Eric Olson

Eric Olson ©Stephanie Chavez/VASG

Eric Olson will be working as the graduate intern for communication research, where he will study the information needs and communication preferences of policy makers and resource managers. A native of Yorktown, Virginia, Olson earned a master’s in communication at Virginia Tech and a graduate certificate in science communication at George Mason University this spring.

Olson recognizes that effective science communicators are as much connectors of people and resources as they are writers or speakers. “Virginia Sea Grant’s purpose is to decrease the distance between science information and citizens, by making information easily accessible and broadly usable. I hope to find a place to do just that, and utilize my background in media education in the process.”

Olson is particularly interested in the intersection of science communication and informal education, particularly the promotion of science outside the classroom. “I am often in awe of so much of the natural world that scientists observe and study,” he says. “The more time I spend in this field, the more that I realize that these are some of the most important endeavors in which I could possibly take part.”

Erika Lower

As the Sea Grant science communication intern, Erika Lower will work with the Communication Center to bring scientific and technical information to non-scientists and decision makers. Her duties will include covering research projects and fellowships supported by Sea Grant – a task that sometimes involves a little field work. “I’m pretty excited about the chance to get out on a boat or two,” she says.

Erika Lower ©Stephanie Chavez/VASG

Lower is enthusiastic about the importance of translating scientific information for a number of different audiences. “Whether they’re government officials, business owners, or citizens who just want to be more informed about their environment, it’s crucial to provide people with scientific resources that are accessible and easy to understand,” says Lower.

A rising senior at Virginia Tech, Lower will graduate with a degree in Humanities, Science & Environment in 2014. She plans to pursue graduate work in science communications with a focus on conservation biology or energy policy.

Bios by Erika Lower.

Chris Olcott

Chris Olcott

Chris Olcott, J.D. forthcoming, is a rising third-year student at William & Mary Law School. Mr. Olcott currently serves as an Articles Editor for the William & Mary Law Review. He has served as a summer associate at Vandeventer Black, LLP in Norfolk, Virginia, and will return to the firm during the summer of 2013. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science with high distinction in Environmental Science.

Erica Penn

Erica Penn

Erica Penn is a rising third-year student at William & Mary Law School.  Ms. Penn is the current Environmental Law and Policy Review (ELPR) Symposium Chair 2013-14, and served as Assistant Symposium Chair the prior year. She represents the law school as a Senator in the William & Mary Student Assembly. In addition, she served as 2L Class Representative in the Student Bar Association and Chair of the Black Law Student Association’s Undergraduate Outreach Committee.  She graduated cum laude from the University of Florida in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and two minors in Business Administration and Organizational Leadership for Non-profits.

Nate Geyerhahn (left) and Blaine Schoolfield (right) deploy oysters in the York River as part of a study about disease resistance. ©Janet Krenn/VASG

By Janet Krenn

Part 3 in a 3-part series: Selecting a Better Oyster.

When Stan Allen found that the oysters he spent his career breeding for faster growth could also resist diseases that were decimating oyster populations, it was a happy coincidence. Now Allen, Director Virginia Institute of Marine Science Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center (ABC), is working to develop a strategy for breeding oysters with improved disease resistance and other profitable characteristics for Virginia’s oyster aquaculture industry.

Think about the last baby you saw. Was it identical to its mother or father? Of course, it’s a trick question. Children’s characteristics are a combination of their two parents. The same goes for oysters.

Triploid oysters also have two parents. Triploids come from mating a tetraploid oyster—an oyster with four sets of genes—with a typical oyster with two sets of genes. When it comes time for these animals to reproduce, they each put half of their genes into the sperm or egg. When a tetraploid’s sperm carrying two sets of genes (half of 4 = 2) fertilizes an egg containing one set of genes (half of 2 = 1), you get triploid oyster babies (2+1=3).

ABC produces tetraploid oysters as broodstock and distributes them to commercial hatcheries, where triploids are made. But to breed a better triploid oyster, Allen says, they need to focus on the typical diploid oyster parent. The tetraploid parent’s eggs are more fragile and the adult tetraploid oysters are highly variable, making them difficult to select and breed.

