Virtual Seminar – Ocean Health and Seafood Safety in the Gulf of Guinea – October 8th

 

Edem Mahu, University of Ghana; MLML alumna

Hosted by the Chemical Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "Ocean Health and Seafood Safety in the Gulf of Guinea"

MLML Virtual Seminar | October 8th, 2020 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here

 

 

Heavy metal pollution of the aquatic environment continues to be among the most challenging environmental concerns in the Gulf of Guinea. The problem has escalated over the past few decades mainly because of the lack enforcement for regulating industrial effluent discharges into the aquatic environment and the indiscriminate use of toxic metals in artisanal gold mining. The study presents a historical assessment of heavy metal accumulation trends in Ghana’s coastal environment looking into ecotoxicological risks and seafood safety implications.

Dr. Edem Mahu Presents: Ocean Health and Seafood Safety in the Gulf of Guinea

Virtual Seminar – The Age and Growth of an MLML Ichthyology Alum: 20 years in and around the Pacific Groundfish fishery – October 1st

 

Melissa Mahoney, Environmental Defense Fund; MLML alumna

Hosted by the Ichthyology Lab

Presenting: "The Age and Growth of an MLML Ichthyology Alum: 20 years in and around the Pacific Groundfish fishery"

MLML Virtual Seminar | October 1st, 2020 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here.

 

 

Melissa’s fisheries background spans across academic, governmental, and non-profit sectors. She has performed a wide variety of fisheries research projects including age and growth studies of rockfish, fishery sustainability and markets, socio-economic analyses, geo-spatial mapping and qualitative ethnographic research.Early in her career, Melissa developed a fisheries education project for Monterey Bay area youth (now run by NOAA’s Sanctuary Program), and most recently a documentary film to tell the stories of California’s commercial fishermen (www.oftheseamovie.com).

Prior to joining EDF’s team, Melissa worked for The Nature Conservancy of CA, forming collaborative partnerships with fishermen to test new co-management techniques, market-based incentives, and monitoring technologies for improved fisheries management. Melissa currently serves as Steering Committee member to the National EM Working Group and as an Advisor to the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, a local non-profit serving the commercial fishing industry.

Melissa Mahoney Presents: The Age and Growth of an MLML Ichthyology Alum: 20 years in and around the Pacific Groundfish fishery

Virtual Seminar – Sea level rise vulnerability of natural and human coastal ecosystems – September 24th

 

Ross Clark, MLML/CCWG

Hosted by Geological Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "Sea level rise vulnerability of natural and human coastal ecosystems"

MLML Virtual Seminar | September 24th, 2020 at 4pm

 

Ross Clark has 20 years of experience drafting and implementing California’s Nonpoint Source Control Program both as a university researcher and as state agency staff. He is currently charged with developing regional programs to improve the restoration and management of state wetland resources and implementing programs to reduce nutrient loading to Central Coast surface waters.  Ross manages a team of field scientists supporting the development and implementation of the State’s wetland monitoring program and the integration of wetland restoration activities into regional and State water quality and land use planning efforts. Since 2008 he has also been tasked with developing the City of Santa Cruz strategic plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and identify key threats from, and appropriate responses to climate change and sea level rise.

Ross Clark Presents: Sea level rise vulnerability of natural and human coastal ecosystems

Virtual Seminar – Don’t blink: what we’ve learned from persistent autonomous instruments at the Station M abyssal time series – September 17th

 

Christine Huffard, MBARI

Hosted by The Physical Oceanography and Biological Oceanography Labs

Presenting: "Don't blink: what we've learned from persistent autonomous instruments at the Station M abyssal time series"

MLML Virtual Seminar | September 17th, 2020 at 4pm

 

Dr. Crissy Huffard earned a PhD through UC Berkeley, conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and worked for several years with Conservation International Indonesia. In 2012 she joined a team at MBARI studying deep-sea carbon sequestration at Station M--an abyssal time-series site off the California coast.

