93 research outputs found
Integrating climate change into Northeast and Midwest state wildlife action plans
No full textThe purpose of this Northeast Climate Science Center-led (NE CSC) cooperative report is to provide a synthesis of what is known and what is uncertain about climate change and its impacts across the NE CSC region, with a particular focus on the responses and vulnerabilities of Regional Species of Greatest Conservation Need (RSGCN) and the habitats they depend on. Another goal is to describe a range of climate change adaptation approaches, processes, tools, and potential partnerships that are available to State natural resource managers across the Northeast and Midwest regions of the United States. Through illustrative case studies submitted by the NE CSC and partners, the report discusses climate change adaptation efforts being explored and implemented across local and large-landscape scales.The suggested citation for this report is: Staudinger, M. D., T. L. Morelli, and A. M. Bryan. 2015. Integrating Climate Change into Northeast and Midwest State Wildlife Action Plans. DOI Northeast Climate Science Center Report, Amherst, Massachusetts
Reconstruction of original body size and estimation of allometric relationships for the longfin inshore squid (Loligo pealeii) and northern shortfin squid (Illex illecebrosus)
No full textQuantification of predator-prey body size relationships is essential to understanding trophic dynamics in marineecosystems. Prey lengths recovered from predator stomachs help determine the sizes of prey most influential in supporting predator growth and to ascertain size-specific effects of natural mortality on prey populations (Bax, 1998; Claessen et al., 2002). Estimating prey size from stomach content analyses is often hindered because of the degradation of tissue and bone by digestion. Furthermore,reconstruction of original prey size from digested remains requires species-specific reference materials and techniques. A number of diagnostic guides for freshwater (Hansel et al., 1988) and marine (Watt et al., 1997;Granadeiro and Silva, 2000) prey species exist; however they are limited to specific geographic regions (Smaleet al., 1995; Gosztonyi et al., 2007). Predictive equations for reconstructing original prey size from diagnostic bones in marine fishes have been developed in several studies ofpiscivorous fishes of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (Scharf et al., 1998; Wood, 2005). Conversely, morphometricrelationships for cephalopods in this region are scarce despite their importance to a wide range of predators,such as finfish (Bowman et al., 2000 ; Staudinger, 2006), elasmobranchs (Kohler, 1987), and marine mammals (Gannon et al., 1997; Williams, 1999)
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SPECIES RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS: BIODIVERSITY, ADAPTATION, AND THE ROLE OF NATIVE AND INTRODUCED SPECIES
No full textClimate change and biological invasion are among the most significant threats to individual species and collective global biodiversity. Warming temperatures, a key component of climate change, are pushing some species beyond their physical limits. Introduced species, which are continuously rising in number and expanding their geographical ranges, exhibit greater resilience to these environmental stressors. In terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, generalist introduced species often outperform native species. These patterns remain less explored in marine systems. My dissertation addresses this knowledge gap by comparing the physiological performance of introduced and native marine species and then evaluating their performance under elevated temperatures to determine the impacts of climate change on these dynamics. I also contextualize the occurrence of introduced species occurrence across decadal scales in a marine system, the Boston Harbor, and investigate temporal changes in overall biodiversity associated with climate and other anthropogenic stressors.
In my first chapter, I aimed to better understand the differences in resource use and performance between introduced and native marine species, using two gastropods, introduced Littorina littorea and native L. obtusata as model species. I experimentally determined the grazing preferences of these two snails towards introduced and native macroalgae. I then assessed how their grazing preferences influenced their growth performance.
Building on this foundation, in my second chapter, I investigated how climate change stressors, such as elevated temperatures, affect the survival and performance of these introduced and native snails to determine whether the trend of introduced species outperforming native congeners persists under these conditions. In a series of laboratory experiments, I evaluated the influence of temperature on survival, grazing, growth, and attachment strength. I used a combination of classic thermal tolerance experiments, evaluating the upper thermal limit of each species, and ecologically relevant experiments to expose snails to elevated temperatures across a variety of exposure periods that simulated gradual and acute climate conditions.
In my third chapter, I synthesized occurrence records of marine species in Boston Harbor, an urban marine system, to examine biodiversity patterns and trends over decades of environmental change. I combined 159 years of species records, documenting 451 unique taxa of marine coastal birds, fish, macroalgae, macroinvertebrates and mammals. I conducted a biodiversity analysis using Average Taxonomic Distinctness (AvTD), a biodiversity metric that is useful when sampling methods and effort differ or are unknown across datasets, to determine how biodiversity has changed over time. Using AvTD, I analyzed biodiversity changes in relation to environmental variables such as dissolved oxygen, sea surface temperature, and sea level rise.