Recently ABC’s research has shown that selecting traits in the parent with two gene sets does effect the triploid offspring, even though they only supply one set of genes to the other parent’s two.

In a Sea Grant-funded study, ABC mated tetraploid oysters with either wild oysters or selected diploid oysters. The selected oysters were from a long line of oysters that ABC exposed to disease, mating the survivors to select for disease resistance. When these oysters are bred with tetraploids, the triploid offspring should have the benefit of three sets of genes plus the added benefit of one of those sets having additional disease resistance.

“If [offspring from] selected parents do better than the wild, then by selective breeding we can make the triploid better,” says Anu Frank-Lawale, aquaculutre geneticist at ABC.

The team found that triploid oysters with a selectively bred parent survived better than those mated with wild oysters. This gave the team confidence that other traits could be passed down from the typical two-gene parent to their triploid offspring. Now it comes down to identifying desirable traits.

Knowing that the diploid parent can greatly affect disease resistance in its triploid offspring, Allen and Frank-Lawale hope that they can breed these oysters to have other traits that would be beneficial to growers.

The researchers began by asking growers what the most important traits were for them. The top three traits were disease resistance (for historical reasons), growth rate (because of the importance of meat weight in the shucked and half-shell markets), and shell shape (presumably for aesthetic appeal in the half-shell market).

Now that they know what traits to shoot for, ABC’s task comes down to mating oysters that will reliably produce the traits that growers want. But it’s different from just breeding disease resistance, says Frank-Lawale. “When you’re breeding for disease resistance, the disease will just come and kill those that are vulnerable, so that everything alive is presumably resistant.” Breeding for shape is different because it is not as clear-cut which family is best, he explains. “You need to look at the length, width and height of each family and say, alright this is the [average] shape. Is it consistent for all brothers and sisters? Does one family always do better than the other?”

Yet selective breeding for one trait could make the animal weaker in another area, says Peter Kube, an oyster geneticist from Australia who will work with ABC on developing a breeding strategy. Kube’s expertise is in calculating the economic value of multiple trait combinations and developing breeding plans to achieve the maximum financial return for growers. He has worked on oysters, salmon, and other species.

“You need to identify traits that are important and breed for those without adversely affecting other quality traits… traits you don’t even think about can get compromised,” he says.

Take chickens, for example. The typical chicken you might find on your plate is bred for fast growth, reaching market size within four weeks, but breeding chickens for fast growth has unintentionally made the bones weaker and easier to break.

The next wave of oysters will need to have carefully balanced traits, enhancing the traits that are important without losing others. Then ABC can implement the breeding plan and start providing better oysters to the industry.

Looking ahead, Frank-Lawale envisions a world where growers are in the drivers seat.

“Right now the grower basically doesn’t have much he can control. He can’t control the salinity or the environment. What he can control is the kind of oyster he grows. And that’s where we come in because they’re growing our oysters,” Frank-Lawale says. “These projects are really important because the industry’s at a cross road, and what’s amazing, is we’re basically helping chart the course.”

This is Part 3 in the series: Selecting a Better Oyster about how Virginia Sea Grant-funded research will get more profitable oysters in the hands of oyster aquaculture growers.

• Part 1: Sea Grant Research Supports Industry Growth
• Part 2: Oyster Industry Back from the Brink

Many homeowners in the lowlying community of Poquoson, VA, have raised their houses to protect them from frequent floods. ©Janet Krenn/VASG

By Margaret Pizer

Shana Jones’s favorite part of law school was her environmental law clinic. Now, as the director of the new Virginia Coastal Policy Clinic (VCPC) at William & Mary Law School, Jones gets to give her students the same experience of immersing themselves in practical problems of law and policy. Like clinical experiences in medical school, law clinics allow students to serve real clients and take the knowledge they’ve learned from textbooks and late-night cramming and apply it to real-world problems.

Shana Jones, Director of the Virginia Coastal Policy Clinic.