Christine Huffard Presents: Don’t blink: what we’ve learned from persistent autonomous instruments at the Station M abyssal time series

Virtual Seminar – There and Back Again: A Tale of Plants from Benthos to Orbit – September 10th

 

Sherry Palacios, CSUMB

Hosted by The Physical Oceanography and Biological Oceanography Labs

Presenting: "There and Back Again: A Tale of Plants from Benthos to Orbit"

MLML Virtual Seminar | September 10th, 2020 at 4pm

 

Sherry Palacios is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine Science at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her expertise is in using remote sensing and modeling tools for understanding water quality in estuarine and coastal systems, identifying and tracking water masses in coastal environments including river plumes and harmful algal blooms (HABs), and developing algorithms to discriminate phytoplankton functional types to understand phytoplankton biodiversity in coastal systems and inland lakes. Potential applications of her work include tracking carbon flow through ecosystems, understanding the ocean carbon budget, and monitoring for cyanobacterial HABs in drinking water systems.

She has a career total of 8-months at-sea or shore-based field-work in remote locations. Prior to CSUMB, she was a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center where she worked on remote sensing algorithm development for next-generation hyperspectral satellite sensors. She also worked on a number of education and capacity building projects including the NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP), NASA DEVELOP, NASA ARSET, and the NASA Indigenous People’s Initiative. Sherry is passionate about STEM education and is on the board of Elevate Tutoring, a STEM tutoring organization helping under-served communities. She holds a B.A. in Biology with a minor in Marine Science from Smith College, a M.S. from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories with a focus on seagrass biology, and a Ph.D. in Ocean Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a focus on Biological Oceanography and ocean optics.

Sherry teaches Introduction to Oceanography and Biological-Physical Oceanography at CSUMB.

Sherry will talk about her current research projects, career path, opportunities with her group, and things she’s learned along the way.

Virtual Seminar – Integrating physiology and ocean weather to predict climate change responses of fishes- September 3rd

 

Murray Duncan, Stanford/Hopkins Marine Station

Hosted by The Ichthyology Lab

Presenting: "Integrating physiology and ocean weather to predict climate change responses of fishes"

MLML Virtual Seminar | September 3rd, 2020 at 4pm

 

Dr. Murray Duncan is a fisheries eco-physiologist currently doing a postdoc at the Department of Geological Sciences and Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University. Before moving to California, Murray obtained his PhD from Rhodes University in South Africa and completed a one-year postdoc at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. He has worked extensively throughout the coastal zone of southern Africa, from Namibia to Mozambique, where he has developed and led field and lab eco-physiology research. His overarching focus is using physiological mechanisms to elucidate responses of marine organisms to the environmental stress caused by climate change. In his current position he is testing the efficacy of physiological models which incorporate temperature and oxygen availability at explaining climate effects on purple urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) and red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) in the California Current System.

Virtual Seminar – Devil’s in the details: Adaptability in habitat use of Western gulls – August 27th

 

Scott Shaffer, SJSU (MLML Visiting Scientist)

Hosted by The Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Presenting: "Devil's in the details: Adaptability in habitat use of Western gulls"

MLML Virtual Seminar | August 27th, 2020 at 4pm

 

Plasticity in foraging behavior among individuals, or across populations may reduce competition and likely enhances the adaptability to buffer changes in food resources.  Western gulls (Larus occidentalis) consume a wide range of marine and terrestrial foods but foraging patterns are not well understood, especially across multiple populations.  My colleagues and I have been using GPS loggers to compare foraging behavior of western gulls breeding at seven colonies from Oregon to southern California.  Detailed behavior of the gulls has revealed some interesting and surprising results at the population, individual, and when combined with additional sampling, the microbiome level.

