currenttidings2022-3

Current Tidings

Shannon Point Marine Center

Volume 2022, Issue 3

WA State senators and DNR visit eelgrass tanks at SPMC 

DNR and Senators Visit SPMC

On October 3rd, SPMC hosted a visit by staff from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Washington Senate Natural Resources Committee, which included five Washington State senators (Christine Rolfes, Jesse Salamon, Derek Stanford, Kevin Van De Wege, and Judy Warnick) and several caucus staff. The goal of the visit, which was arranged by Dr. Sylvia Yang, was to report on the status of eelgrass and kelp in Washington State. Max Showalter, Policy Advisor in the Office of the Commissioner of Public Lands, gave an overview of DNR kelp and eelgrass policies before DNR specialists spoke about the science of kelp and eelgrass. The presentations were sobering, telling a tale of resources under stress. As one example, Helen Berry shared data demonstrating that the extent of bull kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) beds in the South Puget Sound has decreased 63% since monitoring started in 1878 with individual sub-basins showing losses up to 96% and individual beds simply “winking out”.

Key to addressing the problem is research to help us better understand these important marine resources, particularly in our rapidly changing climate. To that end, after the DNR presentations, Derek Smith took the group around SPMC highlighting the kelp and eelgrass research being done here - and there is a lot. The tour included a stop in the aquarium room where Dr. Kathy Van Alstyne and graduate student Sophie Boyd are studying the ability of kelp to absorb heavy metals and the physiological impacts of that process. Morgan Eisenlord, a visiting researcher and instructor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, shared her work on invertebrate vectors and transmission of eelgrass wasting disease. The group then visited the outdoor yard where Dr. Sylvia Yang has built one of the few systems in the state where eelgrass is actively grown for research purposes. Sylvia and one of her undergraduate advisees showed the temperature-controlled system where they have grown eelgrass for many months under different temperature regimes and explained what they are learning about eelgrass growth, development and health, and climate stressors.

The visit was an excellent opportunity to showcase research being done at SPMC, connect with some of our state legislators, and build on a good relationship we have developed with the Washington Department of Natural Resources. It was a good day!

Planned Upgrade to Sundquist Marine Laboratory

The Shannon Point Marine Center was founded in 1974 with the Sundquist Marine Laboratory as the original building. The building has served students, faculty, and staff effectively for nearly 50 years. The student lab, in particular, has been a center of activity, providing learning opportunities for scores of students in WWU course taught through the Biology Department and the Department of Environmental Sciences. The space has also hosted research activities for decades of graduate students in the Marine and Estuarine Sciences Program (MESP) and undergraduate students in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program and the Multicultural Initiative in the Marine Sciences Undergraduate Program (MIMSUP).

Well, it’s time for a facelift.

The Washington State Legislature recently allocated funds for a renovation of the space. The upgrade will address concerns with heating, air circulation, and access. New moveable work surfaces will reflect teaching approaches that emphasize flexibility and adaptability. However, the original brickwork will remain unchanged, maintaining the classic science feel of the laboratory through which so many students have passed. 

Meetings with the architects have begun, and we look forward to working with them to develop a space that retains the best of SPMC history while modernizing the space and tools we used to teach and learn about the oceans. The project will likely have an end date in the late summer or early fall. ”

Morgan Eisenlord: The importance of things you cannot see

As a marine scientist studying the ecology of disease, Morgan’s research casts a wide net, one that is already woven with many other research strands in the Shannon Point and WWU communities. Her current research addresses seagrass (Zostera spp.) wasting disease. Caused by the protist Labyrinthulina zosterae, this “disease” results from the protist invading the seagrass leaf blade and consuming the material inside the cells. (Predation by any other name!) Working with a whole crop of undergraduates at Shannon Point and on main campus, Morgan’s been asking questions such as, How does this pathogen get from plant to plant - is waterborne transmission involved? And how does it get into the leaf? Does movement of invertebrates such as snails and crabs facilitate spread? What is the prevalence of this disease in Pacific Northwest seagrass beds, and does it contribute to seagrass declines in the region? How much should we worry about “Laby” when we move seagrass around during restoration efforts?

(Left) Causal agent of seagrass wasting disease, protist L. zosterae. (Right)   Seagrass blades infected by L. zosterae (dark sections). 