The Virgnia Coastal Policy Clinic is a partnership between the Law School and Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) that allows students to learn about coastal science and policy while addressing issues facing Virginia coastal communities. Virginia Sea Grant (VASG) is also supporting the VCPC by funding two summer law fellows and providing access to the National Sea Grant Law Center and other Sea Grant projects relating to climate adaptation. The first cohort of VCPC students this spring semester worked on policy problems facing Norfolk and Poquoson as a result of rising sea levels and increasingly frequent flooding.

“Nothing brings the law to life more than engaging with real-world problems,” Jones said, “Law and policy don’t operate in a vacuum, and it is critical for students to learn how to identify and understand the facts underlying some of our most pressing environmental problems.” The students visited marine scientists and wetlands biologists at VIMS’s Center for Coastal Resource Management to learn about how sea-level rise is affecting coastal Virginia, and they spoke with NGOs, policy-makers, and journalists about climate change issues and how they are being dealt with locally.

The students in the inaugural VCPC share Jones’s enthusiasm for the clinic model of learning. “Short of an externship, a clinic is the best practical experience you can get in law school,” says third-year law student Kelci Block. “This clinic is particularly interesting because we’re looing at influencing policy rather than doing litigation.”

After getting more familiar with the science of sea-level rise and with its importance to local communities, each of the nine clinic students wrote an analysis or memo on a legal or policy question facing Norfolk or Poquoson as they attempt to prepare for and adapt to sea-level rise. For example, Block looked at whether any adaptation strategies that might be undertaken in Poquoson could result in a takings under the 5^th amendment—meaning that the government would be required to compensate property owners for the effects of adaptation policies on their property.

Policy Clinic student Mary-Carson Saunders. ©Margaret Pizer/VASG

Third-year law student Dan Doty took on the takings question for Norfolk with a twist—considering whether not adapting could lead to a takings. In other words, if Norfolk failed to take actions that might prevent damage to private property from flooding, could the city be held responsible for that damage? Mary-Carson Saunders, another third-year student, and a former VASG law extern, analyzed whether Dillon’s Rule—which limits the authority of local governments in Virginia—might be a barrier to implementing adaptation policies.

The students’ memos will be made available to the public this summer. Jones will be presenting them at Norfolk’s Regional Expert Advisory Flooding Meeting in June and as part of a conference planned for local governments in the fall. The conference, Adaptive Planning for Flooding and Coastal Change in Virginia: Legal Issues for Local Government, will be held on September 13, and will provide a forum for local governments and coastal stakeholders to discuss the legal issues created by recurrent flooding and sea level rise and what actions may be needed to begin addressing them. Two Virginia Sea Grant Law Fellows, Chris Olcott and Erica Penn, will work with Jones this summer to help finalize the memos and organize the conference.

After a successful inaugural class, the VCPC is gearing up for fall and spring courses next school year. As for this semester’s clinic students, most graduated with their JDs last weekend and many hope to pursue careers in environmental law or policy.

“A lot of people go to law school to practice in a big firm,” says Saunders. “This clinic is a great new opportunity for students who are more interested in policy.”

To read more about the VCPC and this year’s cohort of students, visit http://law.wm.edu/news/stories/2013/virginia-coastal-policy-clinic.php

Researchers sort oysters for a study about breeding disease resistance. ©Will Sweatt/2012

By Janet Krenn

Part 2 in a 3-part series: Selecting a Better Oyster.

Today, Virginia’s aquaculture industry has a $14.3 million economic impact to the state. Not bad for an industry that emerged less than 10 years ago, when science and serendipity collided.

On the simplest level, growing oysters is like growing vegetables. Growers take seed, fingernail-sized oysters, and plant them in the water where they mature. Just as agriculture sprang up out of the need to have ready access to food, in some ways, so did oyster aquaculture.

Through the 1900s a series of diseases decimated wild oyster populations in Chesapeake Bay. Harvests of wild oysters dropped from historical highs of more than 100 million pounds annually to less than 5 million by the 1990s.

With wild oysters struggling, the oyster industry and oyster restoration groups started looking for ways to introduce disease-resistant oysters into the Bay.

