Steve Brandt: Today’s purpose: to welcome new investigators and students to our program and to foster integration across the program, and to look forward and think abuoot how each of us can contribute to something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

“Funding of research is just one component of what we do. You have the ability to take that research and link it with extension  and education. … We think that’s unique to Sea Grant.”

(Introductions)

Presentations, by issue areas:

Watersheds & Water Resources

Sea Grant topical page

Jerri Bartholomew

• Modeling Myxozoan Disease in Pacific Salmon: Establishing Watershed Models for Predicting Effects of Climate Change

Presentation:

Bartholomew’s current project builds on her salmon disease research over  several years, much of it supported by Oregon Sea Grant. The work focuses on disease in Pacific salmon, specifically Ceratomyxa. shasta. “What we’re interested in is how disease dynamics will change as we look at changing climate.”

• Projected rising temperatures will affect salmon
• Nobody’s looked at the disease impact
• Hope to identify critical habitats for protection of fish – “disease refugia”.
• Expect the model will be applicable to other diseases.

“The Klamath Basin already has a disease problem. As we look at temperatures increasing over the next 20-50 years, our goal is to predict disease impact and identify key habitats that will need protecting, using C. shasta as a marker.”

They have produced an educational documentary and public education tools.

Jim Lerczak:

• Tides, Freshwater and Winds: Modeling the Impacts of Currents on the Oregon Inner Continental Shelf and Within Yaquina Bay Estuary

The focus is understanding and quantifying the circulation on Oregon’s Intercontinental shelf and estuaries. (15 meters from the shore). The inner few kilometers has been shown to be important for larval transport and recruitment of nearshore species.

The Cascadia margin has an interesting river system that hasn’t been studied to date. The fresh water flowing from multiple coastal rivers influences offshore salinity and circulation; we don’t know how that affects marine organisms. This study proposes to build on existing numerical models by developing and validating a model of Yaquina Bay and adjacent coastal waters.

2011 Sea Grant scholar Emily Lamagie is part of Lerczak’s team, establishing a permanent exhibit for the HMSC Visitor Center on estuary currents, ocean modeling and oyster larval dispersion, using a game design. She’s also developing a a publication on exhibit design for scientists.

Sea Grant Extension/education team: Megan Kleibacker, Sam Chan, Guillermo Giannico

• Does volunteer training through Master Watershed Stewards and now, Oregon Master Naturalist program, including an online training via eCampus
• Youth Watershed Stewards program via Open Campus
• Stand-alone trainings for watershed councils and natural resource staffs
• Low-impact development work, including Oregon Rain arden Guide, LID fact sheets and other online training.
• Guillermo’s Extension fisheries work focuses on fresh-water species. Recent “fish and ditch” program on flooded farmlands as winter  fish habitats; tide gates and fish passage; coastal Coho salmon life history in Coos watershed; habitat restoration in coastal floodplains of Coos Bay
• Sam Chan: Extension straddles disciplines and is moving into playing a broader role in large-scale studies about water resource; recent efforts to prevent Yaquina Bay contamination with invasive tunicates during NOAA-MOP-C  construction; working with communications and HMSC teams to develop apps for invasive species identification and prevention.

This team sees possibilities for collaborating with researchers on all kinds of water related issues: scarcity, reservoir management, fish habitat and populations, water quality and contaminants (drugs, pesticides, etc.)

Discussion:

• Q. Have issues about pharmaceuticals in the water come up in fish disease research?
• A. Bartholomew: Absolutely. And growing population has other implications for water resources and fish.
• Watershed issues could fit under almost any of our issue areas. The areas are somewhat arbitrary; we should talk about whether the labels help or hinder collaboration and connections.