“Whatcha doing there, Radha?” by Vincent Irizarry

While out in the field at Blackwater, we were looking for herbivory amongst our plots which consisted of non-vegetated and vegetated plots. These silver metal pieces were actually turned into homemade animal track plates using ethanol, mineral oil, and graphite powder. Radha, Taylor, Keryn, and I mixed the ethanol, oil, and graphite powder to create homemade ink. The ink was later spread across the tract plates and, these were later used in the field to see if animal activity was present.

Trimble Geo 7x: by Vincent S. Irizarry

  

The device that I am holding above is called a Trimble Geo7x. It is a Real Time Kinetic Global Positioning System (RTK GPS) device that connects to satellites around the world which relay a signal to the upper round disk in the photo. RTK systems can be used for a variety of field work purposes from documenting plant species in a programmed database, to photographing plant species, but most importantly the Trimble helps with spatial mapping. Under the guidance of Dr. Keryn Gedan I was able to survey a range of tidal marsh plots on the Blackwater Refuge area from previously forested lands that have now been cut (controlled) to our no vegetation/vegetation Control East & West sites. The Trimble RTK is capable of finding elevation of the lands in meters which precision as close to 1 centimeter.

“Why is it so important that you find the elevation of the lands in such precise measurements?”

In the beginning of our research project, we already started knowing that there was a high marsh elevation, a mid elevation, and a low elevation due to the changes in plant species and habitat, but the land is so flat that it is difficult to perceive these small differences in elevation. Under the supervision of Dr. Keryn Gedan I learned that although we can visually see the physical change in ecotone elevation, this proposal needs to be backed by actual numerical values. While using the Trimble RTK we acknowledged that on the Control Sites some of the numerical values did in fact correspond with what we expected but, in other areas where variation looked significant different the data showed the numerical values were less dramatic in change.

In the swamps, June 2015

By Vincent Irizarry, Radha Patel, and Taylor Howard

These loblolly pine trees reside on higher elevation marsh lands. As you navigate to lower lying areas, you can see where increased salinity has killed trees. (V.I)

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge:

• BNWR is a natural salt marsh area in Maryland that serves as a protective barrier for coastal communities and farmland throughout the region.
• Storms and sea level rise associated with climate change has flooded communities and salt marshes in the eastern shore of Maryland near BNWR.
• Marsh lands are migrating inland due to sea level rise and saltwater intrusion into the uplands is rapidly occurring. Lower elevation areas are most vulnerable.
• The salinity of the marshes is impacting forests and farmlands. In the forests, this results in “ghost forests” with dead tree stumps, while in the farmlands, it results in killed crops.

Disturbed farmland. The brown area was sprayed to kill invasive Phragmites australis that enters areas where crops have been killed due to salinity. (V.I)

On the second day of our trip to the eastern shore, we toured local farm communities to observe the ecological damage. Within the last ten years alone 1,500 acres of farmland have been lost. Water running off of farms is high in nitrate and phosphorus due to fertilizer use. Nutrient rich water entering the Chesapeake Bay causes eutrophication, or poor water quality. In addition, in areas of high nutrients and disturbed soils, the invasive plant Phragmites australis grows. Phragmites is a weed that reduces salt marsh plant biodiversity and can be very difficult to get rid of. (V.I)

“But it’s just some grass, who cares?”

“We have plenty of other farms.”

As Phragmites continue to ravage the land, it takes up space that could be used for commodity crops that we all love such as corn, wheat, and soy. These lands are important not only to the local farm economy but to our national food security. Farmers within the area have entire livelihoods dependent on these lands. Many farmers are unwilling to give up these lands to government sponsored ecological succession programs.

Farms such as this one above produce high quantities of crops such as soy and corn. This farm has been exposed to salt water through flooding, as evidenced by the lack of crop growth near the edges of the plot. The likelihood of producing a quality yield is unknown.(V.I)

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What would be produced on the farm.

During a part of another project, we collected water, grass, and soil samples for analysis. The water samples were tested by a small, portable analytical chemistry device to determine levels of Nitrate in the water near the farms. The FDA approves drinking water up to 10 units of Nitrate, yet many of these samples were in the 20s and 30s. Another intern in the lab is working on analyzing the soil and grass samples.

Goats do roam

Not to goad you into visiting my blog more often...(cue the snare drum)...but this is another story about goats, and there's more to come!

With co-authors Brian Silliman, Tom Mozdzer, Christine Angelini, Jennifer Brundage, Peter Esselink, Jan Bakker, Johan van de Koppel, and Andy Baldwin, I've published a paper in PeerJ about goat control of the invasive common reed Phragmites australis. Goats were enclosed in Phragmites stands for about 9 weeks over the course of two summers to control Phragmites growth and allow for native plant regrowth.

