News
Castorani Lab welcomes new PhD student and bids farewell to postdoc
10/8/2024
This semester, the Castorani Lab welcomed new Ph.D. student Chris Oxley. Chris graduated with a B.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M at Galveston in 2022. As an undergraduate, he studied how the materials used to build marine structures affect hard-substrate invertebrate assemblages. After graduating, he worked as a research technician at Texas A&M at Galveston and assisted with a project surveying Galveston Bay oysters for multiple diseases. In 2023, he started working as a research technician at Rice University, studying how climate affects trees, grasses, and fungi. Chris is interested in using genetic tools and field studies to examine the population and community ecology of marine invertebrates. Welcome Chris!
We also said goodbye to postdoc Amanda Lohmann. Amanda completed a one-year postdoc in the Castorani Lab, studying the synchrony of understory algae in California kelp forest ecosystems. She is now a Data Scientist with Global Fishing Watch. Congratulations Amanda!
Chris Oxley
Amanda Lohmann
Castorani Lab recruiting a lab manager, a postdoc, and 3 PhD students
8/8/2024
The Castorani Lab is currently recruiting for multiple positions:
- Lab manager: We are seeking a lab manager and lead research technician to support field and lab research associated with the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research project (especially studies on seagrass meadows and oyster reefs). Information and application at: https://jobs.virginia.edu/us/en/job/R0063284/ENVS-Lab-Specialist-Intermediate. Please apply as soon as possible!
- Postdoc: We are seeking a postdoc to work on modeling oyster population dynamics and larval connectivity. Information and application at: https://jobs.virginia.edu/us/en/job/R0063532/Research-Associate-in-Environmental-Sciences. Apply now!
- PhD students: We are recruiting 3 new PhD students to join us starting in the fall of 2025 to study the ecology of kelp forests, seagrass meadows, and oyster reefs. Contact Prof. Castorani as soon as possible to express interest!
Max Castorani receives NSF CAREER award
7/10/2024
Professor Max Castorani has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his project, “Source-sink dynamics in a restored oyster metapopulation“. The NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program supports integrated research and education activities by early-career faculty. The new project will investigate how variability in the ocean environment over time affects the dispersal of oyster larvae; the survival, reproduction, and growth of juvenile and adult oysters; and the implications for successfully restoring oyster reefs. The grant will also support data-driven science education activities for 5th- and 7th-graders, community college students, and undergraduates at UVA.
More information can be found here.
Media coverage:
Castorani Lab graduates first two Ph.D. students
6/18/2024
Two students in the Castorani Lab were recently conferred their Ph.D. degrees.
Dr. Kinsey Tedford completed her dissertation entitled, “Restoring and sustaining oyster reefs: drivers of spatial dynamics in oyster populations”. Kinsey is now a Fisheries Program Manager with the Oyster Recovery Partnership, overseeing its Sustainable Fisheries Program.
Dr. Sean Hardison completed his dissertation entitled, “Relationships between inshore fish communities, small-scale commercial fisheries, and a changing environment across spatial scales in the Mid-Atlantic Bight”. Sean is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
Congratulations Kinsey and Sean!
New paper on marine heatwaves published in Ecology
4/10/2024
A new paper, led by former postdoc Maowei Liang, has been published in the journal Ecology. One of the major tenets of community ecology is that biodiversity can stabilize ecosystems and their functioning. We studied how extreme ocean warming affects such diversity-stability relationships using 20 years of data on algae, invertebrates, and fish from the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER. We found that diversity did affect stability, and this relationship was altered by warming. However, temperature-associated changes in diversity-stability relationships differed among functional groups, spatial scales, and scales of biological organization.
The paper can be downloaded here.
Photo credit: Douglas Klug.
Photo credit: Douglas Klug.
Maowei Liang
New paper on kelp synchrony published in Ecology
3/7/2024
A new paper, led by recent undergrad Miriam Wanner, has been published in the journal Ecology. Theory predicts that dispersal (of offspring, seeds, spores, etc.) can synchronize the dynamics of populations across space, but this idea has seldom been tested in natural populations. By coupling an 11-year time series of giant kelp dynamics in southern California with a high-resolution ocean circulation model that simulates spore movement, we discovered that kelp spore dispersal was an important driver of kelp synchrony. This study is noteworthy as one of the few to statistically associate synchrony with dispersal in a natural population, and the first to do so in a marine organism.
The paper can be downloaded here.
Photo credit: Ron McPeak.
Miriam Wanner
New paper on cascades of spatial synchrony published in PNAS
1/3/2024
A new paper, led by Jonathan Walter, has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using kelp forests and nearby sandy beaches as a model coupled system, we investigated how one ecosystem affects the synchrony of another ecosystem through resource subsidies (i.e., the movement of organic material across ecosystem boundaries). We discovered that synchronous kelp supply, mediated by wave action and beach width, results in synchronous deposition of kelp wrack (detritus) on sandy beaches, which then cascades across trophic levels to synchronize abundances of shorebirds that move among beaches to forage on wrack-associated invertebrates. Such cross-ecosystem synchronization via subsidies likely plays a major but previously unrecognized role in the dynamics and stability of coupled ecosystems.
The new findings have been summarized by UC Davis/UC Santa Barbara. The paper can be downloaded here.
Jon Walter
Photo credit: Jenny Dugan.
Castorani Lab welcomes Dr. Amanda Lohmann
9/28/2023
The Castorani Lab welcomes Dr. Amanda Lohmann as a new postdoctoral scholar at UVA. Amanda will be studying the role of kelp spatial synchrony in structuring kelp forest communities along the California coast. Prior to joining UVA, Amanda completed her Ph.D. at the Duke University Marine Laboratory with Dr. Doug Nowacek, where she studied the impact of climate change on the krill-centric marine ecosystem along the western Antarctic Peninsula. She is particularly interested in understanding how climate variability at different temporal/spatial scales drives the structure and function of marine ecosystems.
Welcome, Amanda!
Amanda Lohmann
New paper on oyster restoration published in Ecological Applications
5/19/2023
A new paper, led by Rachel Smith, has been published in the journal Ecological Applications. We assessed the drivers of oyster restoration success using a meta-analysis of reef restoration projects throughout the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts. We discovered that physical conditions control restoration success, as recovery of oyster production was greater in areas that were deeper (subtidal), saltier (mesohaline), and had greater tidal ranges. Additionally, restoration increased the abundance and diversity of free-swimming fish and shellfish over time as reefs aged (at least 8 years after their construction).
The new findings have been summarized by Mongabay. The paper can be downloaded here.
Rachel Smith
Photo credit: Bo Lusk, The Nature Conservancy.
New study on oyster predation published in Frontiers in Marine Science
1/17/2023
A new paper, led by Kinsey Tedford, has been published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. Through meta-analysis, we synthesized data on oyster recruitment and mortality from 384 predation experiments across the globe. We discovered that oyster predators caused an average 4.3× increase in oyster mortality and 46% decrease in recruitment. Predation increased with oyster size and varied with predator identity and richness. Predator effects also differed with experiment type and tethering method, indicating the importance of experimental design and the caution warranted in extrapolating results. Findings from this study suggest that high predation on larger oysters may limit reef-scale reproductive output (i.e., population fecundity) and restoring reefs in areas with few gastropod predators, such as oyster drills and conchs, may improve oyster restoration outcomes. The paper can be downloaded here.
Emily Goetz (left) and Kinsey Tedford (right).