Marine Science Seminars

Friday, December 2, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium

"Mechanisms of Pollution Tolerance in Gulf Killifish (Fundulus grandis) From the Houston Ship Channel"

Cole W. Matson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Baylor University.

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Host: Dr. Kristin Nielsen

Wednesday, November 30, 3:00 pm, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium

"Dissolved Organic Matter in an Arctic Subterranean Estuary"

Emily M. Bristol 
Graduate Research Assistant, University of Texas Marine Science Institute

Host: Dr. Andrew Esbaugh

Friday, November 11, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium

“The Evolutionary Ecology of the Antarctic Red Macroalga Plocamium sp. and Its Wealth of Defensive Secondary Metabolites”

Sabrina Heiser, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Host: Dr. Andrew Esbaugh

Friday, November 4, 11:00 am, Zoom
Esuarine Research Center, Seminar Room

“Strategies of Biological Resilience to Environmental Change"

Donal T. Manahan, Ph.D.
Professor of Biological Sciences, The University of Southern California  (USC)

Seminar summary: Biologists face a challenge to predict the capacity of organisms to adapt to rapid environmental change. In this seminar, studies of organism-environment interactions focus on identifying metabolic bases of resilience. Understanding resilience requires an integration of molecular biological, biochemical, physiological, and whole-organism levels of analyses – coupled with partitioning of standing genetic variation. To address these topics, analysis of model marine organisms (larval bivalves and sea urchins) has revealed unifying biochemical strategies that maintain homeostasis of energy supply and demand, identified as a basis for physiological resilience to a changing ocean.

Research interests: Organism-environment interactions; Developmental physiology; Biochemical strategies of adaptation.

Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Wednesday, October 26, 3:00 pm, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium

"Tracking the Flow of Mercury Through Food Webs Using Compound-Specific Stable Isotope Analyses of Amino Acids"

Benjamin Barst, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska.

Dr. Barst is working with Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER PhD student Sydney Wilkinson from UAF, Kristin Nielsen, and Ryan Hladyniuk as they jointly develop the capability to perform compound-specific isotopic analyses for food web studies. Ben’s specific interests lie on contaminants in fish and wildlife, their variation in time and space, their movement through food webs, and how exposures are influenced by diet and non-chemical threats, such as climate change and invasive species.

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Friday, October 21, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium.

SPEAKERS: The University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

"Seagrass succession in super salty Laguna Madre (TX, USA)"
Kyle Capistrant-Fossa.
Graduate Research Assistant.

"Implications of sublethal hypoxia during early life in red drum”
Benjamin Negrete, Jr.
Graduate Student Fellow, Doctoral Student.

Host: Dr. Andrew Esbaugh

Friday, October 7, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Patton Center, Auditorium

"Bacterial Contributions to Refractory DOM in the Global Ocean"

Ronald Benner, Ph.D.
Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina.

Abstract: A vast reservoir of dissolved organic matter (DOM) resides in the global ocean, and most of this DOM resists decomposition and persists in the ocean for centuries to millennia. This refractory DOM plays an important role in the global carbon cycle, but more information is needed to better understand the potential impacts of climate change on this carbon reservoir. Much of this refractory DOM is thought to be produced via the microbial utilization and transformation of labile DOM, a concept known as the microbial carbon pump (MCP). This presentation will explore the microbial production of refractory DOM in the ocean, including its origin, transformation, and chemical composition. Molecular biomarkers (D-enantiomers of amino acids) are used to identify bacterial contributions to refractory DOM, including dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen (DOC and DON). These biomarkers indicate about 25% of the DOC and 50% of the DON in the ocean are of bacterial origin. Seawater incubation experiments in surface, mesopelagic and deep waters provide novel insights about the reactivity and transformation of plankton-derived peptides and proteins, and the bacterial contributions to refractory DOC and DON.

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Friday, July 15, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

"Why Everything You Know About Shark Conservation is Wrong: An Interdisciplinary Look at Misinformation Along the Science-Policy Interface"

David Shiffman, Ph.D.
Liber Ero Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Arizona State University.

Seminar summary: More people know that sharks face conservation challenges and need our help more than ever before, but much of what they “know” about shark conservation is misleading, extremist, or just factually incorrect. Interdisciplinary marine conservation biologist Dr. David Shiffman studies public knowledge and attitudes about ocean conservation and works on the causes and consequences of misunderstandings of key issues concerning conservation threats and policy solutions. This talk will review new developments in the scientific and policy realms surrounding the conservation of threatened marine predators, and cover Dr. Shiffman’s recent work on public misunderstanding of these important issues.

Research interests: Marine conservation biology, sustainable management of coastal and marine resources, science communication related to conservation.