Morgan grew up in Maine where she first fell in love with the ocean. After starting her studies in English Literature, her desire to work in nature pulled her out west, where she eventually made her way into the University of Washington Biology program and thence to Friday Harbor Labs. The saying “the rest is history” certainly applies here. At FHL Morgan met Dr. Drew Harvell, a marine disease ecologist from Cornell who hired Morgan to help with experiments on sea star wasting disease. This was early in the disease trajectory, so Morgan was in on the entire process of designing laboratory and field investigations to track down the then-unknown disease agent(s) and document their effects¹. Undoubtedly this fueled Morgan’s interest in the influence of “things you cannot see” on larger organisms. Ultimately Morgan enrolled as a doctoral student at Cornell. She landed on seagrass wasting disease as her focus because pure cultures of the pathogen were available for experimental work (unusual in marine disease ecology), and because little was known about the prevalence of the disease in the PNW.

Morgan (front) with a student in the PNW intertidal 

At WWU Morgan has already collaborated with Dr. Kathy Van Alstyne to investigate seagrass defenses against the protist invader. She’s also worked with Dr. Sylvia Yang at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, doing surveys to understand local-scale variations in infection rates. She’s thinking about proposals to continue this research and is enthusiastic about continued student engagement, wanting to make space for undergraduates in her lab and ensure that they feel supported. And in her spare time she’s taught several courses for the Environmental Sciences department. When Morgan has time to relax, she enjoys hiking in our beautiful area or (reaching back to her English Literature roots!) settling in with a book. Non-fiction, literature, and historical fiction are some of her favorite genres. Shannon Point is fortunate to have this master of disease detection and champion of undergraduate research as part of our community!

¹Eisenlord, M.E., Groner, M.L., Yoshioka, R.M., Elliott, J., Maynard, J., Fradkin, S., Turner, M., Pyne, K., Rivlin, N., Van Hooidonk, R. and Harvell, C.D., 2016. Ochre star mortality during the 2014 wasting disease epizootic: role of population size structure and temperature. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1689), p.20150212.

Megan Moma: Happy to Help

Second-year Biology graduate student Megan Moma has been busy improving our Shannon Point workplace this fall. Megan is the Marine and Coastal Sciences (MACS) teaching assistant for the quarter, a major change from a year spent as a Biology 101 TA on main campus. According to lab manager Derek Smith, Megan is full of energy and ideas. She’s been doing everything from organizing gear in the boat shed, to moving sea tables in preparation for the painting that’s been happening, to plankton tows for the Marine Science Scholars. A welcome contribution is the series of Canvas (on line) courses she’s putting together for users of shared equipment at SPMC. These tutorials will introduce the plankton nets, LiCor light meter, hand-held Castaway CTD, drying ovens, and others.

Megan’s research, in Dr. Jim Cooper’s lab, is looking at the effect of PCB toxins on zebra fish development. She came to fish biology via a winding path involving rattlesnakes, box turtles, and a summer dealing with invasive fish for the Wyoming Game and Fish Service. When she’s not studying zebra fish or wrangling equipment at Shannon Point she likes to play fetch with her ball-obsessed lab mix Bonnie, settle in with a book, or take in the latest episodes of the Great British Baking Show. As Megan shared during her interview with me, “I’m excited to be here and to help - just reach out!”

Wyatt Heimbichner Goebel: Settling In

As a second-year Biology graduate student with some months of research under his belt, Wyatt’s experiences so far bring to mind the adage “expect the unexpected”. Working in Dr. Shawn Arellano’s lab, Wyatt’s thesis is addressing questions about microbial biofilm characteristics that influence invertebrate larval settlement. At Shannon Point this past summer he used the sea tables to incubate glass cover slips and generate natural biofilms. The plan was to test barnacle larvae for their settlement response, but (unhelpfully!) the barnacles produced parasitic isopods rather than offspring. Wyatt plans to try again in spring to capture the overwintering brood of local barnacle larvae.

