In Search of Hidden Treasures

Although legend has it that the pirate William Kidd buried hidden treasure on the Thimble Islands, visitors to one of those islands are discovering riches of a different kind due to the efforts of CSU faculty and students.

Outer Island, located at the southernmost tip of the Thimble Island chain just off the Connecticut coast near Branford, has become a wonderful outdoor classroom. Students of all ages – from elementary to graduate school – are learning about environmental education, marine biology, ornithology and coastal geology. And faculty from throughout CSU are conducting island-based research projects, many of which will affect the citizens living in Long Island Sound.

Outer Island has extensive expanses of pink granite outcrops, two small salt marshes, and boulder and cobble beaches (left in the retreat of the glaciers) in an intertidal zone. The intertidal zone provides important laboratories for studying organisms (such as seaweed, crabs and snails) and for quantifiable projects (such as water temperature and salinity or the number of organisms found in various locations). Outer Island's rocky, intertidal environment is unusual for the Connecticut shoreline, most of which is marsh or beach.

The island’s setting also allows for the study of seals, as well as migrating butterflies and birds. As part of the Atlantic Flyway, used by millions of migratory birds, Outer Island’s refuge provides a critical habitat for feeding, resting and nesting birds. Many of these birds are threatened – such as the piping plover, least tern and oystercatcher. Or endangered – such as the roseate tern.

Outer Island is part of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, a federal program dedicated to wildlife protection and education. In 1995, the McKinney Refuge partnered with the Connecticut State University System to allow students and faculty to use the island, and the CSU Center for Education and Research at Outer Island was formed. The partnership was made possibly by Elizabeth Hird, who donated the five-acre island to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995.

“It seemed such a shame to have the island folded up and put on a shelf,” says Hird, explaining that she made the gift in memory of her late husband, Basil Roach, a former professor of history at Columbia University. Hird and Roach had summered on the island since 1940.

Educational programs on the island are coordinated jointly by Clayton Penniman, an associate professor of biology at Central Connecticut State University, and Vincent Breslin, an assistant professor in the Department of Science Education and Environmental Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. Conducting educational tours keep Penniman and Breslin very busy; in 2000-2001 alone, 61 groups were brought to the island with a total of 1,352 participants.

“We take students from elementary, middle and high schools out to the island to help promote natural resources, to raise students awareness of the importance of natural habitats, and to make the students better stewards of the environment,” Breslin explains. “And while we work directly with the students, we also work with teachers throughout Connecticut to help them develop curriculum materials in marine and environmental studies.”

“For some of the kids coming to the island, it is like going to an amusement park,” Breslin explains. “The kids are thrilled: they have never seen a real crab or seaweed, or touched a live fish. It is a totally different learning experience than in a classroom. It is one thing to look at a picture of a Japanese Shore crab and another to hold it in your hand. That’s what they remember – not that they saw it on page 81 of their textbook.”

For those who can’t physically get to the island, or for those who want a more extensive view of the intertidal zone, Penniman created a web site for Outer Island (www.biology.ccsu.edu/intertidal/main.htm).

“Working with students from CCSU and using funds from a Long Island Sound Study grant, I constructed a website that is a ‘virtual intertidal transect’ of part of the Outer Island shore,” Penniman explains. The website shows the occurrence of the dominant intertidal organisms as one moves across the shore through the various intertidal zones. “These images and the accompanying data illustrate the type of exercise that many of the classes I take to the island conduct themselves. To my knowledge, there is only one other such website and it is for a transect in the Pacific Northwest.”

With help from the McKinney Refuge, work has recently begun to convert the guest cottage on the island into a small teaching laboratory. Penniman has been busy securing equipment for the laboratory. For example, last year he obtained funds from the Woman’s Seamen’s Friend Society in New Haven which helped purchase a high-end compound microscope with a digital camera and television monitor.

“Using this equipment, we will be able to show classes visiting the island the great variety of microscopic organisms occurring in Long Island Sound and the wonderful microscopic detail of larger organisms, such as seaweeds, that they would not otherwise see on their trip,” Penniman says. “We will also compile a digital picture inventory of these organisms that will be accessible to classes on the CEROI website.”

