UMBC Center for Precision Aquaculture launches to boost sustainable U.S. fish farming
Postdoctoral fellow Matthew Stromberg (left) and Ph.D. student Max Prager (right) are both conducting research at IMET that will move the aquaculture industry forward. Here they toss food into one of the fish tanks at the Aquaculture Research Center. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
UMBC has secured $1.5 million in congressional funding to establish the UMBC Center for Precision Aquaculture, an interdisciplinary effort aimed at revolutionizing land-based fish production through real-time monitoring and smart technology.
The new center brings together faculty and students from UMBC’s marine biotechnology, chemistry and biochemistry, and computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) departments. The interdisciplinary team will strive to make domestic aquaculture more efficient, healthier for fish, and environmentally responsible—while helping reduce America’s massive seafood trade deficit.
“Fish are the last ‘hunt-and-gather’ animal crop,” says Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology and the new center’s lead. “To relieve pressure on our oceans, fish—like other animal proteins—must be produced through farming or aquaculture.”
Bringing a “blue revolution”
The U.S. imports over 90 percent of its seafood and nearly all its Atlantic salmon, contributing to American seafood imports exceeding exports by roughly $20 billion, the largest deficit across all agricultural crops. And aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector of global and U.S. agriculture, yet the U.S. ranks only 18th in production.
To address these challenges, Zohar and his team at the Aquaculture Research Center (ARC) at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor have long pioneered recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS)—self-contained, land-based tanks that recycle nearly all their water and discharge nothing into the environment. Compared to the floating, open-ocean pens currently used to farm fish, other perks of land-based operations include preventing commingling of captive fish with wild stocks, limiting disease exposure, the ability to bring fish to market size more quickly and more often throughout the year, and reduced transportation costs and emissions associated with bringing fresh seafood to inland areas. The ARC even converts solid fish waste into biogas that could supply part of the facility’s energy needs.
Researchers Keiko Saito (left) and Yonathan Zohar (right) discuss the remediation of liquid waste, which is carried out by bacteria in tanks like this one. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
The new Center for Precision Aquaculture will add a high-tech layer to this work. Advanced underwater imaging, optical sensors, and artificial intelligence will track fish biomass, behavior, body condition, stress signals, and early disease indicators in real time. Producers can then intervene quickly and optimize tank conditions for better growth, health, and welfare.
Zohar, whose decades of work in sustainable aquaculture recently earned him the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Aquaculture Society, said the project “will contribute to the U.S. and global ‘blue revolution’ by helping develop the next generation of highly efficient and environmentally responsible aquaculture technologies.”
Connecting disciplines, pursuing impact
The center’s strength lies in its cross-department collaboration. Brian Cullum, professor and chair of chemistry and biochemistry and co-investigator on the grant, brings long-standing expertise in multispectral imaging (MSI). His group will use MSI to detect subtle color changes in the visible, infrared, and UV light spectra that are invisible to standard cameras and signal early disease or unwanted sexual maturation, both of which can hurt profitability.
“In high-density RAS tanks, disease can spread rapidly, so early detection is critical,” Cullum says. “This project combines multispectral imaging with AI to identify stressed or maturing fish early, allowing growers to remove them from the tank.”
Baltimore’s scientists are changing the face of aquaculture.
“On the ground floor, behind several doors that need a keycard to enter, is an 18,000-square-foot floor laboratory that’s changing the face of the global seafood industry. This lab, called the Aquaculture Research Center, is where the action is, said Zohar, who directs the center’s research. Here, Zohar and his team are trying to pioneer an environmentally responsible way to source seafood amid overfishing and declining fish populations across the globe.”
Check out this article from The Baltimore Banner to read more about IMET’s aquaculture research.
DMB Welcomes Dr. Allison Tracy
This September, IMET welcomed its newest faculty member, Dr. Allison Tracy. Dr. Tracy joins IMET from The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). Dr. Tracy is a community ecologist studying the impact of the environment on species interactions.
Can you explain what it means to be a community ecologist?
