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Ongoing and Recent projects
Project Title: Planktonic Omnivores and Stable Isotopes: Developing, Validating and Field-testing a Multi-species Functional Response Model
Funding agency: National Science Foundation (OCE/Bio) 2020-2023
Research centers: Chesapeake Biological Laboratory/Horn Point Laboratory (UMCES)
Synopsis: This project is investigating prey switching in a key member of coastal food webs, the shrimp-like mysid, Neomysis americana. Prey switching affects community structure and an organism’s resilience to environmental perturbation, but it is not easy to quantify. This project is using a combination of laboratory experiments and field sampling to develop a food web model that predicts mysid feeding patterns in the environment. This realistic and predictive food web model uses traditional gut analysis and analytical techniques that follow carbon and nitrogen as it is incorporated into the bodies of the mysids. In addition, mysid food preferences are being determined in the laboratory across a full range of diet possibilities. The calibrated gut analysis and chemical marker data in combination with feeding experiments are incorporated into the model, which then predicts mysid feeding on mixed diets under different environmental conditions. These predictions are validated against field data.
Personnel: Project PIs include Drs. Ryan Woodland (CBL), Michael Wilberg (CBL), and Jamie Pierson (HPL). Senior Personnel on the project includes Dr. Lee Cooper (CBL). The project will support two PhD students, one of whom (Nina Santos) matriculated to the program in Spring 2021.
A handful of mysids, primarily Neomysis americana, collected from the Patuxent River, MD. Photo credit: D. Quill.
Project Title: Scope of Work 7: Forage Indicator Development – Using Environmental Drivers to Assess Forage Status
Funding agency: Chesapeake Bay Trust/US Environmental Protection Agency (2021-2022)
Research centers: Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (UMCES)
Synopsis: This project will address needs of the Chesapeake Bay Program by relating indices of abundance (Bay Anchovy Anchoa mitchilli) or biomass (Polychaetes) of two key forage taxa to two climate indicators (5°C degree day phenology index, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) in tributary and mainstem habitats of Chesapeake Bay. This project will accomplish this by 1) calculating and providing updated forage population indices, 2) further exploring new variants of the forage population indices, and 3) relating forage population indices to forage climate indices. In doing so, this project will address and elaborate on Tier 1 and Tier 2 priority forage indicators identified in the Forage Indicator Development Plan (2020).
Personnel: Project PIs include Drs. Ryan Woodland (CBL), Vyacheslav Lyubchich (CBL), and Ed Houde (CBL, Emeritus). The project will partially support one PhD student (Drew Hobbs).
Recent forage research publications and articles:
Who's Eating Whom in the Chesapeake, Chesapeake Quarterly, Jeffrey Brainard
Project Title: Understanding the distribution and ecology of the mysid Neomysis americana, a key forage species in Chesapeake Bay
Funding agency: Maryland Sea Grant/NOAA, 2018-2021
Research centers: Chesapeake Biological Laboratory/Horn Point Laboratory (UMCES)
Synopsis: Mysids are one of the most important forage taxa by biomass for fish in Chesapeake Bay. Despite this recognition and decades of diet studies of fish in Chesapeake Bay, there is little to no published information on the distribution and density of mysids (including the dominant species, Neomysis americana) in Chesapeake Bay or its tributaries. It is also unknown how this critical trophic resource is influenced by environmental conditions in the Bay. Linking patterns in N. americana distribution, relative abundance, population demographics, and feeding to environmental gradients within and between tributaries, this project will provide a important first step in understanding how local water quality can affect the ecology of this crucial forage animal in Chesapeake Bay’s tributaries.
Personnel: Project PIs include Drs. Ryan Woodland (CBL), Hongsheng Bi (CBL), and Elizabeth North (HPL). The project included a MDSG Graduate Research Fellow, Danielle Quill (CBL/MEES).
Publications and Articles:
USING SOUND, SCIENTISTS SEARCH MURKY BAY WATERS
Chapina, R.J., et al. 2020. Metabolic rates of Neomysis americana (Smith, 1873) (Mysida: Mysidae) from a temperate estuary vary in response to summer temperature and salinity conditions, Journal of Crustacean Biology 40(4): 450–454, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcbiol/ruaa031
Cortial, G. et al. 2019. Phylogeography of Neomysis americana (Crustacea, Mysida), focusing on the St. Lawrence system, Journal of Plankton Research 41(5): 723–739, https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbz050
Top: Species of mysid collected in the Patuxent and Choptank rivers, MD, showing bodies and telsons of Americamysis almyra (A-B), A. bahia (C-D), and Neomysis americana (E-F). Red arrows in B, D, and F show diagnostic spicule arrangement on telsons for each species. Below: Mending a net during night ops.
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