Category Archives: research

NOAA launches marine planning site

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A new Web site from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gives visitors tools to learn about marine spatial planning – the ocean equivalent of land-use planning.

The site, at www.msp.noaa.gov, not only lays out basic concepts, but helps visitors  stay on top of current  news and information about marine spatial planning initiatives in the U.S., at both the federal and state levels.

The site also provides access to the tools and data used by organizations involved in marine spatial planning, including mapping and modeling tools, downloadable software and direct access to relevant government databases.

The site’s “In Practice” section profiles a number of state and regional projects involving marine spatial planning, including current Oregon efforts to plan for offshore wave energy projects.

Squid Search: Understanding the spread of a marine predator

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Humbodt Squid necropsyHumboldt squid (aka “jumbo squid”) are large predators that have been turning up in growing numbers in fishermen’s nets off the Oregon coast over the past decade. Now an Oregon State University researcher, with support from Oregon Sea Grant, is working with fishermen and  other partners to develop a database describing the squids’ advance.

Researcher Selena Heppell and her team plan to  focus on the relationship between the expansion of the squids’ northern range and ocean conditions, and the role the animal plays in coastal food webs. Collaborators include collaborate tuna, salmon and hake fishermen, California Sea Grant, the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Oregon Sea Grant Extension, and various departments and faculty at OSU.

Read more about the project in the Heppell Lab blog.

OSU wave energy project on Oregon Field Guide

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Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Oregon Field Guide updates Oregon State University’s research into using the energy of ocean waves to generate electricity. The research, led by OSU electrical engineer Annette von Jouanne, got early support with a small “starter grant” from Oregon Sea Grant.

Since then, Sea Grant Extension agents on the coast have been helping communities learn about the potential benefits – and costs – of wave energy, and serving as liaisons between researchers, power companies and fishermen concerned with how large-scale energy production could affect their livelihoods.

Watch the Oregon Field Guide episode

Read about Sea Grant’s early involvement: [.pdf] [HTML]

Climate change adds uncertainty to fisheries management

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A new analysis of fisheries management concludes that climate change will significantly increase the variability of the size and location of many fish populations, creating uncertainty for fisheries managers – and the need for greater flexibility.

Most management processes are slow and cumbersome, as well as rigid, the authors say, and don’t adequately take climate change and human behavior into account.

“What climate change will do is pit the increased resource variability against the rigidity of the process,” said Susan Hanna, a fishery economist from Oregon State University and co-author of the report.

“Over time, managers will have to become more conservative to account for the greater uncertainty, and we will need to do a better job of understanding the effect of uncertainty on human behavior,” said Hanna, a long-time Oregon Sea Grant economics specialist.

Read more …

Public invited to view great white shark dissection today

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Great white shark thaws for necropsy

A 12-foot white shark—popularly known as a great white shark—that died in August after becoming entangled in the ropes of a crab pot, will become the focus of scientists this week during its dissection at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.

The public is invited to view the necropsy, which will be performed over two days.

“It is a shame that the shark became entangled in the ropes and died, but the specimen still has a great deal of scientific and educational value,” said William Hanshumaker, the OSU center’s marine education specialist, who is coordinating the necropsy. “Top predators such as this are difficult to study and we don’t know a lot about where they migrate or breed.”

Hanshumaker, who also is a faculty member for Sea Grant Extension at OSU, will remove the shark from the freezer today (Thursday, October 1, 2009) and put it on public display in a roped-off section of the HMSC’s Visitor’s Center beginning at 10 a.m. Visitors may observe the shark via video camera in the Hennings Auditorium—including necropsy activities, which begin late this afternoon.

At 4:30 p.m. today, Dr. Brion Benninger, of the Neurological Sciences Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, will remove the shark’s spinal accessory nerve, where it will be used in OHSU neurological studies.

Tomorrow (Friday, October 2) a series of procedures is planned. Wade Smith, a doctoral student at OSU specializing in shark studies, will conduct measurements of the shark beginning at 11 a.m., and discuss his findings with a fishery biology class taught by OSU professor Scott Heppell. At 1 p.m., OSU students from two classes will examine the shark and hear experts present information on shark diversity, the white shark’s biology and movements, its unique features, and conservation issues.

At 2 p.m., Tim Miller-Morgan of OSU will examine the shark for external parasites, and at 2:30 p.m., Hanshumaker will measure the animal’s teeth and bite impression. At 3 p.m., Smith will conclude the dissection by collecting biological materials, the vertebra, muscle tissue, the dorsal fin and teeth—all of which have scientific value.

“There are researchers from throughout the country who are interested in what we’re doing here and have requested sample materials,” Hanshumaker said. “This also is an opportunity for the public to observe first-hand this unique creature and how scientists conduct research and share information.”

Samples from the white shark will be sent to: Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station; Alaska Department of Fish and Game; University of California-Santa Cruz; California State University-Long Beach; Monterey Bay Aquarium; and Nova Southeastern University.

The samples will provide data for studies ranging from genetics to toxicology, to age and growth data.

(Edited from a news release written by Mark Floyd, OSU News Service, and published online Wednesday, September 30, at democratherald.com)

(photo by Julie Howard, HMSC)

NOAA highlights Oregon Sea Grant’s work on climate change communications

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It is a common belief that if coastal resource managers and other communicators could just provide the public with information, people would take appropriate actions. But social scientists conducting research for the past 50 years have found this assumption riddled with misconceptions and are shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior.

—”Helping Managers Communicate Climate Change in Oregon,” Coastal Services magazine, September/October 2009

Among those who are “shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior,” particularly with regard to climate change, is Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant. Cone believes that “understanding more about how social science relates to climate science will help us all do our work better and help communities prepare.”

In addition to the Coastal Services article, Cone’s work in this field is featured in several Oregon Sea Grant publications and podcasts.

Fishermen monitor pregnant fish to aid conservation

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Port Orford fishermen are working with scientists to find out whether releasing pregnant rockfish can help conserve the resource – and their way of life.

Research assistant with rockfish

Research assistant with rockfish

Fishermen are working with the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) and researcher Selina Heppell, of Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, on a project to determine whether releasing “big old fat fecund females” (BOFFFs) can contribute to the species’ reproduction and survival, ultimately sustaining the local fishery.

Their efforts, supported by a grant from Oregon Sea Grant, are focused on the live fishery – a market that began in California and expanded into Oregon in the mid-1990s.

Read more: [.pdf] [HTML]

Sea Grant shares in public education grant

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Oregon Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning program will join with the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Maryland Science Center and others in a three-year effort to expand professional development opportunities for museum, aquariums, zoo and park educators in an effort to improve informal science education.

The project, known as the Communicating Ocean Sciences Informal Education Network, is funded through a National Science Foundation initiative aimed at fostering and improving the kind of informal science education that takes place at aquariums, museums and other learning centers.

Leading the team for OSU is Shawn Rowe, Sea Grant marine education and learning specialist and an assistant professor with the OSU Department of Science and Math Education. Rowe heads Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning program, which studies the kind of learning people do outside the classroom.

Rowe’s program uses the Visitor Center at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport as a living lab for studying various approaches to informal science education, how to engage visitors and what kind of information people take away from their aquarium visits.

The Sea Grant program will receive more than $278,000 from the NSF over the next three years to develop training, workshops and curricula for informal science educators, and to continue work the program has already begun to foster a network of informal science educators and scientists who want to communicate their work to the public.

Read more about Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning program here.