Mote Magazine, 2013-2014 Annual

A N N UA L

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A BIG STUDY FOR A BIG FISH BEYOND THE GREAT DISSOLVE FIGHTING CANCER IS NO WEEKEND PROJECT MOTE MAGAZINE | AU TU MN 2013

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SPECIAL EVENTS Mote 2014 Events Calendar

DECEMBER December 20: OPENING of “Night Journey” sea turtle exhibit by artist Jo Ann Batemen.

Proceeds to benefit Mote. Exhibit open through Jan. 10, 2014. Venice Art Center, 390 Nokomis Ave. S., Venice.

FEBRUARY February 1: OPENING — a new special exhibit in The Aquarium at Mote SURVIVORS: Beautiful & Extreme Adaptations.

February 3: ANNUAL SPECIAL LECTURE SERIES begins. 7:30 p.m. each Monday through March 10. Mote’s Immersion Cinema. (Speaker line-up, p. 5) Series sponsored in part by Bob and Jill Williams. Mote.org/lecture.

February 3: SUMMER CAMP REGISTRATION opens for Mote Members and previous campers. Mote.org/summercamp February 10: SUMMER CAMP REGISTRATION opens for non-members. Mote.org/ summercamp.

MARCH March 29: 5TH ANNUAL FLORIDA KEYS OCEAN FESTIVAL & 2nd Annual Tuna Trot Run for the Reef, benefiting Mote. Festival: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Eco-Discovery Center, 35 East Quay Road, Truman Waterfront, Old Town, Key West. Tuna Trot: Race start 8 a.m. from the Eco-Discovery Center. (Sanctioned race.) keysoceanfest.org.

APRIL April 5: 28TH ANNUAL RUN FOR THE TURTLES. (Sanctioned race.) 5K includes funrun/walk. Siesta Key Public Beach, 928 Beach Road. Mote.org/turtlerun.

April 19: PARTY ON THE PASS. A casual evening of good food, good fun and goodwill supporting Mote. The Aquarium at Mote. Mote.org/party.

JUNE June 7: WORLD OCEANS DAY FAMILY FESTIVAL. The Aquarium at Mote. Free with regular admission to The Aquarium. Mote.org/worldoceansday.

SAVING THE OCEANS A CUFF AT A TIME The cover image of a cherry blossom jellyfish was taken by Anne Doubilet (p. 5), who also turned it into wearable art with a series of EcoCuffs™ made of 90 percent post-consumer recycled aluminum. A percentage of her sales supports programs that help decrease ocean pollution. annedoubilet.com.

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Letter From The President Dr. Michael P. Crosby IN OCTOBER, I had the pleasure of presiding over Oceanic Evening for the first time as President and CEO of Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium. This annual black-tie event (p. 27) is our largest social fundraising event of the year. Not only does it help to support a variety of Mote programs, but it also offers an opportunity for nearly 400 of our supporters to meet many members of our staff and learn first-hand about what we’re doing inside our labs and with our community.

This year, the event’s theme was “Exploring the Future.” We showcased many of our up-and-coming scientists — the rising stars for the future of ocean science. For our unique organization, as we approach our 60th anniversary in 2015, our future is connected to our past in an unbroken circle.

Mote has traveled a long way since the Lab opened in 1955 guided by the energetic passion for science brought by our founding director, Dr. Eugenie Clark, working in partnership with the local community. To this day, she continues to be an inspiration to us all.

Over the ensuing decades, Mote research and discoveries have helped to save species, protect habitats and address grand challenges related to conservation and sustainable use of our shared ocean resources. We have educated millions of children, adults and policy makers — helping to create a more ocean-literate society.

We have accomplished all of this not just through Dr. Clark’s initial dedication and the dedication and hard work of the many scientists who have followed in her footsteps, but because of Ann and William Vanderbilt, whose vision and philanthropy laid the strong foundation for all we would become, and because of Mr. William R. Mote, who was instrumental in supporting our expansion from a one-room laboratory into the globally impactful marine research and informal science education enterprise that we are today.

Today, there are new challenges facing our oceans — ocean acidification (p. 6), the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (p. 22) and the need for sustainable, costeffective aquaculture systems (p. 24) among them. But I am confident that the programs we are undertaking at Mote, supported through generous donations, are addressing these issues and helping to bring the next generation of the best and brightest minds to science (p. 16).

As you enjoy this issue of Mote Magazine, I invite you to consider making a deeper commitment to the oceans. By joining with us, you — like the Vanderbilts before you — will help to support the work we are doing to make a difference in our world.

Thank you for believing in our vision for the future.

Michael P. Crosby, Ph.D. President & CEO

Board of Trustees Eugene Beckstein CHAIRMAN G. Lowe Morrison VICE CHAIRMAN Howard G. Crowell, Jr (USA Ret.) TREASURER Mickey Callanen SECRETARY Michael P. Crosby, Ph.D. PRESIDENT & CEO Arthur L. Armitage, Chairman Emeritus Paul Carreiro Robert E. Carter, Chairman Emeritus Ronald D. Ciaravella Eugenie Clark, Ph.D., Founding Director Frederick M. Derr, P.E., Chairman Emeritus Richard O. Donegan Sylvia Earle, Ph.D. Dean H. Eisner James D. Ericson Robert Essner Susan C. Gilmore Judy Graham, Chairman Emeritus Edward H. Jennings Mary Lou Johnson The Hon. Ronald A. Johnson Kirk Malcolm Penelope Kingman Nigel Mould Alan Rose Howard Seider, Jr., M.D. Jeanie Stevenson HONORARY TRUSTEES Richard Angelotti, Chairman Emeritus Charles R. Baumann, CPA Pauline Becker Veronica Brady Sandi Burns Howard C. Cobin Bruce Frerer William S. Galvano, Esq Alfred Goldstein, DCS DHL, Chairman Emeritus The Hon. Andy Ireland Elaine M. Keating J. Robert Long Peter Hull Kumar Mahadevan, Ph.D. Jean Martin The Hon. Dan Miller Myra Monfort Runyan, Chairman Emeritus Ronald R. Morris Helen L. Pratt Rande Ridenour William Ritchie Peter Rosasco, CPA Sue Stolberg (President, Volunteer Board) Beth G.Waskom William R. Mote • 1906-2000 Perry W. Gilbert • 1912-2000 MOTE MAGAZINE | AN NUAL 2013-2014

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MOTE MAGAZINE n A unique mission.

Mote Magazine (ISSN 1553-1104) is published by Mote Marine Laboratory, a nonprofit organization dedicated to today’s research for tomorrow’s oceans. By telling the stories of sea science, Mote hopes to enhance public understanding of marine research and conservation.

PRESIDENT & CEO Michael P. Crosby, Ph.D. EDITOR Nadine Slimak CREATIVE DIRECTOR Lawson Mitchell CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rachel Easterbrook, Timothy O’Hara, Hayley Rutger

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Anne Doubilet, Kacey Luensman

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A BIG STUDY FOR A BIG FISH The largest scientific study of whale sharks ever published — by Mote scientists and Mexican collaborators — uncovers information that could solve many mysteries about the biggest fish in the sea.

Through Her Lens

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Photographer to open Special Lecture Series

15 Survivors: New Special Exhibit 26 Accolades for Mote Caviar

© OCEARCH

PUBLISHING PARTNER Mote magazine is proud to recognize Sarasota Magazine as its publishing partner. For information on sponsorship, please contact Sarasota Magazine at 941-487-1109.

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COVER PHOTO

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Beyond the Great Dissolve Ocean acidification and coral reefs

Research International International collaborations are a Mote hallmark

Fighting Cancer Long-term cancer studies are solving mysteries

10 Years On NSF-funded intern program marks a milestone

27 Oceanic Evening 28 Murph’s Story 30 Mote Milestones 32 Shirley Fein: Her Legacy

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Under the Microscope The Deepwater Horizon three years later

Issues & Impacts Making the case for U.S. aquaculture

The cover image of a cherry blossom jellyfish was taken by Anne Doubilet.

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MOTE MAGAZINE | A N NUAL 2013-2014

THROUGH HER LENS

Leading Underwater Photographer to Open Special Lecture Series

A: I think whale sharks are probably one of the most fascinating creatures I’ve ever photographed because they’re one of the largest creatures in the sea and they eat one of the smallest creatures in the sea — krill. This illustrates the fragile inter-connectedness of the food web. And if we humans mess up this vital inter dependence, it throws nature out of balance.

SPECIAL LECTURE SERIES Lectures take place at 7:30 p.m. each Monday in Mote’s Immersion Cinema, 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway, Sarasota.