Yes, it means that I study the ecological community, which is the mix of different species in an ecosystem. That includes studying interactions between species and how they impact each other’s health and fitness. I’m also interested in how species interactions, especially host-parasite interactions, influence biodiversity and ecosystem function. As a final layer, I study how these interactions and ecosystem impacts are altered by global change over different spatial and temporal scales.
Can you tell us about your journey into the field of science and why you chose to become a community ecologist?
I started with a wide range of interests (I officially entered college as a Classics major!) and found myself gravitating towards ecology and evolution because of my interest in natural history and resource use. I was always fascinated by host-parasite interactions and infectious disease, which gradually brought me into the field of community ecology. One of my first research experiences was working on lobster shell disease at WHOI. The mix of immunology, ecology, and fisheries issues was fascinating. I later worked on a variety of topics, including immunity in cattle and toxic chemical’s policy, but I was drawn back to marine systems.
Prior to starting at IMET, you were a postdoctoral researcher in the Fisheries Conservation Lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Can you tell us about the work you did there?
My work at SERC was focused on oyster habitat and disease, especially in the context of oyster reef management in Chesapeake Bay. This includes both the impacts of oyster restoration and management of the wild fishery. I worked on a variety of projects, including using remote rapid assessment with GoPro imagery to map habitat bay-wide, merging the rapid assessment method with current monitoring techniques, and studying co-occurrence rates of four oyster parasites across different tributaries in the bay. I also used data synthesis to ask questions about oyster disease and to study land-sea connections across the watershed.
What will your research focus be at IMET? Will it be a continuation of your work at SERC?
My research at IMET will focus on marine host-parasite interactions and ecosystem health. It will build on my work at SERC and my prior work on octocoral disease, continuing the emphasis on the health of marine foundation species. The three unifying themes of my research are community ecology of infectious disease, impacts of multiple stressors, and long-term ecosystem change
Why is your research important to Baltimore and the wider world? How can your research make a difference in the world today?
The two major impacts of my work are to help preserve marine foundation species and inform management decisions for marine species amidst disease impacts and global change. This matters at a global level because reef-building species are valuable for both ecosystems and people. In Baltimore specifically, this is relevant because oysters provide many ecosystem services that benefit people locally, including coastal protection, clean water, and food. My research also advances the understanding of how hosts, parasites, and environments interact, with potential applications for human and animal health.
What is your favorite part of doing research?
I like the balance of different types of work, but my favorite part is probably discussing project designs. At the end of a project, I really like thinking about how the results fit into the larger context across systems.
What are you looking forward to in your first year at IMET?
I’m looking forward to many things, but mostly meeting all of you and getting new projects started.
Let’s have a little fun! If you could be any marine organism, what would you be and why?
There are a lot of good choices here, butlet’s say Velella, or a by-the-wind sailor. You may not have heard of them, but they are awesome – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella. They are Cnidarians and I love marine invertebrates, but especially Cnidarians. V. velella has an amazing life history because their primary habitat is the surface of the open ocean. They travel long distances all around with a sail that’s part of their body and made from a chitinous material. The sail is oriented at a right-slant in some individuals’ population, and at a left-slant in others. This means they sail different courses in the same wind, which appears to be an evolutionary strategy to hedge bets so that not all the eggs in the basket are sent to the same place. On top of it all, what looks like a jellyfish with a sail is a colony comprised of many hydroid polyps. These are not all analogies for me, I just wanted to get as many of these cool facts out there as possible. I first thought they were so neat because I’m a sailor and that’s one of the places where I feel most at home. But when you learn more about them, they’re even more fascinating than they first seem!
Just like Velella velella we are sure Dr. Tracy will sail smoothly into this new position! We are thrilled to welcome her to IMET, she is a wonderful addition to the team and we look forward to learning beside her!
Let’s Congratulate Dr. Sakura Tanaka!
Thesis Title: Molecular mechanisms regulating reproduction in the presence and absence of the hypophysiotropic GnRH in zebrafish females
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Congratulations to Dr. Lan Xu!
Thesis Title: Developing technologies to produce reproductively sterile finfish and oysters, and characterizing changes of gene expression in the pituitary of sterile fish by single-cell RNA sequencing
Congratulations to Dr. Mingli Zhao!
