Month: October 2021

Mussels are well-known ecosystem engineers, often dominating temperate wave-swept shores worldwide.  They are also important aquaculture species and a “biofouling” nuisance to many maritime industries. Disturbance to mussel populations, such as dislodgment due to increased flow forces and/or weakened attachment, therefore has important ecological and economic ramifications.  Mussels attach securely to hard substrates such as rock, aquaculture rope and ship hulls by molding individual collagen-like tethers called byssal threads.  This seminar will describe some of our controlled laboratory experiments on the effects of ocean acidification (OA), ocean warming (OW) and hypoxia on byssal thread strength, as well as our field observations of farmed mussel populations. Our ecomechanical framework provides a valuable tool for predicting the responses of mussels, and their dependent coastal communities, to current and future climate scenarios.

About the speaker:

Emily Carrington is Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, where she leads a marine biomechanics research group based in Seattle and the Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands.  She grew up in Michigan and North Carolina, where she developed a fascination with industrial assembly lines and coastal waves and currents. Her research on the mechanical design of marine invertebrates and macroalgae, especially those that thrive in the wave-swept rocky shores began on the shores of Monterey Bay. Her work draws upon the fields of engineering, biology and oceanography to develop a mechanistic understanding of how coastal organisms will fare in changing ocean climates.

About the speaker:

Dr. Carl Lamborg is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Ocean Sciences Department. Prior to working at UCSC, Carl spent 11 years working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, first as a Post-doctoral Scholar and later as an Associate Scientist without tenure. Carl received a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Connecticut in 2003, a MS in Environmental Chemistry from University of Michigan, and a BA in Chemistry from Oberlin College.

About the speaker:

Dr. William J. Sydeman is a veteran marine ecologist with expertise in eastern boundary current - upwelling, and other temperate-subarctic ecosystems of the North Pacific.  Bill conducts interdisciplinary research focusing on marine climate impacts on plankton (krill), forage fish, and predators (seabirds).  His expertise includes changes in ocean temperature and winds, population biology of krill and forage fish, seabird ecology and conservation, ecosystem-based fisheries management, and ecological indicators.  He has published about 200 papers in the primary literature, and serves on various advisory panels including as current co-chair of California’s Ocean Protection Council – Science Advisory Team.  Bill lives and works in Petaluma in northern California.  Bill’s presentation will be based on a recent paper published in Science in May 2021 entitled “Hemispheric Asymmetry in Ocean Change and the Productivity of Ecosystem Sentinels” in which he and a large group of international colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of changes in seabird breeding success across the globe and compared responses across seabird trophic levels and foraging behavior.