Martha's Vineyard Research Articles

Control System For Constrained Wave-Powered Oceanographic Buoys

Wave energy can be used to power oceanographic buoys. A new switching control strategy is developed in this paper for a two-body heaving wave energy converter that is composed of a floating cylinder and two rigidly connected submerged hemispheres. This control strategy is designed to prevent excessive displacement of the floating buoy that may occur due to the actuator force. This control strategy switches the control between a multi-resonant controller and a nonlinear damping controller, depending on the state of the system, to account for displacement constraints. This control strategy is developed using a one-degree-of-freedom dynamic model for the relative motion of the two bodies. Estimation of the relative motion, needed for feedback control, is carried out using a Kalman filter. Numerical simulations are conducted to select the proper mooring stiffness. The controller is tested with stochastic models of irregular waves in this paper. The performance of the controller with different sea states is discussed. Annual power production using this control strategy is presented based on real data in 2015 published by Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory.

Bald eagles and the Thunderbird myth: Birds in pre-contact ceremonialism on Martha's Vineyard, USA

Ceremonialism is an integral part of human life but difficult to recover from archaeological remains. Among Native groups in Eastern North America, skins and feathers of birds were commonly used as part of ritual feast ceremonies, including those of the Thunderbird, a mythological creature associated with thunder, lightning, and the upper world. Physical evidence for the Thunderbird has been limited to ceramic, lithic, copper, and petroglyphic artifacts, but the recent discovery of a series of Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) wing bones from the Frisby Butler site may present the first faunal evidence for the myth in Native North America. Patterns of skeletal part representation within the assemblage and across the site suggest that the deposit is the remains of a ritual feast and the presence of multiple wings indicates intentional curation of eagles. If so, this is the earliest known Thunderbird association on the island of Martha's Vineyard, showing the spread of extant Algonquin cosmology to this area by at least 2,000 BP.

Is There Any More of That

Is There Any More of That Janan Alexandra (bio) for the ladies at Florence House The fact of April first means nothingother than the rent check is due & spring or not we are all tenants of snow today& I have no children under my apron nor angelsgracing my back & the women chew slowlywhile it thickens beyond the window pane & the fact too of a hot dog without a bun& how it can decide the outcome of the daybecause so much depends on bread iloveyou to each, iloveyou to your breadless meat& pink fleece, your fidelity to eating out of separatebeige bowls I will fill as many as you require & leaveuntouched because desire yes I love & yes I love the keysthat hang from your tender neck & the rough stumpsof whiskers that garden your mouth & iloveyou the bags strapped across your chest yesthis armor you sway in stuffed with oranges & toothpaste& packets of sugar iloveyou the teeth who need to bite iceto crunch cold & yes you can have & yes there is more& softer still because with the need to chew comes trouble all the while thankyou perforates the inside of my cheek& my eyes blink themselves hot & double because whenyou tell me the burned bits / he's dead now / the fatty cuts /the soup with a base of milk & butter / just like my mama [End Page 14] is there any more of that / I can only ever say yes of course& leave iloveyou to fatten in my hands. [End Page 15] Janan Alexandra Janan Alexandra is a Lebanese-American poet and MFA candidate at Indiana University. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. Janan has taught creative writing to youth for several years and currently works as Associate Director of the Iowa University Writers' Conference. You can find her work in The Adroit Journal, Mizna: Prose, Poetry and Art Exploring Arab-America, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere. Copyright © 2019 Emerson College