Thesis Title: Interactions between climate, host life history and viral diversity across a transhemispheric range of marine ecosystems
Sakura Tanaka Wins The Prize!
We’re Back! 1st In-Person DMB Meeting Since the Pandemic
USDA Visits IMET
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $10 million to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to carry out a set of projects to solve specific aquaculture challenges.
Professor Yonathan Zohar, chair of Marine Biotechnology, UMBC, at IMET, leads the Sustainable Aquaculture Systems Supporting Atlantic Salmon (SAS2) that will address a range of challenges still hindering the success of emerging aquaculture platforms. SAS2 project includes many academic and federal research institutes, as well as nine industry partners from across the U.S., Iceland, and Norway. Two-thirds of SAS2 will be dedicated to research, with the remaining third split evenly between education/workforce development, and extension/community engagement.
UMBC faculty and staff award recipients place community at the core of their success
At UMBC’s 2022 Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards (PFASA), Tamra Mendelson, professor of biological sciences and recipient of the 2022 – 2025 Presidential Teaching Professor Award, said she loves “getting to the core of a concept” in her research and teaching. In her large introductory biology courses, which Mendelson has been teaching with humor, creativity, and enthusiasm since her arrival on campus in 2006, the concept might be an idea like natural selection. But as awardee after awardee addressed the audience, both in person and online, it became clear that all shared the same “core concept” of UMBC: community.
“Teaching and research make me want to come to work every day, but it’s the community here, and Dr. Hrabowski in particular, who’ve made me want to come to UMBC every day,” Mendelson said.
Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology and the 2022 – 2025 Presidential Research Professor, added, “This recognition is not about me, it’s about us,” adapting the opening quote from President Hrabowski’s book, The Empowered University. Zohar’s work, nurtured diligently over more than three decades, has in the last few years brought in more than $10 million dollars of research funding, earned international awards, and is poised to reimagine the seafood industry as we know it.
And yet, Zohar says, “None of my research accomplishments would have been possible without the ‘about us’ spirit at UMBC—the spirit that together we can make everything and anything happen.”
Yonathan Zohar, right, accepts his award from Bill LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.
Innovation in aquaculture sector pushing seafood industry forward
Aquaculture innovations will be the key to the seafood industry’s future, and the future of feeding humanity, according to a panel of experts from across the seafood industry speaking at the 2022 Seafood Expo North America.
The panel, “Transforming Aquaculture: The Future of Seafood Must Include Innovation,” was hosted by AquaBounty CEO Sylvia Wulf and featured representatives from both inside the seafood industry experts in food systems and nutrition.
“We often forget that … fish, [is] the last hunter-gatherer crop. We don’t go to the wild for our poultry or for cattle,” University of Maryland Department of Marine Biotechnology Chair Yonathan Zohar said. “This obviously has to change [in order to feed a growing global population], and aquaculture must become a more and more-dominant segment of our seafood production.”
Samuels and Son Seafood Vice President of New Product Development Joseph Lasprogata said that for his company, aquaculture has already become an integral part of the business and its importance is only growing.
“I don’t think people realize how big a part aquaculture is to our business as it stands right now,” he said. “We’re a wholesaler in Philadelphia, and over 65 percent of the products that we buy, right now, are coming from aquaculture.”
Lasprogata said that as seafood demand has grown through the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to purchase wild-caught product is falling.
“There’s less and less availability of products,” he said. “So the future of seafood is in aquaculture. That’s already been decided, that’s not really a question. But how we’re going to do it, that’s the question.”
One of the first solutions that the panel brought up was recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), a type of system that Zohar said brings aquaculture closer to more traditional farming methods.
“Much of the intensive aquaculture industry is now carried out in floating net-pens in coastal environments, which has not always been very friendly to the environment, although it’s becoming better,” he said.
The issues with that, he said, is there’s limited coastal space that is appropriate for farming certain species of fish, and newer offshore technologies are still in early stages – two facts which have helped lead to a huge rise in investment in RAS.
“I think right now there is conservatively around USD 3 billion [EUR 2.6 billion], either active investment or in the pipeline, in land-based production of Atlantic salmon,” Zohar said.
