Here’s the latest news and press from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.
Congratulations to Sara Hamideh, whose promotion to Associate Professor, and tenure, have been approved by the Chancellor!
David Taylor and Carl Safina had several poems included in a new bestselling anthology, Dawn Songs, edited by Jamie Reaser and MacArthur Fellow J. Drew Lanham. Within 48 hours of the January 17th release online, Dawn Songs ranked #1 on Amazon in three categories: New Release Nature Writing & Essays, Nature Poetry, and Bird Field Guides. It has remained #1 in the latter and continues to bounce in and out of #1 in the other categories.
Gordon Taylor is onboard the R/V Atlantis with 21 other scientists from multiple institutions as part of an NSF-sponsored research cruise (originally scheduled for 2020) in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific to study the microbial ecology and biogeochemistry of a major oxygen minimum zone. The cruise has just begun, and you can follow the cruise on its blog: MicroPro 2023.
Roger Flood has received a new award from the State of Connecticut Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection in support of the project “Multibeam Mapping and Benthic Habitats in Long Island Sound — Phase 3 Reference Areas and Gaps”, for the period 2/9/2023 – 6/8/2024, in the amount $497,731.
Abstract
Benthic mapping in Long Island Sound (LIS) has been identified as a priority need and is essential to improving science-based environmental management and mitigation decisions. Sea floor landscape maps depicting habitat structure and the ecological characteristics associated with those benthic habitats are critical pieces of information which typically integrate information from a variety of sources including acoustic bathymetry and backscatter, sedimentary, geochemical, physical, and biological data. Phases 1 (Pilot) and 2 of the Long Island Sound Cable Fund (LISCF) Seafloor Habitat Mapping Initiative have provided important new data and insights into the nature and structure of benthic habitats in Central and Eastern Long Island Sound. Detailed bathymetric and backscatter data sets have provided essential information in both of those studies. Phase 3 of the LISCF Seafloor Habitat Mapping Initiative will focus in Western Long Island Sound and the first study in Phase 3 (part of Phase 3A) is to conduct an Acoustic Survey to develop, characterize and understand the needed bathymetry and backscatter data sets.
Analysis of the NOAA bathymetric and backscatter data in the Phase 3 area done prior to this proposal suggests that four tasks are needed in order to develop the high-quality bathymetry and backscatter data sets necessary to support subsequent benthic habitat studies. These tasks include (1) creating uniform bathymetry and backscatter data sets from the eight NOAA surveys in the area, (2) collecting a new “reference” bathymetry and backscatter data set that will cross many of the NOAA surveys to ensure that the existing NOAA data are correctly reprocessed and characterize decadal changes in seafloor morphology, (3) to collect new bathymetry backscatter data in several nearshore areas deeper than about 8 m where there is not sufficient survey data and (4) combining the results of the first three tasks into a set of maps and data files that are consistent with the present-day bathymetry and backscatter observations. These tasks will result in a high-resolution and uniform acoustic survey data set with minimal artifacts that will provide the basis for subsequent studies and will provide important information about how the sea bed can evolve over decadal time scales.
Latest News Highlights
SBU Forum Examines Long Island’s Solid Waste Future
Long Island elected officials and solid waste experts will gather on March 15 at Stony Brook University to address the future of how Long Island will address its waste, incorporate new recycling and waste technologies, and fund needed infrastructure.
The 2023 Larry Swanson Long Island Environmental Symposium is presented by the Evan R. Liblit Memorial Scholarship Committee, which in addition to providing scholarships at Stony Brook, hosts events and webinars aimed at improving recycling and solid waste management.
The event will take place at Endeavor Hall between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.. For more information, contact Eric Swenson at (516) 922-1010.
Latest Publications
Liu, X., Lyu, L., Li, J., Sen, B., Bai, M., Stajich, J. E., Collier, J.L., & Wang, G. (2023). Comparative Genomic Analyses of Cellulolytic Machinery Reveal Two Nutritional Strategies of Marine Labyrinthulomycetes Protists. Microbiology Spectrum, e04247-22.
Grassian, B., Roman, C., Warren, J. D., & Casagrande, D. (2023). High‐resolution measurements of the epipelagic and mesopelagic ocean by a profiling vehicle equipped with environmental sensors and a broadband echosounder. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods.
Carlin, J. T., Dunnavan, E. L., Ryzhkov, A. V., & Oue, M. (2023). Impacts of Vertical Nonuniform Beam Filling on the Observability of Secondary Ice Production due to Sublimation. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 40(1), 65-84.
Aller, R. C., Dwyer, I. P., Perger, D. S., Heilbrun, C., Volkenborn, N., & Wehrmann, L. M. (2023). Estimating benthic Fe and reactive solute fluxes. Marine Chemistry, 104221.
Geller-McGrath, D., Mara, P., Taylor, G. T., Suter, E., Edgcomb, V., & Pachiadaki, M. (2023). Diverse secondary metabolites are expressed in particle-associated and free-living microorganisms of the permanently anoxic Cariaco Basin. Nature Communications, 14(1), 656.
Schwaner, C., Pales Espinosa, E., & Allam, B. (2023). RNAi Silencing of the Biomineralization Gene Perlucin Impairs Oyster Ability to Cope with Ocean Acidification. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24(4), 3661.
Charboneau, A. (2023). “South Sudan: From Liberation to Predatory Kleptocratic Intelligence Culture” Shaffer, R. (Ed.). The Handbook of African Intelligence Cultures (Vol. 39, pp. 627-640). New York. Rowman & Littlefield.
Latest Seminar Videos
Dr. Brett Branco, OSAC – February 10, 2023 “The Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.”
