CHESAPEAKE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY | SOLOMONS, MDDECEMBER 2022ISSUE 76Lab Lines1IN THIS ISSUE:DIRECTOR’S VIEW24As this year draws to a close, I want to thank each of you for all you have done for CBL over the last year. Each of you has worked hard to help us fulll our mission of conducting environmental research to inform Marylanders and to train the next generation of leaders. We have achieved some amazing things this year - some great papers, some wonderful students, and sta who go the extra mile every day. All of your work makes working at CBL such an immense sense of pride for me. It is easy to sing your praises to anyone who will listen. This commitment to the community has paid o. You will hear some very exciting news from the President's Oce before the Holidays - a transformative gift to CBL.This gift represents an investment in us because the donors believe the work we all do to be critical for the future of the planet, and they believe that we are the best institution to undertake the work. At a time when there are many groups competing for funding, the condence in the future of CBL that this gift represents is humbling. But I know we will all work to repay this immense vote of condence.So, I hope you will enjoy reading the news. More fervently, I hope that you will nd time to spend time with family and friends over the holiday, so that when we all gather in the New Year, we will be refreshed and revived and ready to rise to meet the challenges and opportunities that 2023 will bring.Happy Holidays to each of you.AROUND THE LAB/ PUBLICATIONSIN CASE YOU MISSED IT65SILVER EEL ARTICLEOUTREACH 81SAFETY CORNER7
In Case You Missed ItAnna Hildebrand won 1st place for the best Student Poster Presentation at the 2022 MEES (USM) Annual Col-loquium. Her poster was titled “Anaerobic Oxidation of Methane (AOM) as a Mechanism for the production of Dissolved Organic Carbon from Estuaries to Steeps.” Lisa Wainger was an invited panelist exploring how to "accelerate progress and meet the ambitious 2050 goals set for enhancing the shoreline and shallow water habitats of the Hudson Raritan Estuary". Over 180 participants participated in the virtual discussion of how to scale up initial successes, create economic incentives and remove regulatory and other barriers to restoration.Lisa Wainger and Dan Read gave a talk on December 8, 2022 to the Chesapeake Bay Program's Management Board titled, "Integrating Social Science for Adaptive Mangement in CBP" where they presented their ndings and recommendations from a 2-year study on how social science has been and could be applied to achieve Chesapeake Bay restoration goals. The Management Board is chaired by the Director of the Chesapeake Bay Pro-gram and "works to provide strategic planning, set priorities and oer operational guidance to the Bay Program, including overseeing the goal implementation teams and implementation of the management strategies." 2
In Case You Missed ItLee Cooper and Christina Goethel traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark in November for a workshop at the Danish Technical University that involved work on strategic planning for the Marine Working Group of the Internation-al Arctic Science Committee, including plans to help host a program coordination oce for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development for the Arctic Ocean.Lee Cooper and Jackie Grebmeier will travel to Chicago for the AGU meeting, including an invited talk by Lee Cooper on planning for an Arctic program oce for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Develop-ment, and both will attend a PI meeting for NOAA's Arctic Research Program.Jackie Grebmeier, Alynne Bayard, Andrea Pfa, Christina Goethel and Lee Cooper traveled to Victoria, British Columbia in early December, for the biannual Pacic Arctic Group (PAG) meeting and a data meeting for the Distributed Biological Observatory. The PAG meeting brought together scientists from China, Korea, the US, and Canada to discuss research coordination and planning and present research results. Everyone traveling from CBL presented recent research results. Alynne Bayard enjoys the ferry ride from the mainland to Vancouver Island.We are saying goodbye to another cohort of 7 CSM interns who have been working on campus this semester, contributing to various research projects. This autumn's CSM interns include: Amber Gieske, Meredith Dance, Mir-iam Santiago, Kyle Jenks, Lauren Black, David (Mac) Bailey, and Danielle Deville. Thanks to all of the grad students, FRAs, and faculty who spent time mentoring these young future scientists. We are also welcoming expressions of interest from CBL faculty that are interested in mentoring a CSM intern next semester (Spring 2023). Please send Ryan Woodland an email if you are interested and have not yet contacted him. Carys Mitchelmore gave an invited virtual presentation on ‘Coral toxicity testing; challenges and future directions’ at the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety meeting on 21st November 2022.On November 2nd Carys Mitchelmore gave a presentation and was part of a panel discussion on 'toxicity test-ing' at the 99th Meeting of the National Academies Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Ocean Studies Board in Washington DC.Carys Mitchelmore was quoted in Good Housekeeping's article "Everything you need to know about 'reef-safe' sunscreen." 3