Negative Compliment or Contemplations on Racist Rhetoric

Negative Compliment or Contemplations on Racist Rhetoric Felicia Zamora (bio) You don't see the back of your own wordsthe ones grazing my face, the almost humin summon on your tongue, to dig a hole& place me in, just so my brown body makessense to you, to lower in your vision, your scoopas to think my bones for collection, for descentas in a placement that you control. I shut my eyes,rest my hand gently upon your shoulder, evento my own shoulder; I've come to let you: let goof the tick in the back of your throat, the murmurof your fragility, of what makes you scared of whatI will take away. Open your eyes: see me: brown& powerful & releasing this weight you left hereupon my brain, my capillaries, my nervous system.These are yours. Take your words & let them burnto ash, so the flame of them cinders the message &stings your taste buds, so you inhale your own grit,your own sour smell in your lungs, so your words maybecome phoenixes & learn from the scars & searsthey inflicted, become all genders, grow out of eachof your ribs & spread wings of billowing tufts of plumeto release you—out of your own spinal axis—the drill in the trench you continue to dig & dig & dig. [End Page 84] Felicia Zamora Felicia Zamora is the author of five books of poetry including Quotient (Tinder-box Editions, forthcoming), Body of Render, winner of the 2018 Benjamin Saltman Award, and Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She's received fellowships and residencies from CantoMundo, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA, Moth Magazine, and Martha's Vineyard, authored two chap-books, and won the 2019 Wabash Prize for Poetry and 2015 Tomaž Salamun Prize, and she was the 2017 Poet Laureate of Fort Collins, CO. She teaches creative writing online at Colorado State University and is associate poetry editor for Colorado Review and program manager for the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. Copyright © 2020 University of Nebraska Press

Measurement of Sound Speed in Fine-Grained Sediments During the Seabed Characterization Experiment

The Seabed Characterization Experiment was carried out from March 5 to April 10, 2017 (SBCEX17) on the New England Mud Patch, approximately 90 km south of Martha's Vineyard. The SBCEX17 experimental site covers an area of 11 km × 30 km with water depth in the range of 75–80 m. The Sediment Acoustic-speed Measurement System (SAMS) is designed to measure sediment sound speed and attenuation simultaneously over the surficial 3 m of sediments. During SBCEX17, SAMS was successfully deployed at 18 sites, which were chosen to coincide with coring locations, with the goal of developing a geoacoustic model for the study area. In this article, a summary of SAMS operation during SBCEX17 is presented, as well as preliminary results for sediment sound speed and its spatial variation in the frequency band of 2–10 kHz. It is found that in mud, the sound-speed ratio is in the range of 0.98–1. Little dispersion was observed in this frequency band. Using the preliminary SAMS sound-speed results measured at different depths, the sound-speed gradient in mud within the surficial 3 m favors an exponential rather than a linear dependence at SBCEX17 site. Large gradients are observed for depth shallower than 1.5 m. For the sandy basement beneath the mud layer, the sound-speed ratio is as high as 1.105.

Seasons of Syn.

Synechococcus is a widespread and important marine primary producer. Time series provide critical information for identifying and understanding the factors that determine abundance patterns. Here, we present the results of analysis of a 16‐yr hourly time series of Synechococcus at the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory, obtained with an automated, in situ flow cytometer. We focus on understanding seasonal abundance patterns by examining relationships between cell division rate, loss rate, cellular properties (e.g., cell volume, phycoerythrin fluorescence), and environmental variables (e.g., temperature, light). We find that the drivers of cell division vary with season; cells are temperature‐limited in winter and spring, but light‐limited in the fall. Losses to the population also vary with season. Our results lead to testable hypotheses about Synechococcus ecophysiology and a working framework for understanding the seasonal controls of Synechococcus cell abundance in a temperate coastal system.

