Five SoMAS Research Projects Receive Funding from New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has awarded approximately $2.15 million to support 10 research projects — five of which are based at Stony Brook University — that will directly address multiple high-priority community, economic and environmental objectives.

The two-year projects — administered by NYSG and funded through the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Sea Grant’s federal parent agency, represent a range of stakeholder-driven topics to benefit residents across a number of New York’s coastal geographies.

Below are the five Stony Brook research projects that will receive funding.

The Current and Future Impacts of Warming and Low Oxygen on the Sustainability of Shellfisheries Across New York

Lead PIs: Michael Doall, Associate Director for Bivalve Restoration, and Christopher Gobler, Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation, Distinguished Professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS)

To help ensure the future viability of shellfisheries in New York, researchers are conducting analyses to characterize the dynamics of past, present, and future temperature and dissolved oxygen in New York estuaries and identify ideal and inhibitory locations across New York for each species, allowing managers, fishers, and aquaculturists to prepare for future change.

The project will provide guidance on the shellfisheries that are most and least likely to flourish under future climate change scenarios, as well as the places in New York most suitable for different shellfish species into the future.

Developing an End-to-End Ecosystem Model to Inform Management of the Hudson River and New York Bight Ecosystem

Lead PI: Yong Chen, Professor, SoMAS

To better understand the dynamics of the Hudson River Estuary (HRE) and New York Bight (NYB) ecosystem in the context of ongoing climate change and anthropogenic stressors, investigators are developing and testing a new ecosystem model that couples physical and biological processes to simulate the HRE-NYB ecosystem dynamics. This approach will help identify the key drivers and stressors that regulate the HRE-NYB ecosystem processes. The model can be used for evaluating different management scenarios in support of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management and spatial planning in the studied area.

Improving Risk Communication for Extreme Rainfall Events in Vulnerable Coastal Communities: A Case Study for Jamaica Bay

Lead PIs: Donovan Finn, Associate Professor; Kevin Reed, Professor; and Christine Gilbert, Assistant Professor, SoMAS

Researchers are combining their expertise in climate science, community engagement, urban adaptation planning, and communication studies to address flood risks in New York’s Jamaica Bay region, which has been heavily impacted by extreme weather events such as Hurricane Sandy.

“With our project we hope to uncover some of the communication barriers that exist between climate scientists and public officials on the one hand, and the messages that communities hear related to climate change induced risk on the other hand,” Finn said. “We will then develop new communication strategies to inform local residents about climate risks in ways that are more useful and effective.”

AI-Based Forecast Tool for Prediction of Hypoxia Occurrence in Long Island Sound

Lead PI: Kamazima Lwiza, Associate Professor, SoMAS

Investigators aim to develop an enhanced predictive tool, compared to the standard three-dimensional hydrodynamic models, for hypoxic conditions and dissolved oxygen variability in Long Island Sound (LIS). The machine learning approach to be developed will provide an efficient way of predicting water quality in LIS and help management and policymaking on nutrient load limits by reducing the uncertainty of hypoxia projections. Regional working groups and stakeholders have shown keen interest in developing an enhanced predictive tool for summer hypoxic conditions.

“We envision developing an attention-based convolutional neural network transformer to improve seasonal prediction of hypoxia occurrence in Long Island Sound with a 3-6 month forecast range,” Lwiza said.

Characterization and Dynamics of Bay Scallop Marosporida (BSM), an Emergent Parasite of Argopecten irradians irradians

Lead PIs: Emmanuelle Pales Espinosa, Research Associate Professor, and Bassem Allam, Marinetics Endowed Professor in Marine Sciences, SoMAS

The research team will determine parasite distribution and dynamics in the environment and identify potential reservoirs of bay scallop Marosporida. The project’s investigators will also (a) evaluate how temperature regulates disease dynamics and the persistence of parasite cells in the environment, and (b) characterize the genetic diversity of the parasite to test if the current outbreak results from the emergence of a highly virulent strain.

“This project is expected to generate information needed to understand factors affecting disease dynamics in the bay scallop in New York fisheries, and also evaluate the risk of disease outbreaks in other regional bay scallop fisheries,” Pales Espinosa said.

The other five projects in NYSG’s most recent research suite, which are led by principal investigators at Hofstra University, Cornell University, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, focus on: creating a K-12 marine, coastal and environmental science curriculum; developing eDNA (DNA found in the environment)-based tools to simultaneously survey multiple risks in water bodies; gaining insights into the benefits of restoring native fish to the functioning of the Lake Ontario food web and value to sport fisheries; examining the effects of LED lights in the pots of New York crustacean fisheries; and understanding how Great Lakes fish such as the Northern pike are impacted by the dominance of invasive plants under water level regulation and climatic conditions.

This is the largest number of projects that NYSG has been able to support during any one of its biennial research cycles. For more, read the complete NYSG press release.

New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant, a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York, is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.