Virtual Seminar – Phytoplankton compositional shifts as indicators of oceanographic change in Central California – March 17th

 

Alexis Pasulka, California Polytechnic State University SLO

Hosted by the Biological Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "Phytoplankton compositional shifts as indicators of oceanographic change in Central California"

MLML Virtual Seminar | March 17th, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Alexis Pasulka is an Assistant Professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Her research explores a diversity of questions related to the composition, distribution, and interactions of marine microorganisms. By using environmental gradients over time or space, she aims to can gain insight into how organisms at base of the food web might respond to a changing climate. Alexis’ research integrates field and lab-based studies as well as multiple complimentary approaches (e.g., microscopy, molecular, and geochemical techniques). She received her BS in Biology from Arizona State University and her PhD in Biological Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Virtual Seminar – The influence of oceanographic and environmental features on plankton and seabird communities in the North Pacific- March 10th

 

Caitie Kroeger, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories/Farallon Institute

Hosted by the Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Presenting: "The influence of oceanographic and environmental features on plankton and seabird communities in the North Pacific"

MLML Virtual Seminar | March 10th, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Caitie’s research is centered on understanding the direct and indirect effects of oceanic and climatological forcing on the energy balance, movement patterns, and distributions of marine organisms. She earned her Ph.D. in Ocean Science from the University of California Santa Cruz, where she studied the ecophysiology of sub-Antarctic albatrosses and co-founded a science communication group. She then joined the Farallon Institute as a postdoctoral researcher, where she explored the effects of marine mesoscale eddies on structuring plankton and seabird communities and used spatial-temporal models to map seabird distributions for oil-spill risk assessment. She recently joined MLML as a postdoctoral researcher in the Vertebrate Ecology Lab where she’s investigating the foraging ecology and habitat use of emperor penguins.

Virtual Seminar – Molecular ecology and evolution of Eastern Pacific reef fishes – March 3rd

 

Giacomo Bernardi, University of California Santa Cruz

Hosted by the Visiting Scientist, Karen Crow

Presenting: "Molecular ecology and evolution of Eastern Pacific reef fishes"

MLML Seminar | March 3rd, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Seminar abstract:

Giacomo Bernardi’s lab at the University of California Santa Cruz focuses on speciation in fishes, primarily using genomic tools. His work uses population genetic, phylogeographic and molecular ecological approaches on Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean fishes. Giacomo Bernardi also contributes to Long Term Ecological studies on tropical fishes in French Polynesia and Micronesia. His work in Micronesia includes a strong component of work driven by indigenous people to address together reef health issues.

Giacomo Bernardi Presents: Molecular ecology and evolution of Eastern Pacific reef fishes

Virtual Seminar – When the Fast Beats the Furious: How tiny diatoms can change the world – Feb 17

 

Ivano Aiello, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories/San Jose State University

Hosted by the Phycology Lab

Presenting: "When the Fast Beats the Furious: How tiny diatoms can change the world"

MLML Virtual Seminar | February 17th, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

Seminar abstract:

Silica diagenesis is arguably one of the most important diagenetic processes in marine sediments since it causes regional-scale changes in the structure of the shallow lithosphere. In this seminar I will present for the first time the results of a recent (2019) deep-sea drilling expedition (IODP Expedition 385) of the R/V JOIDES Resolution to the northern region of the Guaymas Basin (GB) in the Gulf of California, a nascent, young ocean. The analysis of the cores recovered by the expedition at three of the drill sites unveils a new and somewhat unexpected picture of the relationships between export of amorphous silica (opal-A in diatom tests) under extremely productive surface waters, very fast burial of diatom ooze (up to 1m/kyr) at super-high geothermal gradients (~220–510 °C/km), and silica diagenesis (mainly the transformation of opal-A to the mineral form opal-CT). Thanks to modern drilling technology and collection of in situ temperatures we have discovered that in this basin amorphous opal-A diatom tests are preserved at much greater depths than we expected, where ambient temperatures are as high as ~80ºC which is more than ~30ºC higher than ever reported in other ocean settings, rock outcrops or hypothesized by kinetic studies. We suggest that the high temperature for silica diagenesis could be the result of the superfast sedimentation rates that outpace the time amorphous silica requires to recrystallize: in biosiliceous (diatom-rich) basins such as GB, the depth of the opal-A to opal-CT boundary is not just a function of the geothermal gradient but also of sedimentation rates and we present a conceptual model whereby similar depths of this silica-phase change are expected in deposition areas with different geothermal gradients if the hotter (sub)basin has the higher sedimentation rate. The second important finding of the expedition is that massive sill intrusions of magma split the opal-CT zone, not only suggesting that the sill formation postdates the silica phase change, but also that this diagenetic interface controls the way magma moves in the GB subseafloor whereby the opal-A/opal-CT transition zone as major physical anisotropy in the sedimentary column to reroute magma from vertical to lateral movement. This study establishes a fascinating connection between seemingly disconnected processes in the natural world: surface water biological productivity and crustal architecture of a newborn ocean. If surface water productivity in the GB was less extensive than it has been during the Pleistocene, the opal-A to opal-CT boundary would have occurred at much shallower depths, possibly allowing magmatic eruption and formation of seafloor basalts which is presently absent.