Tickets $12 for Members; $15 for nonmembers. Series is sponsored in part by Bob and Jill Williams. Details and tickets online at mote.org/lecture.

Schedule

Q: If you could show everyone in the world just one image to get them interested and involved in the need to protect our oceans, what would it be?

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nne L. Doubilet is an underwater explorer, writer and photographer who has logged thousands of dives worldwide as a freelance photographer and dive-team member for National Geographic Magazine. She has dived worldwide, including many dives alongside Mote Marine Laboratory’s Founding Director, Dr. Eugenie Clark, whom she considers a mentor and inspiration. (In fact, she was diving with Genie when she shot the picture of the cherry blossom jellyfish in Izu, Japan, that appears on this issue’s cover.)

On Feb. 3, Doubilet will open Mote’s annual Special Lecture Series in the Immersion Cinema with the talk HOPE — Help Ocean Protect Earth: Photographs and Musings from the Blue Planet. Here Mote Magazine catches up with her for a sneak preview.

Q: You’ve been exploring the underwater world for four decades now. What’s the most fascinating creature you’ve ever photographed?

A: It always changes! But I like Panel No. 11 from my Coral and Ice series (pictured on the left). In this series of diptychs, the photos on top are of monolithic ice paired with macro shots on the bottom of corals. It illustrates what’s going on over and under — that is, with the ice at the top of the world and with corals underneath. It’s a visual message of melting ice and disappearing corals and how our planet

Feb. 3: Anne Doubilet. Sponsored by Caldwell Trust Company Feb. 10: Lad Akins, Director of Operations, Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF).

Feb. 17: Dr. Justin Perrault, Mote Marine Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellow and sea turtle researcher and expert.

Feb. 24: Dr. Gerald Pollack, bioengineer and international leader in science and engineering. Author of The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. Sponsored by PNC Wealth Management.

is really changing drastically.

I also love that the coral photo illustrates behavior — the coral polyp in the lower left-hand corner has just grabbed a bit of plankton.

Q: How has your view of the ocean changed over time?

A: When I was growing up next to,

March 3: Dr. Kevan Main, Immediate Past President of the World Aquaculture Society and leader of Mote’s Marine and Freshwater Aquaculture Research Program.

March 10: Gene Brighouse, Superintendent of Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa.

Sponsored by PNC Wealth Management.

around and in the ocean, I believed the ocean was infinite. But that’s different now. We know the ocean is finite and if we don’t have a healthy ocean, we won’t have a healthy Earth. That’s really where I came up with my message HOPE — Help Ocean Protect Earth.

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As oceans become more acidic, coral reefs are in danger of dissolving.

A team of Mote and Israeli researchers have come together to study the problem and seek solutions.

Story and photos by Timothy O’Hara

In a dimly lit room in Mote’s Tropical Research Laboratory on Summerland Key, Drs. Emily Hall and Maoz Fine hover over a group of corals commonly found off the Florida Keys. Glowing red and blue LED lights reflect on their faces, making the pair look like mad scientists ready to unleash a coral monster to wreak havoc on the local reef.

But they’re not creating some evil strain of coral; instead, they’re researching a major threat poised to wreak havoc on coral reefs worldwide — ocean acidification.

Millions of tons of carbon dioxide from cars, power plants and factories are absorbed by the world’s oceans annually. As the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed increases, oceanic pH levels decrease and make the world’s oceans more acidic. That reduces the amount of calcium and carbonate in the oceans, both of which corals need to form their hard skeletons.

Coral reefs are on the front lines of the ocean acidification battle and are an indicator of the health of world oceans. Reefs are critical to the protection of coastlines in the Florida Keys and other tropical and subtropical parts of the world and are in danger of dying at a rate faster than corals can rebuild them.

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Drs. Emily Hall and Maoz Fine conduct a coral experiment at Mote’s Tropical Research Laboratory in the Florida Keys.

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Coral ecologists with Mote and the

Dr. Kim Ritchie, manager of Mote’s Marine

later replanted on the reef tract or used for

Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences

Microbiology Program, who are looking

research.

in Eilat, Israel, have partnered to test the

at the corals on a deeper, microbial level

effects of ocean acidification and rising sea

and researching several other physiological

“Through this research, we can predict what

temperature on corals. In this experiment ,

parameters of coral to see how ocean

species and genotypes do better or worse,”

they’re working with two species commonly

acidification is impacting them. “We are

says Hall. “This could allow Mote and others

found in the Florida Keys, Porites porites,

looking at this on so many levels,” says

to focus restoration efforts on the corals that

or finger coral, and Porites astreoides, or

Fine. “That’s how we will understand how

will do the best once they are placed on

mustard hill coral.

coral systems will respond to changing

reefs.”

environmental conditions.”

Mote’s Summerland Key lab looks like a mini

The research team plans similar studies

discotheque as Hall, manager of Mote’s

The research could help Mote and other

with Red Sea corals in Israel in December.

Ocean Acidification Program, and Fine, of

ocean conservation groups determine

“This partnership with our Israeli colleagues

the Interuniversity Institute, expose the coral

which species and genotypes of coral fare

has allowed us to look at these problems

species — and differing genotypes of those

better against ocean acidification and other

with a global perspective,” says Hall. “It also

corals — to LED lights, mimicking differing

stresses, giving researchers guidance on

allows us to see how each of these reefs

intensities of sunlight. They also expose the

what types of coral to grow in coral nurseries

is responding to oceanic changes. Having

corals to a variety of pH and temperature

to later replant on the reef, says Hall.

these answers — not just for the corals right

levels to measure the corals’ calcification and

here in our own backyard, but for coral

photochemical efficiency — that is, how well

Mote, The Nature Conservancy, the Coral

reefs worldwide — has huge implications

the corals do at turning light into energy.

Restoration Foundation, NOAA and other

for the future of corals and for the human

groups have a half-dozen coral nurseries

communities that depend on them for food

Also on the team are Dr. Erinn Muller, a coral

throughout the Florida Keys where they

and as protection for their coastlines.”

ecology and disease expert at Mote, and

are already rearing coral fragments that are

The Mote-Israel Cooperative Marine Research Program Mote has had a long-standing relationship with scientists in Israel beginning with Mote’s Founding Director, famous “Shark Lady” Dr. Eugenie Clark (pictured on the right doing research in Israel in the 1950s).

She conducted some of her early fish and shark research in the 1950s with colleagues in the Red Sea. In 2011, Mote formalized these connections with the Mote-Israel Cooperative Marine Research Program, which supports research initiatives that benefit the environments of both nations. Mote is currently seeking support for this program.

Learn more at Mote.org/Israel.

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by Nadine Slimak

In the face of the challenges in our marine environment, political boundaries fall away and protecting the future of the world’s ocean resources becomes a shared and vitally important responsibility.

Dr. Qian Ma at Mote Aquaculture Park

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ur Founding Director, Dr. Eugenie Clark, created Mote’s first international research program in the late 1950s after being awarded a prestigious grant to take the shark research methods that she developed in Florida to the Red Sea as part of a collaborative undertaking with colleagues in the Middle East.

Her work was the start of decades of international collaborations that have taken Mote researchers to six continents and dozens of countries where we’ve been able to benefit from our colleagues’ experiences and share our own knowledge and expertise (for a look at some of these places, turn to the next page). These collaborations have also helped us bring that international flavor to our campuses when our international colleagues join us here in the states for research programs, meetings and conferences.

As an independent nonprofit organization and an internationally recognized leader in ocean science, Mote has a unique perspective and ability to work with key stakeholders in the U.S. and abroad to develop innovative solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing our oceans today, including fish stocks that are declining worldwide and oceans that are turning to acid.

This fall, we welcomed Dr. Qian Ma from

the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science — Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute in Qingdao, China, to Mote Aquaculture Park in eastern Sarasota County as part of an ongoing Mote collaboration with the organization.

Dr. Ma, a molecular biologist, is working with Mote scientists, including Dr. Kevan Main, immediate past president of the World Aquaculture Society, and collaborators at Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute to uncover the genetic traits of pompano that affect the species’ growth. The work includes building a genetic database that will identify the relationship between breeders and progeny, which will be key to developing pompano as an aquaculture species in the U.S. Here, she tells us a little bit about her research and background.

Q: Why is this line of research important?

A: Pompano is a high-value emerging finfish species for land-based and offshore aquaculture. Methods for selecting the best broodstock — those that produce fast-growing offspring — are of great importance for promoting aquaculture success with this species. We are using genetic markers to select the best broodstock.

Q: Why did you choose to study fish?

