Written by Kristen Kusek, Former Communications Director for °®¶ą´«Ă˝ CMS
Fifteen CMS graduate students delivered oral or poster presentations summarizing their research projects as part of the °®¶ą´«Ă˝ College of Marine Science’s (CMS) 39th annual Graduate Student Symposium held on Friday, January 27th. A quick skim of the presentation titles, listed below, underscores the strongly interdisciplinary nature of the CMS research portfolio. The student presentations followed a helpful “lessons I’ve learned” kickoff keynote by CMS alum, Kara Radabaugh (Class of 2013), who manages habitat and oyster mapping and monitoring programs at the °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg.
“It was an awesome day for the College,” said Tom Frazer, dean of the CMS. “The students did a phenomenal job organizing the event and delivering their presentations with clarity, passion, and professionalism – and it was a blast finally being able to enjoy the event in person.”
In case you missed it: read full abstracts of each presentation here, view the oral presentations below, and enjoy a scattershot of some of the random fun facts learned throughout the day:
- Due to climate and coastal change, oyster reefs are transitioning to mangrove-dominated ecosystems in Tampa Bay
- Iron limits primary production in at least 50% of the surface ocean and it’s challenging to study in part because it’s found in such small amounts in the ocean
- A fish egg study on the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf is a good example of marine research that uses both sophisticated technology (e.g., DNA barcoding) and low-tech tools (toothpicks!)
- According to reams of data collected from moored buoys over 23 years, the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf heats up between February through August and cools start from September through January.
- In a mysterious mass mortality event in the 1980s, nearly 90% of the Caribbean’s long-spined sea urchin population died. A new mortality event that started in St. Thomas in 2022 benefited from the help of citizen scientists who helped collect valuable data still under investigation.
- Eddies in the Southern Ocean can make your head spin because they contribute to both the uptake and outgassing of carbon dioxide
- Jobos Bay, the only national research reserve in the Caribbean, is under threat from ocean acidification to sea level rise and pollution, requiring the development of rapid monitoring tools
- Scientists are trying to understand why nickel, one of the least well studied trace metals, is found in persistent concentrations in the surface ocean
- “Killing dots” is an actual scientific exercise associated with ocean map-making and research at sea sometimes offers new adventures beyond research: one lucky CMS student got to visit the gravesite of Sir Ernest Shackleton on South Georgia Island (oh, and see fur seals, elephant seals, and King penguins!)
Oral presentations
- Olivia Blondheim, “Filtering friends: evaluating bivalve water filtration services
- Caitlyn Parente, “Investigating marine phage as a potential form of dissolved iron in the ocean”
- Keith Keel, “Assessing fall spawning dynamics of fishes on the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf using DNA barcoding”
- Luis Sorinas Morales, “On the seasonal cycle of ocean-atmosphere heat exchange on the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf identified through analyses of surface meteorological and oceanographic data from long-term moorings”
- Isabella Ritchie, “Investigation into the causative agent of the 2022 Diadema antillarum mass mortality event”
- Nicola Guisewhite, “Exploring the impact of southern ocean eddies on biogeochemical structure using BGC-ARGO float observations”
- Angelique Rosa Marin, “Benthic foraminifera as bioindicators of reef health in Jobos Bay, Puerto Rico”
- Calyn Crawford, “Labile nickel (Ni) concentrations across biogeochemical gradients in the North Pacific Ocean: insights into Ni bioavailability”
- Catalina Rubiano, “From the field in 2022: postcards from the poles”
GSS - Video 1
GSS - Video 2
Poster presentations
- Rebecca Scott, “Modeling the impact of circulation-driven dispersal patterns on juvenile Kemp’s Ridley feeding on the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf”
- Jessica Caggiano, “Quantifying wave error on SWOT sea surface height in the Southern Ocean”
- April Ellis, “A filter-feeder invertebrate chordate model to study the impact of plastics ingestion in the gut of animals”
- Naja Murphy, “Seasonality of aluminum on the West °®¶ą´«Ă˝ Shelf”
- Shannon Leah Riley, “Influences on the variability of paralarval cephalopod beta-diversity in the Gulf of Mexico”
- Macarena Martin-Mayor, “Ocean acidification in the Gulf of Mexico: a multi-decadal evaluation of pH and carbonate ion concentration”