On the selling side, Lasprogata said that RAS would provide logistical and environmental advantages.
“Supply chain is so important. With the availability of the RAS system to raise products – and it’s a wide variety of species and it expands every day – in a local environment where I don’t have to fly it, depend on airlines, depend on thousands of miles of transportation – that’s an advantage to us,” Lasprogata said.
Sage Leaf Communications President Elena Natker said another innovation coming to the seafood industry is in aquafeed.
“The aquaculture model is really important for nutrition and for sustainability because we can control their diet. We know what’s going into the fish, so that when we consume the fish, we know what’s going into us,” she said.
Algae feed and other alternative feed types can be a boon for multiple species, she said. Salmon are typically the first species consumers think of when seeking out omega-3 fatty acids, but it is possible to give species a boost in omega-3 content through advancing feed technology, Natker said.
“If we could get [omega-3s] into, let’s say tilapia, which is [currently] not a good source of omega-3s, that would be wonderful,” Natker said. “Other types of nutrients that you get … vitamin B-12, your trace nutrients like selenium and zinc, seafood is really the only places where you can get those nutrients unless it has been fortified into other foods. Getting it into the diets of our fish, so that then it can be suitable for human consumption, would go a long way into helping people get the nutrition that they need.”
Despite the seafood industry’s reputation for being “old school,” Lasprogata said its technological uptake has been rapid. He said the industry needs to do a better job of touting those advances.
“I think that’s the one mistake we as an industry make is we don’t share the technology. There are so many cool systems out there,” he said. “I think the younger generation really does embrace technology. Be proud of this, and brag about where this product is coming from, and not keep reliving the same misnomers that were created 40 years ago.”
Lasprogata said innovation has ocurred at all levels of the industry.
“The one I find most amazing is the advent of aquaculture oysters and shellfish. I mean that has impacted the industry so completely in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, we would occasionally get a bushel of oysters from the Chesapeake, and there were rocks and barnacles and crabs, [making it a] very hard product to use,” Lasprogata said. “I would say next to salmon, shellfish is [now] on every menu on the East Coast, whether it’s mussels, oysters, or clams. And it’s amazing that it’s a high-quality, safe, easy-to-use product.”
Photo by Chris Chase/SeafoodSource
Editor: Chris Chase
cchase@divcom.com
UMBC and Israeli Ministry of Agriculture establish aquaculture research partnership
UMBC will grow its aquaculture collaboration with Israeli colleagues thanks to a new statement of intent signed last week at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), a collaborative research facility in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor that supports faculty affiliated with UMBC; University of Maryland, Baltimore; and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The new agreement builds on decades of collaboration between Israeli researchers and Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology at UMBC. It will enable them to grow their ongoing efforts to improve and expand the aquaculture industry around the world.
Coming together to sign the document were Oded Forer, Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development; Russell Hill, executive director of IMET; and Karl V. Steiner, UMBC’s vice president for research. The minister visited IMET on December 1 with a delegation from the agriculture ministry. Leaders from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal Production and Protection program also attended the signing event, which was followed by a tour of the Aquaculture Research Center at IMET.
The partnership will center on addressing challenges to the industry that, once overcome, will make aquaculture more efficient and sustainable, and expand it to more seafood species. Developing zero-waste systems, improving fish health and performance in captivity, and scaling up land-based aquaculture systems are all among the partners’ priorities.
“This is a very important day for IMET and aquaculture,” Hill said at the event. “There is an urgent need to promote agriculture in a sustainable way in the U.S., and we hope to contribute as much as possible to that effort.”
Focused on the future
Zohar has been working in the aquaculture space for over 35 years and is an international leader in aquaculture research. In fact, in November 2020, the Binational Agricultural Research Development Fund (BARD), a partnership program between the U.S. and Israel, honored him for the economic impact of his research.
In addition to the BARD recognition, Zohar has received several other awards and accolades in recent months. He was awarded a $10 million grant from the USDA to lead a consortium of aquaculture researchers. He also led the creation of a partnership with Aquacon, a Norwegian company investing $1 billion in aquaculture in the U.S., including a large land-based facility on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. And Zohar’s startup, Silfra Biosystems, LLC, founded in partnership with UMBC microbiologist Kevin Sowers, was recognized as a “Maryland Future 20” company for 2021.
