2018–2019 ANNUAL REPORT Marine Science Institute UC SANTA BARBARA Table of Contents 3 Mission Statement 4 From the Director Overview 5 Executive Summary 7 10 Organizational Charts Administrative Staff 11 Centers and Units 12 13 MSI Advisory Committee, Administrative & Technical Staff 16 Statistical Summary Research Support Summary 17 Statistical Summary 2018–2019 19 Five-Year Research Support 21 Summary Funding Agencies 22 24 Principal Investigators 30 Postdoctoral Researchers, Graduate and Undergraduate Students 33 Space 39 Other Projects & Activities Coastal Research Center 40 Marine Biotechnology Center 42 Ocean & Coastal Policy Center 52 Analytical Laboratory 54 Education and Outreach 55 56 Awards Administered Awards 57 Research Summaries 66 2 Mission Statement The Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is committed to fostering innovative and significant research, to promoting effective stewardship, and to sharing exciting discoveries of the world’s oceans. 3 From the Director 4 Overview The Marine Science Institute (MSI) provides an intellectual and physical environment at UCSB that fosters world-renowned marine research. The institute brings together marine researchers from across the UCSB campus and supports multi-investigator collaborative projects and individual research efforts. The scientific membership at MSI consists of both ladder faculty and professional researchers. In 2018-2019 MSI membership included 25 ladder faculty and 32 professional researchers with 228 additional participants distributed across postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduates. Beyond research, MSI’s Research Experience and Education Facility (REEF) educates UCSB students and the general public about MSI science. MSI is housed in the marine science research building (MSRB) on the UCSB campus. The MSRB contains both MSI support services and research laboratories. Support services include the MSI administrative staff that support pre- and post- award activities, the MSI analytical facility that provides expertise in the chemical analysis of environmental samples from the marine environment, and the MSI information technology group support scientific computing. Research space is allocated to individual ladder faculty and professional researchers and to collaborative research groups. MSI professional researchers are also housed within departmental spaces, at Devereux and off campus lease space. MSI educational and outreach facilities are located at campus point. The MSRB is also one of the few research buildings at UCSB plumbed into the campus seawater system. Researchers have access to over 1,600 ft2 of seawater workroom space distributed across six seawater laboratories. An additional three walk-in environmental chambers provide access to temperature controlled conditions simulating environments from the tropics to the poles. Other common spaces provide access to common use scientific equipment including autoclaves, freeze dryers, centrifuges and refrigerator/freezer space. These common-use facilities serve the needs of individual research projects and collaborative efforts on an as needed basis. MSI has a reputation of providing strong pre- and post- award administrative support to its investigators. In 2018/2019 MSI submitted 158 proposals and managed 331 projects. Post award activities include accounting, personnel management, procurement and travel. Beyond pre- and post- award activities MSI staff are also responsible for MSRB management and maintenance, management and maintenance of common use scientific equipment, laboratory safety compliance, seawater system maintenance, room scheduling, and they serve as the interface between the Channel Island Marine Sanctuary offices and campus facilities and management offices. The MSI administrative staff are recognized as highly innovative with a history of bringing new systems to campus (GUS, Cayuse, Coupa, IT works) that increase efficiencies quickly and at modest cost. MSI staff are often called upon to serve on campus committees seeking to improve campus-wide management systems. The MSI analytical laboratory provides investigators with analytical services for environmental samples from the marine environment. The purpose of the facility is to provide investigators access to instrumentation and analyses that would be too costly or too inefficient for individual PIs to maintain. The laboratory also serves a strong educational function supporting research by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and laboratory staff assist undergraduates conducting honors research and independent study projects. The laboratory routinely employs undergraduates to assist in sample preparation and in routine analyses providing vital real-world work experience. Moreover, laboratory 5 personnel guide investigators in the development of new analytical methods to catalyze new avenues of research and to support new extramural proposals. The laboratory supports many large research programs including the SBC and MCR LTERs, the SONGS project, the MBON program and the NASA EXPORTS project. The MSI Information technology group maintains the computational and data storage infrastructure supporting both individual and group science. The IT group also supports the computational needs of the MSI administrative unit and supports the audio-visual equipment throughout the MSRB. Currently about 50 servers (both virtual and physical) are running in support of the unit. They provide file sharing, web and web application hosting, database hosting, network monitoring, and compute nodes. Shared data are stored in a departmental SAN (Storage Area Network) system hosting 60 TB of data along with another 30TB of backups. End user support covers over 350 individual clients. MSI’s Educational and Outreach Program brings our discoveries to K-12 students, the general public and to UCSB students. A recent goal has been to engage more UCSB undergraduates. These efforts have been wildly successful. The REEF now serves nearly 4,000 UCSB undergraduates in activities ranging from laboratory classes to research training and other activities spanning six campus administrative divisions. This newfound success at the campus level is complimented by a very successful outreach program to the general public and K-12 schools. This past year the REEF served a record high number of visitors reaching nearly 20,000 members of our community. Like all organized research units MSI is led by the director who is advised by the business services officer and a deputy director. The MSI Advisory Committee, consisting of faculty and researchers from each of the participating campus departments and professional schools, serves an oversight role and reports on MSI needs and activities to the vice chancellor for research. Local governance is handled by the MSI resources committee that reviews requests for office and laboratory space with the MSRB and makes recommendation to the director. The MSI computing committee assesses the computer infrastructure necessary to support MSI research and makes policy and purchase recommendations to the director. 6 Executive Summary Accomplishments: MSI has had another highly successful year of scientific discovery with the institute PI’s conducted nearly 331 research projects ranging from efforts to develop new policies for ocean management to developing new isotopic tools to understand ocean biogeochemistry. Here are some highlights, but remember this is only the tip of the iceberg relative to MSI’s research activity. Before diving into MSI research I’d like to acknowledge the service of MSI’s Management Service Officer, Tim Schmidt. Tim Schmidt retired in June, 2019 after 28 years at UCSB with his last 14 years spent as MSI’s MSO. MSI has grown considerably over the past 14 years and through it all Tim kept the organization running smoothly through both the easy and the tough times. Tim was a campus leader in administrative innovation putting in place efficient, cost effective, electronic purchasing and accounting systems at MSI long before campus moved in those directions. He created a culture of professionalism and teamwork at MSI that pervades the organization today. His career contributions to MSI and campus as a whole have been substantial. He will be greatly missed. All of us at MSI thank Tim for his many years of selfless service and wish him the best as he moves on to enjoy his life with his family in retirement. Now onto a few research highlights. Assistant Professor Holly Moeller is examining how mixotrophic plankton that both photosynthesize and consume prey respond the changes in ocean conditions anticipated with climate change. Ecological theory predicts that these organisms will evolve to become more animal like, foregoing their ability to photosynthesize. Long-term (years) studies are underway to monitor how these organisms both evolve and adapt under stimulated future ocean conditions. Associate Professor Nicholas Nidzieko is using autonomous ocean robots to investigate turbulent kinetic energy beneath breaking ocean waves. These processes help drive the transport of nutrients, sediments, plankton, larvae, and pollutants in the coastal ocean yet few measurements of these processes are available due to the difficulty working in this narrow and energetic environment. Nidzieko and his team are overcoming this challenge through the use of autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with microstructure probes and fast velocimeters and seek one of the most complete descriptions