NEWS

ANERR Announces Workshop at the FSUCML

Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve will host a meeting management and facilitation workshop, “Public Issues and Conflict Management (PICM)”, presented the NOAA Coastal Services center, at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory February 16 and 17, 2010, from 9 am-4:30 pm ET. The workshop will focus on how to design, conduct and control meetings in public forums and participants will be able to:

• Use collaborative processes in resolving coastal and marine-related issues in a public forum
• Use meeting management skills, knowledge, and competencies to plan for and conduct effective meetings in a public forum
• Deal effectively with the media in the public issues management process

Registration is required and registration deadline is January 27, 2010; however, if space is available, registrations will be accepted through February 9, 2010. Click here to download a printable registration form. For more information contact Rosalyn Kilcollins at 850-653-8063 or email to Rosalyn.kilcollins@dep.state.fl.us

Oberlin College Students to Work with FSUCML Faculty

In January 2010, for the second year in a row, students from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, will arrive at the FSUCML to participate in field studies at the FSUCML. The students (pictured l-r), Sam Slowinski, Meaghan Harty and Emily Gardner, will work with Dr. Randall Hughes on saltmarsh genetic diversity and with Dr. David Kimbro on cordgrass-marsh periwinkle interactions for their three week winter break. Other Oberlin students, including Loke Jin Wong, Marta Robertson, Nicollette Buckle, and Casey Lee, will work with Dr. Walter Tschinkel on fire-ant ecology. Organizer of this annual trek is FSU alumnus and Oberlin faculty member Dr. Cortland Hill.

FSUCML and Duke partner to study impact of Gulf's “Dead Zone” on shrimp fishery.

A team of researchers from The FSUCML, Duke University, and the National Marine Fisheries Service will study the environmental and economic impacts of the vast “dead zone” in the northern Gulf of Mexico on shrimping in the region, home to one of the nation's most highly valued single-species fisheries. Marine ecologist Kevin Craig, a faculty member at the FSUCML, is the principal investigator for the collaborative project, which is funded by a four-year, $702,969 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem and Hypoxia Assessment Program.

Dead zones result from hypoxia (low oxygen) caused by algal blooms, which deplete the oxygen in water and render it unable to sustain animal life -- a potentially catastrophic issue for the Gulf shrimping industry, estimated to be worth about $500 million annually. The Gulf of Mexico's increasingly severe dead zone is one of the world's two or three largest and the biggest one that affects a U.S. fishery. It forms in the late spring and summer off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, covers between 7,500 and 8,500 square miles -- roughly the size of New Jersey -- and in some years stretches over nearly 12,500 square miles.

“Previous studies of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico have linked it to nutrient-rich runoff that fuels the algal blooms,” said Craig. “Most of the nutrients seem to come from agricultural activities in the Mississippi River watershed, which drains 41 percent of the continental United States and includes major farming states in the Midwest,” Craig said. “Our research team intends to more effectively assess the likely effects of nutrient loading and hypoxia on fisheries, the associated economic costs of habitat degradation for fishermen and others who depend on coastal resources for their livelihoods, and the benefits of environmental policies to reduce nutrient pollution.”

Joining Craig is co-principal investigator Martin Smith, associate professor of environmental economics at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and frequent collaborator with FSUCML faculty. The study's other participants are Lori Snyder Bennear, assistant professor of environmental economics and policy at the Nicholas School, and Jim Nance, a shrimp biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Galveston, Texas.

“I've been working on the effects of the dead zone in both the Gulf of Mexico and in southeast U.S. estuaries for several years,” Craig said. “Most of my work has focused on the ecological effects of hypoxia. At Duke, Marty Smith has worked on the economic aspects but in other ecosystems. Ecology and economics are two disparate fields with very different cultures and approaches. Given the complexity of the problem in the Gulf, we decided to collaborate so that we could cover all facets of the dead zone's consequences for the coastal ecosystem's capacity to support fisheries.”

“Not much is known about the runoff's economic effects on the shrimp fishery,” Smith said. “This research project will be the first direct investigation of these links.”

Regardless of the causes, Craig notes that hypoxia has substantial effects on the behavior of both shrimp and shrimp fishermen, forcing them to relocate to other areas. Smith points to changing economic conditions -- including declines in real shrimp prices due to competition from imports and rising fuel costs that likely also have influenced the shrimp fleet's behavior.

Craig and Smith agree that the dynamic nature of the interaction makes it difficult to measure the dead zone's impacts based solely on the reported size of annual shrimp harvests. To produce a more accurate measure of hypoxia's impacts over large areas and extended periods of time, the researchers will collect and analyze data from a variety of sources and models, including aerial surveys of shrimping activity in waters around the dead zone.

Since the 1970s, the duration and frequency of dead zones have increased across the world's oceans and can even be found in freshwater bodies such as Lake Erie.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to enforce new sea grass protection rule

Under new legislation aimed at protecting sea grass in Florida's aquatic preserves (which cover 2 million acres in Florida waters) , the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will begin citing boaters who intentionally cause sea grass scarring within an aquatic preserve. There are 41 Aquatic Preserves in Florida (listed here: A list of the preserves appears here: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/programs/aquatic.htm) , including the Alligator Harbor Aquatic Preserve directly off the FSUCML. Sea grass meadows provide critical habitat for many of Florida's recreationally and commercially important species, including fish, crabs, and clams. A single acre of seagrass can support as many as 40,000 fish and 50 million invertebrates. Sea grass also provides critical habitat for wading birds, manatees and sea turtles. Further, it improves water quality, filtering nutrients from land-based industrial discharge and stormwater runoff, and helps stabilize ocean-bottom areas , making them less vulnerable to intense wave action from currents and storms.

Loss of Coastal Seagrass Habitat Accelerating Globally: First comprehensive analysis shows 58% of seagrass meadows in decline An international team of scientists warns that accelerating losses of seagrasses across the globe threaten the immediate health and long-term sustainability of coastal ecosystems. The team, including Dr. Randall Hughes, a faculty member at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory, compiled and analyzed the first comprehensive global assessment of seagrass observations and found that 58 percent of world's seagrass meadows are currently declining . . .(read more here).

FWRI Wants Help Finding Horseshoe Crab Nesting Beaches

Biologists at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) have initiated a statewide survey to identify nesting beaches where horseshoe crabs mate and lay eggs. With the help of the public, FWRI's goal is to identify these beaches around the state. Check it out on this website: http://research.myfwc.com/horseshoe_crab/. If you know of any near us, from Alligator Harbor to St. Joe, please also let us know here at the marine lab by emailing Dr. Todd Engstrom at engstrom@bio.fsu.edu