In Case You Missed ItNicholas Coleman successfully defended and submitted his MS thesis this October-November and completed his NOAA EPP LMRCSC Fellowship Program. His work providing estimates of sturgeon spawning run sizes was instru-mental in deterring the development of a large salmon factory along the banks of the Marshyope Creek, where sturgeon spawn. He currently works as an Environmental Policy Analyst in the Oce of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. Nicholas with supervisor Dave Secor and MD DNR colleague Ashlee Horne.Dave Secor visited University of Tokyo’s Atmosphere Ocean and Research Institute in November to present re-search on sheries and wind regimes in the Mid-Atlantic and discuss future collaboration. Dr. Hikaru Itakura, past CBL PostDoc and now Assistant Professor at AORI hosted his visit.4
Elusive silver eel migrations detected in the Chesapeake mainstem for the rst timeAuthor: Mike O'BrienWhen Sheila Eyler of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) tagged 16 American eels 75 miles upstream of the Conowingo Dam she knew where they might end up – in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the Sargasso Sea – but whether they could traverse the major dams of the Susquehanna and how they would get there were still mysteries. Detections provided by the Chesapeake Biotelemetry Backbone, funded in part by the JES Avanti Foundation, have shown for the rst time how these eels migrate out of the Bay.American eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, hatching into transparent leptocephalus larvae while riding ocean currents into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The larvae transform into glass eels and migrate upstream, where they live and grow as yellow eels for 5-20 years. When the eel is ready to spawn, they stop eating and turn into silver eels for their terminal trek back to the Sargasso Sea. Where, exactly, they go in the Sargasso is still un-known; when they spawn is only inferred from the presence of larvae.Identifying when silver eels leave the Chesapeake may shed some light on this mysterious migration. For many years, we assumed the eels migrated between August and November – it’s when scattered silver eels appeared in pots and pound nets and it’s when they’re known to migrate in New England. However, it now looks like silver eels leave the Chesapeake during winter months. As is the case with other unexpected discoveries (see Atlantic sturgeon: Not the ‘ghosts’ I once thought they were, Bay Journal 2021), we were looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong tools.Enter the Chesapeake Bay Biotelemetry Backbone: a broad partnership between the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, NOAA Chesapeake Bay Oce, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. The team aims to deploy biotelemetry arrays in a sustained, year-round manner that covers major portions of the Chesapeake Bay. Each array is located near “pinch-points” in the Chesapeake, chosen to maximize chance encounters with electronically tagged sh. Most importantly, the array is constantly listening for sh – even through the cold winter months – and does away with the need to directly capture shes such as the cryptic silver eel.In the rst year of Eyler’s eel tagging, the Chesapeake Bio-logical Laboratory’s backbone array detected ve tagged Susquehanna eels passing by the mouth of the Patux-ent River, MD. The silver eels blew by on their way to tropical Sargasso latitudes in the dead of winter – between late-December and mid-February – rather than fall months as in New England. Further, their stalwart migration emerging from the Conowingo and other major dams is good news for conservation eorts to restore American eels to the Susquehanna River. With USFWS planning to tag 200 more silver eels in the next 2 years and sustained deployment of the Chesapeake Bay Biotelemetry Backbone, knowledge of the timing and extent of Chesapeake silver eel migrations will only increase.5
Around the LabPublicationsMcNaughton, C., Cook, P.L.M., Wong, W.W., Koster, W.M., Reich, P., Jenkins, G.P., Cartwright, I., Beardall, J., Wood-land, R.J., 2022. Environmental ows stimulate estuarine plankton communities by altered salinity structure and enhanced nutrient recycling. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 279, 108157 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771422004152?dgcid=author) [UMCES Contribution No. 6235]Important Info Tech Information!Governor Hogan has released an emergency directive banning some hard-ware, software, and cloud products. These products cannot be used by any university owned equipment or accessed by wired or wireless networks available at CBL. A list of products include (but are not limited to): Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corp, Tencent QQ, QQ Wallet, WeChat, Alibaba products, including AliPay, Kaspersky, TikTokFor more information, please click hereBusiness Operations Reminders:The holidays are upon us and the campus will be closed December 24-January 2. The Business Oce will not be placing orders that don't have a guaranteed delivery date prior to 12/23. Please plan accordingly. Chesapeake Analytical Collaborative BuildingDesign, planning, permitting and pre-construction activities are well-underway. It will be spring of 2023 before we know it and this gem will begin to take shape on the CBL campus. 6
