Category Archives: research

OSU to take lead in designing new NSF research ships

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R/V Oceanus, OSU's current primary research vesselOregon State University has been chosen to lead a project to design and build as many as three new coastal research vessels, the first multi-ship expansion of the National Science Foundation’s academic research fleet since the 1970s, and one intended to boost the marine science research capabilities of the United States.

The new vessels, which could take a decade to design, build and equip, will become part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System, the nationwide program which provides research-capable ships to universities which could not afford to build and own the vessels themselves in order to advance the nation’s marine science capacity.

OSU initially will receive nearly $3 million to coordinate the design phase of the project – and if funds are appropriated for all three vessels, the total grant is projected to reach $290 million over 10 years. The first phase of the project is scheduled to begin early this year. The final number of ships constructed, and where the vessels will be berthed, will be determined by the NSF based on geographic scientific requirements and availability of funding.

If all three vessels are built, it is likely that one each would be positioned on the East Coast, West Coast and Gulf Coast, officials say. As part of its proposal to lead the effort, OSU proposed to be the operator of the first vessel.

Distributing the vessels geographically allows scientists from all over the country to book research cruise time from locations nearest to the ocean and coastal areas they are studying.

The university now operates the R/V Oceanus, which replaced the R/V Wecoma when it was retired from service last year and sent away to be scrapped. Both vessels dated to the mid 1970s, and the Oceanus is expected to be ready for retirement about the time the new research vessels become available.

A project team led by Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences will finalize the design for the 175-foot long, technically enhanced Regional Class ships, select a shipyard, oversee construction, and coordinate the system integration, testing, commissioning and acceptance, and transition to operations.

“These will be floating, multi-use laboratories that are flexible and can be adapted for different scientific purposes, yet are more seaworthy and environmentally ‘green’ than previous research vessels,” said Mark Abbott, dean of the OSU College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “These ships will be used to address critical issues related to climate change, ocean circulation, natural hazards, human health, and marine ecosystems.”

OSU vice president for research Rick Spinrad, who previously directed research programs for the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the new vessels would “revitalize and transform” coastal ocean science in the United States.

“Many of the most pressing issues facing our oceans are in these coastal regions, including acidification, hypoxia, tsunami prediction, declining fisheries, and harmful algal blooms,” Spinrad said. “Because of their flexibility, these new vessels will attract a broad range of users and will become ideal platforms to training early-career scientists and mariners.”

The project had the support of Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Office, noted OSU President Ed Ray, who said the university will benefit from the process long before the first ship hits the water in 2019 or 2020.

The successful OSU proposal was submitted to the National Science Foundation by Clare Reimers, an oceanography professor, and Demian Bailey, the university’s marine superintendent. As part of that submission, OSU proposed to be the operator of the first vessel. Additional operating institutions will be determined once the total number of vessels to be built is known.

“The National Science Foundation hasn’t authorized a multi-ship project since the 1970s,” Bailey said, “and these are likely the only ships scheduled by NSF to be built during the next decade – so this is a big deal. The endurance and size of the new ships will be similar to that of Oceanus and Wecoma but they will be much more efficient and have far greater scientific capacity and flexibility.”

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Rising stream temperatures could spell trouble for salmon

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A newly published study by researchers at Oregon State University and two federal agencies concludes that high temperatures coupled with lower flows in many Northwest streams is creating increasingly extreme conditions that could spell trouble for salmon and other organisms.

The study, published in the professional journal Hydrobiologia, was funded and coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey and the research branch of the U.S. Forest Service. It points to climate change as the primary cause.

“The highest temperatures for streams generally occur in August, while lowest flows take place in the early fall,” said Ivan Arismendi, a research professor in OSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. “Each period is important because it is a time of potentially high stress on the organisms that live in the stream. If they occur closer in time – or together – they could create double trouble that may be greater than their combined singular effects.”

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Request for proposals: ocean contaminants, marine debris

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Oregon Sea Grant is soliciting research proposals for one-year grants on two topics of high priority to Oregon’s ocean and coast: Water contaminants, and tsunami-related marine debris. The submission deadline is 5 pm Nov. 5, 2012.