A: Fish are the most primitive class of vertebrates, which are very important to study the adaptation and evolution of the vertebrate species. Furthermore, so far, more than 24,000 fish species are

found, i.e., more than half of all vertebrate species are fish. In this case, every fish species has different morphological characteristics; they are different in the habitat they live in, in their life cycle, reproduction, etc. Every fish species has its own story. That is just fascinating!

Q: Why is aquaculture research important to China?

A: China is the largest fishery and aquaculture country in the world. These industries contribute about five percent GDP (gross domestic product) to the country. Even though the proportion of Chinese fishermen and aquaculture farmers to agricultural farmers is only two percent, the fishery industry provides one-third of China’s animal protein, which is a very important contribution to the country.

Q: What is your favorite part of working with Mote, so far?

A: Scientists here are very dedicated to their programs. At Mote, I like to listen to people talking about their programs.

They are so passionate about the projects, and at the same time, I can learn a lot.

— We thank our partners at Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of South Florida for enabling Dr. Qian Ma’s research at Mote Aquaculture Park.

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TAKE A CLOSER LOOK: MOTE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

FIGHTING CANCER is No Weekend Project

By Hayley Rutger

When Mote researchers discovered a compound from sharks’ immune cells that stopped the growth of cancer cells in laboratory experiments, it renewed their quest to uncover just how the process worked — key research that could one day lead to new treatments for humans.

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ecades of Mote research into why sharks and their cousins, the skates and rays, rarely get cancer led to the groundbreaking discovery in

2003 of new immune-system compounds that killed mammalian cancer cells in the biomedical lab. It was an exciting result that begged the question: How does this work?

That question has led to a new Mote research paper, which lays vital groundwork in the long-term quest to understand new ways to help fight

cancer. Answering it fully could take years or even decades, but Mote scientists are undaunted. They say what matters most isn’t one result — it’s uncovering a plausible pathway that led to the death of tumor cells exposed to the medium they discovered.

BIOMEDICAL PATHWAYS Living cells depend on “biochemical pathways” — sequences of chemical reactions that work like a highly complicated version of the kids’ game Mouse Trap. In the game, one colorful

plastic piece triggers the movement of another, which triggers another, following a sequence until the last one traps a plastic mouse. In a cell, a given molecule interacts with others, which interact with others, and so on, while still other molecules help or hinder the process. Pathways do complex jobs such as harvesting energy from food or supporting other key functions of life.

But it is the pathways that lead to “cell suicide” that really excite cancer researchers.

Drs. Carl Luer and Cathy Walsh have spent much of their professional careers in Mote’s Center for Shark Research studying why sharks, skates and rays — a group of fishes called elasmobranchs — rarely get cancer, and what that might mean for humans who do. This quest led them to conduct the first studies of cancer-fighting properties of immune cells from the epigonal organ, which is found solely in elasmobranch fishes.

Years ago, Walsh and Luer discovered that bonnethead sharks’ epigonal cells make substances that fight the growth of several types of human cancer cell lines in the lab. The shark substances killed some cancer cell types more readily than others and left non-cancer cells relatively unaffected.

© Andre Stroman

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Dr. Cathy Walsh stands next to a gel documentation system, which helps measure the proteins in the apoptotic pathway. The images on the screen are showing the pathways that are being activated by the epigonal-conditioned medium developed at Mote.

“We wanted to know how this substance works — what possible pathways it activates inside the cells to kill them in a selective way,” Walsh said. “A lot of substances can destroy cells, but a substance that works through a specific mechanism will have more therapeutic potential.”

This August, Walsh and Luer published an initial answer — a peer-reviewed research paper suggesting how the shark substance might kill one type of human leukemia cell. Their paper, in the openaccess scientific journal Marine Drugs, is titled “Epigonal Conditioned Media from Bonnethead Shark, Sphyrna tiburo, Induces Apoptosis in a T-Cell Leukemia Cell Line, Jurkat E6-1.”

If that sounds like a foreign language, don’t fret. The take-home word is “apoptosis.”

APO-WHAT? Apoptosis, also called “programmed cell death,” allows our bodies to remove specific cells it no longer needs.

“The word was inspired by leaves falling from a tree – it comes from the Greek words for ‘falling off,’” Luer said. “Our bodies use apoptosis in many normal processes, like replacing skin cells.”

Walsh added: “Cancer involves an uncontrolled growth of cells — and this can happen if apoptosis is not working, if the cells aren’t being regulated by it.”

Apoptosis fascinates Luer and Walsh, who love puzzling out basic biomedical and immunological processes, and it also sets the cancer research community abuzz — it headlines entire scientific conferences. Because apoptosis often targets specific cells, triggering it in the right ways may kill or slow the growth of tumors while sparing non-cancer cells.

To see if apoptosis is triggered by the shark immune substance, Walsh and Luer used a common lab test on a line of leukemia cells, which were highly sensitive to the shark substance in earlier experiments. Results were positive — changes on the cells’ surface suggested apoptosis was happening.

The horizontal electrophoretic chamber separates molecules by their charge.

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from the leukemia cells, separated them by size using an electric current, and then they soaked the groups of proteins in liquid full of molecules called antibodies, which stuck to the proteins they wanted to detect. They made the protein-antibody pairs glow by adding an enzyme, and used a special camera to reveal the amount of each key protein.

This test — one of many — took about a month. And like all good scientists, Luer and Walsh had to verify their results. In other words: repeat, repeat, repeat!

ON THE TRAIL? The results were intriguing. When Walsh and Luer added shark immune substance to the leukemia cells, one test suggested that the cells’ surfaces had more proteins associated with cell suicide, known as TRAIL receptors.

The spectrophotometer measures tiny volumes of proteins, DNA and RNA.

Next came the tricky part: Finding out which pathway, or cascade of events, was triggered to cause apoptosis in these cells. Gathering this nuts-and-bolts knowledge is necessary to know whether the shark substance holds promise for future therapies, but… “It’s no weekend project,” Luer said.

NO WEEKEND PROJECT Apoptosis can involve many pathways in a given cell. Imagine sorting through multiple interconnected games of Mouse Trap, each with numerous steps, to figure out where the chain of events started and which pieces on the game board were activated en route to triggering the mouse trap at the end. Now imagine that at the cellular level.

To study this sequence inside the leukemia cells, Luer and Walsh exposed the cells to their shark substance, which they call “epigonal-conditioned medium,” and tested for changes in the amount and activity of molecules related to apoptosis.

The molecules are many. For instance, one test focused on 84 different genes related to cell suicide, and other tests focused on dozens of proteins built from instructions in those genes.

One example is the executioner protein “caspase 3,” which chops up the cell’s DNA and hinders its repair, destroying the blueprint for cell life.

To begin their tests, the researchers kept cells from bonnethead sharks alive in a liquid medium — in this case, a special recipe developed by Walsh. Then they collected the medium holding the cancer-fighting stuff produced by the cells, concentrated it through a multi-step process and turned it into a freeze-dried powder for storage. “That part is a little like freeze-drying coffee,” Walsh said.

Next, they exposed the leukemia cells to varying amounts of the powder for 24 hours and tested for changes. In one test for proteins involved in apoptosis, the scientists removed proteins

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Ingredients in the shark substance may attach to a couple of particular TRAIL receptors sticking out from the cell surface, the researchers say. That would cause a change in these proteins, which would trigger a certain killer pathway inside the cell — a scenario supported by various tests in this study.

Inside the cell, the domino effect of this pathway would cause changes to the cell’s mitochondrion — a part best known for producing energy for the cell, but also widely known for its role in apoptosis.

“If this is the true pathway, it offers a lot of advantages,” Walsh said. “Some of the TRAIL receptors we saw here, also called ‘death receptors,’ are found in greater numbers on tumor cells than on normal cells. They could offer a way to specifically target the cells you want to kill. Our paper is suggesting the pathway takes this route, but more research is needed to know for sure what’s happening.”

More research is needed especially to show what “ingredients” in the shark substance trigger the deadly pathway. Currently the substance is a soup of several molecules — perhaps some unknown to science.

Luer and Walsh are now working with colleagues at Moffitt Cancer Center to purify these molecules and better understand their traits — the next step on a long, and rewarding, pathway to discovery.

—These studies were supported by the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation, the Florida High Tech Corridor Matching Grants Research Program and numerous private foundations and generous individuals who provided matching contributions, including Selby Foundation, Jane’s Trust, Frank E. Duckwall Foundation, Dean Kelly Fund, Rita B. LaMere Foundation, TRIAD Foundation, Bulova Gale Foundation, The Masin Family Foundation and Cowles Charitable Trust.

