oh Christmas Tree:
The world’s largest Christmas tree
is in Wilmington/See Page 7
Women win tourney:
Basketball squad shuts down week
end opponents/See Page 13
December 5, 2002
Volume LIV, Number 13
Serving UNC Wilmington since 1948
Dying coral studied
Sarah Broders
Assistant News Editor
Aquarius, the undersea
research laboratory directed by
UNCW's Center for Marine
Science, is quiet after completing
its last mission of the year.
The Aquanauts, who partici
pated in the mission, walked away
with knowledge that may bring
scientists a step closer to under
standing the true cause of coral
bleaching.
Coral bleaching is a phenome
non in which the algae that color
and inhabit the coral's tissues die,
leaving behind
the white calci
um carbonate
skeleton. The
algae leave the
coral or die when
they are stressed
due to things
such as warmer
water tempera
tures.
“Coral reef
scientists want to
learn as much as
possible about
these events
because they
threaten reefs
periodic ally
worldwide,” said
chief investigator for the mission
Mark Patterson, associate profes
sor at the College of William and
Mary’s Virginia Institute of
Marine Science.
According to the VIMS press
release, “Small-scale variations in
bleaching across a reef, where one SeE CORAL BlEACH, PaGE 2
Coral bleaching can alter
these wild, tropical colors
coral may bleach while another
just meters away remains healthy,
suggest that other factors such as
current flow and oxygen levels
may also play a role.”
To study small-scale bleaching
events, Patterson and his team
measured the oxygen availability
in the bottom two meters of the
reef. Patterson also investigated
whether local currents and waves
have an influence on the speed
and extent of bleaching in com
munities of coral.
“If there is a connection
between water motion and how
fast bleaching can occur during a
bleaching event,
this might allow
us to better pre
dict which reefs
are most at risk,
and it may help
us fine-tune
efforts at reef
restoration and
reef manage
ment,” Patterson
said.
After 10 days
I of careful meas-
I urements and
I data analysis,
I the team found
that there was a
connection.
“It did appear
that the speed of water motion
over the coral colonies was affect
ing how fast bleaching occurred
within a single colony, with
polyps, the feeding units of the
coral, bleaching faster in the high-
Thomas
Lankford
begins to
dissect the
sturgeon
found in the
Cape Fear
River at the
Cly/IS lab. He
is a professor
in the biology
department at
UNCW.
Lomt LaHb»ft»/ 77>« Seahawk
Sturgeon may reveal clues
Lorrie Laliberte
Visit Us
www.theseahawk.org
OP/ED
5
News Editor
The Cape Fear River is home
to a very unusual and imperiled
fish known as the Atlantic stur
geon. After a large female was
found floating in the Cape Fear
River in July, the UNCW Center
for Marine Sciences performed a
dissection on Nov. 20 to find out
the life history of the fish.
The Atlantic sturgeon was
once a rich source of caviar. A
female can produce 20-30 pounds
of the eggs. Market price is $100-
$200 per pound, so one fish could
bring in $2,000-$3,000, not
counfing the money from the
meat and skin. To help protect the
fish from over-fishing, the stur
geon fishing industry was closed.
The fish was found to have
about eight pounds of eggs in her
lnsii« This lssu«
ovaries, but they were not fully
developed. Thomas Lankford,
assistant professor of biological
sciences at UNCW, estimated that
since the sturgeon weighed about
180 pounds, it would have con
tained approximately 36 pounds
of eggs if the ovaries were com
pletely developed.
Matt Mciver, a research tech
nician with the Center for Marine
Science, found the fish dead in
the water when he went out to
take water quality measurements
in July. He immediately recog
nized this as a significant find and
brought it to CMS.
The fish suffered a wound that
completely severed her tail fin. If
she was whole, Lankford estimat
ed she would be 7 1/2 feet long.
He said that due to the way the
wound looked, it was probably
inflicted by a ship propeller.
Since sturgeons can live 60 to
80 years, they, are good indicators
of the health of the water they
inhabit, Lankford will be investi
gating to see if the fish accumulat
ed toxins in her system. The toxins
can be used to determine the num
ber of pollutants that have gotten
into the river during the fish’s life,
which he estimates was 20 to 25
years.
When Lankford and Mike
Williams, his lead technician,
opened up the fish, they took sam
ples of all the organs to send to a
lab in Florida that will analyze the
samples. Lankford said the genet
ic information retrieved from mus
cle tissue could be key.
“[That information will help
us] deduce whether this fish was a
member of the Cape Fear River
See Sturgeon, Page 2
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