It worked! Phragmites stem density and stem height were reduced by 50-60% and plant diversity increased 4-fold in enclosures relative to ungrazed controls. We also found that cows and horses readily eat Phragmites, and that it provides a nutritional fodder for them, especially in the early summer. We recommend livestock grazing as a tool for managing invasive Phragmites when grazers can be enclosed and rotated across the landscape in short durations.

Please read the paper and leave comments on the PeerJ webpage. 

More info on the effect of goat control of invasive species in secondary forest understory coming soon....

Put a little mussel in it

A press release and blog post about my recent Restoration Ecology article with co-authors Lisa Kellogg and Denise Breitburg about incorporating water filtration by bent mussels into water quality models of oyster reef restoration: 

Study puts some mussels into Bay restoration http://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/mussels.php

Oysters have sidekick in Chesapeake Bay clean-up http://sercblog.si.edu/?p=5331

Notes from a goat watcher

Although my attention is usually focused on the coast, this week I'm thinking about goats. Yes, goats. They were herded onto a small, urban park on the Anacostia River to eat the tangled, thorny vine-covered vegetation dominating the Kingman and Heritage Islands Park. A company called Eco-Goats rents the goats by the herd for this purpose. With the help of some excellent Conservation Biology graduate students at UMD (Holla to Annette Spivy, Syrena Johnson, Kate Ortenzi, Liz Schotman, and Whitney Hoot!) as well as Smithsonian botanist Norm Bourg, I set up monitoring plots in the goat-grazed site and several similar control sites to see what the goats are actually eating.

Initally, the plots were dominated by a suite of invasive and noxious plants: Japanese honeysuckle, Asian porcelainberry, and poison ivy. Observations of the goats browsing showed that they will eat all of these. Stay tuned for more results. For now, here are some photos and punny observations from Whitney about the goats:

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Notes from a goat watcher:

- When I arrived, the goats were grazing near the fence, where their water buckets are placed. Unfortunately, this is to the west of out plot; I did not see any goats enter our plot area.

- I counted 31 goats, but that is a rough estimate. They are cute, but also creepy. I would look down to write in my notebook, look up and they'd all be staring at me. They get stuck in vines and trip sometimes. I laughed. They did not. Goats don't joke. But they do kid.

- I watched the goats for about 15 min before they all left the area for a while. They headed around the path to the southernmost tip of the island; I walked from one end of the fence to the other, but couldn't see them, so went off to flag one control plot. Came back about 30 min later; still no goats. Flagged the other control site. Came back 20 min later and the goats had returned. So, the goats do bugger off. It is possible that I disturbed them. They were definitely aware of me. But they did come back.

Whitney Hoot
M.S. Candidate in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology
M.P.P. Candidate in Environmental Policy
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Beyond the paper, the paper airplane gives a birds' eye view of science communication

This week in Nature, Jason Priem, the co-founder of ImpactStory ("tell the full story of the impact of your research"), describes the future of scientific publishing. He envisions a scientific publishing path wherein publication and peer review are decoupled and occur in the opposite order of the traditional model: first publication, followed by peer review by a restricted audience or even the great masses of online readers. After publication, the online community can assess and promote or demote research based on readers' opinions as well as a host of "altmetrics," measures that go way beyond citation counts to include reads, blog coverage, tweets, and mentions. Moreover, the online revolution of scientific publishing will allow scientists to communicate results at a variety of stages - raw or processed data can be posted for users without going through the work to produce a formal publication. Online tools being developed to facilitate these changes, and, indeed, many already exist (e.g. Rubriq, an independent peer review service).

These developments would provide huge benefits - increased dissemination, improvements in the publication process (e.g. greater speed of publication, reduced cost), and, most certainly, greater transparency into the scientific process. And there are very few legitimate drawbacks. To those who believe that we can't or shouldn't quantify scientific impact, employing altmetrics and a greater diversity of factors to represent impact should do a better job than simple citation counts, a metric already in wide use. These tools will break down the exclusivity of science, an outcome most will see as a positive direction.

The only major drawback that I see is one we deal with constantly in the information age, being able to manage and process the streams of information in our lives, which have magnified at an alarming rate. Priem sees the new rankings of altmetrics as the answer to this problem as well, with online tools that create a personally-tailored "journal" or RSS feed that highlights the most relevant research to your personal interests.

 I do worry about something getting lost here. How will I ever keep comprehensive track of my discipline? Whereas a few years ago, I felt as though I never missed an important publication and could confidently identify the important literature published in my field, nowadays the published and online literature has grown gangly. Also, what will become of the cross-disciplinary spark that comes from happening across a research article digressive from my own interests in a general science journal, a feeling which thrills my A.D.D. science-brain?

