Author: gbogart

Slow Seminar- Horseshoe crabs: Blood, trade and genes

gbogart Slow Seminar, Uncategorized

On Wednesday, June 10 from 8-10 am PST (5-7 pm Denmark time) via Zoom. The focus of this seminar will be Horseshoe crabs: Blood, trade and genes. Associate Professor Peter Funch, from the Aarhus University, Denmark, with assistance from biologists Stine Vestbo and Hanne Christiansen will guide our conversation.

There are four extant species of horseshoe crabs; one ranging along the eastern coast of North America, and three ranging in Asian waters, from India east to Indonesia, and from Indonesia north to Japan. Horseshoe crabs reside in shallow waters on the continental shelves, and utilize coastal and estuarine habitats for mating and spawning. While horseshoe crabs feed on invertebrates and plant material found in the sediment, they are themselves important prey for many migratory bird species. In some regions of Southeast Asia, horseshoe crabs are considered a delicacy and are fished and traded across borders for the purpose of consumption. However, the usage of horseshoe crab blood in the medical and pharmaceutical industries (extracts from the blood is used to test if equipment and products are free of bacterial contamination) makes these animals invaluable to humans, although it also seems to be the reason behind population declines. This seminar discusses how the future of horseshoe crabs is intertwined with their blood, genetics and unknown distributions, based on book chapters and primary natural science papers covering a variety of subjects.

Please email seacoast@ucsc.edu for the readings and RSVP in order to receive the Zoom link and password.

 

flyer slow seminar - horseshoe crabs

Slow Seminar- Mullet Sociality with Professors Rafael Devos and Viviane Vedana

gbogart Slow Seminar, Uncategorized
On Wednesday, May 20 from 8-10am PST we will discuss Mullet Socialities: Engineers of Muddy Brackish Waters and Coastal Feasts.  Professors Rafael DeVos and Vivian Vedana, from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, will guide our conversation.  Please email seacoast@ucsc.edu for the zoom link and password.
There are over 70 species of mullet fish, some considered cosmopolitan, present in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate waters around the world. Living between fresh and salt waters and feeding from bottom sediments, they connect the ecology of the shore to the dynamics of brackish waters of estuaries, lagoons, mangroves and rivers. Mullet are considered to be coastal ecosystems engineers and sentinels for environmental disturbance. Fishermen show us other social effects of large schools of mullets: attracting people, birds, marine mammals, fish and other creatures to seasonal feasts in shallow waters.  This seminar discusses what these mullet socialities might reveal of coastal interactions, observed in some examples from ecology, geography, anthropology and fisheries studies.
seminar flyer with mullet fish in net

Slow Seminar- Harmful Algal Blooms with Prof. Marilou Sison-Mangus

gbogart Slow Seminar, Uncategorized

Join us for our first slow seminar of the spring quarter!

April 15, 2020
8-10am
Social Sciences 1, rm 261

We will focus on the causes, impacts and mitigation of harmful algal blooms (HABs) with Professor Marilou Sison-Mangus of UCSC’s Ocean Sciences Department as our guide.

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are recurring events mostly in the coastal environments, when floating photosynthesizing microbes reach very high numbers and produce toxins that can harm marine shellfish, mammals, birds, fish and humans. Their collapse could also result in dissolved oxygen consumption and eventually to hypoxia, usually causing fish kill events.  Millions of dollars are lost due to the closure of fishing, gathering of shellfish, recall of contaminated fish and tourism. Most importantly, HABs are a constant threat to human health through the consumption of algal toxin-laden seafood that can be debilitating or fatal. Several HAB species of toxin-producing phytoplankton have been reported in various regions of Southeast Asia since 1983. With increasing eutrophication, coastal fish farming and changing climate, more and more HABs species are becoming a perpetual threat because of their increasing recurrence in many parts of Southeast Asia. In the first part of our discussion, we will be focusing on the HABs problem in the region,  the potential causes and impacts on human health. We will then shift the talk on current HABs mitigation strategies employed by developed countries and how can these strategies be applied in the Southeast Asian region.

Coffee will be served!

Slow Seminar Flyer april 15 HABs