In the late 1990s, the state legislature got involved and put forth funding for VIMS to work on oysters. Stan Allen was hired to start and lead a new center.

“It didn’t even have a name when I got here,” Allen said. “I was the one who decided to call it the Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center.  I figured the name would cover everything that we might have to do, whatever that was.”

Stan Allen takes a microscopic view on oysters. ©Margaret Pizer/VASG

If it sounds like starting from scratch, Allen says that’s because it was. The state didn’t stipulate what direction ABC should go. “The general directive was to do something about the oyster problem,” Allen says, and that included restoring oyster reefs and bolstering a struggling industry.

Back when Allen was in graduate school in the late-1970s, disease resistance wasn’t at the top of his mind. He wanted to breed a “value added” oyster. He planned to make a triploid that would have three sets of genes instead of two. The odd number of genes would keep the animal from reproducing. Without the need to divert energy to reproduction, the oyster could focus on growth and produce more meat more quickly.

Twenty years later, Allen had been successful in producing triploids, in not one, but three species of oyster. As he moved from east coast to west coast and back again, he developed procedures to commercialize triploid production in Virginia’s native Eastern oyster and the non-native Pacific oyster.

What happened next was a sort of fated coincidence.

In the 1990s, the Chesapeake Bay’s oystermen became interested in the Pacific oyster first, then the Asian Suminoe oyster, suspecting that either would be resistant to the oyster diseases in local waters. However, introducing non-native species could have unforeseen negative consequences for the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

To test whether the Suminoe oysters were disease resistant, they needed sterile oysters—just like the triploids Allen was already experienced at producing. For the experiment, ABC produced millions upon millions of oysters and handed them off to oyster growers.

“Well, not really ‘oyster growers’,” Allen says, “because at the time there wasn’t really a commercial aquaculture industry.” In fact, these impromptu growers were oystermen who were trying to make a living fishing for oysters.

These oystermen were trained to plant oysters, take measurements, and contribute their results to the larger scientific study. As a control group, triploid native oysters were grown alongside the Suminoe triploids. By the end of the trials, something unexpected happened—both species of oysters were still alive—the native triploids were disease resistant just like the non-natives.

“At that point, people realized that with the disease resistance of the triploid, they actually could grow the native oyster,” says Allen.

Oyster larvae at 7-10 days old are only 0.1mm long. ©ABC/VIMS

When the federal government declared in 2009 that non-native oysters should not be grown in Chesapeake Bay, growers had access to new equipment from the study and experience growing the just-as-good native oyster.

“Then the tires really started to catch traction on oyster aquaculture,” says Allen. But there was still a lot of trial and error. “Originally, we were just practicing caveman genetics and trying to get things started.”

And get things started they did. The oyster aquaculture industry was virtually non-existent before the experiments on Suminoe and native oysters started in 2005. Today, more than 65 million oyster seed are planted annually in Virginia, and about 90% of those are triploids from ABC’s broodstock. Of the remaining 10% of seed that are diploid, a good proportion of those also come from ABC’s diploid broodstock.

To continue supporting this growth, Virginia growers will need oysters that can outcompete other regions’ oysters in the national marketplace.

“We can no longer afford to do caveman genetics,” says Allen.

Now that the industry is on the move, ABC researchers want to know, can breeding help them get other beneficial traits?

This is Part 2 in the series: Selecting a Better Oyster about how Virginia Sea Grant-funded research will get more profitable oysters in the hands of growers.

• Part 1: Sea Grant Research Supports Industry Growth
• Part 3: Picking Parents for the Best Traits

