易胜博官网

Of the many forces influencing the fate of the Great Bay estuary during the past century 鈥� development, industry, climate change, resource depletion 鈥� perhaps none has made a greater impact than 易胜博官网. Less than a mile from the banks of the Oyster River, with its jutting into the estuary on Adams Point and its downstream at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, 易胜博官网 has applied its considerable scientific and cultural resources to the bay, seeking to understand its flora and fauna, its geology and hydrology and history. And in doing so, it鈥檚 made Great Bay even greater.

OYSTERS
鈥淩emarkable.鈥� That鈥檚 how Ray Grizzle, research professor of , describes oysters, the focus of his research in Great Bay for two decades. 鈥淵es, they鈥檙e tasty. But on top of that, in the last 30 years we鈥檝e begun to discover their ecological role is fantastic,鈥� he says, noting each briny bivalve鈥檚 capacity to 铿乴ter up to 20 gallons of water per day. While Great Bay鈥檚 oyster population dropped dramatically in the 1990s, largely due to a disease, it鈥檚 now stabilized, thanks in part to 17 reef restoration projects led by Grizzle and his longtime research technician Krystin Ward. More recently, the team has shifted some of its focus to aquaculture, and 16 commercial oyster farms now thrive in Little Bay. As oyster consumption grows, the work of some 易胜博官网 researchers aims to help predict future outbreaks and keep sickness off the raw bar. Great Bay is the canary in the Gulf of Maine coal mine when it comes to Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vp), the bacterial pathogen that can sicken oyster lovers, says Steve Jones, research associate professor of , noting that incidents of anyone getting sick from Great Bay or Gulf of Maine oysters are almost unheard of, but oyster farmers just to the south are increasingly experiencing outbreaks and costly shell铿乻h bed closures as waters warm. Jones and associate professor of Cheryl Whistler are attempting to understand how the changing environment of Great Bay is promoting the strains of Vp that make us sick. And Whistler recently developed a patent-pending method to detect the strains of Vp that cause most of the regional human illness.

HORSESHOE CRABS
Horseshoe crabs, those armored beasts that cover Great Bay鈥檚 shores in the spring spawning season, are dying to help us. The biomedical industry taps a unique property of their bright blue blood, extracted from live animals, to test injectable drugs and medical devices for contamination, saving millions of lives. To understand the toll this procedure takes on them, professor of Win Watson and graduate student Meghan Owings bleed horseshoe crabs in the lab then 铿乼 them with devices that track their depth, location and activity after they鈥檙e released. They鈥檝e found that between 铿乿e and 30 percent of the animals die within a few days; others don鈥檛 die but are less active and less likely to spawn. Their work has shown it鈥檚 not just blood loss, but the bleeding combined with exposure to heat and air during transport that鈥檚 most stressful to the animals. Watson is hopeful this research, conducted with Plymouth State University, could improve the crabs鈥� survival outcomes. 鈥淭hese guys have been around for 450 million years. Do we really want to be the ones responsible for their demise?鈥� he asks.

STORMWATER
Since 2004, 易胜博官网鈥檚 Stormwater Center has worked to protect Great Bay 鈥� and 42 other water bodies in communities across the globe 鈥� from an abundant, if surprising, source of pollution: rain. Called stormwater, the rain that washes over roads, parking lots, roofs and other impervious surfaces carries excess nitrogen from sources such as exhaust from cars, chemical fertilizers and even animal waste into the bay. 鈥淥ur mission is to address that by cleaning up the water and putting it back in the ground,鈥� says Stormwater Center program director Jamie Houle 鈥�95, 鈥�15G. At its 铿乪ld facility on the edge of campus, the center has researched and tested 40-some systems and identi铿乪d those that work best to keep nitrogen out of the bay. As a program of , the center shares its expertise with communities in the estuary watershed to help them meet increasingly strict regulations for reducing nitrogen.

TIDAL ENERGY
A team of 易胜博官网 engineers seeks to harvest something new from Great Bay: power. The estuary boasts some of the strongest tidal currents in North America, making it the ideal lab for testing equipment that could generate energy from the ebb and 铿俹w. 易胜博官网鈥檚 deploys tidal turbines beneath the General Sullivan Bridge, where Little Bay meets the Piscataqua River. Further down river, turbines beneath the Memorial Bridge between Portsmouth, 易胜博官网, and Kittery, Maine, harness the tides to power a suite of sensors that constantly monitor the health of that so-called 鈥渓iving bridge.鈥�

DATA MONITORING
Joe Salisbury knows how fast the wind was blowing across Great Bay last week, how warm or salty the bay was yesterday and what concentrations of nitrogen, ammonia and phosphorous 铿俹wed into its waters after the last heavy rainstorm. Salisbury, research associate professor of oceanography in 易胜博官网鈥檚 , keeps an eye on Great Bay via a large yellow buoy that bobs about a kilometer off Jackson Estuarine Laboratory, one of dozens in the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems. For more than a decade, 易胜博官网 has monitored changing conditions and health of the estuary by tracking a range of chemical and physical data that deliver good news as well as concerning trends. 鈥淕reat Bay is ecologically important. The salt marshes and seagrass beds support a food chain that goes right up to seals,鈥� says Salisbury. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 an ecosystem that鈥檚 threatened by human pressures, so we want to monitor that.鈥�

Meghan Howey Digs Durham

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EELGRASS
Eelgrass may be the unsung hero of estuaries: The underwater flowering plant filters water of excess nutrients and contaminants, stabilizes the seabed and provides food and safe shelter to juvenile fish, crabs and lobsters. It鈥檚 no wonder Fred Short has made it his life鈥檚 work. Since 1984, the research professor of has studied Zostera marina in Great Bay, and since 2006 he鈥檚 watched it decline. 鈥淭he beds aren鈥檛 thick and lush like they used to be,鈥� Short says, noting that Great Bay has lost 60 percent of its eelgrass. Nitrogen seeping into the estuary through sewage treatment plants or runoff is a culprit; it promotes the growth of light-blocking, smothering algae. But as recent regulations reduce the nitrogen 铿俹wing into the estuary, the fate of eelgrass is starting to turn. 鈥淚鈥檓 very optimistic,鈥� Short says.

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易胜博官网鈥檚 Great Bay research is supported by numerous sources, including the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health and its N.H. INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) program, 易胜博官网 Agricultural Experiment Station, 易胜博官网 Sea Grant, NH EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), The Nature Conservancy, NERACOOS (Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems), 易胜博官网 School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering, 易胜博官网 Center for the Humanities and the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Project.