August 17, 2019 –  Strange But True: Shellfish Love Sweets Too!

Emmanuelle Pales Espinosa, Stony Brook University. Everybody love sweets so do oysters, clams and mussels. Join us as we meet with a local scientist to learn how these organisms feed but also how they select their food from a complex plankton mix with no eyes, no hands, no nose and no taste buds. Meet us from noon to 3pm on August 17th.

Crazy scallop (Phoro credit E.Pales Espinosa)

Very busy day at the LI Aquarium this Saturday! Michael Ciaramella informed visitors how to choose and handle with care their seafood. Youngest were also able to build their own fish farm. Fun guaranteed for everybody!

This Saturday we learned about different infections shellfish can have on Long Island and about the diagnostic services shellfish hatcheries use to make sure they have healthy animals. We dissected oysters and mussels and looked at slides of parasites!

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.