Zohar continues to forge full speed ahead in his work to increase food production in a sustainable way for the increasing human population. “The world’s population is growing by 200,000 each day, placing an increasing demand on our food supply,” Zohar says. “Aquaculture is the fastest growing sector in all agricultures, and now produces more fish than traditional fishing. Still, we must double production by 2030 to meet the growing demand for sustainable protein sources.”
The land-based systems Zohar pioneered and continues to champion will be a big part of the solution, he believes, especially for salmon. “Atlantic salmon’s U.S. future is land-based,” Zohar says.
Public research, public good
University System of Maryland (USM) Chancellor Jay Perman called the environmental research being conducted at IMET one of the “crown jewels” of the system, in remarks during the signing event. “I can’t think of anything in higher ed that’s more current than the environment,” Perman said.
Israeli institutions bring their own strengths to this field. For example, they’ve worked to develop agricultural systems that can succeed in drought conditions, which are common in Israel. In particular, the National Center for Mariculture (food production from the sea) in Eliat, Israel is a world leader.
“Bringing together the complementary expertise of UMBC, IMET, and Israeli institutions is exactly the kind of collaboration that is needed to produce innovations that advance aquaculture and the broader mariculture field,” Steiner says, and the public impact this work will have is directly in line with UMBC’s values.
“As a public research university, our motto is ‘public research for public good,’” Steiner continues. “I can think of no better way to embody this motto than by focusing on one of the most pressing questions of our time—how do we ensure that we can feed the world within rapidly changing ecosystems? We are absolutely delighted that this new agreement will allow us to further strengthen the impact of our faculty’s important work.”
Header image: Yonathan Zohar (left) explains operations of the Aquaculture Research Center to Israeli officials Yakov Poleg, Senior Deputy Director General of the Foreign Trade and International Cooperation; Yoram Kapulnik, Executive Director of BARD; and Oded Forer, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, during the delegation’s visit. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.
Yonathan Zohar to lead $10 million partnership
Scaling land-based salmon aquaculture
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYOCTOBER 7, 2021SARAH HANSENCNMS, MAJORAWARD, MARINEBIOTECH, RESEARCH
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $10 million, the maximum allowable amount, to a set of projects, led by UMBC’s Yonathan Zohar, targeted to solve specific aquaculture challenges.
For decades, Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology, has made steady progress toward making large-scale, sustainable land-based aquaculture—raising fish on land—a reality. Sustainable Aquaculture Systems Supporting Atlantic Salmon, known as SAS2, will address a range of remaining hurdles hindering the success of these emerging aquaculture platforms. SAS2 includes several academic and federal research institutions and nine industry partners from across the U.S., plus partners in Iceland and Norway.
“The mission is to enable an innovative, effective, and sustainable U.S. Atlantic salmon production platform that will transform the U.S. food and aquaculture systems and secure and increase high-quality and affordable seafood production for the world,” says Zohar, director of the Aquaculture Research Center at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
Land-based aquaculture systems are self-contained, avoiding the risks of environmental pollution or farmed fish escaping and interbreeding with wild stocks. They can be built anywhere, reducing the carbon footprint and cost of transporting fish. The water composition (salt and other minerals) can be optimized for different species, based on their natural habitat. Controlled light and temperature cycles ensure optimal year-round fish performance and production and entrain spawners to breed at different times of year, resulting in fish coming to market size year-round.
As demand for seafood continues to rise, innovative systems like this pave the way for producing a much greater quantity of seafood in a more sustainable way.
Filling the knowledge gaps
SAS2 builds on another Zohar-led project, the Recirculating Aquaculture Salmon Network, or RAS-N. “RAS-N has been developing a prioritized list of the challenges we need to address and where we should invest resources. It asks: What are the gaps in knowledge? What are the main hurdles in technology, biology, and engineering?” Zohar explains. “And now, with SAS2, we’re taking that information and implementing it.”
Two-thirds of the project funding is dedicated to research. The remaining third is split evenly between education/workforce development and extension/community engagement. Professionals from all of these areas are co-directors on the grant.
