Latest news with #GulfOfMaine
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tracking Maine's wild mussel beds: declining or retreating into the deep?
May 31—The wild blue mussel beds that once blanketed Maine's dynamic intertidal zone are disappearing, driven out by warming water that not only hurts the mussels themselves but benefits one of its chief predators, the highly invasive and always hungry green crab. Scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute want to know if the intertidal disappearing act is a sign the blue mussel population is in decline or in retreat, with its local beds gradually moving out of the easy-to-spot intertidal into the colder waters of the more far-flung subtidal zone. "For the last 10 to 15 years, everybody has been saying mussels are disappearing," said research associate Aaron Whitman. "We think the beds are just moving out past the low tide line. But just because you don't see them twice a day doesn't mean they're not out there." A 2017 study estimated Maine's wild blue mussel population has dropped 60% since the 1970s. Like baby lobsters, however, the mussel beds may have simply traded warmer for cooler, fleeing the warm intertidal for the somewhat cooler subtidal, inch by inch, one generation at a time. But that makes the beds much harder to find. That is why GMRI is enlisting the help of citizen volunteers to help it find, measure and track these subtidal beds, the edges of which are only visible at extremely low tide, so it can document the health of the local population, especially in a changing climate. On Friday morning, Whitman and Carissa Maurin, GMRI's aquaculture program manager, led a group of two dozen employees of M&T Bank out to Mackworth Island in Falmouth to document its subtidal mussel bed during peak minus tide, or one that was about a foot lower than normal. "I love the environment," said Roxanne Gray, a mortgage originator in the Brunswick branch. "I've been a Mainer my entire life, so for me, being able to be a part of what keeps Maine a beautiful, healthy state, is really important." They documented conditions (muddy), recorded the presence of predators (green crabs) and measured individual mussels (from three-quarters of an inch to almost five inches) at a mussel bed that Whitman said appears to have shrunk in size since GMRI surveyed it last year. The bed has slowly moved, too, not just into colder subtidal waters but around the island itself, according to old state survey maps. The maps date to the early 2000s, which is the last time Maine surveyed mussel beds. Updating the state list will be harder now that many beds are submerged most of the time. That is why GMRI encourages groups like M&T as well as everyday Mainers all along Maine's 3,500-mile coastline to monitor their coastal areas on minus tide days, record what they see (even if there aren't any blue mussels), and share it by entering the data into GMRI's Ecosystem Investigation Network. "We can't just take our boat and map all of Casco Bay, much less the rest of the state," Maurin told M&T employees gathered around her in ankle-deep mud. "We don't have that much time, or enough staff. So knowing where to start looking is super important. That's where you come in." M&T offers all of its 22,000 employees 40 hours of paid time to do volunteer work like this, according to Regional President Philip Cohen, who was trudging across the flats alongside employees Friday despite a braced knee from a recent surgery. GMRI scientists will use that information to decide where to employ acoustic equipment to investigate a mussel bed, Whitman said. The equipment bounces sound waves off the sea bed and measures the echo, much like a dolphin does, to detect different bottom types and find active mussel beds. Mussels are important because people like to eat them, making them a part of Maine's fishing economy. And the wild mussel beds are critical suppliers of the spat, or fertilized eggs, needed to seed Maine's next mussel crop, Maurin said. Oyster farmers can get spat from hatcheries; Maine's mussel farmers need wild spat. Mussel beds provide critical habitat for juvenile fish, with the kelp and seaweed that grow there able to hide them from predators. Mussels also function as living water filters, removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus, while sequestering carbon into their shells. While beds are retreating into colder, deeper waters, the Gulf of Maine is also rising. The gulf is warming three times faster than the planetary average and rising about 2.5 times faster in recent years than it did over the last century, according to the Maine Climate Council. Some data suggests deeper waters in the Gulf of Maine may be cooling because of a recent shift in currents, while surface temperatures that affect mussel beds have been rising fast. About 90% of global warming is occurring in the ocean, causing the water's internal heat to increase, according to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Heat stored in the ocean causes the water to expand, which is responsible for one-third to one-half of global sea level rise. The sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine in 2021 and 2022 were the warmest on record. The gulf spent 97% of 2022 in a marine heat wave. With an annual average of 52 degrees, the surface temperature of the gulf is about 2 degrees hotter now than it was 30 years ago. Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tracking Maine's wild mussel beds: declining or retreating into the deep?
