SERC Report VI 2005

Orchids Orchids in Bloom in Bloom

Metal Detectives part 1 Long-term Global Change Oyster Restoration

S Ι E Ι R Ι C Fall 2005 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

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Dear Reader,

The 2005 hurricane season certainly emphasized the importance of researching and understanding en-

vironmental interactions in the coastal zone. As our attention has been riveted to the tragic impacts of

this year’s hurricanes, we are reminded that these powerful storms are a major source of ecological distur-

bance and an enduring force of change in coastal ecosystems.

A major theme of SERC research centers on variations of intensity and frequency of disturbance,

and how ecosystems are disrupted by and recover from disturbance. Over the past 40 years long-term

monitoring and research has provided detailed analyses of variations in disturbance and response to

events such as hurricanes that have impacted our Rhode River site. SERC researchers also analyze the

impacts and responses to hurricanes at ecosystems within the Indian River Lagoon and Cape Canaveral

in Florida, forests of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and the mangroves, seagrasses and coral reefs of

the Meso-American Reef system off Belize.

The insight gained through our long-term studies in these large-scale systems allows us to better

predict impacts and recovery, and is a necessary element of improved coastal management.

We are in the research business for the long haul – with the necessary patience, commitment and sus-

tained institutional support to study environmental processes that are missed by typical projects of only

two to three years.

The value of this type of longevity is featured in this Quarterly Report, as we announce that Plant

Physiologist Bert Drake has received the 2005 Secretary’s Distinguished Lecturer Award for his two dec-

ades of work on the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 on plant communities. We also describe research by

SERC Biogeochemist Fritz Riedel on years of trace metal deposition in the environment and highlight

the patience and commitment of Biological Technician Jay O’Neill to cultivate the delicate symbiotic

balance of fungus and orchid. Along with his study of flowering in a long-lived plant, O’Neill’s work is

contributing to the potential for conservation and restoration of endangered plant species.

Sincerely,

Tuck Hines

Cover photo: winged encyclia (Epidendrum alatum) by Sharyn Hedrick

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Upcoming Events:

2005 Evening Lecture Series: All lectures begin at 7pm

in the Schmidt Center November 16 Speaker: Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News, Inc. The State-of-the-Art of Clean, Renewable and Efficient Energy: Green Energy for Maryland and Beyond.

William R. Sweeney, Jr., Chairperson Vice President, Global Government Affairs, Electronic Data Systems, Washington, DC. Barbara Bedford, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Frank Chaney, President and CEO, Chaney Enterprises, Lothian, MD, and President, Eugene Chaney Foundation, Waldorf, MD. Diane Ebert-May, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Plant Biology, and Director, Assessment in Science Education in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University, MI. Russell Faucett, General Partner, Barrington Partners, Santa Monica, CA. James R. Gosz, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM. Diana MacArthur, Chair and CEO, Dynamac Corporation, Rockville, MD. Scott Nixon, Ph.D., Professor of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI. Midgett S. Parker, Jr., Esq., Attorney and Partner, Linowes and Blocher, LLP, Annapolis, MD. Wayne Rogers, Chairman, Synergics Companies, Annapolis, MD. Charles G. Rose, Former North Carolina Congressman, Westminster, VA.

4 4 4 Metal Detectors The first in a two-part exploration of SERC’s research into trace metal ecology

6 6 6 Rewards of Time The payoffs of long-term research and patience

9 9 9 Civil Science in Action Research on oyster restoration

Eye on Education: remote video conferencing Civil Science: government relations Sightings: selected media coverage of SERC activities Strength in Numbers: new grants and awards Meetings and Presentations Publications

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Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Advisory Board

Karen McDonald joined SERC in October in the new position of public outreach coordina-tor. Karen will be expanding public access to the center and developing new programs for on-site visitors. Karen comes to SERC from Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware where she was responsible for public programs.