Interns participating in the project were supported in part by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

DEADLY POISON. KILLER PUNCHES. LOOKING LIKE A ROCK AND HOPING FOR THE BEST. Welcome to the world of Survivors — a new limited-time exhibit launching February 2014 in The Aquarium at Mote Marine Laboratory that will reveal what it takes to make a living as a marine animal or amphibian in today’s world.

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(From left to right) REU intern Alyssa Stevens, Dr. Emily Hall, manager of Mote’s Ocean Acidification program, former intern Dan Merselis, REU intern Hannah Aichelman and Dr. Erinn Muller, coral ecology and disease expert.

By Rachel Easterbrook

FROM CONDUCTING CANCER RESEARCH USING SHARKS as biomedical models, to hosting the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population, scientists at Mote have always been on the cutting edge of marine research. With more than 30 Ph.D.s on staff, the Lab is adept at keeping up with emerging fields of interest in the marine world.

The REU Program pairs each student with a Mote scientist who mentors them throughout the summer. While the mentors help the students choose and define their research projects and guide them as they conduct experiments, the REU students really “own” the projects. Mote scientists have mentored 104 students since the program began.

And for the past 10 years, they’ve been sharing their expertise with students who are just starting to explore the world of science. Since 2003, Mote has been a host site for the National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, which offers 10-week paid summer research internships to undergraduate students from around the country. The program’s overall goal is to increase the number of professionals working in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — fields nationwide.

“Our REU students experience each step of the scientific method,” Kirkpatrick said. “Sometimes it goes smoothly; sometimes it doesn’t — but they all learn what it’s like to conduct research.”

“The Mote REU Program is a really intense research experience,” said Dr. Barbara Kirkpatrick, Mote senior scientist who directs the Mote REU Program with Dr. Cathy Walsh. “It’s a highly selective program — each year we received over 400 applications and accepted 10 students. These kids are the best and the brightest and they’re highly qualified.”

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During their internship, Stoneybrook University student Alyssa Stevens and University of North Carolina student Hannah Aichelman conducted coral reef ecosystem research with a particular focus on ocean acidification — an increase in the pH of seawater caused by manmade carbon dioxide emissions that is a major threat to coral reefs.

“I’m working with staghorn coral, and I’m testing five different genotypes to see if there are any that are more resilient to ocean acidification,” Stevens said. “Once we know which genotypes are more resilient, those can be used for coral restoration projects.”

Aichelman’s project recreated the coral ecosystem on a small scale to identify how sea urchins, clams, plants and other organisms respond to ocean acidification. “There are a lot of scientists saying now that the best way to understand ocean acidification is to replicate the ecosystem as best as you can because only studying individual organisms and their responses eliminates all of their interactions with other organisms, meaning it’s not representative,” she said. “That’s what I’m attempting to do — putting more into the tanks and examining how the entire community responds.”

In addition to their research, the interns also participate in seminars on things such as ethics and ethical reasoning, career workshops and field trips that give them insights into other types of science careers. Together, these things give students a realworld look at the scientific community.

If Christien Laber is any indication, the program is working. In 2010, as a Rider University student, Laber worked alongside Dr. Gary Kirkpatrick in Mote’s Phytoplankton Ecology Program developing optical instruments to discern different types of phytoplankton.

That experience compelled him to pursue his Ph.D., and today he is a graduate student at Rutgers University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. “The REU experience gave me a feel for what research was like and introduced a new research platform — optical observation of marine primary production — that I found compelling to explore in graduate school,” Laber said. “I was able to do many things that added many new skills to my inventory. And many of these are skills that I still use regularly or occasionally now.”

Though the program lasts just 10 weeks, its immersive quality creates a one-of-a-kind learning experience. “I learned more in the few weeks I was at Mote than I would during an entire semester in the classroom,” said University of South Florida student Derrick Hudson, who spent 2013 developing a severity index for Florida red tide. “It more than fulfilled my expectations.

I was really allowed to spread my wings and make the project my own. It was worth its weight in gold.”

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By Hayley Rutger

In August, scientists from Mote and their Mexican collaborators published the largest-ever scientific study of whale sharks, uncovering new information that could solve mysteries about this species and help protect the largest fish in the sea.

THE LARGEST-EVER SCIENTIFIC STUDY of whale sharks — the world’s biggest fish — was published in the journal PLOS ONE this summer by Mote sicentists and collaborators from Mexico. The study reveals the sharks’ international journeys and their relationship to the largest whale shark feeding hotspot known to science.

IN SHORT: THIS IS BIG. The nine-year study shows that whale sharks found at a major feeding aggregation site near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula travel to many places throughout the Gulf of Mexico, the northwestern Caribbean Sea and the Straits of Florida. These findings

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highlight why the Mexican feeding site is a vital fueling station for whale sharks throughout the region and suggest that these wide-ranging fish need international protection. The study also documented the second-longest whale shark migration ever confirmed — a trail that may help researchers discover where the sharks give birth.

The project was centered off the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula. Coastal waters there host rich plankton blooms — a feast for the gentle filter-feeding whale sharks, which frequent the area from May through September. As many as 420 whale sharks have been observed during

a single airplane survey conducted by Mexican researcher Beatriz Galván, making this the largest known feeding aggregation of whale sharks on Earth.

From 2003-2012, project scientists studied these big eaters by fitting 813 sharks with ID tags and examining underwater photographs of 956 sharks to document their unique spot patterns, which serve as fingerprints and allow them to be individually identified. Both methods allowed scientists to recognize the sharks if they were found in other areas later. The researchers also attached electronic satellite tags to 35 whale sharks — the greatest number of whale sharks ever outfitted with satellite tags in one

WHALE SHARK STUDY AT A GLANCE 9:

Number of years researchers spent tagging whale sharks in the Yucatan Peninsula for the study, “Horizontal Movements, Migration Patterns, and Population Structure of Whale Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and Northwestern Caribbean Sea,” published in the journal PLOS ONE.

100+: Number of scientists, interns and eco-tourism operators who contributed to the study.

5:

Number of scientific papers published to date as part of this study.

813:

Number of whale sharks outfitted with ID tags.

956: Number of individual whale sharks identified based on photographs of their unique spot patterns.

47:

Number of whale sharks photo-identified in the Yucatan Peninsula that were also spotted in other areas around the globe (that includes 26 that went to Honduras, 14 off Belize, four off Louisiana and two off Florida’s west coast and one off Florida’s east coast).

35:

Number of whale sharks tagged with satellite transmitters.

7,213: Minimum number of kilometers traveled by the whale shark nicknamed “Rio Lady” (that’s about 4,500 miles) over 150 days.

This is the second longest distance recorded for a whale shark migration. She averaged a speed of 52 km (32 miles) per day.

1,600: Number of meters in Rio Lady’s deepest dive (that’s about a mile).

published study. The tags used advanced technology to collect data on the sharks’ movements, allowing scientists to track the sharks beyond the feeding site and record the temperatures and depths of the places the animals traveled. These tags released from the sharks anywhere from two to 190 days later, floated to the surface and sent data to the Mote scientists via satellite.

THE RESULTS? “They went all over the place,” said study leader Dr. Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory. “These sharks are coming and going from distant places around

the ocean basin — this shows that the Quintana Roo feeding site is a very special place for whale sharks to aggregate and feed.”

Tagged sharks were re-sighted off Belize and Honduras, and an analysis of the satellite tracks by Mote biologist and coauthor John Tyminski showed that some whale sharks spent several months in the Caribbean Sea. A large number of the sharks moved from the Yucatan Peninsula to other parts of the Gulf of Mexico, and at least three satellite-tagged sharks visited waters off Cuba.

When the project started, the researchers had no idea what they would find. In

fact, Mote researchers had been studying blacktip sharks off Mexico’s Holbox Island since1995, never knowing that whale sharks were swimming just beyond the other side of the lagoon they were working in. “We didn’t know until a Mexican fisherman casually mentioned to us that they see these leviathans every summer. That was in 2002,” Hueter said.

“I said ‘we have to check this out’” The next year, they did. “On our very first field trip in 2003, we were armed with a single satellite tag for deployment,” Tyminski recalled. “The directors of CONANP, (Mexico’s natural resource protection group), Francisco Remolina and Jaime González, brought us out with MOTE MAGAZINE | AN NUAL 2013-2014

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Dr. Bob Hueter, director of the Congressionally designated Center for Shark Research at Mote (wearing the light blue shirt) and Jack Morris, senior biologist, tag a whale shark off Sarasota’s coast in 2010.

the promise of finding whale sharks in what was a vast expanse of water north of Cabo Catoche. We were very skeptical... despite the size of a whale shark, this still seemed like a needle in a haystack.”