Experimental observations of marine iodide oxidation using a novel sparge-interface MC-ICP-MS technique

Iodine speciation is used as a redox indicator and water mass tracer. However, the kinetics and mechanisms of oxidation of the reduced iodine species, iodide (I−), in seawater remain largely unresolved. Here, we provide constraints on I− oxidation rates from seawater incubation experiments using a sensitive radiotracer–incubation approach with high-precision mass spectrometry. Samples are inoculated with iodine-129 as I−, incubated under controlled conditions, then oxidized and reduced iodine species are isolated using liquid chromatographic separation. Samples are subsequently aspirated using a novel sparging interface, and the 129I/127I ratio of both iodine species is determined via multi-collector inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry. This highly-sensitive analytical approach is optimized for estimating the predicted slow rates of iodine redox transformations in small volume seawater samples at marine-relevant total iodine concentrations. Application of this method to coastal samples from Martha's Vineyard Sound, USA, evidences the heretofore-elusive oxidation of I− under marine-analogue conditions. Our results demonstrate an increase in the 129I/127I of aqueous oxidized iodine species in unamended seawater, most likely due to formation of hypoiodous acid and then dissolved organic iodine, at rates of 118–189 nM/ yr. These rates are comparable to those inferred from previous open ocean mass balance approaches but have the benefit of directly linking iodine speciation changes to in situ I− oxidation. Though our treatment experiments do not definitively isolate the oxidation mechanism, they provide preliminary insight into important roles for both abiotic and biotic factors as well as iodine transformations between dissolved, particulate, and gaseous forms. Ultimately, the derived rates and novel experimental technique have potential to improve marine iodine cycling models and provide constraints on the importance of in situ processes in setting patterns of iodine speciation.

Rise and Fall of an Oak Gall Wasp (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) Outbreak in Massachusetts.

The recently described oak gall wasp Zapatella davisae Buffington & Melika (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) has caused extensive damage and mortality to black oak trees, Quercus velutina L. (Fagales: Fagaceae), in coastal parts of New England, United States. Like many newly described and/or newly introduced species, it is unclear how long populations of Z. davisae have existed in this region. However, as this species forms galls on the woody-tissue of its host, it may be possible to obtain historical information about changes in its population size by examining the presence of galls in relation to annual growth nodes. Here, we explore the utility of this approach to determine population size changes in Z. davisae densities on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, through dissection of black oak branches. In addition, we calculated parasitism rates during the years of study and obtained morphological and molecular identifications for the parasitoids associated with Z. davisae. Our results show significant changes in population sizes, with higher levels of parasitism at sites on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod compared to sites on Nantucket. In addition, morphological examinations, in combination with DNA sequencing, identified the associated parasitoids as five species in the genus Sycophila Walker (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae). We comment that considerable morphological variation within several of these recovered species was observed, present the first record of males for a species from which only females have been described, and suggest that future work is required to clarify the species boundaries for this important parasitoid group.

Genetically Engineering Wild Mice to Combat Lyme Disease: An Ecological Perspective

Abstract Genetic engineering of wild populations has been proposed for reducing human diseases by altering pathogens’ hosts. For example, CRISPR-based genome editing may be used to create white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) that are resistant to the Lyme disease spirochete vectored by blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). Toward this goal, academic researchers are developing Lyme-resistant and tick-resistant white-footed mice, which are a primary pathogen reservoir for Lyme disease in the United States. If field trials on small, experimental islands are successful, the project would scale up to the larger islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and possibly to the mainland, most likely with a local gene drive to speed the traits’ proliferation, pending approvals from relevant constituents. Despite considerable publicity, this project has yet to be evaluated by independent professional ecologists. In the present article, I discuss key ecological and evolutionary questions that should be considered before such genetically engineered mice are released into natural habitats.

Fossil Wood from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Fossil Wood from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Interaction of Superimposed Megaripples and Dunes in a Tidally Energetic Environment

Jones, K.R. and Traykovski, P., 2019. Interaction of superimposed megaripples and dunes in a tidally energetic environment. Journal of Coastal Research, 35(5), 948–958. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The superposition of smaller bedforms on larger dunes have been observed in multiple energetic tidal environments. This study analyzes the interaction of two scales of superimposed bedforms at Wasque Shoals, an ebb delta located approximately 1 km SE of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Data from a fixed rotary sidescan sonar deployed on a submerged quadpod captured the interaction of megaripples, or bedforms with wavelengths on the order of 1 m, with the lee side of a migrating dune with a wavelength of approximately 100 m. The net convergence of megaripples on the tidally dominant lee face of the dune suggests that the megaripples serve as an intermediate step between grain-scale transport processes and the large-scale dune migration. This conceptual model is quantitatively tested given observations of seabed elevation changes and dune migration rates. With this novel data set, two scales of bedforms were resolved on subtidal timescales, facilitating new insights into the dynamics of superimposed bedforms in tidal environments.