New Outreach Coordinator

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Metal Detectors Metal Detectors

by Kimbra Cutlip

As floodwaters inundated New Orleans in August, Hurricane Katrina unleashed tons of toxic pollutants into the streets of

the city. Those same waters and the toxins they carried were subsequently pumped into Lake Ponchartrain where environmentalists, scientists and managers all speculated on the environmental damage to the lake and the human health risks that would result. It may be a long time before those questions are answered, but one key factor in understanding the impact of that event will be to know what was there before the hurricane.

“Having a baseline before big events is important,” said SERC biogeo-chemist Fritz Riedel. “One can often reconstruct the past from old evidence, but it’s not the same as having had the actual measurements you would want from before the event.”

Riedel understands both the challenge of reconstructing history and the significance of creating a baseline for the here and now. Riedel has compiled one of the most complete databases on metal contamination in Chesapeake Bay and is currently reconstructing the record of metal pollution in the Washington, DC area.

By analyzing dated sediment cores from the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, Riedel has revealed a dramatic increase in certain trace metals such as copper, cadmium, lead and zinc in the 1920s and 30s with increasing industrialization. These metals then leveled off before beginning to drop about 25 years ago. Riedel’s cores are also revealing some current trends that he says managers will probably want to keep an eye on.

Nickel and perhaps chromium also seem to be on the rise, although neither of these metals is among the group that increased during the early industrialization eight decades ago. “We don’t have specific sources we can

Last year, the research focus at SERC broadened with the arrival of Fritz Riedel and Cindy Gilmour. Both are studying trace metals in the aquatic environment. This is the first of two articles featuring their work.

Tracing Metals Over TimeTracing Metals Over Time

Fritz Reidel collects samples of mud along the shores of the Potomac River (top). Core samples from the bottom of the Potomac are brought on board a work boat (bottom) and then sliced into smaller samples (middle) for analysis back at the lab.

5 SERC Report VI 2005

blame those on yet,” Riedel said. “Whatever has changed, it appears to be ongoing, and these concentrations don’t appear to be going down. The major use of both metals is in the manufacture of steel, particularly stainless steel in the case of nickel.”

According to Riedel, it is important to know what’s there, but it is also important to understand how it behaves in the environment. Through his studies of the movement and behavior of trace metals and other toxins in the environ-ment, Riedel is investigating how arsenic, a toxic metalloid that occurs naturally, impacts an ecosystem differently under different environmental conditions.

In open, oxygenated systems, arsenic exists mostly in the form of arsenate which is chemically very similar to phos-phorous. “That’s where the toxic effects of arsenic usually come from, in mimicking phosphorous and then not quite behaving correctly,” Riedel said. Phosphorus is a vital nutri-ent for plants such as phytoplankton which serve as the base of the food web. In conditions where phytoplankton growth is limited by low concentrations of phosphorus, Riedel has found that the plants will take up the arsenate. They then undergo a very complex and energy-consuming process to get rid of the toxin, which is excreted out into the water as methyl arsenic.

This process is known in freshwater and estuarine systems where phosphorous limitation is prevalent, but Riedel is about to begin looking for it in the open ocean. He’ll be examining the interaction between phytoplankton and arsenic in the Sargasso Sea to learn more about phosphorus limitation there, and to find out if the same process that he observed in estuaries is occurring in the ocean.

Research Technician Georgia Riedel analyzes a sample for methyl mercury using SERC’s recently acquired Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrometer (ICP-MS). One of the most powerful instruments at SERC, the ICP-MS can simultaneously measure a large number of elements in a single sample. The instrument can also measure individual isotopes of an element, allowing for tracer studies using stable isotopes and measurements of elements by isotope dilution.

A sample is blown into a very high-temperature argon plasma which blasts apart the molecules in the sample and ionizes most of the atoms. A portion of the ions are collected and focused onto four electromagnetic rods called the quadrupole which separates the ions by mass, measures their impact on an elec-tronic detector and counts them.

“It is one of the most sensitive instruments ever devised,” said Riedel, “as it counts individ-ual atoms, and can measure many elements in samples at concentrations of part per trillion or less.”