]]> http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/08/selecting-a-better-oyter-part-2/feed/ 0 http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/07/working-waterfronts-are-a-major-contributor-to-the-economy-and-deserve-national-focus/ http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/07/working-waterfronts-are-a-major-contributor-to-the-economy-and-deserve-national-focus/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 18:07:25 +0000 mpizer http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/?p=4457 Saltwater Connections May 7, 2013 Waterfronts and the activities that depend on them, such as shipping, fishing and transportation, have played a central role in shaping our nation’s history and they remain a significant driver of the nation’s economy and culture. Activity associated with America’s ocean and Great Lakes waterfronts accounts for 3.41 percent of total U.S. Gross Domestic Product and 4.85 percent of total employm]]> Saltwater Connections May 7, 2013 Waterfronts and the activities that depend on them, such as shipping, fishing and transportation, have played a central role in shaping our nation’s history and they remain a significant driver of the nation’s economy and culture. Activity associated with America’s ocean and Great Lakes waterfronts accounts for 3.41 percent of total U.S. Gross Domestic Product and 4.85 percent of total employm]]> http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/07/working-waterfronts-are-a-major-contributor-to-the-economy-and-deserve-national-focus/feed/ 0 http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/02/diffusion-and-adoption-of-innovation-at-the-epa-and-beyond/ http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/2013/05/02/diffusion-and-adoption-of-innovation-at-the-epa-and-beyond/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 14:01:17 +0000 mpizer http://vaseagrant.vims.edu/?p=4349

Innovations like permeable pavement are part of the future of sustainable water policy, but incentivizing and spreading innovation is a major policy challenge. © Achim Hering

By Britt Dean

As scientists, how do we take what we know and communicate it to the people who need it? This question is at the forefront of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) mission and the mind of Dr. Dale Manty, the Agency’s Sustainability Research Coordinator. “There is a lot out there to measure, and as scientists we know a lot.  But if people don’t care about it, what is the point?” says Manty, who spoke recently as part of the Visiting Scholar Seminar Series co-sponsored by Virginia Sea Grant, VIMS, and the William & Mary Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy.

Britt Dean

One current challenge at the EPA is finding new ways of translating scientific information so that it has behavioral impacts on how society functions.  “We know how things should be, but moving to achieve those goals highlights the real disconnect between research and operations in much of the world we work in,” says Manty.

As an example, Manty cites the failing public policy process involving 25 municipalities with Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) that are in violation of the Clean Water Act. Most mid-Atlantic communities with combined stormwater and sewage systems experience about a 30% overflow during storm events—usually a few times a month.  This releases untreated sewage into the rivers that we drink from, fish in, and play in. Fixing this problem by upgrading sewage treatment systems would be impractical and prohibitively expensive.

“We have to rethink how we use water. This antiquated notion of water in and water out is not going to work going forward,” advises Manty, who describes how two municipalities in the Washington D.C. area have put in place an aggressive program to limit the flow of stormwater into the system.  This program will pay individual homeowners up to $5,000 to put in on-lot containment of rainwater in the form of rain gardens, landscaping, and porous pavement. This is a great public policy fix, but it only occurred because a judge, frustrated with a 15-year record of violation, imposed the $3.2 million program on the municipalities. “Through a combination of infiltration to ground water and onsite reuse systems, we can significantly reduce the amount of water taken in by waste water treatment facilities in the first place.” This concept of Net Neutral Surface Runoff is promising, but implementing it involves dramatically changing incentives for the way people handle water.

Manty argues that rethinking our approaches to sustainability requires interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations between science, government, and the private sector. “One of the smartest recommendations I can make to science professionals is to get involved in local government, like planning commissions and advisory committees,” he says. “Local governments determine where roadways are built, where wetlands are developed, and in the long run how growth affects water quality and estuaries.” Most innovations in environmental policy start at the local and state level and ultimately get adopted by the Federal government.

Research and development in the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources division at EPA includes professionals from many different backgrounds, including technology and behavioral science. Cross-disciplinary projects bring together experts to learn from each other in order to enhance their individual skill sets. Projects funded by the EPA’a Sustainable Environmental Research program are required to involve communities and stakeholders not only in the distribution of the information gained, but at the front end in project planning and design. This helps ensure that the scientists and the communities understand the broad impacts of the implementation solution. After all, says Manty, “If you are going to do something about the problems, you have to make sure you capture problems that matter to people.”

Britt Dean is graduate student at Virginia Institute of Marine Science. She contributed this essay as part of her course work toward obtaining a Marine Policy Sub-Concentration.

