Four SoMAS Research Projects Receive Funding from New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has awarded approximately $1.5M to support seven research projects - four of which are based at Stony Brook University - that will directly address multiple high-priority community, economic and environmental objectives.

The two-year projects - administered by NYSG and funded through the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Sea Grant's federal parent agency - represent a range of stakeholder-driven topics to benefit residents across a number of New York's coastal geographies.

Below are the four Stony Brook research projects, each of which will receive approximately $240,000 in funding.

Transforming Invasive Bamboo into a Sustainable Solution for PFAS Remediation in Long Island's Contaminated Groundwater

Lead PIs: Lokesh Padhye, Associate Professor, Associate Director of Emerging Contaminants Research at the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology, and Christopher Gobler, Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation, Distinguished Professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS)

Lokesh Padhye, at work in his lab at Stony Brook University, is part of a NYSG-supported research team engineering bamboo biochar for use in adsorbing PFAS. Credit: Lokesh Padhye

Contaminated groundwater on Long Island may be responsible for transporting per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into coastal waters. PFAS - a family of contaminants that negatively impact all living organisms, including humans - can impair water quality in coastal areas, pose exposure risks and threaten aquatic ecosystems.

Since conventional treatment approaches are costly and operationally challenging for low-level PFAS contaminants, investigators propose using invasive bamboo to produce a sustainable biochar (a highly porous, charcoal-like substance) to remove PFAS from contaminated groundwater.

"We can transform an invasive plant that many homeowners and towns are struggling to manage into a tool for cleaning up 'forever chemicals' in groundwater," said Padhye. "This is not just an academic exercise in creating a new material; it is a practical effort to protect Long Island's drinking water and coastal ecosystems by leveraging resources already available in the region and providing a viable alternative or complement to conventional, but expensive treatment."

If successful, Padhye says the approach that he, Gobler and the research team develop could be adapted for use in other regions and with other waste biomasses, helping communities turn local environmental problems into part of the solution.

Tracking Forty Years of PFAS Prevalence in the Hudson River Estuary

Lead PIs: Oliver Shipley, Assistant Professor, and Lokesh Padhye, Associate Professor, Associate Director of Emerging Contaminants Research, SoMAS

Sarah Praisner, a PhD candidate in Yong Chen's lab at Stony Brook University, holds a striped bass collected from the Hudson River Estuary. A NYSG-supported team is investigating PFAS prevalence in the area by analyzing striped bass scales. Credit: Natalia Castro

The driver in another PFAS study, led by Padhye and Shipley, is that, as Shipley said, "PFAS exposure in humans has been of growing concern over the last decade, especially given that some compounds have been linked to chronic disease such as cancers."

The investigators will analyze PFAS effects in the Hudson River Estuary (HRE) by analyzing protein extracted from striped bass scales collected over four decades through the Hudson River Biological Monitoring Program.

"We hope to identify PFAS that are of emerging concern to seafood consumers by constructing a 40-year record of their concentrations in the Hudson River," said Shipley. "With the powerful archive of [data], we are able to assess historical trajectories of PFAS at unprecedented resolution, and determine how declines and increases in some compounds have responded to regulatory changes."

The intention is to use results to inform next steps for fisheries management, consumption advisors and stewardship of the HRE. Sampling of modern fishes will provide important insight into emerging PFAS that could be of human health concerns to seafood consumers," said Shipley.

Quantifying Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Suitable Habitats for Key Native and Invasive Fish Species in a Changing Hudson River Estuary to Inform Management

Lead PIs: Yunzhou Li, Research Scientist, and Yong Chen, Professor, SoMAS

A researcher from the Chen Lab of Fisheries Science and Management at Stony Brook University holds a juvenile striped bass against the Hudson River in NY. A research team backed by NYSG seeks to create models to quantify and predict habitat change by examining interactions between invasive and native fish species. Credit: Natalia Castro

In addition to concerns such as PFAS, estuarine ecosystems like HRE face many other stressors, ranging from invasive non-native species to rising temperatures. One particular threat comes from invasive species such as zebra mussels, which impact the food web and nutrient cycling and disrupt native species' abundance, growth, and distribution. Less studied are the impacts of non-native fish species on native fishes.

"Compared to the well-known zebra mussel invasion, the impacts of invasive fish species in the HRE are relatively understudied due to a lack of long-term monitoring data," explained Li. "By analyzing long-term shifts in the habitat use and biogeography of both native and invasive fishes, [we] will identify the environmental and biological drivers that shape species distributions across time and space, which remains a major knowledge gap for managers."

Expected results are the eventual development of models to quantify and predict habitat suitability and biogeographic changes over time and space.

Optimization of Bay Scallop Aquaculture in New York to Promote Farm Diversification and Resilience

Lead PIs: Bassem Allam, Marinetics Endowed Professor in Marine Sciences, and Emmanuelle Pales Espinosa, Research Associate Professor, SoMAS

Adult bay scallop (Argopecten irradians) set up for an experiment evaluating the effect of temperature on disease development and mortality. A NYSG-supported research project is attempting to use a strain of disease-resistant bay scallops to build a scallop aquaculture industry. Credit: Bassem Allam

Bay scallops, which have a long history in New York, have long supported a vibrant Long Island-based fishery. However, mass die-offs since Summer 2019 have devastated the industry, impacting local baymen and the economy and causing scallop prices to spike.

Allam and his investigative team propose using a strain of disease-resistant bay scallops developed through prior research to build a scallop aquaculture industry in New York. The project is based on China's aquaculture success story, in which a small number of scallops introduced in the 1980s has now become a thriving business due to a short production cycle. Researchers are attempting to replicate the production cycle with the new scallop strain for similar results.

"We hope to demonstrate the feasibility of a one-year bay scallop production cycle in NY, empowering shellfish growers to diversify their production and have a supplemental income," said Allam. "Shellfish aquaculture is a sustainable, environmentally friendly activity that supplies the domestic market with highly needed products. As such, it is important to explore various avenues to support food security."

The other three projects in NYSG's most recent research suite, which are led by principal investigators at Cornell University, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and SUNY Oswego, focus on: small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are critical links in its aquatic food web (Cornell University); lake trout, a key species possibly facing impacts from invasive mussels (SUNY ESF); Pacific salmon, which represent Lake Ontario's most popular recreational fishery (SUNY Oswego).

For more on NYSG's latest suite of research, read the full announcement.

New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant, with offices at Stony Brook University, is a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York, and is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Sea Grant College Program.

- Sumayyah Uddin, NYSG