This core sample from the Potomac River is roughly 12-feet long and may represent a few hundred years of sediment.

Tools of the Trade

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On October 24, Bert Drake received the Smithsonian’s sixth annual Distinguished Research Lecturer award at a presenta-tion on the National Mall. The award is given to individuals who have “made exceptional contributions to a field of knowledge throughout careers of sustained excellence.”

Drake’s pioneering research has become the benchmark for many studies on the response of ecosystems to rising atmos-

Recognized for Blazing TrailsRecognized for Blazing TrailsRecognized for Blazing Trails

Five years ago, Jay O’Neill coaxed a microscopic seed to germinate and grow. This summer, for the first time, O’Neill’s orchid, the Epidendrum eburneum, blossomed into a papery white flower.

O’Neill’s dedication to growing orchid’s is personal. He grows them for pure enjoyment, but his efforts have relevance to his work. As the head re-search technician in the Plant Ecology Lab, O’Neill is investigating the unique relationship between orchids and fungi.

Orchid seeds depend on fungus to provide them with carbon during the germination process, but not just any fungus will do. Some orchids are so specific that only one species of fungus can help them to germinate. This level of specificity can make orchids vulner-able to the effects of commercial exploitation, over-collecting, and habitat destruction. In fact, many native orchid popula-tions are threatened or endangered.

Patience Pays off in Delicate White BloomsPatience Pays off in Delicate White BloomsPatience Pays off in Delicate White Blooms

pheric carbon dioxide, and continues to be at the forefront of this important area of inquiry.

In the early 1980s, he was one of a handful of scientists who ignored conventional wisdom by insisting that rising at-mospheric carbon dioxide would influence plant growth and alter the pace of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmos-phere. His early results helped inspire a major international effort to understand this aspect of global climate change. Drake’s early field experiments at SERC are continuing today, nearly 20 years later, and represent the longest-running experi-ments of this kind in the world.

Drake has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles including papers in Science and Nature. His work is widely cited and appears in influential publications such as the assessment reports of the International Panel on Climate Change. During his 34-year career at the Smithsonian Institution, Drake has raised more than $9 million in extramural support for his work.

“If we can learn to grow these orchids more quickly and transplant them into the wild successfully, it would aid in

reforestation and restoration,” O’Neill said. “Generally people think that orchids are delicate and difficult to grow, but if they saw where they live in the tops of trees and how they are blown back and forth by the wind, exposed to the hot tropical sun and torrential rains, they would be surprised.” Orchids are heartier than most people think, but cultivating them takes a kind of patience most people don’t have. O’Neill is the rare exception. He still has his first orchid, the winged encyclia (Epidendrum alatum). It has bloomed several times in the 20 years O’Neill has cared for it. But his oldest plant is an orange tree he bought for a dollar nearly 27 years ago. “During lean times it made

a good Christmas tree,” O’Neill said.

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W hile Diane Wilkinson responds from the comfort of her Schenectady City School District office in Schenectady, New York, Mark Haddon takes her on a tour of SERC’s beach. Wilkinson and Haddon used the Education Department’s new remote video conference equipment to fur-ther their discussions for the development of video conferences focusing on invasions biology, endangered species and measuring nature.

The portable wireless equipment will enable SERC to conduct classes in the field during video conferences. With antennae located around the Center, the education department can share live field experiences with classrooms around the world. All the recipients need is an inexpensive webcam and a high-speed internet connection.

That’s as close to hands-on as you can get from hundreds or even thousands of miles away!

Eye on Education

Classroom on

The Go . . .

Classroom on

the Go . . .