SAS2 includes 17 objectives, each addressing a particular remaining challenge to the large-scale implementation of land-based salmon aquaculture. For example, one priority is developing a domestic brood stock, so aquaculture facilities in the U.S. aren’t solely dependent on importing salmon eggs from Europe. Another objective is biologically treating the tons of solid waste (fish waste) the facilities produce and converting it to fuel-grade biogas. Others focus on developing environmentally responsible feeds and ensuring optimal fish quality.
Yonathan Zohar (l) and Jorge Gomezjurado (r) at IMET’s Aquaculture Research Center.From research to workforce
Also, Zohar says, “Workforce development is a huge bottleneck, because with these facilities popping up like mushrooms, there aren’t enough skilled workers available with the right kind of training.” These huge facilities rely on skilled technicians that can think creatively to troubleshoot problems on the spot. Aquaculture industry leaders, such as George Nardi, vice president for aquaculture services at Innovasea, are partners on the grant to assist with this and other parts of the work.
“I was impressed with the breadth of the workforce development in this proposal—everywhere from high school to university,” Nardi said at a kickoff meeting for SAS2. “My experience tells me that in aquaculture we need a great variety of skillsets to succeed,” he added. “And this project, with the enormous amount of talent surrounding it, is going to help the industry move forward.”
Extending the impact
In addition to UMBC, the other primary academic partner is the University of Maine, whose Aquaculture Research Institute is a leader in aquaculture on the East Coast.
“The Aquaculture Research Institute (ARI) at UMaine is excited to continue working with UMBC and implementing the lessons learned from the RAS-N network,” says Debbie Bouchard, director of the ARI. “Working with other institutions on the grant, we are focusing on integrated workforce development pathways that incorporate not only industry priorities and results from the research objectives, but also diversity and inclusion values that are important to advancing a sustainable RAS industry and rural development.”
The team’s collaborative and transdisciplinary approach to the project will create opportunities to transform the industry by addressing key bottlenecks that thus far have created challenges in scaling up land-based aquaculture. Both RAS-N and SAS2 “have always been stakeholder-driven,” Zohar says. “We are not in the ivory tower of academia telling businesses ‘you should do this and that.’ Instead, it’s us asking the industry, ‘What do you need to ensure success?’.”
Extension is an important part of the project, too. As aquaculture facilities can take up a significant physical footprint, “One of our objectives is community engagement, being totally transparent and keeping a dialogue going.” That is happening already as AquaCon, another industry partner on the grant, works with Zohar and other colleagues to implement salmon aquaculture facilities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Poised to succeed
The new $10 million grant is part of a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) program, which includes everything from corn to beef. The fact that an aquaculture project was selected and awarded the maximum amount indicates the priority the federal government has placed on innovative, sustainable food production strategies for the future.
“The goals are for it to be transformative, to be collaborative, to be synergistic, and to cross boundaries,” Zohar says. “The USDA program is called sustainable agriculture systems, so it takes a systems approach and goes from basic science to the translational.”
“It’s an exciting time for aquaculture in Maine and the nation,” Bouchard says. “I’m looking forward to seeing all the great things that are going to come out of this over the next five years.”
Banner image: The Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.
Tori Agnew: Could oysters help seagrass fight disease?
In the 1930s, more than 90% of the seagrasses on the North Atlantic coast died from wasting disease. The culprit was Labyrinthula zosterae, a slime mold protist that researchers often call simply “Laby.” While we haven’t seen a die-off event of that scale since, Laby is still considered a threat and causes seagrass mortality every year. Tori Agnew, a PhD student at IMET, is researching ways to reduce its impact on seagrasses and help oyster farmers (and consumers) in the process. Tori began her studies in the lab of Dr. Colleen Burge, who recently began working for California Fish and Wildlife, and has recently transitioned to working with Dr. Harold Schreier.