Together this work aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between introduced and native herbivores on introduced and native food resources, the effects of how climate change stressors on survival and performance, and the broader implications for biodiversity trends in a dynamic marine ecosystem.Ruth D. Turner Fund
United States Geological Survey NRPP
Smith College CFCD
Smith College Biological Sciences Endowed Fund
University of Massachusetts Graduate SchoolDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2026-02-0
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Reconstruction of original body size and estimation of allometric relationships for the longfin inshore squid (Loligo pealeii) and northern shortfin squid (Illex illecebrosus)
No full textQuantification of predator-prey body size relationships is essential to understanding trophic dynamics in marine
ecosystems. Prey lengths recovered from predator stomachs help determine the sizes of prey most influential in supporting predator growth and to ascertain size-specific effects of natural mortality on prey populations (Bax, 1998; Claessen et al., 2002). Estimating prey size from stomach content analyses is often hindered because of the degradation of tissue and bone by digestion. Furthermore,
reconstruction of original prey size from digested remains requires species-specific reference materials and techniques. A number of diagnostic guides for freshwater (Hansel et al., 1988) and marine (Watt et al., 1997;
Granadeiro and Silva, 2000) prey species exist; however they are limited to specific geographic regions (Smale
et al., 1995; Gosztonyi et al., 2007). Predictive equations for reconstructing original prey size from diagnostic bones in marine fishes have been developed in several studies of
piscivorous fishes of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (Scharf et al., 1998; Wood, 2005). Conversely, morphometric
relationships for cephalopods in this region are scarce despite their importance to a wide range of predators,
such as finfish (Bowman et al., 2000 ; Staudinger, 2006), elasmobranchs (Kohler, 1987), and marine mammals (Gannon et al., 1997; Williams, 1999)
Primary and secondary defences of squid to cruising and ambush fish predators : variable tactics and their survival value
No full textAuthor Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Animal Behaviour 81 (2011): 585-594, doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.12.002.Longfin squid (Loligo pealeii) were exposed to two predators, bluefish (Pomatomus
saltatrix) and summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus), representing cruising and ambush
foraging tactics, respectively. During 35 trials, 86 predator–prey interactions were evaluated
between bluefish and squid, and in 29 trials, 92 interactions were assessed between flounder and
squid. With bluefish, squid predominantly used stay tactics (68.6%, 59/86) as initial responses.
The most common stay response was to drop to the bottom, while showing a disruptive body
pattern, and remain motionless. In 37.0% (34/92) of interactions with flounder, squid did not
detect predators camouflaging on the bottom and showed no reaction prior to being attacked.
Squid that did react, used flee tactics more often as initial responses (43.5%, 40/92), including
flight with or without inking. When all defence behaviours were considered concurrently, flight
was identified as the strongest predictor of squid survival during interactions with each predator.
Squid that used flight at any time during an attack sequence had high probabilities of survival
with bluefish (65%, 20/31) and flounder (51%, 18/35). The most important deimatic/protean
behaviour used by squid was inking. Inking caused bluefish to startle (deimatic) and abandon
attacks (probability of survival = 61%, 11/18) and caused flounder to misdirect (protean) attacks
towards ink plumes rather than towards squid (probability of survival = 56%, 14/25). These are
the first published laboratory experiments to evaluate the survival value of antipredator
behaviours in a cephalopod. Results demonstrate that squid vary their defence tactics in response
to different predators and that the effectiveness of antipredator behaviours is contingent upon the
behavioural characteristics of the predator encountered.This study was funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant
Program, the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute, the University of Massachusetts and the
Five College Coastal and Marine Sciences Program. R. T. Hanlon acknowledges partial support
from ONR grant N000140610202 and the Sholley Foundation
Species- and size-specific variability of mercury concentrations in four commercially important finfish and their prey from the northwest Atlantic
No full textSize-dependent susceptibility of longfin inshore squid (Loligo pealeii) to attack and capture by two predators
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TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR MARINE ECOSYSTEMS: CASE STUDIES FROM NORTHERN BRAZIL AND NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES