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SIGHTINGS Patrick Neale was interviewed by Talk Radio News Service for a spot on UV radiation and the effects of ozone deple-tion. The interview was broadcast to college radio stations nationwide through college media news service. An interview with Peter Marra was featured in a five-minute radio program on West Nile virus and migratory birds for the National Public Radio syndicated program Radio Health Journal aired on more than 400 radio stations around the country. Catherine deRivera’s work was recently featured in news articles throughout the country. DeRivera is a SERC re-search biologist at the Aquatic Bioinvasions Research and Policy Institute, a joint project of SERC and Portland State University. Her study of the selection of mates by female fiddler crabs was picked up by UPI, which ran the story “Biologist finds fiddler crabs very picky” on August 3. The New York Times and other outlets ran the UPI story, and many ran their own stories including Discovery’s Animal Planet, the San Diego Union Tribune, National Geo-graphic online, BBC online, Science Today online, New Scientist, and Yubanet.com which listed it as the most read story, reporting 200 e-mails to the editor and 500 instances in which the story and been forwarded by readers the week it appeared. A 30-minute interview with Chuck Gallegos was aired during the radio program “Voices of the Chesapeake” on the Baltimore Annapolis radio station WRNR 103.1. New York’s public television station WNET, Channel 13, spent a day at SERC video taping for a national program titled Planet H2O. A 15-minute segment of the half-hour show will feature the blue crab stock enhancement project at SERC and will air on Earth Day 2006. Discovery Health T.V. spent a day video taping at SERC for a new program titled “Dr. Know.” The crew interviewed SERC researchers and then collected jellyfish in the field. The program will focus on debunking myths surrounding jellyfish.

Civil Science

Tuck Hines and Candy Feller presented an overview of SERC and SI research and education activities in Belize at a meeting with the new U.S. Ambassador to Belize and other Smithsonian officials. Mark Minton and Whitman Miller participated in The Economic Impacts of Aquatic Invasive Species Workshop hosted by the U.S. EPA July 20-21, 2005 in Washington DC. It was designed to bring economists and ecologists together to discuss the tools available and the practicality of quantifying the impacts of aquatic invasive species. Catherine deRivera submitted a report to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation titled "Broad-Scale Non-indigenous Species Monitoring along the West Coast in National Marine Sanctuaries and National Estuarine Research Reserves." The report outlines the findings of a collaborative research project between SERC's Marine Invasions Lab, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, and the National Marine Sanctuary Program.

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Wrapped in two paper coffee filters, the softball sized mass of gelatinous goop sat nestled in a bed of ice for the hour and a half trip across the Chesapeake Bay to SERC’s wetlab along the shores of the Rhode River. There scientists carefully divided the mass of 29 million precious eastern oyster larvae into five portions and placed them into large round tanks filled with baskets of oyster shells. Fed a constant flow of water from the nearby river, the larvae took about two days to “settle out” on the shells known as “cultch” and begin to grow into tiny oysters called “spat.”

It’s a far cry from the way nature rears her spat in the wild, but then again, the Chesapeake Bay is a far different place than it once was. One hundred years ago, oysters were so abundant in the Chesapeake they could filter the entire Bay in three or four days. Today there are so few oysters remaining that it takes them an entire year to do that job. Pollution, disease and over-harvesting have reduced the oyster take from more than 15 million bushels in the late 1800s to a mere 30 thou-sand bushels in recent years. Now, those small spat, some no larger than a drop of water, passed through many hands and coaxed to grow under watchful eyes, represent the seeds of hope that the eastern oyster may one day be plentiful again.

The cultivation of oyster spat is just one step in a multi-tiered cooperative effort between watermen, citi-zens groups, and environmental organizations to help re-seed the Bay with native oysters. Such restoration projects have been gaining visibility and participation for several years, and this year SERC and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have joined the efforts. Through a partnership with projects in three adjacent rivers in the upper Bay, SERC and NOAA hope to lend a scientific perspective, evaluate the effectiveness of various methods and, where possible, improve the restoration efforts.

The new partnership RhoWeSo, takes its name from the three rivers involved—Rhode River, West River, South River—and will combine the scientific

Adding Perspective to Community Restoration Adding Perspective to Community Restoration Adding Perspective to Community Restoration

expertise of SERC and NOAA with the experiences of ongoing oyster restoration efforts in those rivers by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and community organi-zations. Those organizations have been actively building artificial reefs in the rivers using oyster shells and concrete as hard substrate. They plant year-old cultivated oysters on these reefs in the hopes that nature will then take over and the oysters will continue to grow and colonize them.