To understand Tori’s project, it is helpful to know a few things about seagrasses and oysters. Seagrasses are very important to estuaries, including the Chesapeake Bay, where IMET is located, and to the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest where she conducted fieldwork. Seagrasses protect shorelines by stabilizing sediment, improve water quality by trapping fine particles, and provide habitat for small creatures. They also sequester carbon and buffer pH, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change and ocean acidification. To protect this valuable natural resource, states have created protections, including preventing oyster farming in seagrass beds – though Tori’s research questions whether that is the most beneficial policy.
Oysters are another valuable natural resource in estuaries. As filter feeders, they can trap nutrients and sediments, cleaning and clarifying the water. With clearer water, seagrasses are able to photosynthesize and grow more effectively. Many scientists work on understanding various aspects of the interactions between seagrasses and oysters. Tori specifically focuses on the potential for oysters to filter out Labyrinthula zosterae and thus protect seagrasses from experiencing a die-off event like that seen in the 1930s.
Tori has broad career interests and is looking forward to exploring different options in science research and environmental policy after earning her PhD. This project has prepared her well for both, as she has conducted a rigorous research project with significant policy implications; if it can be proved that oyster aquaculture protects seagrass from disease, then that may open doors for co-management of the species. She has been given a window into the challenges and complexities of coastal management and is curious about working in that field.
A strong sense of curiosity is what led Tori to IMET and this project in the first place. Growing up in upstate New York, she initially wanted to become an aquatic veterinarian, though she can’t say exactly why. “I didn’t grow up on the coast, so I don’t really have beach stories that inspired me to become a marine biologist. I think it was really just something that I didn’t know a lot about and so I wanted to learn more.” That led to a degree in marine biology and after working in a research lab and completing an undergraduate thesis on diseases in bivalves, she wanted to keep learning. She has followed her curiosity and will keep doing so as she makes plans for the future.
Dr. Yonathan Zohar on RAS Talk Podcast
Dr. Yonathan Zohar
RAS Talk is a podcast from RASTech Magazine covering Recirculating Aquaculture System technology and advances. In June, they spoke with Dr. Yonathan Zohar about his work advancing this field with the Recirculating Aquaculture Salmon Network (RAS-N).
Listen in!
Dr. Kevin Sowers (UMBC-IMET) and Dr. Upal Ghosh (UMBC) have already developed a technology that can remove harmful compounds from waterways and sediments. A recent grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) will help them improve that technology and expand their impact.
Using a group of specially selected microbes and activated carbon, the team has proven that they can remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from sediments through a process called bioremediation. PCBs were banned in 1979 due to their toxicity, yet they remain in sediments and can enter the food chain, threatening both ecological and human health. Sowers and Ghosh founded the venture RemBac Environmental to apply their research to restoring contaminated sites and were named UMBC’s Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2019 for this work.
To evaluate the effectiveness of different materials, Sowers and Ghosh will conduct trial studies of graphite and activated carbon from bituminous coal and coconut shells. Ghosh brings a deep knowledge of materials science that will aid in this evaluation. Sowers brings decades of research on microbes that degrade chlorinated compounds.
With funding from NIEHS, Sowers and Ghosh will continue to improve their technology by answering questions like, “Are there materials that would be more effective for bioremediation? Would different materials be best for certain pollutants or areas?”
To expand the applications of this lab work, an ecological modeler joined the team. Dr. Amar Wadhawan, Senior Environmental Engineer with Arcadis, will create models to integrate an improved understanding of materials for bioremediation with information about specific site conditions. This will help scientists and environmental engineers create targeted solutions for project sites.
The overall impact of this new grant will be to improve our fundamental understanding of the interactions of microbes and different surfaces and improve the process for cleaning up sediment and groundwater. Sowers said, “This project will enable development of a platform that combines tailored materials with microbial activity to optimize bioremediation of PCBs in different environments.” With improved technology and modeling, remediation of Superfund sites and other contaminated areas will be easier and more effective, helping to create a healthier planet.
New MIPS Award to Vakharia and Larkin
With a new grant from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program, UMBC-IMET Professor Dr. Vikram Vakharia has teamed up with IMET alum Dr. Mary Larkin and her company, Gaskiya Diagnostics, to develop inexpensive tests to diagnose pathogens in aquaculture. “Farmers need to test their ponds and get instant information so that they can quickly take action and mitigate disease,” says Larkin.