But after less than half an hour of looking, they spotted a 32-plus foot female whale shark. “We were in awe. Getting into the water and swimming with such an enormous animal for the first time was nothing less than breathtaking,” Tyminski said. “After catching our breath and regaining our focus, we did manage to deploy a satellite tag on a different shark that day. Unfortunately, it failed to report any data whatsoever.”

Tags deployed in 2004 also failed to report. “But our luck changed in 2005,” Tyminski said. The group deployed two tags that year; both reported in, with one tag showing the shark traveled north into the Gulf of Mexico and the other tag showing the shark headed south into the Caribbean. Over subsequent years, working with study co-author and Mexican researcher Rafael de la Parra, the

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tagging successes accumulated, showing movements of the big sharks throughout the Gulf, Caribbean and beyond.

Without question, one of the most thrilling finds from the nine years of research was the fantastic journey they followed of a female whale shark that de la Parra nicknamed “Rio Lady.”

The 25-foot-long shark’s satellite tag showed a 150-day journey of nearly 4,500 miles through the Caribbean Sea and out into the mid-Atlantic Ocean and south of the Equator, midway between Brazil and Africa. Her journey was probably even longer, considering that her satellite tag didn’t account for fine-scale meandering or deep dives, which the researchers have found can be as deep as 1,928 meters — well over a mile deep.

As the study’s data cruncher, Tyminski had the opportunity to see the results first. He checked and double-checked his findings and, sure enough, Rio Lady had traveled south of the Equator. “I was blown away,” he said.

But the most fun was sharing the news with Hueter. Tyminski printed out two maps — one zoomed in on the shark’s position; the other zoomed out to show nearby land masses.

He handed Hueter the zoomed-in map first. “He seemed to study it pretty carefully for a few seconds before looking back at me with a puzzled look. Then I handed him the other map and announced that it was in the middle of the Atlantic and south of the Equator. He let out a big, ‘Hooray’ and we high-fived to celebrate.”

“Rio Lady’s trek was a huge finding for us,” Hueter said. “When we tagged her off the Mexican coast, she appeared to be pregnant. Then she undertook the second-longest migration ever confirmed for a whale shark, and she moved into an extremely remote area of open-ocean where, we suspect, she gave birth to her young.”

Large females like Rio Lady are uncommon at the Yucatan Peninsula feeding cluster, which is 72 percent male.

Feeding aggregations in other areas of the world also have a male bias.

“Whale shark reproduction has been a mystery,” Hueter said. “We think mature females may be staying offshore and traveling to the open ocean so they can have their pups in areas with fewer predators. Rio Lady’s migration has provided us a huge clue. Now, we’re working with other colleagues in remote mid-Atlantic islands to find and tag big, pregnant females there. This is what’s so exciting about science — finding clues and making connections that lead to new discoveries.”

One thing’s for sure: These fish are international travelers — a fact that matters for conservation.

“Considering that these whale sharks wander in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean, it is fundamental to have regional collaboration in order to establish proper regional management,” said de la Parra, formerly of Mexico’s Proyecto Domino who now leads the nonprofit organization Ch’ooj Ajauil AC to continue his work on ecosystem protections that will help whale sharks and other pelagic species.

“Identifying individual whale sharks using photo-identification has been a crucial part of this study and today we have an enormous photographic bank yet to be completely processed. Moving away from conventional tag deployment into this area has allowed me to pay attention to whale shark behavior while corroborating the sharks’ site fidelity and movements.

Now, through Ch’ooj Ajauil AC, we are devoting our efforts to protecting the whole marine ecosystem of northeast Isla Mujeres, where other pelagics are present, too — four species of dolphins, manta rays, sea turtles, tuna and sailfish among them.”

Whale sharks are classified as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species™. This list is recognized as the most comprehensive,

objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species. Whale sharks worldwide face threats including boat strikes, net entanglement, habitat alterations and even too much pressure from wellintended ecotourism.

Whale sharks feeding near Mexico received new protection thanks in part to data gathered during the PLOS ONE study.

In June 2009, the Mexican government established a Whale Shark Biosphere Reserve to extend a federally protected area to include most of the whale sharks’ summer feeding grounds.

“When we mapped where the whale sharks were feeding off the north coast of Isla Holbox, on the Yucatan Peninsula, the Mexican government took action using data from our study and CONANP, a group we’ve been working closely with on this project,” Hueter said. “To their great credit, they moved quickly to get the area under official protection.”

The nine-year PLOS ONE study was funded by the Georgia Aquarium, Christopher Reynolds Foundation, CONANP, United Nations Development Programme, National Geographic Society, Mote Marine Laboratory and an anonymous private foundation. Moving forward, Mote scientists and collaborators in the U.S. are working now with Mexican and Cuban colleagues to establish a linked network of sister sanctuaries to protect whale sharks throughout the Gulf and Caribbean.

Scientists emphasize that international collaboration is vital to sustaining marine resources.

“We hope our research leads to broadscale protection of this truly unique and charismatic shark, one of the largest fishes that has ever lived,” Hueter said. “We also hope such measures serve as a model for marine conservation action affecting numerous species that travel across international borders and into the waters of multiple nations.”

MOTE EDUCATION PROGRAMS: Explore the Ocean.

Discover the Research.

Learn your A-B-Seas, and get your feet wet in marine science through special programs offered spring, summer and fall by Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium’s world-class educators.

Mote’s informal science education programs help people of all ages become more ocean-literate — and have fun while they’re doing it.

mote.org/education

Jan. 1: Spring Program Schedule Release.

Jan 3: Summer camp registration opens for Mote Members and previous campers.

Jan. 10: Summer camp registration opens for non-members.

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Kristina Deak, whose work at Mote is also forming her master’s thesis at USF, is developing tests to look at cytokines in red snapper and tilefish.

Uncovering the impacts of the nation’s largest man-made oil disaster is a full-time job for Mote’s Environmental Laboratory of Forensics.

oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now they’re working to uncover its possible lingering effects on marine ecosystems, and in the process, they’re developing new lab tests that could benefit research on fish health for years to come.

Necessity is the mother of invention. That proverb rings true for researchers studying the long-term impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — an environmental disaster so complex that it calls for scientific tests that don’t even exist yet.

Mote is carrying out this work as a partner in C-IMAGE (Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of the Gulf Ecosystem), a 13-institution team based at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Marine Science that is tackling DeepwaterHorizon research from many angles. C-IMAGE, supported by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, which is funded through penalties levied on BP, is studying how the oil has moved, broken down, and potentially affected Gulf animals at all levels of the food web, from tiny plankton to fish and marine mammals.

Enter Mote Marine Laboratory’s Environmental Laboratory of Forensics (ELF). Mote researchers have studied impacts of the spill — which gushed more than 200 million gallons of crude

This year, C-IMAGE scientists reported die offs of microscopic life forms called foraminifera on areas of the seafloor affected by the spill, and in 2011 reported greater numbers of skin lesions

By Hayley Rutger

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and other health issues in fish such as red snapper, tilefish, southern hake and yellowedge grouper in the spill zone off Louisiana’s coast.

Though it’s hard to link fish health problems directly to the Deepwater Horizon — which occurred in an area with chronic pollution — the findings to date seriously concern Gulf-Coast communities and drive marine scientists to continue learning more.

“Looking into the impacts of this spill has been almost a fulltime job for our lab,” says Dr. Dana Wetzel, Manager of Mote’s ELF lab and a Co-Primary Investigator in C-IMAGE who is also leading other Mote research efforts about the spill’s coastal impacts in Louisiana. “Three years later, we are still seeing signs that the oil contaminants may be harming marine life. This is not the time to stop — it’s the time to redouble our efforts.”

To check for health impacts in fishes, Mote staff chemists in the ELF lab, Erin Pulster and Kristina Deak, helped collect and are now analyzing hundreds of biological samples from red snapper and tilefish — popular seafood fish — and a smaller number of samples from seafloor-burrowing king snake eels. The fish were caught near the spill site and at more distant locations for comparison during USF-led research cruises aboard the Florida Oceanographic Institution’s research vessel Weatherbird II in 2012 and 2013.

Back in the lab, Mote scientists and University of South Florida graduate students are measuring levels of oil-related chemicals in bile produced by the fishes’ livers, which clean up many nasty substances in the blood but can change some contaminants — such as the oil components polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — into even more harmful forms. Analyses are under way, but preliminary results show signs of contamination in a variety of species.