But once the oysters are planted in their new underwa-ter homes, their fate is, in some ways, as murky as the water beneath which they lie. Survival rates of planted oysters are unknown, and no one has compared different constructed reefs to determine the optimal shape and size for oyster growth. “We need to use scientifically rigorous experiments to help test the alternative ideas about best ways to plant and restore oysters,” said Tuck Hines, Director and Marine Ecologist at SERC.

Working from SERC’s docks along the Rhode River, NOAA will generate maps of the entire bottom of the Rhode and eventually the West and South rivers. The resulting maps will provide three-dimensional outlines of both natural and constructed oyster beds, and SERC scuba divers will “ground truth” the oyster beds and compare their results with the sonar map.

From this information, SERC researchers will begin to understand the influence of habitat on oyster populations. Additional field studies and experiments on spat grown in the lab will help them understand other factors that affect oyster survival, growth and the prevalence and intensity of diseases, especially Dermo, which have ravaged the general oyster population throughout the Bay.

“We have a long way to go and a lot to learn, but running these experiments in a subestuary where we have lots of background data about water quality, plankton, fish, and other invertebrates gives us a great opportunity to get the most out of this cooperative effort,” said Hines.

This article is excerpted from one that first appeared in the Maryland Watermen’s Gazette.

By Margaret Kramer, Kimbra Cutlip, Tom Smerling, Alexandra Avila, Eric Johnson

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Strength in Numbers

Anson Hines received $146,247 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA National Sea Grant Program, for “Aquatic Invasive Species Research: Invasive species in key tropical U.S. ports. Extending standardized surveys for islands and continents.” Charles Gallegos received $46,146 from the U.S. Department of Defense for “Coupling Suspended Sediment Dynamics and Light Penetration in the Upper Chesapeake Bay.” Patrick Megonigal received a new National Science Foundation Award for “Plant Regulation of Competition Between Methanogens and Iron Reducing Bacteria in Freshwater Wetlands.” The full amount of the award is $813,926 over three years. The amount to SI is $390,000 with the remainder going to colleagues at the American Type Culture Collection and the University of Delaware. Denise Breitburg received $78,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce/Sea Grant College for “The Po-tential Role of Small Inlets as Reactor Vessels for Gelatinous Zooplankton in Chesapeake Bay.” Thomas Jordan received $5,060 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for “Utilizing Nitrogen and Oxygen Isotopes as Tracers for Manure Nutrient Fate in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.” Patrick Megonigal received $77,557 from the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey for the CO2 Project. Fritz Riedel received two awards from the D.C. Department of Health, Water Quality Division. Riedel received $42,285 from a total grant of $112,868 for SERC’s collaboration in “Tidal Basin and Washington Ship Chan-nel Toxics Monitoring.” He also received $64,967 for collaborative work on “Kenilworth/Beaver Dam Creek Toxics Monitoring.” Patrick Neale received $95,986 from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative project on “Interactive Effects of UV and Vertical Mixing on Phytoplankton and Bacterioplankton in the Ross Sea.” He also received $27,687 from Miami University for “Interactive Effects of UV Radiation and Temperature on Pelagic Food Webs.” Wayne Coats and SERC fellow Mario Sengco received $67,112 from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for “Control of Harmful Algal Blooms Using Clays: Phase II.” Bert Drake and Patrick Megonigal received $206,960 from the U.S. Department of Energy for “Rising CO2 and Long-Term Carbon Storage in Terrestrial Ecosystems: An Empirical Carbon Budget Validation.” Greg Ruiz received $399,994 from National Sea Grant for “Full Scale Study: Demonstration Project for the full-scale, ship-based application of a ballast water verification method to vessel arrivals on the US Pacific Coast.” Ruiz also received $199,980 from California State Lands Commission for “Ballast Water Exchange Verifica-tion: Testing Application of Chemical Tracers on the U.S. Pacific Coast.” Denise Breitburg received the following funding from the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office: $74,124 for “Long-term mesocosm studies of competitive interactions between diploid Crassostrea ariaken-sis and C. virginica” (This is part of a $442,254 joint grant with Roger Newell, Mark Luckenbach and Chris Dungan of SERC’s Chesapeake Bay Partner Institutions.) $157,194 for “Will predation mortality differ for larvae of native and non-native oysters?” (this is part of a joint grant for $192,208 to D. Breitburg, R. Fulford, M. Luckenbach and R. Newell.) $110,937 for “Evaluation of Crassostrea ariakensis as a potential sink or reservoir for pathogens and para-sites of humans and shellfish,” Collaborative work with: G. Vasta, E. Schott, D. Breitburg and A. Hines.