Sea Grant  and its citizen advisory council have identified contaminants in Oregon waters – both ocean and freshwater – as an important research issue for the state. The recent and anticipated arrival of marine debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami also raises timely research and public engagement questions. As a result, Sea Grant has set aside funding for between one and  four single-year grant proposals addressing either of these issues. The total available funding is $80,000.

This special funding call seeks proposals that apply the best science and an innovative approach to address either: 1) a well-defined coastal or watershed research question addressing contaminants, or 2) research related to tsunami marine debris.

All Oregon Sea Grant research grants must include public outreach and engagement components.

For more information, visit our Website.

HMSC volunteers return to sea – and blogging

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Michael Courtney and Annie Thorp aboard the RV Wecoma, 2011NEWPORT – Michael Courtney and Annie Thorp, longtime volunteers at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, return to sea this week as support crew for Dr. Clare Reimers, an ocean ecologist and biogeochemist with OSU’s Colleage of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, who is studying the role of seafloor processes in ocean chemical cycles, the influences of low oxygen conditions on ocean biology, geology and chemistry, and new electrochemical tools for ocean observing networks.

Courtney and Thorp, who are husband and wife, have been volunteering at the HMSC Visitor Center since their retirement and have offered their services to shipboard research teams since 2009. They plan to once again chronicle their adventures in words and photographs through their blog, Buoy Tales.

As they wrote at the end of last year’s cruise with Dr. Reimers’ team, “Science is not just sitting in a warm, stable lab. It is also hard, hard work. Collecting the necessary data means being cold, wet, getting dirty, laying on a rough, rolling deck adjusting sensitive equipment, taking samples in an enclosed van under a dim red light, and working in a lab that won’t stand still.”

This voyage will be on board the R/V Oceanus, OSU’s new research vessel. The research team is loading and setting up equipment today, and expects to depart tomorrow for a cruise lasting until Oct. 15, taking the science team to the waters of the the continental shelf off the Pacific Northwest coast.

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Fish protein coating could be key to lower-fat fried foods

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ASTORIA -Researchers at OSU’s Seafood Research and Education Center have come up with a fish protein coating they say significantly reduces the fat content of fried shrimp and other fried seafood dishes.

The protein solution is based on surimi, the minced and washed fish that’s transformed into a paste that can be formed into a variety of products, including popular imitation “crab.” The Astoria-based seafood center pioneered the science of producing tasty, protein-rich surimi, and is known world-wide for its annual Surimi School for seafood processors.

In Asia, surimi forms the basis of popular fried dishes – dishes which have an unusually low fat content (approximately 2 percent. That piqued the interest of Dr. Jae Park, head of OSU’s surimi research and education efforts.  With a grant from the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), Park’s team has been working on a project that turns some of that protein into a solution which can be used to coat other seafood products – and which appears to keep fried fish from absorbing so much fat.

“After doing some initial tests with typical fried US products like chicken nuggets and French fries, we saw that the fried surimi product was consistently low in fat,” said Dr. Jae Park, professor at OSU’s Department of Food Science and Technology and OSU Seafood Research and Education Center (Astoria, OR). “We thought if it’s the fish protein that is minimizing the fat uptake, how can we use that on other fried seafood to get the same results?”

After two years of research, Park and his team have developed a fat blocker solution from surimi protein that has successfully reduced the fat content of fried shrimp.

“Typically when you fry chicken nuggets or fish, you get a fat content of about 16 percent and 10 percent respectively,” explained researcher Angee Hunt. “When we fried the breaded shrimp by coating it with our fat blocker solution, the treated shrimp had 15 to 20 percent less fat compared to untreated shrimp.”

The scientists believe that the fish protein creates a protective layer around the food to reduce the fat uptake and retain the moisture, without altering the taste or texture of the product.

Oregon Sea Grant was an early supporter of surimi research by Park and other scientists at the Astoria lab.

