news in brief

April 2012
Peterson Publishes New Study of Oil Spill Impacts
Near the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout, a national panel of researchers, led by IMS Professor Charles “Pete” Peterson, is providing new insight into what happened in the disaster and why existing tools were inadequate to predict the effects. The study published in the May issue of the journal Bioscience is entitled “A Tale of Two Spills: Novel Science and Policy Implications of an Emerging New Oil Spill Model.”  The researchers are calling for a new model for studying the environmental impacts of deep water oil spills and an integrated collaboration among scientists. To read the National Science Foundation press release, click here.

March 2012
Noble Gets Patent for New Water Quality Assays
As an alternative to the currently available methods for bacterial water quality testing at beaches, which require 24 hours or longer for public notification, Dr. Rachel Noble has developed several new rapid (<4 hours) molecular assays for quantification of fecal indicator bacteria, E. coli and Enterococcus spp. The technology can be used to test the safety of marine water, stormwater, drinking water, finished (tap) or bottled water. In March, Dr. Noble received a patent for her methods. The Noble lab is currently working to make the technology portable for even more rapid results and to improve cost effectiveness.

March 2012
Smyth Honored With UNC Impact Award
Each year, the UNC Graduate School recognizes graduate students whose research is improving the lives of people in North Carolina and beyond. Of the 22 graduate students selected to win Impact Awards, two are from IMS: Ashley Smyth and Nate Geraldi.
Ashley Smyth, a PhD candidate advised by IMS Associate Professor Mike Piehler, led a series of experiments assessing oysters’ ability to improve ecosystem health. Ashley’s work on oyster mediated impacts on nitrogen cycling has already been used in decisions regarding oyster restoration in NC and throughout the US. For more information, click here.

March 2012
Geraldi Honored With UNC Impact Award
Nate Geraldi, a PhD candidate advised by IMS Professor Pete Peterson, has received the UNC Impact Award for his research into identifying the best ways to maximize oyster population growth. NC has invested significant resources toward restoring its severely threatened oyster reefs; Nate investigated what methods are likely to produce the best results and concluded that restoration resources should be devoted to deploying hard substrate for oysters to settle on. For more information on the Impact Award and this year’s award winners, please follow this link: http://gradschool.unc.edu/student/awards/impact/2012.html.

February 2012
Graduate Student Wins Major Fellowship
Teri O’Meara, PhD student in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering advised by Mike Piehler, received a NCCR-NCSG Fellowship. NCCR is a program of the N.C. Division of Coastal Management in the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. North Carolina Sea Grant receives funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the state. Teri’s research will investigate the relative proportions of fungal and bacterial denitrification in several marsh types and provide valuable information about the capacity of coastal systems to modulate nitrogen inputs.

March 2012
Rodriguez, Fodrie, and Paerl Head New NC Sea Grant Research Projects
North Carolina Sea Grant has selected a dozen new core research projects for the 2012 to 2014 funding period. Among them are: A Metatranscriptomic Survey of the Eukaryotic Plankton Community Along the Freshwater-Marine Continuum in the Neuse River Estuary, led by Adrian Marchetti and Hans Paerl; and Quantifying Oyster Reef Accretion Rates and Structural Evolution for Improving Estimates of Carbon Sequestration and Restoration Success, led by Antonio Rodriguez and Joel Fodrie from IMS and John Fear from the N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve.

March 2012
Lindquist and Fodrie Investigate Oyster Reef Restoration in Tidal Creeks
Drs. Lindquist and Fodrie are deploying concrete-coated crab pots to area tidal creeks with their commercial fisherman collaborators, Adam Tyler and David “Clammerhead” Cessna. The old crab pots are being placed at different heights and in waters of different salinity in order to investigate some of the critical conditions for oyster growth. Oyster populations have declined dramatically from the early 1900s, but tidal creeks have received relatively little attention in restoration efforts. This project, funded by the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program, is providing hard substrate material for oyster larvae to settle on.

