{"id":11173,"date":"2016-03-28T13:23:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T17:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/?p=11173"},"modified":"2016-03-28T13:23:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T17:23:36","slug":"going-to-great-depths-to-investigate-change-in-the-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/2016\/03\/28\/going-to-great-depths-to-investigate-change-in-the-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"Going to great depths to investigate change in the Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rebecca<\/a><\/p>\n

Rebecca Robinson<\/strong>
\nURI Graduate School of Oceanography<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssociate professor; oceanography<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Rhode Island STAC<\/a> award<\/h3>\n

2015 STAC grant: Diatom Community Composition as an Indicator of Coastal Ecosystem Change. <\/strong>This project brings together four scientists from different fields to explore coastal biogeochemical responses to climate change and develop new assessment tools for monitoring ecological change.
\nCollaborators: <\/strong>Rebecca Robinson, URI GSO; Tatiana Rynearson, URI GSO; Warren Prell, Brown University; David Murray, Brown University<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The research work of the Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR community spans the depth and breadth of the Ocean State\u2019s coastal and off shore waters, from surface to sediment, and all manner of life and movement found in between.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rebecca Robinson\u2019s focus lies at the deepest point, in the particles that comprise the ocean floor. There, in the sediment, Robinson looks at diatoms, a single-celled organism distinctively known for its glass cell wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last 50 years or so, the type of diatoms that were typically in Narragansett Bay are starting to decline,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cSome have surmised that this is in response to climate change. So, as the system warms up, it is possible the chemistry of the water is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In turn, that means change for the Bay\u2019s marine life and ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Diatoms are phytoplankton, a plant or algae, and exist at the base of the food web, the initial source of energy on which the whole ecosystem depends. The status of these microscopic organisms provides important insight to the Bay\u2019s health and yields clues \u2014 indicators of sea ice to salinity \u2014\u00a0about the environment.<\/p>\n

Using equipment at the Marine Science Research Facility<\/a> (MSRF), a RI EPSCoR facility at the URI Bay Campus, Robinson examines cores of Narragansett Bay sediment. The research team is comparing diatom communities from the sediment to look at the deep past, from decades to centuries ago, to those from modern and to more recent times, using phytoplankton surveys by URI Graduate School of Oceanography scientists.<\/p>\n

The flow cam, explains Robinson, is somewhat like a vacuum, pulling a stream of water past the lens. It takes a picture every fraction of a second and crops out particles as the sediment floats by. From this procedure, Robinson and her student, Neil Redmond, identify and build libraries of diatoms. She also measures temperature from the chemical signature of the sediment core.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the diatom community is changing and is really different than what Narragansett Bay has seen, if the organisms are being pushed outside of their normal limits, then maybe it\u2019s an alarm bell.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Worldwide, temperature changes appear to take place more rapidly in some areas while in others, change occurs more slowly. Robinson says there is not a wealth of coastal information, so the research work being done adds significantly to the database.<\/p>\n

Tracing climate change in the Bay, given such factors as land use and wastewater influx in the upper Bay and surrounding watershed, poses a complicated challenge. Through shifts in diatom communities, sediment cores tell the story of what happens when such measures as wastewater treatment plants are built, helping to guide policy decisions and determine fiscal impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to understand how to use this environmental data,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cIf the diatom community is changing and is really different than what Narragansett Bay has seen, if the organisms are being pushed outside of their normal limits, then maybe it\u2019s an alarm bell. But, if they\u2019re within the natural limits, we can consider that as plans are made to adjust our management of the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point of the research, after investing time to ensure accuracy of their procedures, the scientists are collecting data. The MSRF flow cam is instrumental in that it automates some of the long hours previously spent at the microscope \u2014 work, Robinson notes, made possible by a RI Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) grant and ultimately useful for multiple purposes well beyond Narragansett Bay.<\/p>\n

Story and photo by Amy Dunkle | RI NSF EPSCoR<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Robinson URI Graduate School of Oceanography Associate professor; oceanography Rhode Island STAC award 2015 STAC grant: Diatom Community Composition as an Indicator of Coastal Ecosystem Change. This project brings together four scientists from different fields to explore coastal biogeochemical responses to climate change and develop new assessment tools for monitoring ecological change. Collaborators: Rebecca […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21,1,63],"tags":[219,279,423,570,579,585,753],"class_list":["post-11173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","category-we-are-ri-epscor","tag-diatoms","tag-flow-cam","tag-narragansett-bay","tag-rhode-island-nsf-epscor","tag-ri-epscor-marine-science-research-facility","tag-ri-stac","tag-uri-graduate-school-of-oceanography"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}