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Minutes: scientific and professional meetings and presentations by SERC staff

International Union of Microbiological Societies meeting in San Francisco, CA. Patrick Megonigal: “Elevated at-mospheric CO2, microbes and global warming.” 90th Annual Meeting of the Eco-logical Society of America in Montreal, Canada. ♦ Patrick Megonigal: “Plant-mediated control of wetland soil microbial respiration.” ♦ Michael Ryan: “Canopy structural changes during forest development - a framework for comparison.” ♦ Melissa McCormick: poster “Soil fungal communities in successional and mature deciduous forests in Maryland: heterogeneity and impli-cations for an ecological under-standing of mycorrhizal interac-tions.” ♦ Bert Drake and researchers from the CO2 lab presented ten talks. John Erickson and Francois Delage presented talks on the long term studies at the Maryland CO2 site, and Tom Powell, Troy Seiler, Jia-hong Li, Dave Johnson, and Rosvel Bracho presented on the work at the Florida CO2 site. Fourth International Canopy Conference in Leipzig, Germany. Jess Parker: “Vertical attenuation of photosynthetically active radiation in forest canopies: average patterns, variation, and implications.” 8th International Phycological Congress in Durban, South Africa. Linda Franklin, Patrick Neale, J. Phillips-Kress, Christina Sobrino: “UV radiation inhibits carbon up-take and allocation in a Ross Sea phytoplankton bloom.”

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography meeting in Santiago de Compostella, Spain. ♦ Wayne Coats: four poster presen-tations and one oral presentation and co-chair for special session on Parasites of Plankton. ♦ Denise Breitburg: “Opposing waves of medusa and ctenophore spread and trophic control across an estuarine landscape.” ♦ Patrick Neale, Christina Sobrino, Maria Tortziou, Jesse Phillips-Kress, and Linda Franklin: “UV inhibition of phytoplankton photo-synthesis during the late stage of an extensive Ross Sea polynya bloom” and “Interaction of UV-radiation and temperature in the inhibition of photosynthesis: spectral and temporal responses of an estuarine diatom.” ♦ Patrick Megonigal and Charles Gallegos: “Sources and cycling of chromophoric dissolved organic material in the estuarine waters of the Rhode River sub-estuary and the Chesapeake bay.” Scientific Committee for Ocean Research working group # 120 meeting in Haren, The Nether-lands. Patrick Neale “Ultraviolet radiation effects on photosynthesis in the Ross Sea polynya and cul-tures of Phaeocystis Antarctica.” 12th East Coast Conference on Protozoology. Wayne Coats: ses-sion chair, four poster presenta-tions, participant Executive Com-mittee Meeting of the Interna-tional Society of Protozoologists (ISOP), and transitioned from the President-Elect to the President of ISOP. Coats will serve one year as

President and remains on the Ex-ecutive Committee. Fourth International Marine Bioinvasions Conference in Wellington, New Zealand. Whitman Miller: “Does Native Ecology Predict Invasion Ecol-ogy?” Pacific Northwest Economic Region 15th Annual Summit in Seattle, WA. Whitman Miller: “Regional Approaches to Invasive Species.” Scientific and Technical Advi-sory Committee (STAC) quarterly meeting. Denise Breitburg repre-sented SERC. Chesapeake Research Consor-tium meeting Denise Breitburg Represented SERC 6th International Crustacean Congress in Glasgow, Scotland. Anson Hines: Talked about blue crab reproductive biology in a special session on “Fishery impacts on decapod mating systems.” Greg Ruiz gave a keynote talk on patterns of invasive species in coastal eco-systems of North America for a session on invasive crustacean species.