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Friday, July 8, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

SPEAKERS:
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Pedro Leão, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow.
"Asgard Archaeal Viruses"

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Kathryn Appler, Ph.D. candidate.
Graduate Research Assistant.
"Revealing Environmental Patterns of Asgard Archaea Genomic Diversity"

Host: Dr. Brett Baker

Friday, June 17, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

SPEAKERS:
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Adam Zambie, Ph.D.
“Warming-induced “Plastic Floors” Improve Hypoxia Vulnerability, Not Aerobic Scope, in Red Drum”

Kerri Lynn Ackerly, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
"Hypoxia Acclimation Selectively Induces Mitochondrial Plasticity in Aerobic Tissues of Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus)”

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Host: Dr. Andrew Esbaugh

Friday, May 13, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

SPEAKERS: The University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Hannah Sima Rempel
Graduate Research Assistant, Ph.D. student.
“Ecological Drivers, Healing Rates, and Thresholds for Recovery of Parrotfish Predation on Coral Communities Across the Greater Caribbean”

Robert Semmler, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
“Can Foraging Plasticity Buffer Effects of Coral Bleaching in Butterflyfishes?”

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JD Carlton, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
“Zipacnadia: A Globally Distributed, Novel Class of Armatimonadetes.”

Host: Drs. Jordan Casey and Brett Baker

Friday, April 22, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

"Integrating Natural Tracers and Biotelemetry to Reveal the Secret Lives of Fish"

John A. Mohan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center, University of New England.

Seminar summary: Fish exhibit complex life histories that involve use of spatially separated habitats across ontogeny. Understanding and describing the life histories of fish requires tools and techniques that provide information on fine and broad spatiotemporal scales. The elemental composition of incrementally grown calcified structures in fish, may provide chemical calendars of physiological and environmental conditions experienced across lifetimes. Electronic tags, such as acceleration data loggers (ADL) and pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags, record information and provide high-resolution time series of depth, temperature, and movement of fish on daily and monthly scales depending on deployment duration. This seminar will present case studies highlighting the application of natural tracers and electronic tags in migratory fish and sharks to address applied questions in fisheries ecology.

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Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, April 15, 11:00 am, Zoom only.

“Factors That May Impact the Fitness of Early Life Stage Fish: Investigations of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Nanoparticles and Temperature”

Kestrel Perez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Biology, St. Joseph's University, New York.

Dr. Perez will present recent work studying dietary or environmental exposure to titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles and the subsequent impact on growth, survival, and swimming ability in early life stage estuarine species. She will also present research evaluating temperature variation and the effect on growth and swimming ability in an estuarine fish.

Research interests: marine biology, fish and invertebrate evolutionary ecology.

Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, April 8, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

“A Study of the Potential Impact of Dredging the Corpus Christi Ship Channel on Passive Particle Transport”

Eirik Valseth, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Eirik Valseth received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Ostfold University College in Fredrikstad, Norway in 2013. He received his MS and PhD, also in Mechanical Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 2019. Since then he has been a postdoc, and now a Research Associate in the Computational Hydraulics group at UT Austin’s Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences working on ocean modeling, in particular hurricane storm surge modeling, as well as the development of numerical methods and tools.

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Host: Dr. Ed Buskey

Friday, April 1, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

"Measuring Water's Hydrogen Bond Dynamics Using Ultrafast Infrared Spectroscopy"

Carlos R. Baiz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin.
Baiz Group.

Seminar summary: Water derives its unique properties from its hydrogen-bonding structure. A water molecule has the ability to donate two hydrogen bonds and accept hydrogen bonds in a tetrahedral geometry. For this reason water forms highly-regular extended hydrogen bond networks, even in the liquid state at room temperature. Understanding these hydrogen bond networks in liquid water, as well as in the presence of solutes, is essential for understanding how water interacts with biomolecules.

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Host: Dr. Zhanfei Liu

Friday, March 25, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.

"Epigenetics Role in Invertebrate Adaptation: Not What Everyone Expects"

Mikhail V. Matz, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin.
Matz Lab.

Seminar summary: DNA methylation is widely believed to be a gene regulatory mechanism, potentially mediating transgenerational adaptation. I will describe our own and other people’s data calling this view into question, and present an alternative view of the possible role of DNA methylation in invertebrate adaptation.

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Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, March 11, 11:00 am, In-person & Zoom.
UT Marine Science Institute, Estuarine Research Center, Seminar Room.

"Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Alaska: 25 years of Surveying and Science"

Hoff, Gerald R., Ph. D.
NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering Division

Seminar abstract: Dr. Hoff's seminar will describe his work at the Alaska Fisheries Science Cent and how he got there from Texas. He will review the Center's mission and the research he has done while there.

Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, March 4, 11:00 am, Zoom only.