October 2011
IMS Partners With Carteret Community College:
View It on YouTube
Professor F. Joel Fodrie is just old enough to remember Charles Kuralt of CBS News saying UNC is “a university of the people, by the people and for the people.”
That is why he agreed to take part in the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program (C-STEP), giving a talk and tour of IMS to students from Carteret Community College. To read the full story from the Carteret News Times, click here. To view a video on YouTube about the Institute’s partnership with C-STEP, click here.

October 2011
Irene Helps UNC Researchers Hone Forecasts
IMS Director Rick Luettich and his cohorts from the Renaissance Computing Institute and Seahorse Coastal Consulting put years of computer model development to the ultimate test by forecasting the storm surge and inundation from Hurricane Irene. Their work uses the ADvanced CIRCulation model (ADCIRC), a computer model substantially developed by Luettich’s lab at UNC. Luettich’s modeling and measurement of circulation and transport in coastal waters led to his recent appointment to the Board of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Levee Authority East. To read more about Luettich’s research, click here.

January 2012
Hans Paerl Featured in the Press
William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Dr. Hans Paerl is a world-class leader in the ecology and physiology of harmful algal bloom species, and his research is being used by management agencies worldwide. Dr. Paerl was recently featured in the News and Observer as the Tarheel of the Week. To read the complete News and Observer article, click here.
Hans Paerl and his ambition to continually monitor water quality in the Pamlico Sound by ferries also made headlines in the UNC Gazette. To read the Gazette story, click here.

September 2011
IMS Serves As Field Site
IMS serves as a field site for the UNC Institute for the Environment. This program, led by Professor Rachel Noble, allows in-residence undergraduates to explore the “living classrooms” of the NC coast and issues such as ecosystem health, biodiversity, water quality, fisheries management, shoreline erosion, risk analysis, public policy and decision making. The students also engage in a capstone project that helps them to develop the skills necessary to conduct research and communicate scientific results. To view photos from the 2011 Fall semester, click here.

August 2011
Are the Fish All Right?
Professor F. Joel Fodrie and other researchers have found that young fish remained abundant last summer and fall in some areas of the Gulf of Mexico that were slammed by the catastrophic 2010 BP oil spill. The researchers tallied numbers of juveniles retrieved by research vessels. The abundance of these youngsters offered one gauge of whether eggs and larval fish had taken a big, deadly hit from early exposure to hydrocarbons.
Still unknown, the researchers acknowledge, is the health of fish reared in polluted regions of the Gulf. To read more, please click here.

January 2012
New Grant Helps Students To Spread the Word
A new grant from the Kenan-Biddle Partnership will support media training for PhD students at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort and UNC at Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. The awardees include UNC-IMS PhD students Rachel Gittman and Clare Fieseler.
“Digital media is an incredibly important tool for science outreach, but it’s one that many PhD students have little experience using,” says Clare Fieseler, who initiated the inter-campus collaboration. To read more about this grant, click here.

August 2011
Two Graduate Students in the News
Rachel Gittman, under the advisement of Pete Peterson and John Bruno, has been honored this year with a NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve Graduate Fellowship for her research on salt marsh ecosystems. Michelle Brodeur, a PhD student under the advisement of Joel Fodrie, has been honored with two awards, the NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve Graduate Fellowship and the NC Sea Grant Coastal Research Fellowship, for her study of the effects of multiple stressors on eelgrass meadows and intertidal oyster reefs. You can read more about Brodeur’s research in Coastwatch.

May 2012
Graduate Student Young Wins NSF Grant
Erika Young, a Phd candidate under the advisement of Pete Peterson, has been accepted to the Student to Academic Professoriate for American Indians (SAPAI) summer 2012 Writing Retreat. The retreat will be held from June 18 to July 27 at Salish Kootenai College, Pablo, Montana.
Dr. Aretha Matt will be leading the retreat along with additional support provided by Dr. Otakuye Conroy-Ben.