These concerns stem from my discomfort in confronting a new landscape, rather than any substantive impediment to online publishing. Learning the new landscape will require trial and error. It might not be painless, but at least I'll probably learn something. Overall, the development of more open, online models like the Public Library of Science is a positive development in science that will make us more effective at communicating our findings to colleagues and the public, and, in the vein of Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter, likely open up a host of new possibilities that I can scarcely imagine. I just worry about the eyestrain.

Read the story: Scholarship: Beyond the paper

Badass Census Bureau

It's not my usual maritima fare, but in the spirit of the holidays, a little something to make you smile on another topic of interest - the U.S. Census Bureau and its fearless employees, who will risk it all just to count you and your housemates.

Gulf of Mexico Restoration Task Force

The Gulf of Mexico Restoration Task Force Strategy (preliminary draft) is open for public comment for one more day. Get your comments in by Wednesday, Oct. 26 11:59 PM EST. Find the report and the comment submission form here: http://www.epa.gov/gulfcoasttaskforce/
My comment is below:

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To the Gulf of Mexico Restoration Task Force:

I commend you on the preliminary Restoration Strategy. Scientists have recognized the decline in coastal and riverine ecosystem health in the Gulf of Mexico states for far too long without any change in practices. A core concept of the plan, to put science and restoration on the same footing with industry, politics, and economics, is outstanding.

As most of the Task Force would no doubt agree, making a good plan is far easier than putting it into action. Too many decisions, for example the locations, priorities, and specific goals for restoration projects, have been left to the states and private and public partners. I worry that when the funding sources come online, they will be diverted from the focal aims of the Strategy. The Task Force should appoint a Science Advisory Commission to oversee and distribute funds for ecological restoration.

Your stated aim of doing restorations within an adaptive management framework is excellent. A substantial portion of funding must be devoted to the effort of adaptive management to support the equipment and labor required for proper monitoring and decision-making. Do not let this issue get sidelined or allow the funding for this to be trivialized. The Task Force should suggest the amount or proportion of resources that are required to be devoted to this pursuit. Please include this revision in the final draft of the Strategy.

Restoration on a scale as large as the Gulf of Mexico has rarely been attempted. Despite the substantial environmental challenges faced by these coastal states, many other regions face similarly daunting environmental degradation. Please ensure that, as the Strategy moves forward, information is collected and made available to scientists and the public so we may learn from this example to improve future large-scale restoration practices. The final draft should include a plan for the release of information on restoration progress and costs.

Thank you for your commendable efforts for restoring the Gulf of Mexico.

Salpy water

On a weekend trip to Long Beach Island, NJ, I was surprised to find the beach littered with salps. However, I was not put off by their abundance as many of the beachgoers and bathers who figured the small, glittering gelatinous animals to be jellyfish.

I myself was not sure what to make of them - I've never previously seen or heard about salp blooms. However, field biologist Gregg Sakowicz from the nearby Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) informed me that they are a common seasonal phenomenon there. I'm not sure what species it was; they had a bit of blue coloration.

Salps are taxanomically unrelated to jellyfish and do not sting. Rather, they are filter feeders that are relatively closely related to vertebrates for an invertebrate. They possess a spinal cord predecessor (notochord) in their larval stage and have a central nervous system. Read more about salp biology on the jellieszone.com.

I made a short video -

Lionfish nuggets

While in Belize, my islandmates Pete Gawne and Jay Dimond speared several lionfish, a predatory invasive fish that is wreaking havoc on coral reef food webs. Then, my friend Randi Rotjan carefully filleted them (photos below), first removing their venomous spines with thickly gloved hands, and then checking out their gut contents for fun (yes, that is the kind of fun scientists have on isolated tropical islands). The lionfish was served as nuggets, fried in seasoned breadcrumbs, with Marie Sharps hot sauce, and it was quite delicious.

Fishing the lionfish, for food and sport, is being used as an invasive control and eradication approach. You too can learn to fillet a lionfish in this instructional video, and then enjoy a great meal and contribute to the cause. Interestingly, others are attempting to train sharks to eat the lionfish, and report visual confirmation of sharks consuming lionfish, albeit in a somewhat engineered scenario.

Global Explorers guest blog

I was in Belize last week at the Smithsonian's Carrie Bow Cay research station, and wrote a guest blog for the New England Aquarium's Explorers Blog with co-authors Dr. Denise Breitburg and Becca Burrell (in the photo below) about our new research in mangrove ponds.
Read our post: "What the floc?!"

Forsythia, harbinger of spring!

From maritima

Forsythia, a non-native shrub commonly used in landscaping, is the first to bloom at SERC. Abundant buds suggest that the other lianas, shrubs, and trees, are not far behind.

