Tag Archives: Research

Sotka Lab Gets One-Year Intern From Brazil

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Grice Marine Lab and Erik Sotka’s lab team welcome visiting scientist and intern, Glauco Barreto de Oliveira Machado.  Glauco is a Ph.D. student in Ecology at University of Campinas, from Brazil. He has been studying the association between small herbivores and macroalgae.  Specifically,  he is interested in understanding how and what factors drive this interaction.  IMG_20160125_113758185_HDRWhile getting his Masters, he studied the association of two herbivorous amphipod species with the brown alga Sargassum, and its epiphytes by investigating the importance of these algae as food for those consumers.  Currently, he is interested in understanding the role of predation on that small herbivore-alga interaction, as well as studying the role of nutrition of herbivorous amphipods on their interaction with algal hosts. Welcome, Glauco!

 

DNR To Host Open House October 24th

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Come face-to-face with a flatfish, practice your fishing knots, or take a cruise around Charleston Harbor at the upcoming Marine Resources Center Open House, an activity-packed event that’s all about the coast and what we do out here at the Fort Johnson campus.  poster
On October 24, 2015, from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Marine Resources Center in Charleston County will open to the community. For the first time since 2008, the public is invited to enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at the Center, where world-class coastal science, education, and management happen.
The Marine Resources Center is located on James Island and enjoys beautiful views of the city of Charleston, the harbor, and the iconic Ravenel Bridge. Whether your family is brand new to the area or has been in Charleston for generations, we welcome you to come find out more about the water and wildlife that make the coast such a desirable place to live – and the people who safeguard these resources for the citizens of South Carolina. Meet the scientists who study our state’s sea turtles, salt marshes, and shellfish, the law enforcement officers who protect our waterways, and the educators who help schoolchildren discover the beauty of the coast.  Come have fun experiencing a boating simulator, touch tank, numerous eductiaonal booths on marine science, and much more!  For media inquiries, please contact Erin Weeks at (843) 953-9845 or eweeks@dnr.sc.gov.  Hope to see you there!  http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/openhouse2015.html

CofC Scientist Studies Elusive River Shark

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Gavin Naylor of CofC and the Medical University of South Carolina, along with several of his colleagues, is studying a River Shark that lives in the shallow, muddy rivers from Asia to the South Pacific.  Once thought there were three different speices, Naylor has now confirmed that in fact they are all the same family of sharks called Glyphis.  You can read more about his studies here:  http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/14/scientists-go-in-search-elusive-river-shark.html

 

 

Welcome Summer REU’s!

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The REU program (Research Experience for Undergradutes) at Grice has officially kicked off.  Ten students from all over the country (and world- one is here from Puerto Rico!) are spending 10 weeks assigned to a mentor who will aid them in doing various research projects.  REUsREUsThe summer will be filled with many exciting experiences for the REU’s which started with a Grice welcome cookout last Friday evening.  Other opportunities will include workshops/lectures, mentor lunches, shark sampling, a weekend trip to the ACE Basin (ACE Basin – Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto Rivers), and alligator sampling.   The summer will wind down with the REU’s presenting the outcome of their research projects at a Colloquium on August 5th.

REU UPDATE 7/30:  http://today.cofc.edu/2015/07/30/marine-sciences-research-draws-students-to-charleston/

7th Annual George D. Grice, Jr. Lecture

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Mark MartindaleOn April 10, 2015, Dr. Mark Martindale from the University of Florida gave the 7th annual George D. Grice, Jr. Lecture. This special Ft. Johnson seminar honors the contributions of the Grice family to marine science. Mark’s talk, “Developmental Constraints and the Pattern of Animal Evolution,” covered his work on the relationship between genomic and morphological complexity in the evolution of animal form. His research covers the evolution of development, the evolution of novelty and complexity, and the relationship between development and regeneration.

Alyssa Demko Receives Prestigious National Science Foundation Award

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Graduate Student Alyssa Demko has been awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation- Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF-GRFP) which includes a three-year annual stipend and a yearly cost of education allowance.  This award allows for many opportunities for networking, also allowing the recipient to slightly alter the project they propose if their interests happen to change.

Alyssa is finishing up her Masters degree with Erik Sotka, looking at the effects of phylogeny and latitude on seaweed palatability.   She is studying 50 seaweeds from several different parts of the world testing palatability through a series of feeding assays using emerald crabs and rock boring urchins.  For the NSF-GRFP, Alyssa is proposing to expand her Masters work into a Ph.D. Congratulations, Alyssa!

Grice Graduate Student Publishes Journal Article on Sea Turtles

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Vanessa Bezy has conducted extensive research on  sea turtles, spending much time doing so in Costa Rica. While at Grice, she worked with Graduate Program Director, Craig Plante, starting in Fall of 2011 and graduating in Spring of 2014.  Below you can read her original journal article from PLOS ONE based on her Masters thesis research , as well as a summary article that she wrote summarizing the study.  Vanessa is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Her thesis there will be investigating the sensory and behavioral cues associated with the mass nesting behavior in Olive Ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) at Ostional, Costa Rica.  For more information about Vanessa, please visit her personal website (http://www.vanessabezy.com/Vanessa_Bezy/Home.html) or LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com/in/vanessabezy)

Article:  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0118579

Summary:  http://theconversation.com/baby-sea-turtles-starved-of-oxygen-by-beach-microbes-38015

 

Grice Professor and Post-doc Article Gets Published in “The Marine Biologist” Magazine

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Grice Professor, Erik Sotka,  and Post-doctoral Fellow, Stacy Krueger-Hadfield, have recently written a short article in The Marine Biologist about the efforts of the Sotka lab studying the evolutionary ecology of an invasive red seaweed,  Gracilaria vermiculophylla.  They discussed the the mutualism formed between the alga and a decorator worm called Diaptra cuprea in the Southeastern US as well as the work they will be embarking on in 2015 sampling the extant range of the seaweed, both native and non-native.  To learn more about their work, you can contact Erik (sotkae@cofc.edu) or Stacy (kruegersa@cofc.edu).  Also, visit the website for the Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA)  http://www.mba.ac.uk/.

REU Students Wind Down the Summer

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Summer is coming to a close as the ten REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) finish up their research experience here at Grice. The students arrived at the end of May from all over the country, as well as one from Puerto Rico, and will depart this week. They had a fun-filled summer working with mentors and graduate students on various projects including topics such as hammerhead sharks, snapping shrimp, sheepshead minnows, and horseshoe crabs. The Colloquium took place in the SCDNR Marine Resources Research Institute Auditorium where each REU got to present their research to Grice and SCDNR employees, staff and faculty. group photo 4