Life Sciences Commons^™

Comstock Point, Lubec, Maine - A Natural And Photographic History, Willaim H. Schlesinger, Lisa M. Dellwo

Documents from Environmental Organizations

A natural and photographic history of our lands compiled by Lisa Dellwo and Bill Schlesinger, with the help of many friends and neighbors.

Maine Lobstermen's Association Whale Update, Amber-Jean Nickel, Maine Lobstermen's Association

Fisheries

The Maine Lobstermen's Association “has been closely following the death of Right Whale 5120 found dead on Martha’s Vineyard on January 28th. The MLA was shocked and dismayed when NOAA Fisheries announced on February 14th that the rope removed from the deceased whale 'is consistent with the rope used in Maine state water trap/pot buoy lines.’”

“Maine lobstermen have made many changes to how we fish to avoid harming a Right whale which makes this news hard to believe. As we move forward, MLA will push back on NOAA’s finding until the industry’s questions about the entanglement and how NOAA …

Maine Epscor, Vol. 1, Issue 1, Maine Epscor, University Of Maine, Kody Varahramyan, Shane Moeykens, Laurie Bragg, Daniel Timmermann, Jami Downing, Stefania Irene Marthakis, Christian Spindler, Bhavana Scalia-Bruce, Marcella Silver, Jennifer Smith-Mayo, Attis Bielecki, Grayson Huston, Markus Fredrich, Kristina Cammen

General University of Maine Publications

The University of Maine recently gained Carnegie R1 status, a level of recognition that speaks to the quality and scale of research happening at Maine’s land grant, sea grant, and space grant institution, and across the state as a whole. Research institutes, centers and labs established because of NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 grants have created a significant and lasting impact in Maine. These entities include the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, Frontier Institute for Research in Sensor Technologies, Forest Bioproducts Research Institute, and Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, which have generated over 500 million dollars in new R&D funding for …

Evaluating The Capacity Of Ascophyllum Nodosum Habitats To Act As Carbon Sinks In The Gulf Of Maine, Megan Sinclair

Honors College

Some coastal ecosystems are defined as being carbon sinks for their ability to absorb more carbon than they release as a result of their high primary productivity. There has been support for the claim that macroalgal communities can act as carbon sinks and reduce levels of CO2in seawater through photosynthesis and potentially mitigate some local effects of climate change (Chung et al., 2011; Chung et al., 2013; Hill et al., 2015; Sondak et al., 2017). Within the state of Maine, rocky intertidal zones are coastal ecosystems that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and dominated by Ascophyllum nodosum (rockweed) communities …

Interdisciplinary Research Collaborative Trains Students To See Through Turbulent Systems, Kristina Cammen, Gabriella Marafino, Sarah Burton, Jillian Dow, Emma Dullaert, Madalyn Jorge, Kate Macolini, Louise Mcgarry, Christopher Tremblay, Jessica Jansujwicz, Tora Johnson, Lauren Ross, Gayle B. Zydlewski

Civil Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Despite the availability of interdisciplinary academic training programs, the practice of environmental science is often hampered by a lack of convergence across diverse disciplines. This gap is particularly salient in settings characterized by complex environmental issues, such as multiple-use coastal ecosystems. In response, we developed and implemented a training, research, and communication framework to provide undergraduates with an authentic operative experience working at the interface of interdisciplinary science and public decision-making within a case study of marine renewable energy. In our program, students gained hands-on experience with the scientific process and learned how to make information relevant, useful, and accessible …

The Synergistic Effects Of Elevated Temperature And Co2 - Induced Ocean Acidification Reduce Cardiac Performance And Increase Disease Susceptibility In Subadult, Female American Lobsters Homarus Americanus H. Milne Edwards, 1837 (Decapoda: Astacidea: Nephropidae) From The Gulf Of Maine, Amalia M. Harrington, Robert Harrington, Heather J. Hamlin, Deborah A. Bouchard