May 31—The wild blue mussel beds that once blanketed Maine's dynamic intertidal zone are disappearing, driven out by warming water that not only hurts the mussels themselves but benefits one of its chief predators, the highly invasive and always hungry green crab. Scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute want to know if the intertidal disappearing act is a sign the blue mussel population is in decline or in retreat, with its local beds gradually moving out of the easy-to-spot intertidal into the colder waters of the more far-flung subtidal zone. "For the last 10 to 15 years, everybody has been saying mussels are disappearing," said research associate Aaron Whitman. "We think the beds are just moving out past the low tide line. But just because you don't see them twice a day doesn't mean they're not out there." A 2017 study estimated Maine's wild blue mussel population has dropped 60% since the 1970s. Like baby lobsters, however, the mussel beds may have simply traded warmer for cooler, fleeing the warm intertidal for the somewhat cooler subtidal, inch by inch, one generation at a time. But that makes the beds much harder to find. That is why GMRI is enlisting the help of citizen volunteers to help it find, measure and track these subtidal beds, the edges of which are only visible at extremely low tide, so it can document the health of the local population, especially in a changing climate. On Friday morning, Whitman and Carissa Maurin, GMRI's aquaculture program manager, led a group of two dozen employees of M&T Bank out to Mackworth Island in Falmouth to document its subtidal mussel bed during peak minus tide, or one that was about a foot lower than normal. "I love the environment," said Roxanne Gray, a mortgage originator in the Brunswick branch. "I've been a Mainer my entire life, so for me, being able to be a part of what keeps Maine a beautiful, healthy state, is really important." They documented conditions (muddy), recorded the presence of predators (green crabs) and measured individual mussels (from three-quarters of an inch to almost five inches) at a mussel bed that Whitman said appears to have shrunk in size since GMRI surveyed it last year. The bed has slowly moved, too, not just into colder subtidal waters but around the island itself, according to old state survey maps. The maps date to the early 2000s, which is the last time Maine surveyed mussel beds. Updating the state list will be harder now that many beds are submerged most of the time. That is why GMRI encourages groups like M&T as well as everyday Mainers all along Maine's 3,500-mile coastline to monitor their coastal areas on minus tide days, record what they see (even if there aren't any blue mussels), and share it by entering the data into GMRI's Ecosystem Investigation Network. "We can't just take our boat and map all of Casco Bay, much less the rest of the state," Maurin told M&T employees gathered around her in ankle-deep mud. "We don't have that much time, or enough staff. So knowing where to start looking is super important. That's where you come in." M&T offers all of its 22,000 employees 40 hours of paid time to do volunteer work like this, according to Regional President Philip Cohen, who was trudging across the flats alongside employees Friday despite a braced knee from a recent surgery. GMRI scientists will use that information to decide where to employ acoustic equipment to investigate a mussel bed, Whitman said. The equipment bounces sound waves off the sea bed and measures the echo, much like a dolphin does, to detect different bottom types and find active mussel beds. Mussels are important because people like to eat them, making them a part of Maine's fishing economy. And the wild mussel beds are critical suppliers of the spat, or fertilized eggs, needed to seed Maine's next mussel crop, Maurin said. Oyster farmers can get spat from hatcheries; Maine's mussel farmers need wild spat. Mussel beds provide critical habitat for juvenile fish, with the kelp and seaweed that grow there able to hide them from predators. Mussels also function as living water filters, removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus, while sequestering carbon into their shells. While beds are retreating into colder, deeper waters, the Gulf of Maine is also rising. The gulf is warming three times faster than the planetary average and rising about 2.5 times faster in recent years than it did over the last century, according to the Maine Climate Council. Some data suggests deeper waters in the Gulf of Maine may be cooling because of a recent shift in currents, while surface temperatures that affect mussel beds have been rising fast. About 90% of global warming is occurring in the ocean, causing the water's internal heat to increase, according to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Heat stored in the ocean causes the water to expand, which is responsible for one-third to one-half of global sea level rise. The sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine in 2021 and 2022 were the warmest on record. The gulf spent 97% of 2022 in a marine heat wave. With an annual average of 52 degrees, the surface temperature of the gulf is about 2 degrees hotter now than it was 30 years ago. Copy the Story Link
CBC
5 days ago
- Health
- CBC
Researchers hope tracking zooplankton from space will help endangered whales
Researchers are hoping a technique that identifies zooplankton from space will eventually help them track the movement of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine. Scientists at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine are using NASA satellite data to attempt to identify Calanus finmarchicus, the tiny zooplankton that are the main food source of North Atlantic right whales. The zooplankton, which are smaller than a grain of rice, contain a reddish pigment — the same pigment that makes salmon look pink. When large quantities of the creatures congregate at the water's surface, that pigment affects the spectrum of sunlight that is absorbed and reflected, and the satellite can detect the resulting colour shift. The researchers hope that by tracking the presence of zooplankton, they will someday be able to predict the movement of North Atlantic right whales, and hone attempts to protect them. "The Gulf of Maine conditions have been changing. They've been rapidly warming. And we believe that means their main food source has moved to a different location," says Catherine Mitchell, a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory and co-author of a new study about the ocean colour technique. "So if we know where the whales are, it could help inform the conversation around their conservation." North Atlantic right whales are nearing extinction, with only about 370 remaining, and only about 70 breeding females. After 17 dead whales were identified in Canada and the United States in 2017, Canada implemented restrictions on fishing and ship speeds in certain areas of the Atlantic region to prevent further deaths due to vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. Knowing where the whales are, and where they might go, could help governments more efficiently use fishing closures or vessel speed restrictions to protect them. Seeing red The Bigelow