Schweppe – Public Lecture Series

Dr. Stoecker’s research focuses on plankton ecology, with an emphasis on trophic ecology, and is one of the leading scientists who studies mixotrophy in marine protists, a relatively unexplored aspect of the planktonic food chain. She has also conducted influential research on harmful algal blooms, zooplankton predator-prey interactions, the role of plankton in biogeochemistry, and cellular evolution in protists. With a background in a range of topics, and experience in estuarine and high-latitude environments, her work is of interest to many at UTMSI.

Dr. Stoecker’s research focuses on plankton ecology, with an emphasis on trophic ecology, and is one of the leading scientists who studies mixotrophy in marine protists, a relatively unexplored aspect of the planktonic food chain. She has also conducted influential research on harmful algal blooms, zooplankton predator-prey interactions, the role of plankton in biogeochemistry, and cellular evolution in protists. With a background in a range of topics, and experience in estuarine and high-latitude environments, her work is of interest to many at UTMSI.

Cultivation of clams, oysters, and mussels is a rapidly growing sector of the food production industry globally. At a large scale, clams perform an important ecological function by removing particulates and excess nutrients from the water. On a local scale, however, clams can adversely affect their environment by releasing biodeposits that decompose, removing oxygen and releasing nutrients. Making clam aquaculture environmentally sustainable requires a better understanding not only of their positive impacts on local ecosystems, but also their negative impacts. A method known as integrated multi-trophic level aquaculture, in which macroalgae growing on the clam beds are harvested and used either for nutrient trading or sold as fertilizer, may increase sustainability as well as profitability.

The global ocean, which covers more than 70% of the planet, is a great modulator of Earth’s climate. With an average depth of about 4000 meters, the ocean stores a tremendous amount of heat. In the last several decades, the heat content in the upper 700 meters of the global ocean has increased steadily. Projected changes suggest that the ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century, and that heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean. This has the potential to alter ocean circulation. Global sea level is expected to rise having profound impacts on coastal communities. Dr. Wanamaker will discuss how scientists reconstruct past ocean conditions before instrumental records were available. Such records help place modern oceanographic changes into context and allow us to evaluate natural variability versus human induced changes in the ocean/climate system. Dr. Wanamaker is an assistant professor in the department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University. To learn more about Dr. Wanamaker’s work click (http://www.ge-at.iastate.edu/people/faculty/alan-wanamaker/).

Climate change is impacting the Arctic more so than anywhere else on Earth – especially coastal landscapes. This small land area contains a disproportionately large amount of soil carbon, which exists in a frozen state within permafrost. At present, this carbon is greenhouse-inert but if permafrost thaws, this carbon has the potential to be emitted to the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, which is likely to cause further warming of the Arctic and the rest of the globe. This presentation will highlight findings from recent research conducted in remote areas of northern Alaska, Russia, and the Canadian high Arctic, which investigated both the controls of land-atmosphere carbon uptake and loss, and how landscape change over the past half century is likely to have altered the carbon balance of these landscapes.

One of the striking changes that has occurred over the past several decades in the Arctic is the decline in the thickness and extent of seasonal sea ice. If we assume that current trends will continue, we, our children will live to see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the sumertime. While changes in the sea ice are clear and unmistakable, it remains difficult to predict the responses of ecosystems at high latitudes. Will these systems be more or less productive? Will animals that appear to be dependent upon sea ice disappear? How will the new food webs work and what organisms will be most important? In addition to the changes in presence or absence of ice, other changes also seem likely or at least plausible, including a fresher Arctic Ocean, releases of organic carbon locked up in permafrost and subsequent changes to global carbon cycling. The potential impacts of these changes will also be discussed. Dr. Cooper is a professor at the Chesapeake Biological Lab, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. To learn more about Dr. Coopers work click Here.