Jen Brown, assistant refuge manager for the McKinney Refuge, is happy with the work being done by Penniman and Breslin: “Promoting environmental education is part of our mission. But we have a small staff, and to have a group like CSU that can run its own environment programs is terrific! We’ve been extremely pleased with how the educational programs have been handled. CSU has a stellar program, and we hope to continue with this partnership and expand it wherever possible.”

Coordinating educational programs is only one piece of Breslin’s interest in the island. “I am very interested in studying contaminant metals in sediments and organisms, and while Outer Island is a pristine habitat, I am proposing to examine sediment metal contents in Branford Harbor, which could possibly effect Outer Island,” Breslin explains. For example, future gas pipelines and electric transmission cables are proposed to run through Long Island Sound from Branford to various points on Long Island, NY. Breslin’s study will examine contaminants that could get stirred up by the underwater dredging, and how these contaminants may effect surrounding living marine resources. Breslin takes all of his undergraduate and graduate classes out to the island, and like many environment studies faculty at CSU, he encourages his students to use Outer Island for their research projects. 

Support ensuring that Outer Island continues to meet its educational and research goals comes from many different sources. Funding for many of the island’s basic needs is provided through a private foundation, which receives financial support through the Friends of Outer Island. Interns on Outer Island – who act as environmental interpreters with the student groups that visit the island and help students and faculty with their ongoing research projects on the island – are supported by annual funds from the CSU Foundation. And the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection -- through the Long Island Sound License Plate Program -- has given CEROI its largest single grant. The DEP dollars, combined with matching funds and support from the Charitable Foundation of Greater New Haven, are providing an endowment that will help support educational and research programs long into the future.

“We are very fortunate to cooperate with the McKinney Refuge in this unique partnership,” Penniman concludes. “They provide support and shared maintenance for the island’s facilities that we certainly could not do on our own. This is a wonderful partnership between CSU and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that gives Connecticut students access to a beautiful environmental resource that would otherwise not be possible. Moreover, while there is access to the island for these programs, it is controlled access, so we are sure that sensitive environments -- like the salt marshes and the rocky intertidal areas -- will not be trampled or otherwise harmed by too many people coming to the island. We owe much to the vision of Mrs. Hurd and CSU for allowing this program to begin.”

Tara Casanova is one of several student researchers whose work on Outer Island is contributing greatly to the understanding of the ecology of the Connecticut coastline. Casanova received her bachelor’s degree, with minors in chemistry and marine studies, and her master’s degree, with a concentration in marine studies, both from Southern Connecticut State University. Through her graduate work at Southern, Casanova has become an expert on the Connecticut invasion of the Japanese shore crab, an invasive species from Southeast Asia and Japan. And what she has uncovered on Outer Island could have a huge impact on Connecticut’s shellfish industry.

The Japanese shore crab is a particularly aggressive crab, which was carried to the Connecticut region through the ballast water. There is particular concern with this species because it can upset the local ecology and habitat – taking over the rocky intertidal zone and displacing other native crab species. In 1998, the shore crabs were first discovered in Cape May, NJ. Since then, the crabs have spread up the coast as far as Maine, and are spreading farther and farther north. Today, the shore crab is most dominant crab on the Connecticut coastline.

“The rate they are spreading on the coast is phenomenal,” notes Casanova. “When I did my research on Outer Island and at Hammonasset State Park, we were finding on the average 100-150 crabs within one square meter!” Casanova compared the shore crab to what used to be the most dominant crab species in Connecticut – the European green crab. In her three years of sampling the crabs, she found approximately 21,000 Shore crabs and less than 20 green crabs.

“I speculate from this that there can be a domino effect,” Casanova says. “For example, when they are displaced by the shore crab, native crabs may be displaced into other marine habitats (such as marshes), which will disrupt the marsh habitat and other prey species in that habitat.”

While displacing native crabs is one concern, a larger concern is the effect on the entire shellfish industry. Most species find their niche in one habitat– either the low, middle or high intertidal zone, depending on their stage of life or sex. But the shore crab is able to tolerate a large range of salinity and temperature ranges, inhabiting the entire rocky intertidal zone and the sub tidal areas. This could become a huge problem on Long Island Sound’s large shellfish industry. Since the shore crab is looking for shelter in the rocky areas – an oyster bed could become an ideal habitat and the crabs may feed off the young oysters.