Mice Against Ticks: an experimental community-guided effort to prevent tick-borne disease by altering the shared environment.

Mice Against Ticks is a community-guided ecological engineering project that aims to prevent tick-borne disease by using CRISPR-based genome editing to heritably immunize the white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) responsible for infecting many ticks in eastern North America. Introducing antibody-encoding resistance alleles into the local mouse population is anticipated to disrupt the disease transmission cycle for decades. Technology development is shaped by engagement with community members and visitors to the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, including decisions at project inception about which types of disease resistance to pursue. This engagement process has prompted the researchers to use only white-footed mouse DNA if possible, meaning the current project will not involve gene drive. Instead, engineered mice would be released in the spring when the natural population is low, a plan unlikely to increase total numbers above the normal maximum in autumn. Community members are continually asked to share their suggestions and concerns, a process that has already identified potential ecological consequences unanticipated by the research team that will likely affect implementation. As an early example of CRISPR-based ecological engineering, Mice Against Ticks aims to start small and simple by working with island communities whose mouse populations can be lastingly immunized without gene drive.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The ecology and evolution of prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems’.

High‐Resolution Observations of Subsurface Fronts and Alongshore Bottom Temperature Variability Over the Inner Shelf

AbstractCirculation patterns over the inner continental shelf can be spatially complex and highly variable in time. However, few studies have examined alongshore variability over short scales of kilometers or less. To observe inner‐shelf bottom temperatures with high (5‐m) horizontal resolution, a fiber‐optic distributed temperature sensing system was deployed along a 5‐km‐long portion of the 15‐m isobath within a larger‐scale mooring array south of Martha's Vineyard, MA. Over the span of 4 months, variability at a range of scales was observed along the cable over time periods of less than a day. Notably, rapid cooling events propagated down the cable away from a tidal mixing front, showing that propagating fronts on the inner shelf can be generated locally near shallow bathymetric features in addition to remote offshore locations. Propagation velocities of observed fronts were influenced by background tidal currents in the alongshore component and show a weak correlation with theoretical gravity current speeds in the cross‐shore component. These events provide a source of cold, dense water into the inner shelf. However, differences in the magnitude and frequency of cooling events at sites separated by a few kilometers in the alongshore direction suggest that the characteristics of small‐scale variability can vary dramatically and can result in differential fluxes of water, heat, and other tracers. Thus, under stratified conditions, prolonged subsurface observations with high spatial and temporal resolution are needed to characterize the implications of three‐dimensional circulation patterns on exchange, especially in regions where the coastline and isobaths are not straight.

Geographic Health Disparities: Satellite Clinics for Cancer Care in Rural Communities.

Cancer treatment is time-consuming and challenging for most patients, but particularly for those who live in geographically isolated areas. Satellite chemotherapy infusion centers offer a possible solution to geographic disparities in health care. This article analyzes a satellite chemotherapy infusion center on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Interviews were conducted with staff of the infusion department of Martha's Vineyard Hospital, which has partnered with the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital to offer a satellite chemotherapy infusion center for island residents. High-quality community hospitals are increasingly able to offer specialized oncology treatment and nursing care at greater convenience for patients through the use of satellite clinics.

