May 16-17, 2023 TAMU-CC Graduate Students and Faculty Meet With Stakeholders to Co-Develop Research Questions
STAGES trainees and faculty met with representatives from the Texas Water Development Board, Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, Ingleside on the Bay Coastal Watch Association, the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, the Calhoun County Extension Agent for Texas Sea Grant, and the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi to discuss each stakeholder groups interests and needs concerning the resiliency of our coastal communities. Trainees and stakeholders broke out into smaller groups for more detailed conversations and co-development of research questions relating to (1) predicting rainfall, temperature, and flooding, and (2) ecosystem health with a focus on anthropogenic influences on seagrasses and fisheries. The trainees will spend the next 5 months working on the research questions developed at the workshop.
Photos (top left to bottom right): (1) Group photo of workshop attendees with Dr. Dorina Murgulet. (2) Group photo or workshop attendees with Dr. Jennifer Beseres-Pollack. (3) Jace Tunnell, Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, presents. (4) Patrick Nye and Jennifer Hilliard present virtually for Ingleside on the Bay Coastal Watch Association. (5) Christina Lopez presents virtually for the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. (6) RJ Shelly, Calhoun County Extension Agent, presents. (8) Penny Harness presents virtually for the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi. (9) Evan Turner, Texas Water Development Board, presents. (10) Interactive Q&A session after presentations. Evan Turner answering a questions from a trainee. (11) Breakout group discussions between stakeholders (Timothy Humphrey, NWS, pictured), trainees (EvaLynn Jundt pictured), and faculty (Philippe Tissot and Maria Vasilyeva pictured). (12) Trainees report out on their group discussions and co-developed research questions (Miranda White pictured). Credit: photos provided by Drs. Audrey Douglas and Jennifer Beseres-Pollack.
April 28-30, 2023 TAMU-CC Graduate Students Go On Headwater to the Ocean (H2O) Field Trip
As the sun sets, a group of students at a campsite in Garner State Park try to set up a tent for the first time. The task is further complicated by 30 mile per hour wind gusts from a weather system moving through the region. Once the initial frustration of setting up the tents is over, the students can settle back into the exhaustion following a long day of travel and field sampling and embrace the enthusiasm they feel for the coming days, which will be filled with more hands-on learning and camping as part of the Headwaters to the Ocean (H2O) field trip for the NSF Research Traineeship for Stakeholder-Guided Environmental Science (STAGES).
The 3-day H2O field trip was led by Drs. Dorina Murgulet (STAGES Program Director), Xinping Hu (STAGES Co-PI), Valeriu Murgulet, and Audrey Douglas (STAGES Program Manager) with the goal of assessing the health of the Nueces River from the headwaters in Edwards County, Texas, to Nueces Bay and to demonstrate to the students how terrestrial, coastal, marine, and atmospheric processes are interrelated.
Credit: Site map created by Hailey Santa Ana (STAGES trainee) and Audrey Garza.
Participants included TAMU-CC graduate students from the Coastal and Marine System Science and Marine Biology programs. In the months leading up to the field trip, the students worked together to design a field campaign to assess the health of the river and identify some parameters that may indicate human impacts to the system by drawing on their varied experiences and expertise. The students identified 24 possible sampling locations and proposed collecting the following samples/data at each site: water quality (including temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and nutrients), chlorophyll, groundwater tracers (radon & radium), stable isotopes (δD, δ18O, δ13C), carbon chemistry (total alkalinity, dissolved inorganic carbon, pH), microplastics, aerosols (including CO2, particulate matter > 0.5,1,2.5,5,10 microns, pressure, relative humidity), invertebrates, and geophysics (passive seismics).
The first stop on the field trip was the Rocksprings Visitor Center to meet a volunteer guide for a tour of the Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area, created as a National Natural Landmark in 1971 by President Nixon. The Sinkhole was formed slowly over time by water dissolving the karst rock to form a cave. When groundwater levels decreased, the ceiling collapsed from lack of support. The Sinkhole is both the largest one-chamber cave in Texas and the fifth-deepest cave in Texas. Furthermore, the Devil’s Sinkhole is home to one of Texas’ largest colonies of Mexican free-tailed bats and is a restricted access area due to the presence of 4 endangered species (including a native amphipod and the Tobusch fishhook cactus). After the tour, students began collecting samples from the first two of 24 possible sampling sites before heading to Garner State Park to set up camp for the first night.
On the second day of the field trip, the students continued to collect samples and observe the geological influences on stream flow or lack thereof in the Nueces River from Uvalde, Texas to Choke Canyon State Park. Multiple sampling locations were discovered to be dry riverbeds while the previous upstream and subsequent downstream sampling locations had running water. These locations were dry due to lower groundwater levels compared to land elevations whereas the other locations around them had higher groundwater levels, so the stream was supported by groundwater. The students witnessed groundwater discharging from the banks of the river at two locations in the first two days of the trip. On the second night, the students camped at Choke Canyon State Park where deer were grazing freely amongst the tents and RVs, a family of javelinas wandered through the campsite in the middle of the night, and wild turkeys were passing through a meadow on the way to sample the reservoir.
As the trip moved from Choke Canyon reservoir to Lake Corpus Christi to Nueces Bay, the students collected samples and observed the influence of dams on stream flow and the tidal portion of the river. Downstream from the dams, the water of the Nueces River transforms from crystal clear to muddy and cloudy and transitions from an intermittent to perennial stream. Upon returning to campus, the students processed the samples for their respective groups (i.e., water quality, microplastics, aerosols, invertebrates, geophysics) over the next few days and wrote reports on their findings for class.
Photo (left to right): Yusuf Azeez, Derry Xu (STAGES trainee), Dr. Xinping Hu, Laura Ramirez, Mohamed Mousa, Youwen "Alice" Wang (STAGES trainee), Hailey Santa Ana (STAGES trainee), Evalynn Jundt (STAGES trainee), Nigel Lascelle (STAGES trainee), Makayla Guinn (STAGES trainee), Ahmed Omar, Bea DiBona (STAGES trainee), Dr. Audrey Douglas (STAGES Program Coordinator), Dr. Dorina Murgulet (STAGES PI), Miranda White (STAGES trainee).
Credit: All photos taken by Dr. Xinping Hu, Dr. Audrey Douglas, and Youwen "Alice" Wang and used with permission.
March 30 & April 13 STAGES trainees and non-STAGES participants working together to plan the Headwaters to the Ocean (H2O) field trip where they will assess the health of the Nueces River and potential impacts from human (e.g., urban environments, agriculture, dams) and natural disturbances.
Credit: Photos provided by Dr. Audrey Douglas.
January 8-12 Congratulations to Miranda White for winning FIRST PLACE in the student poster competition at the American Meteorological Society's 103rd Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Miranda's poster was on “AI Ensemble Predictions for Cold Stunning Events in the Shallow Laguna Madre".
December 9, 2022 NRT STAGES welcomes our first cohort of trainees at orientation. Our trainees represent three degree programs: Coastal and Marine System Science, Marine Biology, and Mathematics.
This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) project will train students from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields of study to be part of a diverse workforce of interdisciplinary environmental scientists capable of harnessing the data revolution (HDR) for Stakeholder-Guided Environmental Science (STAGES). Coastal climate change is a grand challenge and there is a need to generate actionable new knowledge and solutions to address this challenge using convergent approaches. The CMSS program will house the STAGES program and offer a convergent training experience. This experience will connect innovative research to practitioner and community needs to answer stakeholder-guided questions of regional and national concern. 