Casanova was introduced to Outer Island by Harry Haakonsen, a SCSU professor who developed Southern’s environmental studies and marine studies programs. Together, Casanova and Haakonsen, who passed away a few years ago, undertook lobster tagging and lobster migration research on Outer Island. While doing her graduate research, Casanova received funding through a Harry Haakonsen Research Fellowship.

“Harry was my professor, my mentor and my friend,” she explains. “By doing my research on the island – I feel like I am giving a little back to him.”

Casanova, who has been an adjunct professor at SCSU for past five years, is in the process of applying to graduate school – hoping to continue her research on shore crabs.

Central Connecticut State University alum Suchana “Apple” Chavanich’s research on Outer Island was a stepping stone in her quest to develop a global understanding of  biology and marine science.

Chavanich was born in New Haven, but shortly after her birth moved with her family to Bangkok, Thailand. She received her bachelor’s degree in marine science at Chulalongkorn University, but wanted to return to America for her master’s work. So with the support of her mother, who received her master’s degree in biology from Southern Connecticut State University, Chavanich enrolled in Central.

“I chose Central for two reasons,” Chavanich explains. “One, CCSU offers a broach academic foundation and research. The biology faculty are working on a variety of research that students can work with. Second, CCSU has a diverse, multicultural student body, which allowed me to meet people of different background and varying perspectives.”

The topic of Chavanich’s master’s thesis was the habitat ecology of amphipods – a small crustacean shaped like a shrimp and often called scuds or beach fleas. Amphipods have an important role in rocky shore ecology and are considered to be one of the major food sources for shorebirds. Her research looked at the pattern of distribution and abundance of the amphipod species between Outer Island and Rocky Neck State Park, a first-of-its-kind study in the New England shoreline. Chavanich traveled to the two sites bi-weekly for a year to gather samples.

“My study demonstrated that rocky intertidal amphipods of southern New England occur in zones associated with species of seaweeds,” Chavanich explains. “The higher zone of intertidal have less species and less number of amphipods than in the lower zone, and the two zones did not share all species. In addition, there were differences in the amphipod species composition between Outer Island and Rocky Neck State Park, even though both areas share common water temperatures and salinity.”

Chavanich speculates that this could be an indication of water quality and pollution, which can limit the distribution and abundance of amphipods. As a result of her thesis, she suggested that the water quality at Outer Island be regularly monitored to interpret changes in the ecosystem over time. “Outer Island is in the inner Long Island Sound, whereas Rocky Neck is further out of the sound,” she explains. “Therefore, Outer Island may be more exposed to pollution and high nutrient levels in the water because of the proximity of the cities.”

Her groundbreaking research was published in the international peer-review journal “Crustaceana” and led her to receive the Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Research Award from Central’s department of biological sciences. She received funding for her research through the Harry Haakonsen Research Fellowship, a CCSU faculty/student research grant and the Graduate Student Association Thesis/Research Grant.

After graduating from Central in 1997, Chavanich received her Ph.D. in zoology from the University of New Hampshire. In 1999, she was selected as a representative graduate student to attend the Model World Trade Organization in Switzerland to discuss “trade, environment and biodiversity.” In 2000, she received a National Science Foundation Research Fellowship to travel to Korea to study the native habitat of Asian green seaweed, which is believed to have spread and altered the ecosystem in the subtidal zone in the gulf of Maine. 

Today Chavanich, who turned 30 this March, is an instructor at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, where she teaches marine ecology, biological oceanography and marine conservation biology courses; she is also involved in collaborative research with scientists in America, Japan and Korea. Her current research projects are looking at the impact of the ballast waters in the coastal areas of Thailand and the biodiversity of marine invertebrates in the reefs of Thailand. She is also a member of the advisory board on the conservation of nature and the environment in Thailand. 

While she hopes to return to America in the next few years to teach and do research, she plans on continuing her collaborate research with her colleagues around the work. “I think there are still many things about marine life in Thailand that need to be studied,” she explains.