Fish ecology in the Atlantic, from the tropics to New England:  How studying fish diets tells about their changing ecosystems

 

What are the fish we eat eating?

 

Date: June 2015 

 

Presenter:

Dr. Joel Llopiz, WHOI Biology Department

 

Description:

Professional Development workshop for Teachers Grade 6-12

 

Classroom activities

 

Fish food webs

• COOL classroom at Rutgers University: food web online game
• PBS Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture series, classroom activities
• Fishing for the Future, activities
• Lessons on several fish-related topics, from New York Sea Grant
• Resources from COSEE-NOW (Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence-Networked Ocean World), including links to pdfs of data activities and lessons
• Activity from COSEE-NOW based around dissecting a fish

 

Data-using activities and lessons

• Resources from COSEE-NOW (Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence-Networked Ocean World), including links to pdfs of data activities and lessons
• Activity from COSEE-NOW, geared more towards older students. It is about fresh-water fishes’ diets, as determined with stable isotope analysis. The pdf includes many graphs and data, student worksheets. The material is extensive but slow to load. Recommended to print it out well ahead of time
• Data and lesson on populations of bluefin tuna, from Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s “Bridge” educators’ resource website: “Tale of a Tuna”
• Data and lesson on the population size of Patagonian toothfish/aka “Chilean Sea Bass”
• Gr. 7-12 data activity from the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College, “When is dinner served” – a multi-part lesson unit about using satellite and buoy data to predict the timing of the spring plankton bloom in the Gulf of Maine.
• NSDL Using Data in the Classroom site for educators
• NOAA free curriculum with 5 modules using data sets, ocean-related

 

Background and Resources

 

WHOI resources

• Oceanus magazine story on WHOI scientist Joel Llopiz’ study on haddock scales
• WHOI Scientist Joel Llopiz’ lab, web pages
• WHOI Scientist Simon Thorrold’s fish ecology lab, web pages
• Llopiz_et. al_2010
• Llopiz_et. al_2014-Oceanography
• Sponaugle Llopiz et al. 2009
• TippingtheScales-OCEANUS-MAG-2013

 

Deeper Exploration: Joel Llopiz/ Papers in Scientific Journals

• “Early Life History and Fisheries Oceanography: New Questions in a Changing World” from the Journal Oceanography, 2014.   27(4): 26-41.
• “Distinctions in the diets and distributions of larval tunas and the important role of appendicularians” from the journal Limnology and Oceanography, 2010. 55: 983-996 .
• “Spatial variation in larval growth and gut fullness in a coral reef fish” from the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2014.

 

River Herring on Cape Cod

• What’s it like to be a river herring? Video of a fish’s-eye view!
• Association to Preserve Cape Cod information page on river herring
• River Herring network, Southeast Massachusetts
• May, 2014 news story in the Cape Cod Times on river herring populations
• May 2015 news story on river herring on Wicked Local Cape Cod

 

NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center resources, for background

• NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center information pages:
  http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/   and http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/rcb/fish/
• NEFSC drifter program, with schools involved