We used an underwater video camera to film what's going on inside our aquaria. The juvenile lobsters were used in a joint project with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The Objective was to compare the response of wild and hatchery reared lobsters to predators.

The Science Department at SMCC invites you to a series of free seminars open to the general public:

Sept 25th - Lynda Doughty and Lorraine Bisson,
Maine Department of Marine Resources
Moving up the food chain: From Plankton to Whales, From Student to Scientist

Oct 23th - Jon Grabowski, Ph.D.
Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Can lobsters and Cod Coexist in the Gulf of Maine?

Nov 27th - Lisa Estey, Ph.D.
IDEXX Laboratories
Development of Diagnostic Tests for Mad Cow and other Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies

Jan 29th - Lucy Liaw, Ph.D.
Maine Medical Center Research Institute
Using Mouse Genetics to Study Human Diseases

Feb 26th - Chuck Gregory, Ph.D.
Southern Maine Community College
My Teacher at Sea Internship: A Hydrographic Survey of Lower New York Harbor on NOAA's Shark

March 25th - Eric Hazelton
University of Southern Maine
Invasion of the Clones: Native and Introduced Phragmites australis

April 29th - Joe Payne
Baykeeper, Friends of Casco Bay
Nitrogen, It Will Be the Death of Us: Nitrogen Pollution in Maine and Around the Country

All seminars are Tuesday nights from 5:30 - 6:30 PM
Jewett Auditorium, Jewett Hall, SMCC, South Portland

LorraineBisson was hired by the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources to work in their marine mammal program. This summer she participated on a NOAA right whale cruise in the Gulf of Maine (see pictures). Lorraine is now working on a right whale food utilization study designed to assess the abundance and distribution of right whale food organisms in state waters. She will also be taking classes at the University of Southern Maine to complete her Bachelor's Degree.

Labels: Lorraine (second from left) engaged in strenuous shipboard activities

The Science Department is purchasing several pieces of equipment to expand the capabilities of Seatime students. We have ordered a high definition underwater video camera with gps overlay for conducting quantitative transect surveys of benthic organisms and a YSI sonde with dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity and turbidity probes. The sonde will allow students to increase the number of vertical profile stations they can perform. The emphasis in our Seatime program is to map subtidal habitats in western Casco Bay and collect baseline oceanographic and biological data.

AMBO student Kara LaLomia is investigaing lobster (Homarus americanus)broodstock management and in particular the role of a filamentous bacteria (Leucothrix mucosa)in egg and larval mortality. L. mucosa is a common epibiont found on marine algae but can contribute to lobster mortality in culture conditions.

Aquaculture student Derek Klemenski spawned some American oysters (Crassostrea virginica) today. He has been conditioning the oysters since January. The developing embryos should become trocophore larvae by tomorrow.Derek will then have 20,000,000 mouths to feed.

AMBO students fish some specially modified ventless lobster traps to gather data on lobster migrations in and out of Portland Harbor. The data is used by the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation. This video depicts AMBO Seatime students taking up the traps on the last Seatime cruise in November. The traps will be reset in March.

The Spring semester has started and the students enrolled in the Aquaculture Techniques class are starting their projects.

Kara LaLomia is investigating brood stock management with lobsters to maximize egg hatching. The lobster eggs hatched early this year and she already has stage four lobster larvae.

Derek Klemenski is conditioning some American oysters for spawning. He should have larvae by March.

Nate Perry is investigating oyster growout and is learning some techniques for assessing primary production in sea waters. He will be going out today to take a plankton tow. The temperature on campus this morning was 2 degrees F. We hope he dresses warm.

Theresa McGovern will be monitoring levels of Vibrio anguillarum a pathogenic bacteria that may contribute to mortalities in a hatchery. She will be using traditional microbiological techniques for routine monitoring and using the Polymerase Chain Reaction for identifying DNA sequences from V. anguillarum.

Peggy York is interested in studying growth in microalgae and will be correlating cell density with chlorophyll concentrations in cultures of marine microalgae.

Finally, SMCC resident artist Gary Green, a photographer, has expressed interest in helping the students document their work. We will be posting some photos.

In other news, the Fisheries class is rearing several tanks of Brown trout and the Brook trout eggs started to hatch this week. We will be posting a short video clip of Seatime students in action soon.

AMBO seniors finished their Fall Seatime season by sampling vertical profiles of the water column along a transect in Portland Harbor and the Portland ship channel. The students used a Niskin bottle to take water samples at five meter intervals from surface to bottom. They used electronic meters and a refractometer to measure salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen.Density was calculated using temperature, salinity and depth and the results were entered in Ocean Dataview, a standard software tool for presenting oceanographic data.AMBO students found that the water column was still highly stratified in the harbor due to persistent rainfall but the water column outside the harbor was more mixed.