Owner Doug McMinn (left) discusses how Chesapeake Bay Oyster Company grows oysters with VASG-funded researchers Peter Kube and Anu Frank Lawale (left-right). ©Janet Krenn/VASG

By Janet Krenn

Part 1 in a 3-part series: Selecting a Better Oyster.

On a bright spring day, Doug McMinn leads two researchers on a tour of his Chesapeake Bay Oyster Company facility. McMinn may be an oyster grower, but the majority of the tour, where he describes the process he goes through to get a high-value product, takes place on land. He has equipment for tumbling, sizing, and resorting oysters. Everything is in a wooded area, without a waterfront view.

All of this equipment is necessary for producing marketable oysters, he explains. Tumbling makes little breaks in the oyster shell, and encourages the animal to repair the shell and grow into that characteristic oyster shape. The sizing and sorting processes ensure that bags and cages don’t get over-crowded and oysters don’t compete with each other for food.

Chesapeake Bay Oyster Company employee pulls up an oyster cage. ©Janet Krenn/VASG

As McMinn describes his process, one thing becomes clear: The more he brings his oysters onshore, the more gas and manual labor required, the more expensive they are to grow, the narrower the profit margin.

With funding from Virginia Sea Grant, researcher Anu Frank-Lawale wants to improve the bottom line for Virginia’s oyster growers by breeding a better oyster.

Frank-Lawale is an aquaculture geneticist at Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center (ABC). ABC has been key to helping establish oyster aquaculture in Virginia by breeding disease-resistant, fast-growing oysters.

As recently as 2005, there wasn’t much of an industry to speak of. Today more than 20 million aquacultured oysters make it to market annually, and the industry is growing by 34% a year and has a $14.3 million annual economic impact to the state.

With more growers planting more oysters, now is the time, says Frank-Lawale, to take the industry to the next level.

“With every industry, you start out small, and then you get more complex,” he says. “So the question for oyster aquaculture in Virginia is, what do you do now?” For Frank-Lawale and ABC, the next step is breeding oysters with valuable traits that allow growers to earn more from their crop.

This is the next step in supporting Virginia’s growing oyster aquaculture industry. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking closer ABC’s Sea Grant-funded projects to breed a better, more profitable oyster, continuing a relationship that started back in 1979, when ABC Director Stan Allen first started his oyster research.

A Timeline of ABC, Sea Grant, and Oyster Culture in Virginia

• 1979 – Using a chemical method, future ABC-founder Stan Allen creates his first triploid oyster using the Eastern Oyster (work supported by Maine Sea Grant)
• 1986 – Allen applies his chemical method to the Pacific Oyster and jump-starts oyster aquaculture in Washington state (work supported by Washington Sea Grant)
• 1989 – Allen begins first inter-regional program (NJ, DE, MD, VA) for selective breeding for disease resistance in Eastern oyster (CROSBreed) (work supported by National Sea Grant)
• 1991 – Allen develops his first tetraploid oyster using Pacific oysters (work supported by New Jersey Sea Grant)
• 1997 – Allen moves to Virginia to apply genetics and breeding to oyster recovery
• 2003-2005 – Allen provides triploid Suminoe and Eastern oysters for large-scale commercial study, first introduction of Eastern Oysters, a native oyster, to growers. (work supported by Virginia Sea Grant)
• 2009 – Army Corps of Engineers, citing human and ecosystem health, announces a decision to stop testing Chinese Oyster for aquaculture in Chesapeake Bay
• 2009 – Oyster aquaculture of native triploids increased ten-fold from 2005 to 2009, owing to equipment investments made by growers for the study and their exposure to native oysters during large-scale studies
• 2011 – Allen and ABC take the next step: Preparing to breed oysters with beneficial traits beyond simply disease resistance (work supported by Virginia Sea Grant)
• 2012 – 90% of oysters planted in Virginia are triploids, supporting an industry with a $14.3 million economic impact for the state.

This is Part 1 in the series: Selecting a Better Oyster about how Virginia Sea Grant-funded research will get more profitable oysters in the hands of growers.

• Part 2: Oyster Industry Back from the Brink
• Part 3: Picking Parents for the Best Traits