To understand how such contaminants might be harming fish, Mote scientists are checking for health issues using biomarkers, or biochemical indicators: hormones, genes and immunesystem molecules that show changes when an animal’s body is under stress. For instance, oil contaminants may damage an animal’s DNA — the blueprint for making new cells — or affect hormones related to fertility, the potential to bear young.

So, time to get out the tried-and-true lab tests for tilefish and red snapper? Not so fast, says Wetzel. “A lot of what we’re testing has rarely or never been done with these species. With the immune and reproduction work, we’re adapting tests developed for humans, for other mammals or for different species of fish.

Applying the tests in these ways, we’re breaking some new ground.”

whose concentrations in the body are likely to change with oil exposure.

“We tried a test for cytokines that works for other species, but it wasn’t able to give us clear results on these fish — so now we’re developing tests specifically for red snapper and tilefish,” Deak says. “We believe they have the genes for producing these cytokines, but no one has confirmed the correct genes in these particular species yet. That is what we have to do first.”

In other words, necessity calls for invention — Deak must develop the test she needs for oil-spill research and, in the process, shed new light on the fishes’ genetic code.

Other fish species pump up production of the genes for certain cytokines — key first responders of the immune system — in the presence of oil contaminants. If Deak finds similar DNA blueprints in red snapper and tilefish cells, she will expose those cells to oil components and look for similar changes. Her findings will tell her whether her test will work. If all goes well, she can then test for immune changes in fish samples collected aboard the Weatherbird II. “Hopefully we’ll learn something useful from these samples collected out in the Gulf,” Deak says, “The test we’re developing could also apply to future spills, or to stressors not related to oil.

For instance, it might help reveal how red snapper are faring in an aquaculture system.”

Finding new ways to study animal health is a hallmark of Mote’s ELF lab. For instance, the lab was the first to measure fertility — the potential to bear young — in manatees using a biomarker test originally designed for humans. Now Mote scientists are adapting that fertility test to fish in their oil spill study.

Ultimately, the hundreds of fish samples collected by C-IMAGE will undergo several thousand tests, with Mote’s research complementing studies from USF and other partners to form a detailed picture of the spill’s impacts.

“Many of us working on this spill think back to the Exxon-Valdez in Alaska, and how scientists saw long-term impacts on marine animals over the years,” Wetzel said. “This time, I think we’re making deeper inroads into understanding the effects of oil on an ecosystem than we have in the past. And when you’re able to document how these animals are responding in terms of their genes, their health, that’s a significant contribution to science.”

Kristina Deak, whose work at Mote is also forming her master’s thesis at USF, is developing tests to look at cytokines in red snapper and tilefish. Cytokines are immune-system molecules MOTE MAGAZINE | AN NUAL 2013-2014

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ISSUES AND IMPACTS: THE CASE FOR MORE FISH FARMS

By Dr. Kevan Main

S

eafood, primarily fish, is by far the world’s most important source of animal protein and is the principal protein source for nearly one billion people on the planet. Population biologists estimate that without rapid growth in seafood supply, the human population will reach the carrying capacity of the Earth (the ability to grow

enough food on land) by the year 2050.

Yet the amount of seafood harvested from wild-caught fisheries has been static for more than 25 years. At the same time, the demand for seafood resources has increased around the world to maintain per capita seafood consumption. Ultimately, this means the need to expand aquaculture production — the farming of fish and other aquatic species — is one of the world’s most pressing food problems.

Overwhelming market demand has already been driving the aquaculture industry to immense proportions. In 2011, nearly 45 percent of the world’s seafood supply was farmed and the amount of seafood produced by aquaculture is continuing to grow.

resources. It also needs to be expanded into new regions. In 2010, more than 90 percent of the world’s aquaculture production was concentrated in Asia: 62 percent in China and 28 percent in Asia and the Pacific.

It’s significant to note that less than one percent of the world’s aquaculture production occurred in North America, even though the United States is a major consumer of seafood. In 2011, the U.S. actually had to import more than 90 percent of the seafood consumed here and more than 50 percent of those imports were farmed.

Such strong demand and paltry domestic production has caused a great deal of hand-wringing, both because it shows a loss of economic opportunity and it reduces national food security. A number of reasons have been cited to explain this phenomenon, including strict governmental regulations, user conflicts over access to water and land resources, high production costs, limited investment in development of aquaculture technologies and the wide-spread availability of low-cost imports. On this last issue, it’s also noted that as the middle class in Asia becomes more

This growth, however, faces significant challenges. It needs to

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come with minimal impact on land, water and fisheries

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affluent, less seafood will be available for export.

Mote Marine Lab is pushing the aquaculture envelope, hoping to turn Florida and the rest of the U.S. into a fertile valley of finfish.

Dr. Kevan Main is immediate past president of the World Aquaculture Society and manager of Mote’s Marine and Freshwater Aquaculture Research Program. Her article originally appeared in Guy Harvey Magazine and is reprinted here with permission. guyharveymagazine.com.

The spotlight for creating additional aquaculture opportunities in the U.S. shines most brightly on the state of Florida. This is because for all its coastline and affiliation with seafood, it represents a very limited amount of national aquaculture production. In the last decade, however, some progress has been made by governmental, academic and private groups working throughout the state. A number of species from the Gulf of Mexico have been studied as potential candidates for being grown commercially, including Florida pompano, cobia, southern flounder, blackfin tuna, greater amberjack, red drum, common snook and spotted seatrout. Mahi mahi, tripletail, mullet, and several snapper and grouper species have also received a fair amount of interest.

As a result, there is a commercial marine fish hatchery on Florida’s east coast that is producing pompano and cobia eggs and larvae, which are shipped and farmed outside of the state. Researchers have also identified a number of technological gaps for marine fish aquaculture species. Farming fish is not as simple as keeping an aquarium and letting nature run its course. It’s a multi-faceted process, and for each species, it requires the development of genetic improvements through selective breeding programs and identifying the nutritional requirements for all life stages, health

management strategies, reproductive control and production of high quality eggs, larvae and fingerlings.

One of the groups at the head of the learning curve in these areas is Mote Aquaculture Park. It was established in 2001 to expand opportunities for U.S. seafood production using sustainable aquaculture practices for both high-value marine and freshwater species. It boasts a state-of-the-art farm and research laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., and is developing new aquaculture production methods more than 17 miles from any saltwater coastline or large body of freshwater. It includes 125,000 square feet of indoor tank and filtration as part of Mote’s Marine & Freshwater Aquaculture Research Program and also houses a commercial sturgeon farm.

The facility’s distance from a large mass of water is significant.

One of the primary focuses of Mote’s research is the efficient use of water. Traditional aquaculture practices use large quantities of high-quality fresh or salt water, discharging it after minimal use; but water is now globally recognized as a valuable and limited commodity.

A logical alternative to using more water is to reuse water by employing recirculating technology. This process includes linking MOTE MAGAZINE |AN NUAL 2013-2014

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marine fish systems to wastewater treatment facilities, where researchers are evaluating opportunities to use water from fish tanks to produce wetland plants as a secondary crop. To do this, Mote has partnered with Aquatic Plants of Florida, a commercial leader in wetland plant nursery and restoration. Together, we are working on integrated production methods, where plants and fish are growing in the same system. The wetland plants remove nutrients in wastewater, which allows the water to be reused for fish production; they also are sold for coastal restoration projects, improving the economic feasibility of sustainable fish farming.

There also has been significant research into animal husbandry techniques to produce high-value marine and freshwater fish for food and also for restocking programs where fish are released back into the wild. Breeding research on snook, Florida pompano and greater amberjack is focused in several areas, including developing year-round spawning protocols and improving broodstock nutrition. Larval studies are focused on identifying optimal feeding strategies, early weaning and commercial protocols for larval and juvenile production.

All of this is essential to efficiently growing out fish for large-scale food production, and it’s currently on display in Mote’s commercial demonstration sturgeon farm. Originally conceived to help remove pressure from wild sturgeon stocks, Mote is developing innovative, environmentally responsible aquaculture techniques to produce a high-value seafood product. For more than 10 years, this process has included the successful construction and operation of

ACCOLADES ABOUND for Mote Farm-Raised Caviar

commercial-scale recirculating systems designed for water and energy conservation. Optimal production and processing methods for Siberian sturgeon in Florida also have been developed and shared with Florida farmers. And sturgeon filets and caviar are processed and marketed from Mote’s farm to local restaurants, and to fish and caviar wholesalers throughout the country.