“Revealing Connections in the Sea: Insights Into the Processes Shaping the Spatial Distribution of Marine Fishes”

Richard R. Coleman, Ph.D.
Early Career Provost Fellow, Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin.

Friday, February 25, 11:00 am, Zoom only.

"Deepwater Horizon Impacts on Deep-Sea Meiofauna"

Jeffrey G. Baguley, Ph.D.
Teaching Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Nevada.

Seminar summary: Dr. Baguley’s seminar will focus on deep-sea impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill with particular focus on the microscopic meiobenthic invertebrates. He will discuss the initial deep-sea benthic footprint, community dynamics of initial recovery, and future directions for continued investigation.

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Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, February 18, 1:00 pm, Zoom only.

"Responses of Marine Fishes to Global Warming: A Molecular and Phenotypic Perspective"

Moisés A. Bernal, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University.
BERNAL Lab.

Dr. Moisés Bernal conducted his undergraduate studies at the University of Panama where he studied DNA barcoding of marine fishes. His doctoral research, conducted at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and the California Academy of Sciences, was on speciation of coral reef fishes (grunts). His postdoctoral work was on the effects of temperature in a tropical damselfish at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and the divergence of freshwater salmonids in the Great Lakes at SUNY Buffalo.

Research and teaching interests: Broadly, our lab focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary traits that determine how fish populations respond to natural and human-induced stressors, while elucidating the molecular mechanisms associated with developmental and transgenerational acclimation. Specific questions that define our research interests are: 1) what are the metabolic drawbacks associated with ocean warming in marine fishes? 2) what is the acclimation capacity of marine fishes to projected climate change scenarios and what epigenetic mechanisms are involved? 3) What is the influence of environmental history on the response of fishes to fluctuating conditions? The ultimate goal of this integrative approach is to illuminate our understanding of the future of marine fish populations in a changing planet (Bernal).

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Host: Dr. Simon Brandl

Friday, February 11, 11:00 am, Zoom only.

"Learning To Listen: Applying Bioacoustic Techniques To Coral Reef Ecology"

Timothy A.C. Lamont, Ph.D.
Marine Biologist, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University.

Research interests: coral reef ecology & restoration; studied across the Indo-Pacific region.
Dr. Lamont completed his PhD in reef bioacoustics at the University of Exeter in 2020 and started his current research fellowship at Lancaster in 2022, funded by the Royal Commission of 1851, in collaboration with the Mars Coral Reef Restoration Programme.

Seminar summary: Coral reefs are alive with sound, as many of their inhabitants use acoustics to communicate, navigate, and sense their environment. However, today’s reef soundscapes are being altered by climate change and drowned out by anthropogenic noise. In this seminar, Tim will explore how acoustic ecology might provide valuable techniques for monitoring and managing reef ecosystems, and powerfully emotive communication tools for public engagement. By learning to listen as we study coral reefs, we can better understand and protect these fragile ecosystems in a changing world.

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Host: Dr. Lee Fuiman

Friday, February 4, 11:00 am, Zoom only.

"A New Recipe For Southern White Rhino Breeding Success?"

Chris Tubbs, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Reproductive Sciences, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Dr. Tubbs earned his bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the University of Florida and his doctorate from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, where he studied the mechanisms by which hormones influence fish sperm motility. Chris is now interested in how environmental chemicals affect reproduction of endangered species. His research focuses on developing in vitro methods to measure interactions between environmental chemicals and the hormone receptors that regulate endocrine function. He is currently using this approach in the lab to examine the role of dietary phytoestrogens in the poor reproductive success of captive-born southern white rhinos. Another project is investigating contaminants such as DDT and PCBs and how they affect reproduction of coastal-dwelling California condors. 

Friday, January 21, 28 11:00 am, Zoom only.

"Microbial Response to Dissolved Organic Matter Across a Range of Bioavailability in the Seawater"

Shuting Liu, Ph.D.
Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara.

Seminar summary: Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) consists of a myriad of compounds that span a range of biological reactivity from labile to recalcitrant. Linking specific bacterioplankton phylogeny to the utilization of DOM compounds is important to understand microbial niche partitioning and help predict the fate of DOM flux and roles of microbes in DOM degradation within the ocean interior. In the Sargasso Sea, annual convective mixing exports DOM of varying recalcitrance from the ocean surface to mesopelagic zone and exported DOM can be oxidized over different time scales. We conducted a series of microbial remineralization experiments in the mesopelagic Sargasso Sea to study microbial response to DOM of varying bioavailability. We analyzed DOM quantity, quality and transformation, together with bacterioplankton growth and community structure response. We also used stable isotope probing (SIP) to track DOM incorporation into bacterioplankton biomass and identify specific bacterioplankton lineages capable of incorporating DOM compounds of varying lability.

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Host: Dr. Zhanfei Liu