Journal Articles

Increased greenhouse gas emissions have caused rapid ocean warming (OW) and reduced ocean pH via acidification (OA). Both OW and OA will likely impact marine crustaceans, but they are often examined in isolation. We conducted an environmental-stressor experiment to understand how exposure to current summer conditions (16 °C, pH 8.0), OW only (20 °C, pH 8.0), OA only (16 °C, pH 7.6), or both acidification and warming, OAW (20 °C, pH 7.6), differentially influence thermal physiology and immune response of female subadults of the American lobster, Homarus americanus H. Milne Edwards, 1837. Following a 42 d exposure, cardiac performance was …

A Biogeographical Assessment Of Arctic Marine Fungi, Bentley E. Simpson

Honors College

Marine fungi play a crucial role in recycling nutrients and channeling energy to higher trophic levels in the world oceans. Despite their critical role, their distributions and community composition, particularly in the Arctic, are largely unknown. This study reveals depth-related trends of abundance, diversity, and community composition of Arctic marine fungi through analysis of data obtained in the Tara Oceans expedition. With samples from surface (0-50 m), deep chlorophyll max (50-200 m), and mesopelagic (200-1000 m) depths, relative abundance, operational taxonomic unit (OTU) richness, and diversity were found to increase as a function of depth. Basidiomycota and Ascomycota were found …

How Acidic Sediments And Seawater Affect Interactive Effects Of Predation On Survival, Growth, And Recruitment Of Wild And Cultured Soft-Shell Clams, Mya Arenaria L., Along A Tidal Gradient At Two Intertidal Sites In Eastern Maine, Brian F. Beal, William Otto

Miscellaneous Publications

No abstract provided.

Bees Of Maine, With A State Species Checklist, Alison C. Dibble, Francis A. Drummond, Constance Stubbs, Michael Veit, John S. Ascher

Biology and Ecology Faculty Scholarship

We present a new county checklist developed from bee research in Maine since the 1800s. The list contains 278 bee species in 37 genera and 6 families, of which all but 8 are native, with ≥50 taxa each in Andrena and Lasioglossum. Data for 16 counties from publications, museum collections, and recent surveys varied in number of species from 8 (Androscoggin) to 197 (Hancock). Research since 1930 on Vaccinium angustifolium (Lowbush Blueberry) led to many records. Twenty-one species are considered unusual, including 3 first recorded in 2016: Epeoloides pilosulus, Melitta melittoides, and Holcopasites calliopsidis. Maine records …

Modeling Spatiotemporal Variability Of The Bioclimate Envelope Of Homarus Americanus In The Coastal Waters Of Maine And New Hampshire, Kisei Tananka, Yong Chen

Publications

A bioclimate envelope model was developed to evaluate the potential impacts of climate variability on American lobster (Homarus americanus). Bioclimate envelopes were defined by season-, sex-, and stage- specific Habitat Suitability Indices (HSI) based on (1) bottom temperature, (2) bottom salinity, and (3) depth. The species’ association to each of these three environmental attributes was expressed using Suitability Indices (SIs) calibrated by standardized lobster abundance derived from 14 years of fishery independent survey. A regional ocean model (Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model) was integrated with the HSI to hindcast spatiotemporal variability of bioclimate envelopes for American lobster in coastal waters of …

Promotingclimate Change Awareness And Adaptive Planning In Atlantic Fisheries Communities Using Dialogue-Based Participatory Vulnerability Analysis, Mapping, And Collaborative Systems Dynamic Modeling, Thomas Webler, Seth Tuler, Esperanza Stancioff, Elizabeth Fly

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The goals for the proposed project are twofold:

• First, the project will improve understandings of how a changing climate will affect fishing communities’ abilities to maintain marine fisheries and the local economies historically dependent upon them.

• Second, the project will investigate the role of a structured dialogue and participatory modeling process to support decision makers in fishing communities addressing consequences, vulnerabilities, and adaptive strategies in a context of climate stressors.