Seeing this kind of success with other species, especially marine finfish like pompano, cobia and others is still on the horizon. The research has begun, but moving into actual production has hit something of a roadblock. One reason is simply the high investment and production costs associated with both recirculating systems and offshore cage farms. Finding ways to reduce the costs is necessary if aquaculture of marine finfish is ever going to be commercially viable. The other hurdle is red tape. Permitting requirements — or the lack of a permitting framework, in the case of offshore aquaculture — are prohibitive, time consuming and unclear. In addition, regulatory policies disproportionately impact small farms, and there are inconsistencies in the approach to regulating aquaculture access to water compared to other agricultural activities. As the science of aquaculture advances, the systems for governing it will have to advance as well.

The technology for feeding the future through marine aquaculture is largely in place, but refining it and making it economical will only come with the establishment of more commercial-scale pilot programs. It’s an investment worth making for a safe and sustainable U.S. seafood supply.

Mote Farm-Raised Caviar has been getting a lot of notice in the food world lately — chefs are devouring our caviar (pun intended) like never before and we’re proud to share some of the places they’re taking us.

Chef Greg Baker of The Refinery in Tampa recently took his cutlery on the road — showcasing his cooking chops for an influential group of food writers that included representatives from Huffington Post, Town & Country, Food & Wine, Food Arts, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Esquire. His menu wouldn’t have been complete without Mote Caviar. “I’m really excited about what Mote is doing,” Baker said. “Not just the caviar — which I think rivals any of the imported brands — but about its sustainability efforts and what it’s trying to accomplish.”

In August, we were featured during a special black-tie gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of legendary Chef Norman Van Aken’s Orlando restaurant, Norman’s. Famous chefs — including Emeril Lagasse, Dean Fearing, Jeremiah Tower, Scott Hunnel and Brandon McGlamery — ­ created special dishes. Hunnel’s course was hearts of palm salad with lobster and a jar of Mote Farm-Raised Caviar, which he called a “great local product.”

The Chef of The Ritz-Carlton Sarasota featured our caviar in a dinner he prepared at the James Beard House and in September, we were featured in the article “Know Your American Roe” in Bon Appétit magazine. One of the most exciting accolades we’ve had this year came during the Palm Beach Food & Wine Fest when Chef Daniel Boulud — one of the premier names in food — tasted and praised our caviar!

Try it Yourself: Mote Farm-Raised Caviar is available online through many purveyors and is sold in Whole Foods Markets in Florida, southern California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii.

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OCEANIC EVENING Supporters joined us in October for our annual black-tie fundraiser supporting Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium’s marine research, education and outreach programs. This year’s theme was “Exploring the Future” and highlighted the work of the next generation of scientific all-stars who are building on decades of Mote research and making new contributions of their own.

Mote President & CEO, Dr. Michael P. Crosby (center) is pictured here with some of our next generation researchers (from left to right): Dr. Joe Gaspard, Dr. Nick Whitney, Dr. Erinn Muller, Dr. Emily Hall, Dr. Justin Perrault, Dr. Abe Robinson.

LEFT: Ariane and Bob Dart

RIGHT: Dr. Crosby and Kimberley Carreiro

From left to right (back row): Nicole and Matt Plummer, Sandy and Jeanie Kirkpatrick, Jennifer and Dan Vigne. (Front row): Glenda and Dan Miller, Dorene and Sam Seider, Mote Trustee.

From left to right (back row): Dr. James and Lizandra Locascio, Bayne and Jeanie Stevenson, Mote Trustee and Former U.S. Rep. Andy and Nancy Ireland. (Front row): Director of the Mote-Boca Grande Partnership, Capt.

Philip and Mary O’Bannon and Cathy and Bill Klettke.

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By Nadine Slimak FOLLOW MURPH ONLINE: MOTE.org/murph

W

hen Mote’s Stranding Investigations Program got a call about a sea turtle that looked to be tangled up in line earlier this past summer, they sprang into action to check out the report and rescue the turtle if needed.

What they discovered off Turtle Beach in south Sarasota County was a large loggerhead that appeared to be tethered to something underwater. While the turtle could surface for air, it couldn’t get free. Unfortunately, the wind whipped up and drove the team off the water before they could rescue the animal.

A few days later, after the wind died down enough for Mote Stranding Investigations Program Manager Gretchen Lovewell and Biologist Rebeccah Hazelkorn to safely rescue the turtle, they enlisted the help of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s patrol and helicopter teams and members of the Sarasota County and Longboat Key marine patrols.

crab trap line tangled around his neck and flippers and even had two large shark hooks caught in his shell. “His entanglement was pretty severe and the line had cut down to the bone,” Byrd said.

“But he made a great recovery and after a few months, we were ready to send the big guy home.”

Because the turtle was rescued on Memorial Day, he was nicknamed “Murph” in honor of Navy Lt. Michael Murphy, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Every Memorial Day, Crossfit gyms nationwide host a “Murph” workout — which Hazelkorn had done the morning of the rescue and so thought the name a fitting tribute to a fallen officer.

Murph the turtle also turned out to be a great candidate for additional research because studies involving adult male loggerhead sea turtles are rare, said Kristen Mazzarella, manager of Mote’s Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program.

Sea turtles spend their entire lives at sea. While females return to shore to nest, the males never come ashore again — unless they

With the helicopter hovering above and providing a much-needed set of eyes to spot the turtle, the rest of the team motored out to the right spot and found a whopping 300-pound adult male loggerhead — one of the largest turtles ever rescued by Mote.

“Once we cut the line, we quickly realized that he had to come back to Mote’s Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital,” Hazelkorn said.

“It just wasn’t possible to disentangle him on the scene — the entanglement was too severe.”

happen to be sick or injured and are rescued by an organization

At the hospital, Rehabilitation and Medical Care Coordinator Lynne Byrd assessed the situation, finding that the turtle had fishing and

like us studying only women and not men — you can’t get a really

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like Mote. That means it can be difficult for resource managers tasked with protecting this threatened species to know what kind of rules to enact to save them.

“Thanks to Mote’s efforts to tag adult females over the years, we’ve been able to develop a pretty good picture of where they travel and the threats they face at sea,” Mazzarella said. “But much less is known about what the males do in the wild. That would be good understanding of the entire species.”

Lynne Byrd, rehabilitation and medical care coordinator, sees Murph the loggerhead sea turtle off to the wild.

Murph was outfitted with a satellite transmitter that is allowing Kristen Mazzarella, manager of Mote’s Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program to follow the turtle at sea.

Mote has tagged four adult male hospital patients with satellite transmitters that have provided location information about the animals’ travels in the wild. But the tag Mazzarella put on Murph is also showing information about his diving patterns — giving a better indication of what he’s doing. The transmitter also gives temperature readings for the waters he travels through.

“Typically, the transmitters we’ve used have merely provided a GPS reading — meaning we have an idea of where the turtles went,” Mazzarella said. “But this tag is also giving us information about Murph’s depth — that can give us an idea of what the turtle is doing. Is he diving? Resting on the bottom? Or even breeding?

This tag is giving us some insights on that knowledge. We can also compare the information we gain from this tag to information from healthy male turtles that were tagged with similar transmitters on the east coast of Florida to gauge his recovery.”

Mote’s goals go beyond just helping individual animals. The fact that Mote is invested in rescuing, providing critical rehabilitative care and doing scientific research, allows us the unique ability to combine information from multiple sources about the lives and deaths of individual animals like Murph and apply it to help restore and protect whole populations of endangered and threatened species. Few organizations nationwide can claim such a comprehensive effort for sea turtles, let alone the numerous other species that Mote works with.

But funding declines put programs like this in jeopardy. That matters. According to a recent study from the Florida Ocean Alliance, ocean-oriented tourism generates $8 billion for the state’s economy. Without organizations like Mote focused on the health

and conservation of our marine animals and habitats that draw visitors to our shores, Florida’s economy will suffer.

“Mote’s ability to rescue, rehabilitate and return Murph to the wild, as well as provide the follow-up scientific monitoring needed to learn about turtle habits at sea, showcases the breadth and depth of our commitment to conservation,” said Dr. Michael P. Crosby, President and CEO. “However, we can’t undertake efforts to help keep our oceans healthy or save threatened and endangered species without support from the community. Our birth, growth and impact has been due in great measure to the generous commitments of our donors, and I hope efforts like the one we undertook to help Murph will continue to receive such support.”

THANK YOU Helping to rescue, rehab, tag and release Murph will teach us many things about loggerhead lives at sea. But doing this work comes with a price tag ($5,500 just for the tag and satellite time for follow-up monitoring). Mote thanks the following individuals and organizations for providing the funds to tag Murph and supporting the satellite time so we can collect data: THE SARA ROBERTS FOUNDATION STEPHEN AND TABITHA KING THE WOOSTER SCHOOL BARBARA BRIZDLE ANN ANDERSON WEST COAST INLAND NAVIGATION DISTRICT

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MOTE MILESTONES well known. Over the decades since the program began in 1970, Wells and his team have collected data on many aspects of dolphin biology, behavior and genetics and have been able to discover how the animals are affected by environmental change and the adverse impacts that humans sometimes have on them.

