The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) will host a webinar entitled Examining the Biological Responses of Ocean Acidification in Early Life-Stages of Fishes of Inshore Waters of the Mid-Atlantic, USA on Jan 26, 2021 at 11:00 AM EST. 

To register: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4753238655917450512    

Speaker Information: Chris Chambers is a Research Fishery Biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. He and his Life History and Recruitment team study how the environment, including climate change and ocean acidification, affect the likelihood of survival and general health of the earliest and most sensitive life-stages of a variety of marine finfish species.  His research uses first principles of ecology, life history, and inference to anticipate how fishes might respond to future environments.

Abstract:  Many ecologically important features of marine fishes are plastic in response to changing environments. Variation in features or traits of the earliest life-stage of fishes could be critical to survival and recruitment, and may be predictable from environmental conditions experienced by these young fish. In an experimental context, a first step in revealing the degree and shape of responses to environmental drivers is to move from a simple demonstration of an effect to a more insightful analysis of the scope and shape of the biological response to these environmental drivers. We describe experimental protocols for examining responses of early life-stages of marine fishes to a large number of different levels of environmental factors (e.g., thermal regimes, CO2 levels, dissolved oxygen). We provide examples of this approach in the context of ocean acidification and use several Mid-Atlantic flatfishes and forage fish species that occupy contrasting habitats during early life. Summer flounder, Paralichthys dentatus, spawns in shelf waters in autumn and experiences relatively stable water chemistry yet cooling thermal regimes. Winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus, spawns in estuaries in mid winter and experiences cold but warming regimes with variable CO2 levels. In contrast, Atlantic silverside, Menidia menidia, spawns in estuaries in late spring and summer, and experiences warm yet variable temperatures and highly variable water chemistry. The scope and possible ecological consequences of responses to these conditions are described. Importantly, it is only with a high-treatment frequency approach that the functional forms of these responses can be revealed