No full textAnthropogenic interventions and actions upon the marine habitat pose threats to a range of species of economic and conservation concern. The dynamic nature of marine ecosystems offers a difficult challenge to incorporate spatial and temporal distributions of different species, and the interactions among species and human activities into a formal management framework. Each country has its own priorities when it comes to management of the marine resources (e.g. conservation, food security, sustainable fisheries, and optimization of revenue). Therefore, a key hurdle is to create tools adequate for use within an Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) and Ecosystem-based Management (EBM) framework, that meet local and regional needs. Models can provide insights regarding ecosystems dynamics and generate tools for management applications, including the estimation of optimal conditions and frameworks, assessing current conditions relative to baselines, exploring the effects of potential management decisions and delimiting areas where monitoring efforts of species of concern or “choke species” should be concentrated. The present work focuses on all these elements with the aim to provide modeling and visualization capacity to management decision making. My dissertation had two main objectives, divided in two case studies in distinct geographic and data availability settings. The first was to develop spatial models to promote the adequate monitoring of species of conservation concern (SOC) within a data-limited setting in two multiuse marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Amazon Delta, Northern Brazil by: 1) collecting SOC available data; 2) developing GIS-based suitability models; and 3) generating baseline knowledge for future management strategies of SOCs. The second objective was to study alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) role within a data-rich setting in the Northeast U.S. large marine ecosystem (NEUS LME) and the Gulf of Maine (GOM) marine ecosystem by: 1) developing food-web based ecosystem models; 2) assessing the impacts of anadromous forage fish restoration; 3) testing riverine and marine-based management strategies to promote their recovery. For the data-limited studies, I found that extreme data scarcity impeded our ability to develop a model for the Environmental Protection Area (EPA) of Algodoal-Maiandeua, Northern Brazil. However, it allowed us to show preliminary data of sea turtles’ observations and fixed fishing gears in the EPA, giving basis to the future develop of spatially explicit models. While for the second multiuse MPA, the Soure Marine Extractive Reserve (MER), we were able to successfully develop a spatial explicit suitability model focused on monitoring priority areas for SOCs. Our results show that 30% of the MER is under medium, high and extremely high monitoring priority, allowing more effective development of monitoring design for SOCs. For the data-rich setting, I found that the full restoration of alewife in the NEUS LME could lead to a 50% potential biomass increase for small pelagics, 26% for fisheries target species, and approximately 69% for SOCs. This provided a more stable picture for the middle trophic level forage species and lead to major potential biomass changes for SOCs. I also found that fishing effort reduction alone did little to promote alewife recovery in the GOM marine ecosystem. However, when river to ocean connectivity was added to fishing effort reductions. The alosine (alewife, blueback herring, and American shad) group showed a major response. As a whole, my dissertation captures a range of management approaches from data-limited to data-rich systems, using modeling approaches to optimize decision making.Environmental ConservationDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.
Self-evaluation in naturalistic context: the case of juvenile offenders
No full textThe authors investigated how self-evaluation motives (self-enhancement, self-assessment, self-verification, self-improvement - and also self-diminishment and no information) shape self-knowledge preferences in male incarcerated juvenile offenders (IJOs). IJOs responded to questions on how much they would like to receive and actually received each of six types of feedback (positive, truthful, improving, consistent, negative and no feedback) from each of six sources (teachers, parents, siblings, best friend, girlfriend and behavioural specialists or psychologists). IJOs disliked negative feedback and the lack of feedback. They preferred truthful feedback to consistent feedback, and received truthful and positive feedback more frequently than improving feedback. Additionally, they received more negative or no feedback from parents than they would like. Finally, IJOs expressed a preference for receiving more improving feedback from their girlfriends than they did. The study highlights the interplay of self-evaluation motives in IJOs and opens up promising research and rehabilitation directions
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Identifying New England’s underutilized seafood species and evaluating their market potential in a changing climate
No full textDeveloping and diversifying market opportunities for lesser known yet abundant seafood species has been a successful strategy for seafood businesses in the Northeast United States. Since climate change and other stressors are currently threatening the economic vitality of New England’s seafood industry, it is important to identify if there are lesser-known species that could simultaneously support additional market opportunities and remain resilient in a warming climate. We developed a quantitative definition for the term “underutilized species’’ based on five criteria derived from science-based sustainable fishing metrics. Using this definition, we evaluated 47 stocks in the Northeast United States during the initial time period of 2013-2017 to identify seven underutilized finfish species that could be considered for new market opportunities as part of a climate-smart approach: 1) Acadian redfish (Sebastes fasciatus), 2) Atlantic pollock (Pollachius virens), 3) butterfish (Peprilus triacanthus), 4) haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), 5) scup (Stenotomus chrysops), 6) silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis), and 7) white hake (Urophycis tenuis). The climate resiliency of these resulting seven species was then evaluated using a framework consisting of species-specific metrics on climate sensitivity, directionality (of responses to climate impacts) and future habitat availability under warming scenarios. Our results show that assessing underutilized species on a regular basis and evaluating their ongoing responses to climate change can be a part of a climate-smart approach towards building more diversified and adaptive markets
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