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Sea Grant researchers create model for analyzing invasive species threats

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Boat encrusted with quagga mussels (Photo by Sam Chan)by Jeffrey Basinger, 2012 Sea Grant Communications Fellow

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A team at Oregon State University has developed a statistical model that aims to predict which non-native species might become invaders – and arm resource managers to prevent their spread.

Led by economist Munisamy Gopinath and funded by Oregon Sea Grant, the project includes two essential elements for identifying invasive species: how they travel to non-native locations, and whether they could survive and thrive in the new environment. The model also calculates the economic impacts involved in managing the invasive species.

The model is a large, but simple equation. Species that invade waterways often “hitchhike” via recreational travel. Information on where, how, and why people travel to water bodies, along with environmental factors such as temperature, precipitation and elevation, are entered into the equation. The result is a “risk of introduction” that allows resource managers and policy makers to identify species that pose a threat of invasion.

“Not all species are invasive,” said Gopinath, a professor in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences and director of OSU’s graduate program in applied economics. Only transplanted species with specific characteristics that match with specific habitats will thrive, cause harm to the environment, economy and human health – and earn the “invasive” moniker.

“They may not sound like a big deal,” Gopinath said, “but all you have to look at is the quagga and zebra mussels’ invasion,” which caused serious ecological and economic damage to the Great Lakes region and recently began turning up in Western states, much to the alarm of resource managers. “Their invasion in the late 1980s was without fanfare. When these mussels quickly colonized, native mussels lost out, and in addition, water infrastructure became contaminated causing billions of dollars in damages.”

With the information the model provides, policy makers and resource managers could focus resources, along with education and outreach, to specific species and locations before invasive species are introduced, or take hold on a system.

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New blog chronicles science on – and under – ice

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Deep Sea and Polar Biology, a new blog by a pair of Oregon State University scientists, chronicles their work trying to understand the role those extreme environments play in storing and releasing carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The writers – post-doctoral scholar Andrew Thurber and graduate student Rory Welch – are writing and posting terrific photographs of the polar landscape and their under-ice dives in Antarctica, near the McMurdo Research Station, located on the southern tip of Ross Island. They’re also running an occasional “ask a scientist” feature for students around the country who want to learn more about their work.

Thurber,  a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar based in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, is studying the trophic linkages between microbes and metazoans in marine habitats and how that impacts ecosystem function, or how animals that eat bacteria can impact how the world works.

Welch, a graduate student in the Microbiology department at Oregon State University, is studying an unusual group of predatory bacteria, Bacteriovorax, that prey exclusively on other gram negative bacteria.

In the introduction to their blog, they write:

“Most of the world experiences drastic seasonal variation in the amount of food that is available throughout the year. In deep-sea habitats as well as the poles a single or sometimes few pulses of food provide nourishment for the entire year. Now you may wonder what that means to you? Why does it matter what happens in the deep, dark ocean or far away in a frozen waste land? The answer is that these communities decide how much of the carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere stays in the ocean, only to be released again and how much is buried for geologic time periods (meaning largely beyond the age of humans). However, we know very little about how the biology of how these habitats actually function, what makes them decide whether they break down and release the carbon and nitrogen or bury for, as far as humans are concerned, ever? Quite simply, that is the goal of this research.”

Wave energy test platform deployed off Oregon coast

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Ocean Sentinel DeploymentOne of the first public wave energy testing systems in the United States began operation this week off the Oregon coast near Newport, and will allow private industry or academic researchers to test new technology that may help advance this promising form of sustainable energy.

Ocean Sentinel is a $1.5 million device developed by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, or NNMREC, at Oregon State University. The device was towed to the Center’s designated testing site 2 miles offshore from Yaquina Head on Sunday by OSU’s R/V Pacific Storm, and attached to a battery of mooring anchors that will keep it in place.

It’s a major step forward for the future of wave energy, and should do its first testing within days, when the “WetNZ” device developed by private industry joins it at the testing site.

