Recorded talks can be found at MARINE'S YouTube Page

HOW (NOT) TO GENERATE DATA

Diana Baetcher, UCSC 

I work with fish, mostly in DNA form. In this talk I reflect on one challenging aspect of being a third-year grad student: the long and winding road of generating data for my thesis. If my process was a branching diagram, and each fork in the road labeled “The Hard Way” and “The Easy Way,” I inadvertently strolled, stumbled, or was pushed down the path of good-intentions and flawed assumptions. The benefit of this approach, aside from forcing me to develop stellar coping mechanisms, is that I’ve become more adept at identifying forks and working to really understand the implications of a method, experimental design, and sampling regime. Equally important, I learned to obfuscate what I now consider to be wrong-turns and missteps as reasonable stages in my data collection narrative. I have learned the value of knowing what not to do.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO COASTAL ADAPTATION

Juliano Calil, UCSC

In this talk, I will present the results of an innovative multidisciplinary approach to assess coastal risks related to climate change. Using data mining techniques, this study identified hotspots of socioeconomic vulnerability to the coastal impacts of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hotspots are coastal communities exposed to severe coastal hazards (including El Niño, storm surge, and strong waves), where levels of malnutrition, income inequality, and infant mortality rates are high. Finally, the study identifies potential adaptation strategies relevant to specific geographies, including coastal defenses, sustainable development, and disaster risk reduction activities.

PRODUCTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT: SKILLS AND VALUES IN BIOLOGICAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH

Jake Cline, CSUMB

Presently, biologists' knowledge of the ways in which global climate change will change the physiology and behavior of organisms is quite limited.  In the oceans, organisms will be forced to navigate increasingly warm, acidic and hypoxic (low-oxygen) waters.  Because these animals have evolved within a certain range of environmental conditions, changing levels of dissolved carbon dioxide, oxygen and nutrients will have many unknown effects upon most of them.  One notable example is the rockfishes, a large group of economically and ecologically important fishes native to California waters.  Our lab is investigating the behavioral and physiological response of these fish at the molecular level.  I will assess how the fish change their genes, and thus their bodies, to acclimate to increased ocean acidity.  I will use cutting-edge genomic technologies to analyze genes that get expressed as RNA, a relative of DNA that acts as a middleman between genes and proteins.

CORAL REEFS IN DECLINE

Megan Morikawa, Stanford Hopkins

Coral reefs are declining at an alarming rate - when the oceans warm, coral can bleach often causing widespread death & slime. Researchers & managers are struggling to find ways to protect these resources before it’s too late and some are looking towards coral nurseries as a potential solution. Megan Morikawa will present her research that is helping managers predict bleaching before it happens while providing the toughest coral as stock for coral nurseries. In the process, she’ll make a case for re-thinking citizen science to help kick-start urgently needed solutions for our oceans.

DEEP-SEA MINING: RISKS, REWARDS, AND REGULATION

Joshua Morris, MIIS

Technologies leveraged from the offshore oil and gas industry are making mineral exploitation of the deep seafloor economically viable for the first time. Deep-sea mining operations in areas beyond national jurisdiction are inevitable but the risks are as of yet unknown. My talk will focus on international governance issues surrounding deep-sea mining and the mitigation of anticipated environmental risks.

CHANGING THE FATE OF LOST SHARKS: HOW TO BRING LESSER KNOWN SPECIES INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

Vicky Vásquez, MLML

‘Lost Sharks’ refer to chondrichthyan species that suffer from a severe lack of attention resulting in them being forgotten by the public and science. As new species are discovered, many fall within generas already heavily populated with ‘Lost Sharks’ and thereby threatens them with the same forgotten fate. In an effort to prevent the ‘Lost Shark’ pattern, an innovative naming process was used for a new species of Lanternshark, discovered off the Pacific coast of Central America. Four young shark enthusiasts, ages 8 to 14, were bestowed the naming privilege and the process was recorded. The new species is named Etmopterus benchleyi n. sp. in honor of Jaws author and subsequent shark conservationist, Peter Benchley. The common name, the Ninja Lanternshark, refers to the uniform black coloration and reduced photophores (light-emitting organs) used as concealment in this species, which are reminiscent of a ninja’s typical outfit and stealthy behavior.