Webinar – Creative Conservation for the Unconverted – May 7th

 

Tierney Thys, National Geographic
Presenting: "Creative conservation for the unconverted"

MLML Webinar | May 7th, 2020 at 4pm

 

Abstract:

As Rachel Carson wrote, ”It is not half so important to know, as to feel.”  Acknowledging, understanding and wielding the power of emotional messaging for scientifically-informed, conservation causes is an ongoing, challenging task. We, humans, are complex, emotionally driven creatures who make decisions based on our own sets of wide-ranging values. To effectively message marine science and conservation requires a multi-step process involving three integral components: 1) quantifying  the current state of the ocean’s goods and services for people; 2) framing those scientific findings in a narrative way that speaks to the audiences’ diverse sets of values and; 3) experimenting, evaluating and honing those narratives since there is no one-size-fits-all. Multi-disciplinary collaborations are integral to this iterative process and the number of innovative groups experimenting in this realm is growing. In this talk I  present a range of interdisciplinary conservation projects, lessons learned along the way plus offer a hopeful look to the future.

 

Drivers of biogeochemical variability in a kelp forest in southern Monterey Bay and beyond – January 23rd

Yui Takeshita, Monterey Bay Aquarium research Institute
Moss Landing Marine Labs Seminar Series - January 23rd, 2020

Hosted by The Chemical Oceanography Lab

MLML Seminar Room, 4pm

Open to the public

Submerged aquatic vegetation such as seagrass beds and kelp forests have been proposed as a potential strategy to locally ameliorate impacts of ocean acidification. However, kelp forests are known to thrive in highly dynamic systems, where chemical conditions are controlled by a complex interaction of physical and biological drivers. Thus, in order to accurately assess the potential and limitations for this strategy, we must first quantify the underlying natural processes that drive its variability. In this talk, I will present a paired-mooring experiment conducted in the summer of 2018 where a mooring was deployed inside and outside of the kelp forest right outside of Hopkins Marine Lab. The moorings were instrumented with pH and O2 sensors that provided high vertical resolution. The results will be discussed in the context of this kelp forest's potential to curb acidification stress, and how this site compares to others along the California coast. 

My main research interests are focused on developing and applying new autonomous biogeochemical sensing technology. I use these new instruments to study various marine processes, especially in the coastal ocean where impacts of ocean change are felt most strongly by society. For example, we have used moored instrumentation to make habitat specific ocean acidification predictions in Southern California, and developed benthic flux systems to measure net calcification rates on coral reefs as a proxy for reef health. Currently our group is working on improving benthic flux systems for long term, sustained measurements; studying high frequency dynamics in coastal systems such as coral reefs, kelp forests, and sea grass beds; operating pH sensors on underwater gliders; and refining our thermodynamic model of CO2 chemistry in seawater to establish robust calibration protocols for pH sensors on autonomous sensor networks such as gliders and profiling floats. 

I have been a scientist at MBARI since 2017. I received my Ph.D. at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego under Todd Martz, and did a postdoc under Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution for Science 

I also hold an adjunct faculty position in the Ocean Sciences (link: https://oceansci.ucsc.edu/) department at the University of California Santa Cruz. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carbon Fluxes and Ocean Acidification During the Paleocene-Eocene – January 30th

Jim Zachos, UCSC
Moss Landing Marine Labs Seminar Series - January 30th, 2020

Hosted by The Geological Oceanography Lab

MLML Seminar Room, 4pm

Open to the public

~More information to come~

 

Jim Zachos's research interests encompass a wide variety of problems related to the biological, chemical, and climatic evolution of late Cretaceous and Cenozoic oceans. He measures the chemical composition of shells from marine sediments to reconstruct past changes in ocean temperature & circulation, continental ice-volume, productivity, and carbon cycling. His research is oriented toward identifying the mechanisms responsible for driving long and short-term changes in global climate.

Zachos, his students, and colleagues are currently participating in several projects oriented toward understanding the nature of rapid and extreme climate transitions in earth's past. These projects involve the application of stable isotope and trace metal ratios to reconstruct the ocean temperature and chemistry for several episodes of extreme climates including the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (~56 mya), the middle- and early Eocene Climatic Optimums, as well as subsequent long-term cooling trends. This also includes work to quantify rare episodes of ocean acidification (acid oceans) that accompanied several of the transient warmings. He is also utilizing sediment archives to establish the approximate timing and extent of continental glaciations during the Oligocene and Miocene epochs (between 15 to 35 million years ago).