The dwindling wildlife species of our planet have become a cause celebre for conservation groups, governments and concerned citizens throughout the world. The application of powerful new genetic technologies to surviving population of threatened mammasl has revolutionized our ability to recognize hidden perils that afflict them. This presentation will connect some recent applications of conservation genetics and natural history to uncover long-forgotten adaptive adventures that left their footprings in the genomes of lions, cheetahs and humankind. Illustrative examples will describe how scientists can track the emergence and progression of deadly outbreaks in wildlife species that reveal unfathomed threats to their existence. How these can help to reverse extinction events and also to unlock medical secrets will be the lessons learned from this presentation. Dr. O’Brien is Chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute and is recognized for research contributions in human and comparative genetics, evolutionary biology, HIV/AIDS, retro-virology and species conservation. To learn more about his work go to: http://ccr.cancer.gov/staff/staff.asp?profileid=5768

Otoliths, tiny ear-bones within the heads of fishes, grow daily and annual rings. Within these rings, trace elements tend to accrete from the environment. Although some trace elements are taken up in proportion to salinity or temperature, uptake of the trace element manganese has been difficult to explain. Recently, biogeochemical evidence from the Baltic Sea suggests that cod take up manganese in thier otoliths udring episodes of hypoxia (low oxygen). Furthermore, this can be tracked back into pre-historic time through archaeological collections of otoliths. Further evidence from a different species-winter flounder – in a different environment – the New York City region-suggests this may be a more general phenomenon. If so, otolith manganese could be a built-in monitor of a fish’s exposure to hypoxia. The implications for the Gulf of Mexico will be discussed. Dr. Limburg is a professor at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York

The sun provides the energy that makes virtually all life possible on earth. It fuels the creation of plants and animals, as well as controlling climate. Sunlight has a reverse effect as well, degrading the materials that come from life. Sunburn is our immediate experience with this process, though we see it as well in faded fabrics and other organic materials. The ocean is the world’s largest repository of organic materials, because seawater is a kind of weak tea and the mud on the bottom is humus-rich. Sunlight is emerging as an important cause of degradation of these organic materials in the ocean, dissolving organic matters from mud and promoting oxidation of dissovled materials. Soils on land are also subject to this process. We study these reactions in the Mississippi River watershed and the Gulf of Mexico, by combining laboratory experiments, field measurements in the field, and satallite observations. Might these degradation reactions affect the exchange of carbon among the atmosphere, land and sea? Stay tuned. Dr. Mayer is a professor of oceanography at the University of Maine, to learn more about his work click Here.

Just a scoop of seawater may contain many microscopic critters that swim, hover, sink, drift, and dart. These tiny creatures called zooplankton, include copepods, fish larvae and planktonic protists and are part of the oceans food web without which there would be no fish. These zooplankters are capable of creating microscopic water flows, such as feeding current, swimming jets and jumping vortices. Optimizing the use of these tiny water flows is key for these microscopic animals to succesfully find food and mates while at the same time avoiding predators. Dr Jiang will show video clips of zooplankton behavior and animations made from reality-reproducing computer simulations, this lecture will elucidate the fluid physics that help to maintain the fascination of the plankton world. Small-scale fluid physics will be shown to provide invaluable insight to the various behavioral and morphological strategies that are employed by zooplankters in fulfilling their everyday survival tasks in the ocean. Although the scales of these water flows are small, their overall effect on the oceans ecosystems can be large. Dr Jiang is an associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts. To find out more about his work go to: http://www.whoi.edu/profile.do?id=hsji

Most humans have the sense that males and females look different. Much has been made of battles between the sexes, even of the possibility that men and women have different planets of origin. But we are hardly unique; any observant naturalist can list several species in addition to our own in which male-female differences are clear. This includes many marine animals and land plants, in which external sex differences are inscrutable. What explanation can possibly exist for extreme sexual differentiation in some species, and its virtual absence in others? The answer to this question is the mating system, the circumstances in which reproduction occurs within individual species. It is here that sexual differences arise – or do not. Dr. Shuster will explain how mating systems are organized, how variation in fertility can arise within each sex, and how sex-specific variation in fertility can cause males and females to look the same – or to look different from one another. Dr. Shuster is a professor in the department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University, Flafstaff.