SERC researchers presented 24 talks at the Estuarine Research Federation Biennial Conference in Norfolk, VA. A listing of those talks will appear in the next issue of SERC Report, or, you may see a listing and read the abstracts at: http://erf.org/erf2005/abstracts/organizations16.html#S

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NEW PUBLICATIONS Sobrino, C., Neale, P.J., Montero, O., Lubián, L.M. 2005. Biological weighting function for xanthophylls de-epoxidation induced by ultraviolet radiation. Physiologia Plantarum 125(1):41-51. Sobrino, C., Montero, O., Lubián, L.M. 2005. Effect of ultraviolet radiation on diel patterns of growth and cell viability in Nannochloris atomus cultures measured by flow cytometry. Marine Ecology Progress Series 293:29-35. Sobrino, C., Neale, P.J., Lubián, L.M. 2005. Interaction of UV-radiation and inorganic carbon supply in the inhibition of photosynthesis: Spectral and temporal responses of two microalgae with different carbon concentration mechanisms. Pho-tochemistry & Photobiology 81:384-393. Minton, M.S., Verling, E., Miller, A.W., Ruiz, G.M. 2005. Reducing propagule supply and coastal invasions via ships: effects of emerging strategies. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 3(6):304-308. Carlton, J.T., Ruiz, G.M. 2005. Vector science and integrated vector management in bioinvasion ecology: conceptual frameworks. In: Invasive alien species, H.A. Mooney, R.N. Mack, J.A. McNeely, L.E. Neville, P.J. Schei, and J.K. Waage (editors), pp 36-58. Island Press, Washington. Carlton, J.T., Ruiz, G.M. 2005. The magnitude and consequences of bioinvasions in marine ecosystems: implications for conservation biology. In Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea's Biodiversity, Elliott A. Norse and Larry B. Crowder (editors), 123-148. Island Press, Washington. Minton, M.S., Verling, E., Miller, A.W., Ruiz, G.M. 2005. Reducing propagule supply by ships to limit coastal invasions: effects of emerging strategies. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6:304-308. Verling, E, Ruiz, G.M., Smith, L.D., Galil, B., Miller, A.W., Murphy, K. 2005. Supply-side invasion ecology: characteriz-ing propagule pressure in coastal ecosystems. Royal Society London B 272:1249-1256. DeRivera, C.E. 2005. Long searches for male-defended breeding burrows allow female fiddler crabs, Uca crenulata, to release larvae on time. Animal Behaviour 70:289-297. Gallegos, C.L. Jordan, T.E, Hines, A.H., Weller, D.E. 2005. Temporal variability of optical properties in a shallow, eutro-phic estuary: Seasonal and interannual variability. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 64:156-170. Parker, G.G., Tinoco-Ojanguren, C., Martínez-Yrízar, A., Maass, M. 2005. Seasonal balance and vertical pattern of photo-synthetically active radiation within canopies of a tropical dry deciduous forest ecosystem in México. Journal of Tropical Ecology 21: 283-295. Utz, L., R.P., Coats, D.W. 2005. Spatial and temporal patterns in the occurrence of peritrich ciliates as epibionts on ca-lanoid copepods in the Chesapeake Bay, USA. J. Euk. Microbiol., 52:236-244.

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For information about The SERC Report, contact: Kimbra Cutlip

443-482-2325 / cutlipk@si.edu

The SERC Report is published quarterly by the Office of Science Communications.