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Wildfire smoke over Typha in July. Photo by Zoe Cardon.
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Announcements
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We are seeking applicants for an entry-level Research Assistant I position with Anne Giblin on the C Marsh Project based at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, MA. The position involves a mix of lab work in Woods Hole and field work at PIE. Please spread the word to anyone who you think might be a good fit!
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The PIE LTER will be hosting "Digging for Data to Support Local Shellfishing" at the Essex National Heritage Area's Trails and Sails on Thursday, September 17, 2026 11:30 am to 1:00 pm at the Rowley Field House (92 Railroad Ave). We’ll demonstrate our use of screened boxes on the mud flats to assess abundance of baby clams in the estuary as well as predation on clams and describe new techniques aimed at identifying sources of estuary contamination being used alongside standard testing. We hope to see you there!
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Nine PIE investigators undertook a canoe expedition on August 11 along 8 miles of the Ipswich River, one of major watershed sources of inputs to the Plum Island estuary. The river section we canoed flows through the Wenham Swamp and is remarkably wild at this point in the watershed, with many turtles, herons, hawks, beaver dams, and fish observed. Some of the participants had not explored the Ipswich before, so was an excellent orientation to the watershed, not to mention great exercise!
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Congratulations to this summer's REUs, McKenna, Jackie, Kylie, and Daniel, for an amazing summer and an excellent display at the Marine Biological Laboratory REU Symposium on August 13, 2026!
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Top left to right: REU McKenna Spencer recording data; REU Daniel Serpa and Grabe Abe setting up clam boxes in the Rowley River; Nelson lab field tech Sam Boutilier with a fiddler crab and a soil penetrometer.
Bottom left to right: REU Jackie Speth collecting BenthoTorch data in the middle of a phragmites field; Sam Boutilier, Kylie Short, Jackie Speth, McKenna Spencer, Daniel Serpa, and Lucia Ramirez-Joseph at the MBL REU symposium; REU Kylie Short learning to use a quadrat.
Photos by Lucia Ramirez-Joseph
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Graduate, undergraduate students and early-career scientists are encouraged to apply to the Fall 2026 Young Voices of Science Program. Applications will be accepted Wednesday, August 19th to Friday, September 4th. The Young Voices of Science program is a free virtual series of expert-led workshops, each designed to prepare and empower science scholars to share their knowledge, concerns, and hopes for the future with the wider world, and provide a launch pad for public engagement early in their scientific careers. Workshop leaders are experts in public engagement with science, creative writing, storytelling, and science-to-policy outreach.
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Slice of PIE
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Plankton in Our Midst
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PIE LTER contributed to the "Plankton in Our Midst" art exhibit at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole during the summer of 2025. The art exhibit featured plankton inspired paintings and glass sculptures by artist Krisanne Baker and a companion book & essay by science writer Liz Cunningham. The display included informative science panels about plankton across the diverse ecosystems studied by researchers from MBL's Ecosystems Center, including PIE LTER and BLE LTER. Check out this video slideshow to see microphotographs of plankton from these ecosystems along with photos and videos of the researchers collecting samples in the field, from New England salt marshes to the deep ocean of the Sargasso Sea. Visit www.mbl.edu to learn more about these research groups!
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Top: Art panels by Krisanne Baker at the Plankton in Our Midst exhibit.
Left: Plankton in our Midst banner and hanging glass sculptures by Krisanne Baker.
Right: A Winogradsky column illustrating the diversity and color of anaerobic phototrophs that develop in marine sediments after being placed in columns with some nutrients and food, such as sawdust.
Photos by JC Weber
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Long-term research on the Plum Island estuary in Massachusetts has demonstrated that plankton are key to understanding food web shifts due to ocean warming. For example, a species of fiddler crab, which has planktonic larvae, was historically limited to warmer southern waters, but has now moved north to Plum Island and beyond due to warming waters in the Gulf of Maine. Scientists from the Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (PIE
LTER) project discovered this range expansion in 2014, and continue to monitor how these new residents are reshaping food webs through competition with native organisms.
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Carried in and out by the tides, plankton connect food webs between estuaries and the coastal ocean, for example, between tidal rivers and creeks of the Great Marsh, MA, and the Gulf of Maine, shown here. Photo by Vinton Valentine.
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Collecting water for phytoplankton identification and pigments on a cold October day. Photo by Nat Weston.
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Plankton from the Parker River Estuary, MA. Left to right, top to bottom: Asterionellopsis (diatom), Bacillaria (diatom), Thalassionema (diatom), Coscinodiscus (diatom), Chaetoceros (diatom), Cylindrotheca (diatom), Melosira (diatom), Ceratium (dinoflagellate), Protoperidinium (dinoflagellate), Euglenid, Polychaete larvae, Veliger larva, Nematode, Copepod larva, Copepod adult, Ciliate (free-living), Ciliate (stalked), Ciliate (shelled)
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Recent Publications
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Limnology and Oceanography
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Bailey A. Schwenk, Elizabeth M. Kazmierczak, Fritz Petersen, Jacob Haney, Xia Zhu, Shan Zuidema, Emily K. Lever, Richard B. Lammers, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Chelsea M. Rochman, Timothy J. Hoellein
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Limnology and Oceanography
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Jie Wang, Ming Shi, Zhijun Dai, Huan-Feng Duan, Xuefei Mei, Wen Wei, Jiejun Luo, Weihua Li, Sergio Fagherazzi
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Environmental Research Letters
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Inke Forbrich, Cove Sturtevant
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Tianliang Wu, Aoyang He, Zhijun Dai, Xuefei Mei, Jaap H. Nienhuis, Cong Mai Van, Nguyen An Binh, Sergio Fagherazzi
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Ashley N. Bulseco, Wenzhuo Yang, Julie A. Huber, Joseph J. Vallino
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Kylea Rose Garces, Mya A. Darsan, Abigail Moulton, Matthew T. Costa, Jennifer L. Bowen, A. Randall Hughes
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Yidong Guo, Qian Yu, Yunwei Wang, Hangjie Lin, Jianjun Jia, Sergio Fagherazzi, Cédric G. Fichot
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We have 17 new or updated data packages! Thanks to everyone who submitted their data this summer.
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The PIE LTER Newsletter is a forum for sharing news, opportunities, and activities from across the PIE LTER Community. If you have an announcement, workshop, job opportunity, or recent publication that would interest our community, please send them to pie_im@mbl.edu.
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