Read the full story on UMBC News
Dr. Yonathan Zohar to partner with aquaculture giant AquaCon in Maryland
A new MOU between UMBC, IMET, and AquaCon establishes a collaboration on developing land-based aquaculture in Maryland. AquaCon made this decision after meeting with Dr. Yonathan Zohar and touring the Aquaculture Research Center, seeing all the innovation that will help them as they build up a new aquaculture facility. An article on UMBC News explains this collaboration, as well as the importance of Silfra BioSystems, a company started by Dr. Zohar and Dr. Kevin Sowers, to manage fish waste in aquaculture, and an NSF grant to Dr. Zohar for research on fish reproduction.
“It’s a perfect storm in a good sense, because everything is falling in place now,” says Zohar. “I’ve been working in Maryland for almost 30 years, and we’ve been developing a lot of these technologies. Our mission is research, education, and economic development, and we have been working to create connections between academia and industry to fulfill that mission.”
Read the full story on UMBC News
Read coverage in the Baltimore Sun
Salmon Aquaculture Network Project Underway
IMET-UMBC Faculty and Director of ARC Dr. Yonathan Zohar is the lead P.I. on the Recirculating Aquaculture Salmon Network (RAS-N). RAS-N, which was awarded a $1.2 million grant, is a national public-private partnership that brings together many partners to build capacity for land-based Atlantic salmon aquaculture in the US. At the end of 2019, the group convened in Wisconsin for their first annual meeting. In February of this year, RAS-N organized a dedicated Salmon RAS session at the Aquaculture America 2020 conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, where several partners and others presented their progress. You can read more about the project and these meetings on the Maryland SeaGrant Blog.
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The Economist Features UMBC's Revolutionary land-based aqua
Aquaculture
The Economist features UMBC’s revolutionary land-based aquaculture
UMBC Professor Yonathan Zohar, chair of marine biotechnology, is featured in a new issue of The Economist focused on the future or agricultural technologies. Zohar’s research seeks to revolutionize the fish farming industry, removing many of the pitfalls of conventional methods and increasing environmental sustainability.
Zohar’s marine aquaculture system is land-based and completely self-contained, and it could dramatically change how millions of people access fish as a local food source.
“Fresh fish…would…become accessible to millions of landlubbers who must now have their fish shipped in from afar, deep-frozen,” writes Geoff Carr. “Old world species like sea bream and sea bass…could be delivered fresh to the table anywhere” without the threats of nonnative species escaping into local waters or wild fish being exposed to pathogens found in open water.
Localized systems reduce transportation costs and energy usage, and Zohar’s system includes several core features to maximize sustainability. The system puts bacteria to work to convert waste from the growing fish into either reusable or harmless compounds. Two sets of bacteria work in tandem to convert ammonia excreted by fish into inert nitrogen gas. A third set converts solid waste into methane that is put back to use powering the aquaculture operation.
“The upshot is a closed system that can be set up anywhere, generates no pollution and can be kept disease-free,” writes Carr.
Yoni Zohar (l) and Jorge Gomezjurado (r) watching bluefin tuna larvae at IMET aquaculture research facility.Zohar has learned the hard way that it is difficult to grow in captivity some species that consumers most value, like bluefin tuna, yellowtail, and other marine fish. The system he and his colleagues have built at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) enables fish to thrive, particularly in the early stages of life, by carefully mimicking factors like temperature, salinity, and oxygen conditions found in the species’ natural habitats. However, the optimal conditions initiating reproduction and nurturing juvenile fish to adulthood have proven more challenging to replicate.
“[Zohar] has spent decades studying the hormone system that triggers spawning and can now stimulate it on demand,” writes Carr. He has also carefully researched the needs of freshly-hatched larvae, and he is now focused on developing methods to effectively and reliably raise Bluefin tuna into adulthood.
Baltimore area restaurants have already enjoyed IMET’s locally grown fish, and Zohar is currently preparing for his system to undergo commercial-scale trials. “If he succeeds,” Carr writes, “…sushi lovers around the world will be forever in his debt.”
Read the full story in The Economist.
Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11.
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Posted: June 13, 2016, 2:39 PM