Amazing day a the LI Aquarium with Nils and PhD Student Ian Dwyer.
Nils and Ian connected sensors to a fiddler crab and a blue mussel so visitors can observed animal heartbeats directly on a screen like doctors will do! Isn’t it fascinating?!
Norah helped the little ones coloring shellfish and took some funny pictures.
May 18, 2019 – A heart-to-heart with clams and crabs
Nils Volkenborn, Stony Brook University. Meet with local scientist from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at StonyBrook and watch the heartbeat of hard-shelled animals in real-time and learn why and how scientists use heartbeat rate measurements to study their life in the coastal ocean. Do not miss the great show.
Infrared and Hall Effect sensors glued on the shell of a scallop for simultaneous measurements of heartbeat rates and valve gaping. (Photo credit: Nils Volkenborn, visit Nils website for more information https://you.stonybrook.edu/voll/environmental-variability-and-faunal-repsonses/
Alyson Lowell demonstrated how pH in seawater changes when you add CO2 and how to measure salinity in different types of water!
April 20, 2019 – Ocean Acidification: Seagrasses; A Last Hope
Alysson Lowell, Stony Brook University. Ocean acidification is further exacerbated by coastal influences like nutrient loading and runoff. The result is an environment more vulnerable and more intense for coastal marine organisms. Both low oxygen and high acidity combine to generate organisms more physiologically stressed than their open ocean counterparts. Seagrasses may provide a refuge for marine organisms in this highly dynamic and changing world. Highly productive producing oxygen rich and comparatively more basic environments, seagrasses are more attuned to the changing oceans than many of their macrophytic counterparts.
Eelgrass (Zostera marina) in Great South Bay. Photo from https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/110813.html.
March 30, 2019
Gregg Rivara, Cornell Cooperative Extension, NY.
Gregg showed baby clams and oysters, their parents and the food they eat. He explained Long Island aquarium visitors the importance of shellfish not only for aquaculture but also for the environment. Everybody enjoyed!
Huge success for Chris Brianik this week at the LI Aquarium. Big eyes and some winces and grimaces! But a lot to learn.
January 19, 2019 – Small fish, bug worms
Megan Hahn and Christopher Brianik, Stony Brook University. The world of creepy-crawlies parasites is just fascinating and they are all around us! Join us and meet local scientists to learn more about the parasites and microbiom found in local and distant fish.
Three spinned stickleback and its huge macroparasite (tapeworm).
Photo credit: Christopher Brianik.
December 15, 2018 – How Old is My Striped Bass?
Zachary Schuller and Stephanie Rekemeyer, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Striped bass is a valuable species for New York’s commercial and recreational fisheries. They spend the majority of their life in the ocean, returning to our local bays and rivers to spawn in the spring. Come learn how to age striped bass scales and learn how you can help contribute to management of this species.
Photo Credit: D Ross Robertson
November 10, 2018
Oliver Shipley, Stony Brook University. In the media, sharks have long been painted as terrifying, blood-thirsty killers, but they are definitively more than that. Meet with a local shark scientist and learn about the role of sharks in governing healthy marine ecosystems, and why we should care about conserving their populations.
Photo Credit: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/sharks-long-island-1.19933809