Program results have helped inform policy decisions that help protect marine animals.

MOTE WELCOMES USFSM STUDENTS TO CAMPUS Mote welcomed the first group of students from the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus to the newly created teaching labs in our Ann and Alfred Goldstein Marine Mammal Research and Rehabilitation Building this fall.

The labs leverage the strengths of both institutions in a marriage of academics, research and business. Mote researchers hold courtesy faculty appointments at USFSM, sharing their real-world experience with students, who will one day lead the next wave of Florida’s scientists, engineers, technicians and business visionaries. The labs are the site for all USFSM biology and chemistry classes and an inquiry-based bachelor’s degree program in biology that will begin in 2014.

Dr. Michael P. Crosby, president and CEO of Mote, says the partnership is focused on the future. “There is so much potential here for innovation. Exposing students to all these fields and the expertise of our researchers will prepare them for many different paths they can follow and excel in when they graduate. They’ll come out

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ready to really take on the world, and it is exciting to be a part of that.”

INDIANAPOLIS PRIZE NOMINEE Mote is proud to recognize Dr. Randy Wells as a nominee for the world’s top award for animal conservation. The Indianapolis Prize is a biennial award initiated by the Indianapolis Zoo that brings the world’s attention to the cause of animal conservation and the brave, talented and dedicated men and women who spend their lives saving the Earth’s endangered animal species.

Wells has studied Sarasota Bay’s dolphins since he came to Mote as a 16-year-old volunteer intern who helped program founder Blair Irvine begin a dolphin-tagging study in Sarasota Bay. Today, the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program is the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population and is a collaboration between the Chicago Zoological Society and Mote.

The program is unique because nowhere else in the world can researchers work with a group of wild dolphins in their natural habitat where the medical and behavioral history of each dolphin is so

During his career, Wells has studied marine mammals around the globe, has led or co-led more than 170 marine mammal research projects and has served as president of the international Society for Marine Mammalogy, chairman of the Atlantic Scientific Review Group, chairman of NOAA’s Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events and held numerous other science and conservation leadership roles.

Wells is among 39 conservation all-stars nominated, and he shares the nominee list alongside anthropologist Jane Goodall and ocean conservation leader Carl Safina.

Six finalists will be revealed in spring 2014 with the winner announced later in the year. The winner and five finalist nominees will be honored at the Indianapolis Prize Gala presented by Cummins Inc., on Sept.

27, 2014, in Indianapolis. The winner will receive $250,000 and five finalists will each receive $10,000.

MOTE EDUCATION SHOWCASED AT NATIONAL CONFERENCE A nationwide organization that uses game play for serious learning showcased Mote education programs during its annual conference, held for the first time in Florida.

NASAGA, the North American Simulation and Gaming Association’s 51st Annual Conference, “Play By Design: A Bridge to Learning,” offered trainers, teachers,

consultants, game designers and other educators focused on playful learning an opportunity to exchange ideas and find new inspiration for educational activities.

Mote, a participating organization and conference sponsor shared the innovative approaches for informal science education that stem from the Lab’s world-class marine research.

“An important part of Mote’s mission is to actively interpret current marine research for audiences both locally and globally,” said Brad Tanner, school programs coordinator, who helped lead a conference session and host a Mote field trip for participants. “Working with NASAGA will allow us to share the experience-based education programs we’ve developed, while learning from others, to help people of all ages become more ocean literate.”

NEW MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER

Mote is pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Vigne, major gifts officer. Vigne is a prominent development professional from the Sarasota-Manatee nonprofit community who will help raise funding support for the world-class marine research that is priority No. 1 in Mote’s 2020 Vision and Strategic Plan. The Plan serves as the blueprint guiding Mote research programs that are designed to meet the critical needs facing our oceans and positively impact society in this century and beyond.

LEGISLATIVE VISIT State Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, visited Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in the fall, where he had the opportunity to learn first-hand about some of Mote’s key research programs — including studies of ocean acidification, red tide and scallop restoration efforts taking place at the Lab. Mote President and CEO, Dr. Michael P. Crosby, introduced Boyd to Dr. Emily Hall, who is studying the effects of a more acidic marine environment on species like sea urchins, clams and coral reefs through a specialized ocean acidification sea water system (OASys) built on Mote’s Sarasota campus. He also met with Jim Culter, who is leading Sarasota Bay scallop restoration studies that include partnership with local citizens groups and volunteers for development of the most effective and scientifically sound methods for re-establishing this keystone species.

Boyd also met Dr. Richard Pierce, Associate Vice President for Mote’s Research Directorate of Environmental Health & Ocean Technology, and Alan Hails, Instrumentation Systems Engineer, to learn more about red tide research and the engineering technology developed at Mote that helps scientists research the toxic organism that causes Florida red tide.

As a Florida native, Boyd knows the local environment well and was excited to have an opportunity to learn even more about the innovative marine research taking place at Mote, noting how the marine science and education institution is such an integral part of Sarasota and Southwest Florida. “Mote’s role is so significant — not just in terms of its international research, but also in terms of what the organization means for our local environment and even our local economy. The variety of what takes place at Mote is just amazing and the research

programs are truly impressive. And one thing that I also really enjoy about Mote is seeing the faces and the reactions of the kids who come to visit The Aquarium. You can just look at them and see that they’re learning about our marine environment, and having a good time doing it.”

NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON HARMFUL ALGAE HELD IN SARASOTA In October, 215 researchers from 31 states convened in Sarasota for the 7th Symposium on Harmful Algae in the U.S., co-hosted by Mote Marine Laboratory and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). This important national conference was a critical venue for scientists, resource managers and public health experts to come together to share their latest results across research specialties, explore trends and identify new areas of research needs.

Whether they are blue-green, red or brown, harmful algal blooms (sometimes called “red tides”) have one thing in common: they impact communities across the U.S. to the tune of millions of dollars each year. Dr. Barbara Kirkpatrick, manager of Mote’s Environmental Health Program chaired the symposium with Leanne Flewelling, research administrator at FWC. The Symposium was a crossdisciplinary meeting that encouraged the exchange of ideas across specialty and addressed key areas related to harmful algal blooms, including: • Bloom ecology and toxicity • • • •

Prevention, control and mitigation Monitoring and management Forecasting Impacts on humans, including health and fisheries

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F R O M 4 - H FA R M G I R L TO M OT E D O N O R Shirley Fein never slows down. Maybe it’s because she was raised on a Connecticut dairy and poultry farm where real labor and long hours were all in a day’s work… feeding animals, delivering milk and eggs with her father, performing a myriad of other daily chores. She even excelled in 4-H, winning many blue ribbons for her homemaking projects.

Both Shirley and Arnold had an early interest in travel and added to their marine knowledge as they saw the world. On one cruise in the Indian Ocean, they met Jacques Cousteau who was familiar with Mote Marine Laboratory and knew Dr. Kumar Mahadevan, then the Lab’s president. It was a thrilling encounter.

Shirley first learned about the marine world during high school in Jewett City, a small town not far from the coast.

Unfortunately, college was an option for her brothers, but not Shirley. Instead, when she was 21, she moved to a new adventure in New York City.

Arnold maintained an abiding love of the sea and enjoyed fishing when the couple vacationed in Florida. After retiring, they moved to Longboat Key and quickly became involved in community affairs.

Shirley found entry-level employment in the garment industry and quickly rose to a sales position. Her life took a lovely turn when she met a young New Yorker named Arnold Fein, who was working in the insurance and pension plans field. They married and in due course, their lovely and intelligent daughter, Tina Debra, was born.

When Tina was in high school, Shirley enrolled at St. Peter’s University in New Jersey, earning a degree in humanities with emphasis on world religions, music and writing. She graduated cum laude.

Among their keenest interests were the research programs of Mote Marine Laboratory and Arnold and Shirley both became major donors and members of the Mote Legacy Society.

Arnold named Mote as a beneficiary in his charitable remainder trust and served on the Mote Advisory Council until his death in 2010. At that time, Shirley was invited to take his seat on the Council and has since named Mote the sole beneficiary in her own trust.

There are many ways you can add your solid financial backing to support Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium. For a start, talk to Tom Waters, Chief Advancement Officer, at 941-388-4441, ext. 352, or e-mail plannedgiving@mote.org.