The American Lobster Settlement Index: An Early Warning System?, Maine Sea Grant College Program

Maine Sea Grant Publications

The harvest of American lobsters is the Gulf of Maine’s largest, most valuable, and most iconic fishery. The catch has never been higher, but how long will it last? Fishing communities in eastern Maine and southern Nova Scotia are seeing historically high landings, some five times higher than the 1980s. At the same time, the lobster fishery south of Cape Cod has all but collapsed, plagued by shell disease and stressfully warm summers. It has never been more important to monitor this vital fishery. The American Lobster Settlement Index measures the annual pulse of baby lobsters to rocky nurseries some …

Rapid: Effect Of A Very Low Nao Event On The Abundance Of The Lipid-Rich Planktonic Copepod, Calanus Finmarchicus, In The Gulf Of Maine, Jeffrey Runge

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Test the hypothesis that a distinctly lower abundance of the planktonic copepod, Calanus finmarchicus in the Gulf of Maine follows the occurrence of very negative winter phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In 2010, the station-based winter NAO index was -4.64, even more intense than the negative (-3.78) 1996 NAO winter index. If a two-year lagged relationship between very negative NAO winter indices and Calanus abundance in the Gulf of Maine is valid, cooler water from the Labrador Sea should replace Atlantic Temperate Slope Water in the GoM in 2012, inducing a major climatic ecosystem event on the New …

Rapid: Natural Laboratories In The Chilean Fjords: Studying Reproduction And Development In Emergent Deep-Sea Corals, Rhian G. Waller

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The northern Patagonian fjords lie on the interface between the high Andes Mountains in the east and the South Pacific Ocean, formed thousands of years ago through erosive glacial activity and tectonic sinking (Borgel, 1970). Around 12,000 years ago the icefields in the Chiloé Interior Sea began to open, leaving behind over 15,000km2 of fjords, channels and gulfs (Clapperton, 1994). The waters within the fjords are influenced by strong tides, large volumes of freshwater runoff, and upwelling of deep-ocean waters as well as steep climatic gradients from north to south (observed in parameters such as temperature, wind intensity and precipitation; …

Understanding Copepod Life-History And Diversity Using A Next-Generation Zooplankton Model, Andrew J. Pershing, Frederic Maps, Nicholas R. Record

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The main goal of our project is to understand the patterns of diversity and biogeography in marine copepods. To achieve this goal, we developed a unique modeling framework to simulate the trade-offs between growth, development, and fecundity in marine copepods.

We developed a new approach to modeling growth and development in metazoans. We applied this approach to marine copepods, and used it to understand relationships between copepod body size and temperature, copepod biodiversity patterns, and copepod biogeography. This project also provided support for experiments to look at how copepod body size impacts the particle size spectrum.

We used our model …

Understanding Copepod Life-History And Diversity Using A Next-Generation Zooplankton Model, Andrew J. Pershing, Frederic Maps, Nicholas Record

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Evolution has shaped the physiology, life history, and behavior of a species to the physical conditions and to the communities of predators and prey within its range. Within a community, the number of species is determined by both physical properties such as temperature and biological properties like the magnitude and timing of primary productivity, and ecological interactions such as predation. Despite well-known correlations between diversity and properties such as temperature, the mechanisms that drive these correlations are not well-described, especially in the oceans. The investigators will conduct a model-based investigation of diversity patterns in marine ecosystems, focusing on calanoid copepods. …

Forest - Atmosphere Interaction At Howland Forest, David Dail

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The overall goal of the proposed work is to understand the various (and interacting) impacts of a changing climate on carbon cycling at the Howland AmeriFlux site, representative of an important component of the North American boreal forest. Our focus is on quantitatively partitioning respiration into aboveground and belowground processes and into autotrophic and heterotrophic processes to better constrain carbon cycle models. Whole-ecosystem flux measurements generally do a poor job of separating photosynthetic uptake from respiration and cannot constrain (or assign) respiration to the different sources within an ecosystem. This partitioning is difficult, but we will take advantage of new …

Functional Diversity Of Subsurface Deposit Feeders, Peter A. Jumars, Sara M. Lindsay

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The major goals of the project are to gain a comprehensive understanding of polychaete chemosensory behaviors below the sediment-water interface and to understand how burrowing displaces sediment grains.

A method and apparatus for investigating subsurface properties of sediment, soil, snow, food stuff and other soft materials incorporates a probe head, preferably in the form of a coil spring that functions as a screw thread, which moves into the soil, snow, sediment, food stuff or other soft material, isolates a column of the material and applies tension to that column while measuring the applied force with a force sensor.