Wyatt is soon to embark on his first-ever oceanographic cruise to carry out the second portion of his planned research. The team of scientists and a film crew (video, not microbial) will travel to the vent fields of the East Pacific Rise in December, using the manned submersible Alvin to place and recover glass plates for biofilm formation. In addition to placing new plates, the research team has plates contained in invertebrate-excluding mesh ‘purses’ that should have developed biofilms over the past months; these will be pulled out so they can be colonized (ideally!) during the time the team is at sea. Wyatt did admit that he was happy to let others have “the fun” of descending into the deep sea for many hours in a tiny metal sphere. . . Meanwhile he’s is getting trained up on the new confocal microscope housed at Scientific Technical Services on main campus. Wyatt will use this amazing tool, which can generate 3-D views of living materials, to measure thickness, cell density, and the proportion of live cells in the biofilms.

(Left) Cyprid larval stage of a barnacle (possibly headed for a biofilm?) (Right) Parasitic isopod Hemioniscus balani

One of Wyatt’s passions is spoken word poetry, a wonderful art form stemming from ancient oral poetry traditions. As an undergraduate he participated in national collegiate poetry slams and he notes that there is considerable cross-over between biology and poetry. In line with Wyatt’s literary interests, he worked at the WWU library coordinating programs for the Research and Writing Studio before starting graduate school. He’s a fan of the outdoors as well, enjoying the rich array of mountains and beaches we are lucky to have in the Pacific Northwest. We wish you well on your upcoming adventures, Wyatt - may your biofilms thrive, and your larvae behave!

Kathy Van Alstyne's recent publication on contaminant levels in edible Salish Sea seaweeds was featured on Western Today.

Jay Dimond is a collaborator on a new NSF grant with the Pacific Northwest Research Institute as lead: "Quantifying and modeling the transmission dynamics of bivalve transmissible neoplasia". Jay shares that this is a really interesting study system involving a rare kind of transmissible cancer in our local cockle species, Clinocardium nuttallii. He’ll be doing the genotyping of the individuals for population genetics as well as the cancer lineages. Jay’s recent pinto abalone eDNA research was also just published.

Suzanne Strom's group is out of the field after three cruises this year to the northern Gulf of Alaska. The last one on R.V. Tiglax in September was ably staffed by technicians Kerri Fredrickson and Kelley Bright.

Suzanne and graduate student Megan O'Hara attended the September LTER Network All-Scientists Meeting in Pacific Grove, CA. Megan gave a poster presentation on her M.S. thesis research, while Suzanne presented in a cross-site synthesis session that led to a recently submitted LTER synthesis proposal:

O’Hara, M. and Strom, S. High biomass indicates the importance of small cells.
Strom, S. and the NGA LTER Team. Disturbance drives producer - consumer change in the northern Gulf of Alaska.

Suzanne was also an invited presenter at the Puget Sound Phytoplankton Vital Signs Workshop on October 19, hosted by the Puget Sound Partnership. 

(Left) Strom lab summer cruise participants on R.V. Sikuliaq in front of the Aialik Glacier (L to R: New graduate student Jaime Blais, Suzanne, REU student Frankie Lopez, graduate student Megan O’Hara. Kelley also sailed but was probably busy working. . .)  (Right) Kerri and Kelley plus rainbow on the fall cruise

Shawn Arellano's group just finished an Alvin cruise (the last in a series of 4) to the Gulf of Mexico and southeast U.S. coast. Tessa Beaver and Dexter Davis (WWU alumni) along with Will Penrose (WWU undergrad / REU intern) all went on their first Alvin dives, which were appropriately celebrated!

Graduate student Mitch Hebner was selected as 2023 Knauss Marine Policy Fellow and starts the program this February.

Graduate student Michelle McCartha was selected for participation in the International FISH course at the University of Vienna.

WWU undergrad and Arellano Lab REU Intern Maia Heffernan (profiled in the Summer 2022 newsletter) will be presenting at the Western Society of Naturalist meeting in mid-November, as will Mitch Hebner.

Post-doc Tanika Ladd was awarded an RSP grant for a pilot study that she is developing at WWU, entitled "Using DNA metabarcoding to elucidate trophic interactions in planktonic communities at hydrothermal vents."

New Alvin divers are initiated! Top: Dexter Davis and Tessa Beaver Left/Middle: Dexter Davis and Will Penrose Right/Bottom: Tessa Beaver and Shawn Arellano

Newsletter content prepared by Suzanne L. Strom (stroms@wwu.edu).  "Happenings at SPMC" prepared by Brian Bingham (bingham@wwu.edu).