The creation of this mobile wave energy test facility has been needed for years, experts say, and it will be used by many companies and academic researchers in the quest to develop wave energy technology, measure and understand the wave resource, and study the energy output and other important issues.

“The Ocean Sentinel will provide a standardized, accurate system to compare various wave energy technologies, including systems that may be better for one type of wave situation or another,” said Sean Moran, ocean test facilities manager with NNMREC.

“We have to find out more about which technologies work best, in what conditions, and what environmental impacts there may be,” Moran said. “We’re not assuming anything. We’re first trying to answer the question, ‘Is this a good idea or not?’ And if some technology doesn’t work as well, we want to find that out quickly, and cheaply, and the Ocean Sentinel will help us do that.”

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Teachers and classrooms may spread invasive species

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4th-graders show off a rusty crayfish that came in a science curriculum kit. The species is invasive in Oregon, and thanks to Sea Grant's work with companies that supply the kids, is no longer being provided.

One in four teachers who use live animals for classroom science projects report that they’ve released the animals into the wild when the projects are done, according to a new Sea Grant study – and the practice may be helping to spread some nasty invasive species.

The study, led by Oregon Sea Grant Extension’s invasive species expert Sam Chan, was presented at this week’s national meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland.

“Live organisms are a critical element for learning and we don’t want to imply that they should not be used in the classroom,” said Chan. “But some of our schools – and the biological supply houses that provide their organisms – are creating a potential new pathway for non-native species to become invasive.

“We need to work through the whole chain and educate both the teachers and suppliers about the potential damages – both environmental and economic – that invasive species may trigger,” added Chan,  former chair of the Oregon Invasive Species Council.

The study surveyed nearly 2,000 teachers in Florida, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, California, Connecticut, British Columbia and Ontario. Conducted primarily by researchers from Sea Grant programs in those states, it also included focus groups and interviews with teachers, curriculum specialists and biological supply house owners and managers.

The researchers found teachers using as many as 1,000 different organisms in the classroom, including many frequently listed species identified as known or potential aquatic invaders,  including elodea, crayfishes, amphibians, mosquito fish, red-eared slider turtles and other aquatic plants and snails.

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(Photo credit: Jennifer England, Franklin Elementary School, Corvallis)

PNW coffee habit pollutes the ocean

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Fishy!The Pacific Northwest is known for its coffee consumption – and now scientists are finding that some of that caffeine is making its way into the ocean, with unknown consequences for marine life.

An Oregon Sea Grant-funded study by Portland State University environmental scientist Elise Granek and colleagues, reported in the July issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin, suggests that suggest that wastewater treatment plants are effective at removing caffeine, but that high rainfall and combined sewer overflows can combine to flush the contaminants out to sea. The results also suggest that septic tanks, such as those used at the state parks, may be less effective at containing pollution.

Results of the study, funded in part by Oregon Sea Grant and NOAA, were published in the July 2012 Marine Pollution Bulletin. The study was conducted by scientists at Portland State University and Washington State University, Vancouver.

This research, the first to look at caffeine contamination off the Oregon coast, found elevated levels of caffeine at several sites in Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of Oregon—though not necessarily near the high-population centers where researchers expected to find it.

Starting in spring 2010, scientists collected and analyzed samples from 14 Oregon coastal locations and seven adjacent water bodies as far north as Astoria and as far south as Brookings. Researchers identified locations as potentially polluted if they were near wastewater treatment plants, large population centers, and rivers and streams emptying into the ocean.

The study found high caffeine levels near Carl Washburne State Park in Florence, and at Cape Lookout – two areas not near the potential pollution sources. Meanwhile, the researchers also measured low levels of caffeine near large population centers like Astoria/Warrenton and Coos Bay. They also found that caffeine levels spiked following a late-season storm of wind and rain that triggered sewer overflows.

Since no natural sources of caffeine grow in the Pacific Northwest, the findings suggest that additional human-caused pollutants could also be making their way into the ocean from storm-related overflows.

The study is currenty featured on the NOAA Research Web page, where you can read more about it.

(Photo by Fiona Henderson)