Flotsam &Jetsam Summer 2020 massachusettsmarineeducators.org Vol. 49, No. 1 OCEAN DISEASES A Danger to Humans? cancelled MME Annual Conference and Meeting at WHOI MME Annual Meeting cancelled VIRTUAL • INSIDE THIS ISSUE • MME Fall Disrupted Plans . 1 WHOI Ocean Encounters Videos 10 MME Calendar . 2 MME Awards . 11 Conference Starfish, Snails & Salmon . 3 Race for a Vaccine . 15 VIRTUAL President’s Message . 4 This is Shocking . 16 There’s a Plague in Our Ocean . 5 Next Big Encounter . 18 From the Editor’s Desk . 6 If you have difficulty accessing this Gone Home . 7 journal, contact the editor at dimmick@ esteacher.org . The next issue of F&J will Meet the New Board Members . 9 be posted on the website on Sept. 8. Volume 49, Number 1 | 1 MASSACHUSETTS MARINE EDUCATORS c/o Robert Rocha, New Bedford Whaling Museum 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA 02740 massachusettsmarineeducators.org OFFICERS 2020 MME President Don Pinkerton Revere High School Calendar President-Elect Pat Harcourt Retired Educator Check website and Past President Anne Smrcina Stellwagen Bank NMS F&J for details. Secretary Kara Mahoney-Robinson Independent Contractor Treasurer Lydia Breen Retired Educator Assistant Treasurer Linda McIntosh Educator Executive Director Robert Rocha New Bedford Whaling Museum Editor Howard Dimmick Science Education Consultants dimmick@esteacher org. SEPTEMBER 9 Journal Design Patty Schuster Page Designs, Inc . MME Board Meeting BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jenny Albright Tabor Academy NOVEMBER 4 Margaret Brumsted Wade Institute for Science Education MME Board Meeting Howard Dimmick Science Education Consultants Emily Duwan New England Aquarium Please check the MME Sarah Griscom Pleasant Bay Community Boating website for details as we get Emily Hewitt Academy at Penguin Hill closer to these dates . Joseph LaPointe Retired Educator Gail Lima Winsor School Jesse Mechling Center for Coastal Studies Jocelyn Mitchell Our Sister School New Bedford Geneva Mommsen National Marine Life Center Jeffrey Morgan Ocean Protection Advocacy for Kids Inc Nicolette Pocius John D O’Bryant School, Boston Grace Simpkins Woods Hole Sea Grant Corrine Steever New England Aquarium All MME Members are invited Kathy Zagzebski National Marine Life Center to Board Meetings. If they are virtual meetings, DIRECTORS EMERITI please check with an MME Gail Brookings Retired Educator officer for details. Elizabeth Edwards-Cabana Retired Educator Katherine Callahan Educational Consultant Jack Crowley Educational Consultant George Duane Educational Consultant Marge Inness Educational Consultant 2 | Summer 2020 Flotsam & Jetsam MARINE SCIENCE IN THE NEWS How Starfish, Snails and Salmon Fight Pandemics They are resilient and immunologically cunning in ways we’re continuing to discover. Dr. Drew Harvell, Cornell University RIDAY HARBOR, Wash. waters of Indonesia, our team — Six years ago, I began has measured a 50 percent Finvestigating starfish dying reduction of pathogenic bacteria by the millions off the West and coral diseases in meadows Coast of the United States from a of sea grass. These pathogenic mysterious wasting disease. The bacteria originated in human deaths continue; more than 20 sewage and make both people species of starfish have been hit. and wildlife sick. These predators are important We are replicating this envi- to the health of kelp forests, ronment in the urban waters and their demise has thinned or of the Puget Sound to discover destroyed these places and their what special powers sea grass bountiful biodiversity. A virus is meadows contain that reduce believed to be the cause. pathogens. Vigorous production Before that, I saw corals on reefs of oxygen by these underwater of the Yucatán, Australia and plants is certainly one line of Palau dissolve from the spread defense, but we are also investi- of infectious bacterial diseases. gating how the microbiomes of Right now, Caribbean corals are sea grasses can regulate health. under siege from what scientists Imagine if one day we could think is a deadly, highly conta- extract a critical defense against gious microbial pathogen. pathogens hidden in these sea As a marine biologist who A 19th-century French engraving of starfish in Egypt. Credit: Engraving grass meadows to use in medi- by Boquet Jeune after a drawing by Savigny, via Getty Images studies disease outbreaks in cines or diets. The oceans have the ocean, I am no stranger to long been a source of new anti- pandemics. I have seen the devastation pathogens cause — microbial agents and anticancer drugs, like Trabectedin and how it is amplified as the oceans warm. But I have also from Caribbean and Florida mangrove sea squirts for lipo- seen the remarkable adaptations that creatures like star- sarcoma, and carrageenan from algae to disrupt herpes fish, corals and abalones develop against these threats and and influenza viruses. We