Cnh: Collaborative Research: Direct And Indirect Coupling Of Fisheries Through Economic, Regulatory, Environmental, And Ecological Linkages, Andrew J. Pershing, Yong Chen, Jeffrey Runge

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The productivity and resilience of fisheries are subject to a multitude of dynamic and interrelated influences that arise from complex coupling of fish populations with the natural and human systems of which they are a part. With few exceptions, fisheries currently are managed independently, ignoring important natural and human linkages among them. The biological productivity, sustainability, and consequently human benefits of complex fishery systems may be substantially increased if these linkages are better understood and if this understanding is applied to management. The American lobster (Homarus americanus), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and Northeast multispecies groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of …

Collaborative Research: Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: End-To-End Energy Budgets In Us-Globec Regions, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The research addresses the overarching question: are marine food webs leading to fisheries controlled from the top-down, the bottom up, or a combination of the two? To address this question we will (1) compare end-to-end energy budgets of the 4 US-GLOBEC study regions in the context of top-down v. bottom-up forcing, (2) assess the skills of the regional models in capturing basic material fluxes, (3) extract diagnostics from the regional models that will be used to evaluate the effects of climate change and fishing pressure across GLOBEC regions and (4) develop quantitative methods to compare the diagnostics. The major successes …

Fisheries Management In A Changing Climate: Lessons From The 2012 Ocean Heat Wave In The Northwest Atlantic., Katherine E. Mills, Andrew Pershing, Curtis J. Brown, Yong Chen, Fu-Sung Chiang, Daniel S. Holland, Sigrid Lehuta, Janet A. Nye, Jenny C. Sun, Andrew C. Thomas, Richard A. Wahle

Publications

No abstract provided.

El Nin˜O Impact On Mollusk Biomineralization: Implications For Trace Element Proxy Reconstructions And The Paleo-Archeological Record, Alberto Pe´Rez-Huerta, Miguel F. Etayo-Cadavid, C Fred T. Andrus, Teresa E. Jeffries, Clifton Watkins, Shane C. Street, Daniel H. Sandweiss

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Marine macroinvertebrates are ideal sentinel organisms to monitor rapid environmental changes associated with climatic phenomena. These organisms build up protective exoskeletons incrementally by biologically-controlled mineralization, which is deeply rooted in long-term evolutionary processes. Recent studies relating potential rapid environmental fluctuations to climate change, such as ocean acidification, suggest modifications on carbonate biominerals of marine invertebrates. However, the influence of known, and recurrent, climatic events on these biological processes during active mineralization is still insufficiently understood. Analysis of Peruvian cockles from the 1982–83 large magnitude El Nin˜o event shows significant alterations of the chemico-structure of carbonate biominerals. Here, we show that …

Eager: Collaborative Research: Developing Transformation Technologies For Porphyra, Susan H. Brawley

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The genome of the marine red alga Porphyra umbilicalis is being sequenced by the Joint Genome Institute. The sequence information will help scientists address many fundamental questions, because Porphyra spp. belong to an ancient eukaryotic lineage, are important human foods ("nori"), have complex life histories, and---even compared to other intertidal organisms--- possess an unusually stress-tolerant metabolism. Computer-based analyses of the new genomic data will be sufficient to address some research questions, but most studies (e.g., the basis of Porphyra's tolerance to extreme drying or high light) will require experimental approaches based upon bioinformatics analyses. This project will develop the essential …

Collaborative Research: Life Histories Of Species In The Genus Calanus In The North Atlantic And North Pacific Oceans And Responses To Climate Forcing, Jeffrey Runge, Andrew J. Pershing

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Species in the genus Calanus are predominant in the mesozooplankton of the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. Their key role in marine food web interactions has been recognized in GLOBEC programs, both in the U.S. and internationally. Considerable knowledge of life history characteristics, including growth, reproduction, mortality, diapause behavior and demography has been acquired from both laboratory experiments and measurements at sea. This project reviews and synthesizes this knowledge and uses it to develop an Individual Based Life Cycle model for sibling species in two sympatric species pairs, C.marshallae and C. pacificus in the North Pacific Ocean and C. …

Dissertation Research: Eco-Evolutionary Effects Of An Aquatic Consumer: Linking Phenotypic Diversity To Community And Ecosystem Responses, Kevin S. Simon, Quenton Tuckett, Michael T. Kinnison

