing And Colony Size Development In Phaeocystis Globosa (Prymnesiophyceae): The Role Of A Chemical Signal, K Tang

VIMS Articles

The bloom-forming prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis globosa forms hollow, spherical, mucilaginous colonies that vary from micrometres to millimetres in size. A recent paper gave the first empirical evidence that colony size increase in P. globosa is a defensive response against grazers, and knowing the signalling mechanism(s) behind this response will thus be a key to understanding the trophodynamics in systems dominated by this species. I conducted experiments with specially designed diffusion incubators, each of which consists of a non-grazing chamber (with P. globosa only) and a grazing chamber (grazers + phytoplankton) connected by 2 mum polycarbonate membrane filters. The results showed that …

Restoration Of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (Sav) In The Tidal Freshwater James River: 2002-2003, Ken Moore, Britt Anderson, Betty Neikirk

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Crest, Summer 2003, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

Table of Contents:

• TBT or not TBT: Collaborators Search for a Solution to Pollution
• VIMS research helps protect Navy ships from mines
• Switch to Circle Hooks Would Benefit White Marlin
• Do Tags Put a Drag on Marine Organisms?
• Video Technology Links VIMS to the World
• For-hire Fishing Captains Drawn to Regional Workshops
• Teachers Gain Hands-On Research Experience
• Pair Use Neural Network to Predict Hurricane Waves
• Seamount Census Reveals New and Poorly Known Marine Life
• VIMS Helps Local Students Aid Oyster Restoration Effort
• From Counting Fish to Implementing Energy Policy

Categorization Of Shellfish Tmdl Sites Final Report, Julie Herman, Carl Hershner, Howard Kator

Reports

There were two important goals for this project, including the assembly and compilation of digital data for the Coastal Plain and tidal waters of Virginia, and the categorization of the Division of Shellfish Sanitation (DSS) shellfish growing areas to determine if some are similar enough for water quality models to be effectively transferred from the modeled growing areas to other areas. This report summarizes the data and statistical analyses and discusses the results. Note: The digital data has a very fine resolution. The maps displayed in this report cannot convey this information on 8.5x11" paper. All digital data layers (shape …

Managing Virginia's Marine Fisheries : A Guide To The Process, United States. National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration., Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Recruitment Of American Eel, Anguilla Rostrata, To The Potomac River Spring 2003, Marcel M. Montane, M. Todd Mathes, Hank Brooks

Reports

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) adopted the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the American eel in November 1999. The FMP focuses on increasing the states’ efforts to collect data on the resource and the fishery it supports through both fishery dependent and fishery independent studies. To this end, member jurisdictions (including the PRFC) agreed to implement an annual abundance survey for young of year (YOY) American eels. The survey is intended to “…characterize trends in annual recruitment of young of year eels over time [to produce a] qualitative appraisal of the annual recruitment of American eel to …

Integrated Coastal Management & Sustainable Aquaculture Development In The Adriatic Sea, Republic Of Croatia, Anamarija Frankic

Reports

This report discusses development of responsible aquaculture in the Republic of Croatia as part of the integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development of marine, coastal and islands natural and human resources. Based on literature review examples of aquaculture development and its constraints are presented, as well as possible solutions and recommendations. In addition, one attachment document provides brief summary information regarding Mediterranean lessons in aquaculture practices, while second document provides draft guidelines for sustainable aquaculture development in Croatia. Report is a contribution to the project ‘The Integrated Coastal Zone Management for Croatia with special focus on aquaculture’, administered by …

Influence Of Habitat On Diet And Distribution Of Striped Bass (Morone Saxatilis) In A Temperate Estuary, Jm Harding, Roger L. Mann

VIMS Articles

Striped bass (Morone saxatilis) are recreationally and commercially valuable finfish along the Atlantic seaboard of North America including the Chesapeake Bay estuary. Habitat use patterns for striped bass in relation to biogenic habitat types in Chesapeake Bay tributaries are poorly described although it is widely acknowledged that these piscivorous fishes use estuarine habitat for nursery and feeding grounds during development. Striped bass diet and distribution patterns were examined in relation to a gradient of biogenic habitats ranging from complex three-dimensional oyster reef through flat oyster bar to sand bottom habitat in the Piankatank River, Virginia. Striped bass were more abundant …

Observations On The Distribution Of Meroplankton During An Upwelling Event, Al Shanks, J Largier, J Brubaker

VIMS Articles

The distribution of the larvae of benthic invertebrates was investigated relative to hydrographic structures as a test of the hypothesi's that larvae behave as if they are passive particles. Observations of larval and oceanographic distributions were made off Duck, North Carolina, USA in August 1994. Conditions were characterized by wind-driven coastal upwelling;flow was generally offshore near the surface and onshore below the pycnocline. Within 5 km of the shore the pycnocline was bent upward by the upwelling and it intersected the surface along most of the transects. In zooplankton samples, 20 taxa of larvae were counted (10 bivalve veligers, nine …

Monitoring Relative Abundance Of American Shad In Virginia’S Rivers 2002 Annual Report, John E. Olney

Reports

Concern about the decline in landings of American shad (Alosa sapidissima) along the Atlantic coast prompted the development of an interstate fisheries management plan (FMP) under the auspices of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Management Program (ASMFC 1999). Legislation enables imposition of federal sanctions on fishing in those states that fail to comply with the FMP. To be in compliance, coastal states are required to implement and maintain fishery-dependent and fisheryindependent monitoring programs as specified by the FMP. For Virginia, these requirements include spawning stock assessments, the collection of biological data on the spawning run (e.g., age-structure, sex ratio, spawning …

Molecular Detection Of The Oyster Parasite Mikrocytos Mackini, And A Preliminary Phylogenetic Analysis, Ryan Carnegie, Gr Meyer, Et Al

VIMS Articles

The protistan parasite Mikrocytos mackini, the causative agent of Denman Island disease in the oyster Crassostrea gigas in British Columbia, Canada, is of wide concern because it can infect other oyster species and because its life cycle, mode of transmission, and origins are unknown. PCR and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) assays were developed for M mackini, the PCR assay was validated against standard histopathological diagnosis, and a preliminary phylogenetic analysis of the M mackini small-subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) was undertaken. A PCR designed specifically not to amplify host DNA generated a 544 bp SSU rDNA fragment from …

Mikrocytos Roughleyi Taxonomic Affiliation Leads To The Genus Bonamia (Haplosporidia), N Cochennec-Laureau, Kimberly S. Reece, Fcj Berthe, Pm Hine

VIMS Articles

Microcell-type parasites of oysters are associated with a complex of diseases in different oyster species around the world. The etiological agents are protists of very small size that are very difficult to characterize taxonomically. Associated lesions may vary according to the host species, and their occurrence may be related to variations in tissue structure. Lesion morphology cannot be used to distinguish the different agents involved. Ultrastructural observations on Mikrocytos roughleyi revealed similarities with Bonamia spp., particularly in regard to the presence of electron-dense haplosporosomes and mitochondria, whose absence from M mackini also indicate that M roughleyi and M mackini are …

Dissolved Organic Nitrogen: A Dynamic Participant In Aquatic Ecosystems, T Berman, Da Bronk

VIMS Articles

In both marine and freshwaters, the concentration of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) frequently exceeds that of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), including ammonium, nitrate, and nitrite. Recent evidence indicates that many organic N compounds are released into the DON pool and taken up from this pool by planktonic microbiota on timescales of hours to days. This observation suggests that many components of the DON pool can play an active role in supplying N nutrition directly or indirectly to phytoplankton and bacteria and, in so doing, may affect the species composition of the ambient microbial assemblage. Here we present an overview of …