Laboratory researchers got the idea of using the satellite data to try to find Calanus finmarchicus from a previous study that was done off Norway. But when they started reviewing the data from the Gulf of Maine dating back to 2003, they noticed something unusual. "We were detecting patterns out of the season when we would expect to see Calanus finmarchicus, which made us realize that we were seeing other things too," Mitchell said. The model was picking up not just Calanus finmarchicus, but other zooplankton that contain the same red pigment. Mitchell and Rebekah Shunmugapandi, lead author and post-doctoral scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory, are now trying to refine their method to try to pinpoint the North Atlantic right whale's favourite food species. Shunmugapandi is working to validate some of the satellite data with in-the-water observations from researchers in the Gulf of Maine as well as actual right whale sightings. "They move along with their prey, right?" Shunmugapandi said. "So with all those in situ Calunus and the right whale sighting data set … it's kind of a reverse study that I'm doing." New satellite, new possibilities One potential solution to differentiating Calanus finmarchicus from other red-pigmented zooplankton could be orbiting the Earth right now. The researchers have so far relied on data from NASA's Aqua satellite, but the instrument used to capture the light spectrum, MODIS, is nearing the end of its lifespan. However, NASA's newer PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite, which was launched last year, could vastly improve scientists' abilities to analyze ocean colour. Aqua's light-detecting instrument identifies 10 wavelengths of light. The researchers used only three of its wavelengths for their study. The new instrument aboard PACE, called the Ocean Color Instrument, can detect 280 wavelengths. Shunmugapandi says researchers would need to develop a new computer model to analyze a wider spectrum of light. "The hope is that with much more wavelengths, we might be able to tease out some more things, particularly things actually like the different species," Mitchell says. '1 piece of the puzzle' Currently, zooplankton researchers attempt to identify and track species by collecting them in nets to examine, using video cameras that function as underwater microscopes, and studying acoustics in the water. Catherine Johnson is a research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada who specializes in zooplankton ecology. She says quantifying and identifying zooplankton is difficult because the ocean is so vast and their distribution is variable over space and time. Most sampling techniques work best when they're focused in a specific area or time frame. Johnson, who was not involved in the new study, says remote sensing of zooplankton could be a tool in the toolbox of scientists. "It has the potential to provide good coverage over space and time if you're looking for exceptionally dense and large aggregations that are right near the surface," she said. "It's one piece of the puzzle, and I think that the study is a proof of concept to try to apply these methods in an area where they haven't been applied before." Mitchell and Shunmugapandi agree there's lots more work to be done. "Science is a process and we're not saying that this satellite product we've made is the be-all and end-all answer to understanding where right whales are," says Mitchell. "We are just trying to provide an extra piece of information that could be useful to the story and helpful to people."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Gulf of Maine's bottom waters expected to cool this season
May 28—The deepest waters in the Gulf of Maine are expected to cool this spring and summer, which could be good news for certain fish and fishermen, according to a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For years, the gulf has been among the fastest warming parts of the ocean in the world, fueled by decades of rising temperatures in the Gulf Stream. The latest seasonal outlook was developed by staffers in NOAA's research and fisheries departments, plus a handful of other units within the agency. But forecasters expect the deeper areas of the Gulf to be between 0.9 and 1.8 degrees colder than average this season, NOAA said in a written statement Wednesday. Shifting currents, which can carry cool water from along the Canadian coast, have created relatively cool bottom-water temperatures since late 2023, the agency said. Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist at the agency's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said cooling temperatures from around the Labrador Sea "is significant and could have important effects on local marine ecosystems and fisheries," in a written statement. Katherine Mills, senior scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said fishermen may be able to use the latest forecast to anticipate where to find certain species of fish. "Species in the groundfish complex — like cod, haddock and winter flounder — are more productive when water temperatures are cooler. This information can be used to anticipate where and when certain marine species might be available and help commercial harvesters and supply chain businesses more effectively plan their operations," Mills said in a written statement. Lobsters are also temperature sensitive. Warming waters along the southern New England coast have helped drive a major decline in the local lobster population "while the Gulf of Maine population has boomed," NOAA said in the announcement. A longer-term outlook that NOAA completed as a companion to the 2025 forecast suggests that flows of cool water could stave off warming in the gulf's deepest waters for several years, but the agency said additional monitoring would be required to confirm that prediction. Copy the Story Link
E&E News
6 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Cooler water bottom temperatures could aid New England fisheries
Cold water flowing into the the Gulf of Maine from Canada's Maritimes region this spring and summer could have a positive impact on key seafood species whose U.S. populations have plummeted due to climate change-induced warming waters, according to new NOAA research. Data shows that since late 2023, a shift in the eastern Gulf Stream has helped chill bottom-water temperatures in the Northwest Atlantic, which could result in an influx of cold water into northernmost New England. Researchers from the agency's Northeast Fisheries Science Center say flows from Canada's Labrador Slope and Scotian Shelf could result in the Gulf of Maine being 0.9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the summer average. The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world, according to NOAA, where rising water temperatures have spurred migration of lobster and other fish species toward Canadian waters in the Bay of Fundy. The result has been a steep dropoff in southern New England's lobster economy to the benefit of lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine. Advertisement Scientists say other species critical to the region's fisheries economy — including cod, haddock, pollock and some flounder species — also prefer cooler bottom water.