Dr. Art Sedlacek, TAOS – February 15, 2023 “Probing the Biomass Burning Lifecycle Through Studies and Laboratory Experiments”
Dr. Jonathan Lefcheck, OSAC – February 17, 2023 “Climate on the move: how coastal ecosystems are shifting in response to a warming plane”
Press Headlines
Newsday: Cornell researchers try breeding scallops in fall to prevent die-off
- Weeks after Stony Brook University researchers reported warming trends have heightened the recent die-offs of Peconic Bay scallops, biologists at Cornell say they are experimenting with a change in the spawning season to breed the mollusks when water temperatures are cooler.
Newsday: A whale of a mystery
- According to one preliminary analysis of drone images from the lab of Lesley Thorne, an associate professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, approximately 80% of humpback whales observed in New York waters have evidence of entanglement scarring.
Newsday: State mulls new recreational limits on black sea bass, porgies
- “Black sea bass have been pretty consistently” plentiful, said Jim Gilmore former director of the DEC’s marine resources division. “If you’re fishing, you can’t get away from them. They’re all over the place.” Gilmore recently retired from the DEC after 37 years at the agency, including 15 in the marine program. He continues to teach fisheries management at Stony Brook University. “The mess with black sea bass [management] has got to get fixed,” Gilmore said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
New York Times: Opinion | Our City Could Become One of the World’s Greenest, but It Won’t Be Easy
- Mr. Greenberg teaches in New York University’s animal studies program and is the writer in residence at the Safina Center at Stony Brook University. Dr. Wagner is a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
Newsday: Obituary | Longtime Brookhaven National Lab scientist Paul Moskowitz dies at 73
- Paul Moskowitz studied biology at SUNY Oswego, where he met his future wife. He went on to earn a master’s degree in marine sciences from Stony Brook University.
Times Beacon Record: Three Village Civic Association receives SBU updates
- He said legislation passed both houses in the state Legislature last year to make Flax Pond in Old Field an estuary, but Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) asked for revisions and Mills said the bill will have to pass both houses again. The Flax Pond Marine Laboratory is operated for research purposes by SBU’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. The laboratory building and the Flax Pond Tidal Wetland Area are owned by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Times Beacon Record: Humpback whale deaths increase along Eastern Seaboard
- “What we’re seeing right now [in terms of whale strandings] is something that has been going on for years,” said Lesley Thorne, associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.
Inside Climate News: Hurricanes Ian and Nicole Left Devastating Flooding in Central Florida. Will it Happen Again?
- One preliminary study concluded that human-induced climate change increased Hurricane Ian’s rainfall rates by more than 10 percent, according to researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Florida’s flood control was not designed for today’s more damaging hurricanes or the state’s booming population, which has grown by 13 percent during the past decade to 22 million. Also ran in News Leaflets.
WLRN-TV: Hurricanes Ian and Nicole Left Devastating Flooding in Central Florida. Will it Happen Again?
- Now as central Floridians begin to rebuild many are wondering whether the unprecedented flooding represents a new normal in a changing world. One preliminary study concluded that human-induced climate change increased Hurricane Ian’s rainfall rates by more than 10 percent, according to researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Environmental Defense Fund: Building international collaboration in a remote world: Finding the resilience within to build resilience in crustacean fisheries
- To provide a much-needed boost in the technical capacity available for assessing and managing these critically important stocks, EDF and Stony Brook University, with the generous support and guidance of the Lenfest Ocean Program, convened an international task force of crustacean fishery scientists and managers from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the United States in the summer of 2020: the Crustacean Task Force.
East Hampton Star: Wainscott Commercial Center Plan Has Few Fans
- Christopher Gobler, a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, has studied water quality at Georgica Pond, a few hundred feet southeast of the former sand mine, for over a decade.
Newsday: Unusually warm winter causes concern among Long Island farmers
- Brian Colle, a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, said weather variability will bring warm and cold winters but ”there’s no doubt that over decades as the climate warms there’s indications that the storm track is going to shift northward.” This shift may mean warmer Long Island winters but “we’re talking decades out,” he said.
CounterPunch: Geoengineering the Atlantic Ocean?
- And, also, Dr. Malcolm Bowman, an oceanography professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, last year presented a study he did that proposed “sea gates” to serve as storm surge barriers at south shore inlets from East Rockaway Inlet on to five others along the south shore of central and eastern Long Island including Fire Island, Moriches and Shinnecock Inlets.
Times Beacon Record: Group study finds high temperatures, low oxygen hurt bay scallops
- In a study published in the journal Global Change Biology, Christopher Gobler, Stony Brook University Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation and Stephen Tomasetti, a former Stony Brook graduate student, along with several other researchers, showed through lab and field experiments as well as remote sensing and long-term monitoring data analysis how these environmental changes threaten the survival of bay scallops.
New York Times: Where New York’s Sick Sea Turtles Go for Rehab and Squid Snacks
- If it’s not too busy, after the turtle breakfast is served, Ms. Montello, who is in the midst of earning a Ph.D. from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, will have her own lunch — usually a salad. Also ran in DNYUZ.
Newsday: Airplane wastewater testing could help track COVID, other diseases, CDC says
- Arjun Venkatesan, associate director for the Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University, said wastewater testing could be valuable especially as other COVID-19 testing declines worldwide. “Many people who are sick are not getting tested,” Venkatesan said. “This would be useful in understanding the prevalence of disease.”
Medical Marketing & Media: How we found that sites of previous Ebola outbreaks are at higher risk than before
- Heather Lynch, professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University and ProPublica data science adviser/
