| August 28, 2001 |
Contact: Roban
Johnson |
Macon, Ga. -- Macon may be 900 miles from Long Island Sound, but that hasn't stopped Mercer researcher Michael Horst from leading a study to help determine the causes behind the 1999-2000 winter die-off of lobsters in Long Island Sound. Horst, professor of basic medical sciences at Mercer University School of Medicine, received a $230,000 grant for his study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and National Sea Grant College Program. Altogether, $3.5 million in federal research grants were awarded to 14 research teams in seven states.
The research is jointly-funded under the Long Island Sound Lobster Initiative, an endeavor of Sea Grant programs in Connecticut and New York, along with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and NMFS's Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
"The lobster resource in Long Island Sound supports a multi-million dollar bi-state fishery," said Bill Hogarth, acting administrator for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service. "Until 1999 the Sound was the nation's number three lobster market, with an estimated annual haul of 11 million pounds that generated approximately $45 million in revenue. This is one of the reasons NOAA is so pleased to be able to help fund this important research."
Catches of lobster declined in the fall of 1999 by as much as 90 percent, forcing many of the Sound's more than 300 lobstermen into dry dock. There has been some improvement since then, but officials still don't know what caused the die off.
Lobsters, seawater and sediments were tested for toxins, but nothing unusual was found. Then, pathologists from the University of Connecticut conducting necropsies on sick lobsters discovered parasitic paramoebae in their nervous tissues. It was unclear, however, whether the paramoeba was the primary case of the lobster deaths, or whether other stressors were also involved.
In the Mercer study, Horst's research team is investigating the effects of methoprene on lobsters. Methoprene is a larvicide that New York and Connecticut state agencies put in storm drains and lakes to kill mosquito larvae. Horst has hypothesized that methoprene could kill lobsters and cause biochemical changes in juvenile and adult lobsters if the larvicide made its way into Long Island Sound. He and his colleages are studying the effects a range of doses have on nerve, skin and pancreatic cells, and on shell formation.
Co-investigators on the Mercer study are Anna N. Walker of Mercer School of Medicine, Thomas G. Wilson of Colorado State University, Parshall B. Bush of the University of Georgia, and Timothy E. Miller of Darling Marine Center, University of Maine.
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