In DC, where I live, the cherry blossoms made their glorious and synchronous appearance earlier this week! If you have the ability to visit the capitol in the next week or two, it is the highlight of the year for botanists and tourists alike!

Spattering back to life

2010 was a great year for oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. According to the MD DNR's annual oyster survey, recruitment rates and oyster survival were the highest since 1985 (MD DNR press release). 1997 also saw an exceptional spatfall (spat are recently settled oysters that "rain" out of the water column) but only on the eastern shore oyster bars, whereas this year, oysters recruited throughout the Bay, even in lower salinity waters where recruitment events are rare. Dermo and MSX diseases, major sources of mortality for Bay oysters, were at a low. I'm looking forward to getting back in the Rhode River at SERC to see if any recruits came our way (although the Rhode is never a major area for oyster production).

The MD DNR oyster survey has been conducted since 1939, one of the longest running of its kind, and includes 260 oyster bars.

Cranes in the marsh

I spent a lot of time on I-95 this Thanksgiving weekend. A lot of time. However, in the throng of grumpy travellers, there was a happy sight for which I was thankful. And this small delight came when I least expected it - when traversing the badly degraded Hackensack Meadowlands, which is generally, for me, a mournful crossing. The sight: cranes on the marsh. Not avian cranes...construction cranes!

There is a massive restoration taking place on the Richard Kane Wetlands, where the Meadowlands Conservation Trust and EarthMark Mitigation Services are removing invasive Phragmites, reconnecting tidal creeks, and planting salt marsh grasses on >200 acres of brackish marsh. The area is large - the photo below (a good one, no? I was pleased with it.) does not capture the full area being restored. This work is financed as a "mitigation bank" - companies or agents (in this case, mostly transportation agencies) degrading or destroying wetlands in other places compensate by paying for the restoration improvements. It is positive that this approach can fund truly large scale restoration efforts. However, these positive advances come at the cost of continued wetland degradation and destruction elsewhere. Is this tradeoff the best option for funding restorations?

Eaten to death: salt marshes in Cape Cod

Eric Van Arsdale, a senior at Brown University working with my graduate advisor Mark Bertness, published an excellent op-ed in the Cape Cod times about salt marsh die-off, which is caused by runaway consumption of marsh grass by the nocturnal squareback marsh crab, Sesarma reticulatum. In his article, Eric mentioned a cool You-Tube video of the crab's nighttime activities that I'm re-posting here.

Travels to the South and the North

I've been traveling these past two weeks, first to a TNC workshop in lovely Sanibel Island, Florida, and then to the equally lovely city of Chicago, where I met the other Smith Fellows for a retreat at the Lincoln Park Zoo (LPZ).

Appropriately, we spent the majority of our time at the LPZ in the Great Ape House, where we saw an experiment examining taste preference in chimpanzees. A false termite mound in the chimp enclosure is seeded with different sauces - peanut butter, bbq, ketchup, vinegar - and the scientists can do taste tests to see what flavors chimps prefer, and how the social structure of the chimp group affects an individual's access to condiment resources.

The chimpanzees use sticks to access the condiments, and we saw what zoo intern (a term which does her extensive knowledge and experience no justice) Kathy described as "the most explicit demonstration of tool sharing [she] had ever witnessed," when a crafty adolescent female chimp, coaxed by submissive smiles and an outstretched palm, passed her stick to her mother. How I failed to get this momentous instant on camera is completely beside me.

Instead, here are a few photos of the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, where I cleverly brought my camera.

Invasions

I was hanging with the folks from the Invasions Lab at SERC today, and it reminded me of several photos that I took in the Boqueria in Barcelona, an open-air food market with a heck of a seafood selection. In with the medley of clams, snails, and squid, there was even a green crab (invasive in the northeastern U.S., among other places) - no doubt, an accidental tourist.

Around the lab at SERC

This year, I've moved my home (to Washington, DC), my job (to Smithsonian Environmental Research Center), and my field sites (to the Chesapeake Bay), with many of opportunities to see coastal mid-Atlantic flora and fauna. Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay are rich with life - here are a few photos. (Of course, I've yet to catch on camera many good sightings - blue-tailed skinks, great blue herons, bald eagles, swallowtail butterflies, luna moths, and watersnakes, to name a few. More photos will come later!)

Mi casa es su casa, caterpillar

I saw these house-building caterpillars last week outside of my office at SERC in Edgewater, MD. Anyone know the species? I will rear a few out to adults to figure it out. I'll post here if I can figure it out. Please let me know or post a comment if you recognize it!

UPDATE July 7, 2010: Dean Janiak helped me find it on bugguide.net - It's a bagworm moth, genus Thyridopteryx!