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This research addresses the interaction between ecological and evolutionary processes by examining the recent evolution of a common invasive fish species, the white perch, in lakes and the consequences of this evolution for community and ecosystem dynamics. White perch have successfully invaded lakes spanning a productivity gradient, which provides diverse selective pressures that may result in altered fish morphology, physiology and ecological role. Adaptation by these fish may, in turn, feed back to affect lake productivity and community structure through several ecological and chemical pathways. This project tests the hypothesis that this rapid evolutionary divergence within a single species has …

Improvements To Sampling From The Research Vessel Ira C, Mary Jane Perry

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The University of Maine's Darling Marine Center is awarded a grant to equip the 42-ft Ira C., the Center's largest vessel, with a well instrumented CTD, including optical sensors and a small array of sampling bottles plus a winch with conducting cable so that CTD work from the Ira C. no longer needs to depend on users bringing their own CTD and lowering by hand. This proposal is to expand the environments and variables within effective reach of the University of Maine's marine laboratory, the Ira C. Darling Marine Center (the Center) in midcoast Maine. The Center is within a …

The Cc-Bio Project: Studying The Effects Of Climate Change On Quebec Biodiversity, Dominique Berteaux, Sylvie Blois, Jean-François Angers, Joël Bonin, Nicolas Casajus, Marcel Darveau, François Fournier, Murray Humphries, Brian Mcgill, Jacques Larivée, Travis Logan, Patrick Nantel, Catherine Périé, Frédéric Poisson, David Rodrigue, Sébastien Rouleau, Rouleau Siron, Wilfred Thuiller, Luc Vescovi

Publications

Anticipating the effects of climate change on biodiversity is now critical for managing wild species and ecosystems. Climate change is a global driver and thus affects biodiversity globally. However, land-use planners and natural resource managers need regional or even local predictions. This provides scientists with formidable challenges given the poor documentation of biodiversity and its complex relationships with climate. We are approaching this problem in Quebec, Canada, through the CC-Bio Project (http://cc‑bio.uqar.ca/), using a boundary organization as a catalyst for team work involving climate modelers, biologists, naturalists, and biodiversity managers. In this paper we present the CC-Bio Project and its …

U.S. Globec: Nwa Georges Bank - Processes Controlling Abundance Of Dominant Copepod Species On Georges Bank: Local Dynamics And Large-Scale Forcing, Jeffrey A. Runge

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

A fundamental goal of Biological Oceanography is to understand how underlying biological-physical interactions determine abundance of marine organisms. For animal populations, it is well known that factors controlling survival during early life stages (i.e., recruitment) are strong determinants of adult population size, but understanding these processes has been difficult due to model and data limitations. Recent advances in numerical modeling, together with new 3D data sets, provide a unique opportunity to study the biological-physical processes controlling zooplankton population size. This project uses an existing state-of-the-art biological/physical numerical model (FVCOM) together with the recently processed large 3D data set from the …

Collaborative Proposal: Cascadia Slope Circulation Study, Mary Jane Perry

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Intellectual Merits:
This project will continue to observe and understand the physics and biology of the highly productive northeast Pacific boundary current region over the continental slope off Washington and Oregon - the Cascadia slope - with an autonomous, sustained presence. For over a year, Seagliders, long-range autonomous underwater vehicles, have been deployed to survey the temperature, salinity, dissolved, oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence, and optical backscatter structure of the slope off. Washington. Seagliders have collected data on sections from the continental shelf edge offshore 220 km at fortnightly intervals, reporting back data after each dive, on deployments typically lasting 4-5 months. …

Collaborative Research: The Response Of Lakes To Disturbance And Climate Change: Calibrating Sedimentary Records To Test The Landscape Position Concept, Jasmine E. Saros

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Landscape disturbance and climate change affect lakes in proportion to their contact with ground water, sometimes resulting in different responses in neighboring lakes. This project develops methods for reconstructing past water chemistry and food webs of lakes. The biological and chemical deposits in surface sediment samples will be compared with the water in 62 modern lakes. The resulting relationships will be tested by comparing sediment cores with 24 years of observations from the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER) site. The methods will then be used to reconstruct 150 years of history for several lakes, adding perspective to …