“Tide Bites” is the monthly newsletter of UW Friday Harbor Laboratories. This month, FHL guest researcher Graham Short discusses his research in Adam Summers’ lab on pygmy seahorses. The application to study in residence at FHL in spring quarter 2019 will be opening in early November, and interested students are encouraged to contact the Marine Biology Adviser for more information.

Hippocampus bargibanti  resembles a miniature version of Daffy Duck (Figure 2), and has been sometimes observed congregating in relatively high numbers on one sea fan (2 to 15 individuals) in which all the males are pregnant.  This might have you thinking of a Daffy Duck Lamaze child birthing convention.

– Dr. Graham Short, Research Associate, California Academy of Sciences

Graham is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, a summer resident on San Juan island, and a guest researcher at Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL). His research interests are focused on the evolutionary relationships, taxonomy, and systematics of fishes in the Syngnathidae family, which include the seahorses, pipehorses, and seadragons. The past two summers Graham has been CT-scanning several species of seahorses, in particular the tiny pygmy seahorses, in Adam Summers’ lab to elucidate the subtle morphological characters that distinguish one species from another.

The family Syngnathidae is a large and diverse group of morphologically unique bony fishes, with 57 genera and 300 described predominantly small-bodied marine species of seahorses, pipefishes, pipehorses, and seadragons. The family occurs worldwide in shallow temperate to tropical waters in a range of habitats, including seagrass beds, estuaries, coral and rocky reefs, and mangroves, and are characterized by a fused jaw, extraordinary crypsis, and their unique and specialized reproductive biology. All syngnathids have male brooding structures, and some genera, such as the iconic seahorse in the genus Hippocampus, evolved true male pregnancy with complete nutrient and oxygen delivery to the developing embryos. There are 43 currently recognized species of seahorses (Lourie et al. 2016), the majority of which are comprised of medium to large species (just under an inch to 14 inches). In contrast, seven species of really tiny seahorses, the pygmy seahorses, are diminutive in size (third of an inch to half an inch: you can fit a few of them on your pinky nail with room to spare) and are morphologically distinct from the more numerous and larger species of seahorses.

Apart from their extremely small size, they have a single gill opening on the back of the head (imagine having your nose on the back of your neck), whereas all other seahorses have a pair of gill openings on either side of the head, and the young are brooded within the male’s trunk rather than a pouch on the tail. Two species of dwarf seahorses are sometimes referred to as pygmy seahorses, but differ by lacking the true pygmy’s single gill opening and trunk brooding. These include the endemic Red Sea seahorse H. debelius which dwells only in soft coral, and H. zosterae, a Western Atlantic species that inhabits seagrass and other submerged vegetation.

Fundamental information on the taxonomy, systematics, ecology, and distribution of pygmy seahorses is still relatively sparse in comparison to the larger seahorse species. Within the first decade of the 21st century six new species of pygmy seahorse were officially described. Bargibant’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti) was the first species of pygmy seahorse to be discovered. In 1969 a New Caledonian scientist, Georges Bargibant, was collecting specimens of Muricella sp gorgonians for the Noumea museum and upon inspection of a specimen he happened to notice a pair of tiny seahorses. I certainly don’t blame him if he thought he’d too much kava (a South Pacific herbal intoxicant produced by locals masticating the plant root) the previous night. Hippocampus bargibanti resembles a miniature version of Daffy Duck (Figure 2), and has been sometimes observed congregating in relatively high numbers on one sea fan (2 to 15 individuals) in which all the males are pregnant. This might have you thinking of a Daffy Duck Lamaze child birthing convention.

G. Short

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“Tide Bites” is the monthly newsletter of UW Friday Harbor Laboratories. This month, outgoing FHL Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Brent Hughes discusses his research on river otters. Read a short excerpt below, or read the full story at: http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/tidebites/Vol61/index.html. Dr. Hughes talks about his work with three undergraduates working under ‘Doris Duke Conservation Fellowships’. Undergraduates from UW or any school are invited to learn more about this summer opportunity at http://uwconservationscholars.org/.

“The FHL docks provide a unique opportunity to observe river otters, who frequent the docks and leave little “surprises.”  These droppings (scat) provide a glimpse into the river otter’s diet, and when combined with camera trap data can allow us to determine the timing of their foraging bouts and even the size of the animals. “

– Dr. Brent Hughes, FHL Postdoctoral Fellow

L. Carswell

We live in an interesting time with respect to earth’s ecology.  Several centuries of extreme overhunting by humans – first by European colonials and later with commercial overexploitation and human population expansion – have resulted in animals at the top of most food webs being removed.  Top predators can influence entire food webs by keeping other consumers in check and stabilizing ecosystems, but we have little understanding of historical food web structure because predator loss (known as trophic downgrading) began so long ago.  Conservation research has found that the loss of top predators comes with a heavy cost, and groups such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (www.iucnredlist.org) have recognized some of these key species are under threat from extinction, mobilizing efforts to prevent further loss of biodiversity.

In the United States, legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act has helped protect vulnerable species from the risk of extinction by establishing laws to protect them and their habitats.  As their populations rebound, the return of these animals to their historical ecosystems will require us to rethink our underlying theories of their true breadth of habitats.  For example, we are finding that sea otters can be successful outside of the ocean by using tidal salt marshes for food, rest and pupping.  Alligators were once thought to lack the ability to process excessive salt, and therefore avoid marine environments.  However, my colleagues from Duke University (Drs. Brian Silliman and James Nifong) have found that not only do alligators use marine environments, but they can successfully hunt crabs and sharks.  These recolonization events also present a challenge to conservation, as managers adapt to novel food webs.

One species that has benefitted from conservation efforts over the last century is the North American river otter (Lontra canadensis).  Like many animals prized for their pelts, the river otter was under threat from overhunting, and by the early 19th century it was at risk for extinction.  However, primarily local-scale conservation measures and stricter water quality and pollution standards have allowed the river otter to rebound, and it now inhabits most of North America.  River otters are semi-aquatic mustelids (the weasel family), and are traditionally thought to be freshwater animals.  However, across both coasts of North America, river otters are expanding into coastal environments.  Certain populations along the west coast rely entirely on marine food sources because they do not live within proximity to major freshwater sources, such as the river otters in Drakes Estero in California.

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The following is an excerpt from an article published by UW IT Connect: (2018, August 9). Hacking the ocean’s mysteries. Retrieved from https://itconnect.uw.edu/hacking-the-oceans-mysteries/

A vast underwater network of systems and sensors are capturing rich, never-before-accessed data from the mysterious world beneath our oceans.

To build a stronger community of scientists using that data to make new discoveries, oceanographers will convene at the UW for Oceanhackweek, August 20-24, 2018, five intensive days of collaborative investigations and tutorials in modern data analysis tools and techniques.

The hackweek aims to close the gap between the massive amounts of data being continuously streamed to shore and the ability of oceanographers to analyze that data, said Rob Fatland, director of research computing in UW Information Technology and an Oceanhackweek co-organizer. “We’ve become increasingly talented at gathering data,” he said, creating what he calls “a deluge of data.”

Without data science methodologies and computational tools, scientists are at a disadvantage when it comes to making sense of so much data.

Wu-Jung Lee, a research associate at the Applied Physics Lab (APL), faced this same challenge two years ago.

“I could see what I wanted to know, but my skill set was limited,” Lee said.

That changed in 2017, when Lee joined a 10-week Incubator program in the eScience Institute that equipped her with data science techniques and computational tools she needed to quickly sift through acoustic data and make scientific discoveries.

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