might benefit right away if we the defenses they deploy. Like humans, they are resilient discover that humans living near sea grass meadows are and immunologically cunning in ways we’re continuing to more protected from deadly bacterial pollutants common in discover. human sewage, like Clostridium and Staphylococcus. Now the world is seeing the deadly path cut by a terrestrial We also know that corals living in protected areas of oceans pandemic, spread by a new coronavirus that has killed tens with better-functioning, more-intact food systems have lower of thousands of people worldwide as it continues its sweep. rates of disease. By preserving the intricacies of these ecosys- If anything good is to emerge from this, it will be in the tems, we may be able to stop pathogens in their tracks — a quest to better understanding pathogens and their hosts, lesson that can be applied to ecosystems where humans roam. to find nature’s best defenses and to apply these findings to Scientists continue to study the epidemic that has struck starfish engineer a safer world. in the Pacific and has pushed one species, the once common The sea is a good place to start. sunflower starfish, to endangerment. But another starfish, the intertidal ochre sea star, is holding its own. Researchers are Right now, we are investigating whether some natural ocean habitats have superpowers to fight disease. In the tropical continued on page 8 Volume 49, Number 1 | 3 President’s Message Greetings all, and deep knowledge of marine science education, and she is the perfect choice to lead the organization in the The last time I sat down to write this letter, it was early coming years. February. Maybe we were just becoming aware of COVID 19 then, but it was not a daily topic of conversation and I Looking forward, we have begun planning the Boston think for most of us, it felt far away. By the time the Spring Harbor Educator Conference for the fall. At this point F&J was published, we were overwhelmed by it. My last we expect it to be a virtual meeting, but we hold out day of school was March 13, the date is still written on the some hope for an in-person conference for the spring of whiteboard in my empty classroom. Life has not been 2021. We continue to look for opportunities to expand the same since. And by the time this letter reaches you, it our member offerings. Look for announcements in our may have changed altogether again. I try to be a hopeful e-News, or on Facebook or Instagram. You can also learn person, and my hope is that having gone through all this more about upcoming events on our new website, www. pain, we emerge a better people. massmarineeducators.org. Of course we were forced to move our annual meeting As always, if you have any questions, ideas, comments and conference to a virtual format. I love going to Woods or concerns please feel free to contact me directly at Hole. I spent many teenage summers there and it defi- [email protected], or call/text me at (781) 718-5770. nitely has a feel of home for me. But I was so impressed I am on Instagram and Twitter @pinkerteach. with the turnout for our virtual meeting – we had about 40 people in attendance. We were delighted to have Gay Best regards, Sheffield of Alaska Sea Grant share her perspective of the changes being brought to the Arctic by climate change. Don Don Pinkerton, President We also welcomed several new board members at the annual meeting who are featured in this edition of F&J. Many of you will be pleased to see that Pat Harcourt has returned to MME as President-Elect! Personally I am thrilled to have Pat on board. She has a gentle wisdom 4 | Summer 2020 Flotsam & Jetsam MARINE SCIENCE IN THE NEWS There’s a Plague in Our Oceans. Can Ecosystem Services Help? By Drew Harvell its victims. Available evidence indi- cates that the virus has existed in bats in Africa for a long time, occasionally jumping to human beings but never breaking out beyond Africa. Then in 2013 a horrific epidemic of Ebola virus started in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, spreading faster and further in Africa than previous outbreaks. Declared a Health Emer- gency of Special Concern in August 2014, it ultimately killed over 11,000 people and reached Europe and North America. Why was this outbreak so much bigger Sick seafan showing active lesions. © Ernesto Weil than earlier ones? Scientists aren’t sure, ur oceans and the life forms they other threats including over-fishing, but one hypothesis, backed up by inten- support are under siege, threat- pollution from land, and oil extraction. sive study of the changing viral genome Oened by a formidable collection As a marine ecologist specializing in during the epidemic done by a team of forces that cause both sudden mass disease, I worry most about the threat led by Daniel Park of Harvard’s Broad mortalities and a slow degradation of posed by microbes, because in oceans biodiversity.