Ivano Aiello Presents: When the Fast Beats the Furious: How tiny diatoms can change the world

Virtual Seminar – What lies beneath: Internal waves in the nearshore coastal environment – Feb 10

 

Ryan Walter, California Polytechnic State University - SLO

Hosted by the Physical Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "What lies beneath: Internal waves in the nearshore coastal environment"

MLML Virtual Seminar | February 10th, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

About the speaker:

Ryan Walter received his B.S. degree from Cornell University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in Environmental Engineering. His research interests are in the field of environmental fluid mechanics, and involve the application of fluid mechanics principles to the study of flow and transport processes in the environment. His research focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of environmental fluid mechanics, specifically how various physical processes affect ecosystem health and biological processes in coastal systems. His current research projects include investigating shallow water internal wave dynamics, circulation and transport processes in upwelling bays, nearshore dissolved oxygen dynamics, scenarios for offshore wind energy along the California coast, and the role that estuarine hydrodynamics play in shaping seagrass systems in a local estuary. He also runs an ocean observing network along the Central California Coast.

Virtual Seminar – Recent lessons from gelatinous zooplankton – February 3rd

 

Casey Dunn, Yale University

Hosted by the MLML Visiting Scientist, Karen Crow

Presenting: "Recent lessons from gelatinous zooplankton"

MLML Virtual Seminar | February 3rd, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

About the speaker:

Casey Dunn mostly grew up in rural northern California. He did his undergraduate studies at Stanford, his graduate studies at Yale, and a postdoc at the University of Hawaii. He then was on the faculty at Brown for 10 years, and has been back at Yale since. He is an evolutionary biologist with a special interest in the gelatinous zooplankton of the open ocean. His work integrates natural history, phylogenetics, and genomics.

Virtual Seminar – Science informing resource management for Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary – January 27

 

Andrew Devogelaere, NOAA MBNMS, MLML, CSUMB

Hosted by the Geological Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "Science informing resource management for Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary"

MLML Virtual Seminar | January 27th, 2022 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

About the speaker:

Dr. DeVogelaere oversees the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary's Research Program. This includes facilitating collaboration among over 20 research institutions in the region, providing technical information to decision makers and the Sanctuary staff, and initiating research on resource management issues. Dr. DeVogelaere is also leading the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN), a critical program that assesses how populations of marine organisms and habitats are changing through time.  He has been directly involved in a wide variety of research projects, ranging in habitats from the deep-sea to estuaries. His past work experience includes being an elected official as Commissioner for the Moss Landing Harbor District and Research Coordinator for the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Science in Marine Science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and a Doctorate in Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Andrew DeVogelaere Presents: Science informing resource management for Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

Virtual Seminar – The Impacts of Submesoscale Currents on Marine Life From Phytoplankton to White Sharks – December 2

 

Leif Thomas, Stanford University

Hosted by the Physical Oceanography Lab

Presenting: "The Impacts of Submesoscale Currents on Marine Life From Phytoplankton to White Sharks"

MLML Virtual Seminar | December 2nd, 2021 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

About the speaker:

Dr. Leif N. Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. Thomas received a PhD in Physical Oceanography from the University of Washington, and was an Assistant Scientist at WHOI before joining the faculty at Stanford.  His research aims to understand the dynamics of submesoscale currents, highly energetic, time-variable flows that are associated with ocean fronts and eddies. These flows are ubiquitous in the upper ocean and strongly shape how water is exchanged between the sea surface and the deep, with implications for marine life, the dispersal of tracers, and the carbon and energy budgets of the ocean. Thomas’ research group at Stanford uses theory, computer modeling, and field observations to characterize the complex physics of submesoscale currents and assess their global-scale impacts on the ocean and climate.

Virtual Seminar – Marine Science for Social Justice – November 18

 

Katy Seto, University of California Santa Cruz

Hosted by the Invertebrate Ecology Lab

Presenting: "Marine Science for Social Justice"

MLML Virtual Seminar | November 18th, 2021 at 4pm

Watch the Live Stream here or here

About the speaker:

Katy Seto is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research lies at the intersection of political ecology, governance theory, and sustainability science, and investigates the equity, sustainability, and governance of marine and coastal systems. Currently, her research focuses on ecology and governance of marine systems, seafood within local and global food systems, and issues of maritime security and globalization.

Katy Seto Presents: Marine Science for Social Justice