Around CampusThis month I have an excerpt from the Hazard Communication standard on toxicology. It is important to remember that just because you are using a chemical below its LD 50 does not mean you will not suer some eect if you have an accident. It may not be fatal, but it can incapacitate, cause chromosomal or DNA damage, cancers and other maladies that may not be readily apparent. So please be sure to use the appropriate PPE when using toxic chemicals in the lab and at home.Hazard Communication Right to know OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1200 (pg.4)The science of toxicology is based on the principle that there is a relationship between a toxic reaction (the response) and the amount of poison received (the dose). An important assumption in this relationship is that there is almost always a dose below which no response occurs or can be measured. A second assumption is that once a maximum response is reached, any further increases in the dose will not result in any increased eect. Knowing the dose/response relationship is a necessary part of understanding the cause and eect relationship between exposure and illness. "The right dose dierentiates a poison from a remedy”. One of the more commonly used measures of toxicity is the LD50. The LD50 (the lethal dose for 50 percent of the animals tested) of a poison is usually expressed in milligrams of chemical per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg). A chemical with a small LD50 (like 5 mg/kg) is very highly toxic. The more toxic a material, the smaller amount necessary to cause harm. A chemical with a large LD50 (1,000 to 5,000 mg/kg) is practically non-toxic. Recognize that the LD50 says nothing about non-lethal toxic eects though. A chemical may have a large LD50, but may produce illness at very small exposure levels. It is incorrect to say that chemicals with small LD50s are more dangerous than chemicals with large LD50s, they are simply more toxic. The more toxic a material is, the smaller the amount of it necessary to be absorbed before harmful eects are caused. The lower the toxicity, the greater the quantity is needed for it to be absorbed and be harmful. The danger, or risk of adverse eect of chemicals, is mostly determined by how they are used, not by the inherent toxicity of the chemical itself.In Memoriam – Elizabeth Grin - December 10, 1997 Elizabeth Grin was a 22-year-old student at Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University. She worked with diseased animals and had always been careful to use a mask and gloves when working with them and she was usually separated from them by a mesh cage. However, one day she was helping to move a hepatitis B infected macaque when the animal ung a piece of feces or urine at her and hit her in the eye. She was wearing her mask and gloves, but did not wear goggles. She dismissed this as inconsequential since it was such a small incident and she was not sure what went into her eye. Ten days later her eye became inamed and four weeks later she became weak in her legs and paralyzed. It was too late for any treatments by the time she was diagnosed with hepatitis B and she later died.https://www.the-scientist.com/news/yerkes-center-osha-settle-death-case-56686http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/dec/13/virus-from-monkey-kills-researcher-22-experts/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/14/us/a-drop-of-virus-from-a-monkey-kills-a-researcher-in-6-weeks.htmlSafety Corner: Know Your Chemicals7
There were many joys and challenges involved in relaunching UMCES Chesapeake Biological Laboratory’s in person outreach programs in 2022, following our two-year closure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your patience, enthusiasm, and volunteerism have been greatly appreciated as we’ve worked together to overcome obstacles and celebrate successes. Thanks to your support, we’ve raised awareness and generated support for our research, education, and public service eorts! Here are some of our impacts from 2022:• 1st “Patuxent River Wade-In” planned under CBL co-leadership• 3,415 individuals engaged at o-campus events• 437 hours volunteered by faculty, sta, students & community docents• 32 volunteers supported the CBL Visitor Center• 1,400+ guests in the CBL Visitor Center• 10 Science for the Community seminars hosted• 1,058 Science for the Community attendees• 16% higher email campaign open rated than our industry averageVisitor Center: Closed for the Winter SeasonThe Chesapeake Biological Laboratory Visitor Center is now closed for the winter season. We look forward to reopening in spring 2023. If you know anyone who might be interested in volunteering as a Visitor Center docent in 2023, please have them contact Outreach Coordinator Sarah Brzezinski at brzezins@umces.edu. Volunteers must be 18 years of age or older. Outreach: Thank You!www.umces.edu/cbl | 410-326-4281P.O. Box 38 | 146 Williams Street | Solomons, MD 20688-00388