Featured Scientist: Jose Quintanilla

Our annual surveys would not be possible without our wonderful collaborators from around the world. We'll dedicate several future blog posts to highlight these individuals, so that you can learn more about them, their research, and the valuable contributions they make to the survey. You can find previous posts here. Today we feature Jose Quintanilla from IEO!

Deploying the Bongo-90 in the GOM

My name is Jose Mª Quintanilla Hervás. I am one of the scientists in the Larval Ecology Group belonging to the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), which is the public organization that carries out research in the oceans of Spain. For the last decade, my research has been focused on larval growth of different species in the Mediterranean sea (such as sardines, anchovy, bluefin tuna) and how it is influenced by environmental and trophic variables.

Jose searches for the elusive bluefin tuna in the plankton sample

Dr. Quintanilla fractions mesozooplankton in the wetlab

This is my first time in this survey in the GOM. I'm very pleased to take part in it and to have the opportunity to continue the collaboration with our colleges from NOAA in order to improve our knowledge of bluefin tuna larval ecology from a multidisciplinary point of view in the framework of ECOLATUN project. One of my main interests is to establish a robust criteria for age reading of bluefin tuna larvae in order to be able to compare growth patterns of populations from Mediterranean and GOM and try to the determine the most important factors related with different growth rates in both areas taking into account that growth is one of the most important factors in larval survival and, therefore, in the recruitment and viability of the species.

Jose discusses his otolith research back in the Malaga, Spain

Nowadays, our group is interested in the study of the potential effect of larvae feeding behaviour on their growth based on Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) and Compound Specific Isotope Analysis (CSIA)

Featured Scientist: Catalina "Cati" Mena Oliver

Although we are starting to sample in the eastern Caribbean, today's blog features a 'leg 2' participant: Cati! 

Picoplankton and the microbial food web (from Johnson and Lin, 2009)

Processing plankton samples

Catalina Mena Oliver (Cati) joined us in Cozumel back in May to specifically sample picoplankton during Leg 2. Catalina is a PhD student from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (Oceanographic Centre of  Baleares - Larval Ecology Group), and she is developing her Doctoral Thesis studying the base of the planktonic food web with special interest in the bacterioplankton communities (picoplankton). 

Dynamic oceanographic currents of the western MED
(Balbin et al 2014)

Picophytoplankton (~0.2 to 2 µm) are the smallest autotrophic organisms on Earth and in stratified oligotrophic regions (like the Mediterranean and the Caribbean) can be a key component as biomass source. During our survey we aim to link the community of primary producers to eddy structures, since these communities can be highly influenced by mesoscale dynamics and by changes in resource supply. The phytoplankton size structure and the relative contribution of the different phytoplankton size fractions in terms of carbon biomass strongly affect the carbon transfer and the ecosystem functioning.

Cati shares her research with the science team

Cati shared with our blog: “I am very grateful to FORCES Lab from SEFSC-NOAA to give me the opportunity to participate in the Nancy Foster survey and I hope we could continue this collaboration in the future. The results obtained will help us to assess if the ecosystem is supported by a microbial food web, dominated by the picophytoplankton fraction, which might be crucial as food source not only for bluefin tuna larval ecology but also for other many species”.
We enjoyed to have Cati aboard and hope that she will sail again with us! We look forward to sharing her results in the future with you our loyal reader! 

Trying on the safety suit! (Cati is a LOBSTER)

Featured Scientist: Dr. Raul Laiz Carrion!

Dear reader, today we feature a guest post by Dr. Raul Laiz Carrion. Please scroll down for English. 

Raul and Lulu collect plankton

En esta campaña NF1602, somos muy afortunados de nuevamente contar con la participación del Investigador del Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga del Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO) el Dr. Raul Laiz-Carrión! Raul se ha convertido en un “clásico” de nuestro equipo de trabajo en las campañas de investigación del Mar Caribe, gracias a la estrecha colaboración que existe entre el IEO y el FORCES Lab del SEFSC-NOAA. 

Measuring fish before freezing them in Liquid Nitrogen

Esta fructífera colaboración entre las dos instituciones ha dado lugar a que actualmente se haya conseguido financiación de la Secretaria de Estado de Investigación,  Desarrollo e Investigación del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España para realizar el proyecto ECOLATUN (CTM2015-68473-R-MINECO/FEDER), titulado: “ECOLOGIA TROFICA COMPARATIVA DE LARVAS DE ATUN ROJO ATLANTICO (THUNNUS THYNNUS) DE LAS AREAS DE PUESTA DEL MEDTERRANEO-NO Y EL GOLFO DE MEXICO.”


El principal interés del Dr. Laiz-Carrión se centra en la ecología larvaria de 
especies de especial interés no solo desde el punto de vista económico sino fundamentalmente ecológico, como puede es el atún rojo. En los últimos años ha centrado sus investigaciones en tratar de explicar la variabilidad en el crecimiento a través de las diferentes estrategias tróficas en estadios de temprana edad... “Pequeñas variaciones en el crecimiento pueden originar grandes cambios en la supervivencia larvaria y por consiguiente en el reclutamiento de la especie. 

PI Lamkin and PI Laiz-Carrion 

Tratamos de entender estas variaciones en el crecimiento no solo con la caracterización de los diferentes hábitats de puesta, sino también entendiendo la ecología trófica de la especie objeto de estudio y su interacción con otras especies que la acompañan y con las que puede compartir los recursos alimenticios a lo largo de la cadena trófica. Todo esto lo abordamos desde el punto de vista comparativo entre el Golfo de México y áreas adyacentes y las aguas del Mar Balear del Mediterráneo. Para abordar este proyecto tan ilusionante, es una verdadera suerte el poder contar con la participación y el apoyo de expertos de reconocido prestigio internacional de diferentes instituciones americanas (NOAA, Univ. of Miami/CIMAS, CUNY, WHOI), mexicanas (ECOSUR) y españolas (IEO).”

A brief summary in English:

Raul processes data from the Mini-Bongo net

During this research survey (NF1602) we are lucky to once again have the participation of Dr. Raul Laiz-Carrión, a researcher from the Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga del Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO). Raul has become a “classic” member of our team during our Gulf/Caribbean surveys as a result of the close-collaborations between his Lab at the IEO and the NOAA NMFS FORCES Lab. Our productive collaboration has proven effective as we recently awarded a proposal from the Research Ministry of Spain (Secretaria de Estado de Investigación,  Desarrollo e Investigación del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España) in a project titled: “Comparative trophic ecology of bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in spawning areas in the Northwest Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico.”

Raul’s research is focused on the larval ecology for species of interest (not just from a commercial emphasis, but mainly from an ecological context). In the last few years, Raul’s work has investigated the natural variability in growth by examining trophic strategies during the earliest larval stages. Recently we have compared the Balearic Sea (Mediterranean) with the Gulf of Mexico thanks to our multidisciplinary and international support from NOAA, UM/CIMAS, CUNY, WHOI, ECOSUR (Mexico), IEO (Spain).