Bio-optical discrimination of diatoms from other phytoplankton in the surface ocean: Evaluation and refinement of a model for the Northwest Atlantic

Diatoms dominate global silica production and export production in the ocean; they form the base of productive food webs and fisheries. Thus, a remote sensing algorithm to identify diatoms has great potential to describe ecological and biogeochemical trends and fluctuations in the surface ocean. Despite the importance of detecting diatoms from remote sensing and the demand for reliable methods of diatom identification, there has not been a systematic evaluation of algorithms that are being applied to this end. The efficacy of these models remains difficult to constrain in part due to limited datasets for validation. In this study, we test a bio-optical algorithm developed by Sathyendranath et al. (2004) to identify diatom dominance from the relationship between ratios of remote sensing reflectance and chlorophyll concentration. We evaluate and refine the original model with data collected at the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO), a near-shore location on the New England shelf. We then validated the refined model with data collected in Harpswell Sound, Maine, a site with greater optical complexity than MVCO. At both sites, despite relatively large changes in diatom fraction (0.8–82% of chlorophyll concentration), the magnitude of variability in optical properties due to the dominance or non-dominance of diatoms is less than the variability induced by other absorbing and scattering constituents of the water. While the original model performance was improved through successive re-parameterizations and re-formulations of the absorption and backscattering coefficients, we show that even a model originally parameterized for the Northwest Atlantic and re-parameterized for sites such as MVCO and Harpswell Sound performs poorly in discriminating diatom-dominance from optical properties.

After the Biopsy.

Liz Dolan is a nine-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry collection, A Secret of Long Life (Cave Moon Press, 2014), was nominated for both a Pushcart Prize and the Robert McGovern Prize. Her first book of poetry, They Abide (March Street, 2009), was also nominated for the Robert McGovern Prize. She won the Nassau Prize for Nonfiction in 2011, and the same prize for fiction in 2015, and was also a finalist for Best of the Net 2014. She has received fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Martha's Vineyard Writers’ Residency. Dolan's poetry has also been previously published in AJN (December 2016). “After the Biopsy” © 2018 by Liz Dolan. Contact author: [email protected]. Art of Nursing is coordinated by Amy M. Collins, managing editor: [email protected].

Historical and Ecological Insights from a Relictual Sandplain: Reexamining the Insular Moth Fauna (Lepidoptera) of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, USA

We summarize the primary records from more than 30 years of lepidopteran sampling across the largest of the southern New England offshore islands, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. This island supports one of the highest concentrations of regionally unique or threatened Lepidopteran occurrences in the northeastern United States, including more than 75% of the ∼90 moth species formally protected in Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, perhaps the most intact moth fauna in the region associated with barrens, heathlands, and other sandplain communities. The array of first recorded regional occurrences and unique records of species previously believed extirpated, absent, or in decline throughout mainland New England includes: Lycia ypsilon (S.A. Forbes, 1885), Ptichodis bistrigata Hubner, 1818, Amphipoea erepta (Grote, 1881), Cycnia collaris (Fitch, 1856), Catocala pretiosa Lintner, 1876, Eacles imperialis (Drury, 1773), Eubaphe meridiana (Slosson, 1889), Heterocampa variaWalker, 1855, Metarranthis apiciaria (Packard, 1876), Phytometra rhodarialis (Walker, 1859), and Spilosoma dubia (Walker, 1855). Associates of grass-dominated and maritime wetland habitats in particular are overrepresented among species now believed extirpated from Martha's Vineyard itself, including Speyeria idalia (Drury, 1773), Digrammia eremiata (Guenee, [1858]), Pyrrhia aurantiago (Guenee, 1852), Papaipema stenocelis (Dyar, 1907).We explore the associations of threatened moths with various habitats in the context of regional decline, and emphasize the relevance of moth life history requirements to understanding their distributions across inland, coastal, and island barrens with varied ecological and land use histories.

Identifying social factors that undermine support for nature-based coastal management

Human use and degradation of coastal ecosystems is at an all-time high. Thus, a current challenge for environmental management and research is moving beyond ecological definitions of success and integrating socioeconomic factors. Projects and studies with this aim, however, have focused primarily on monetary valuations of ecosystem functions, overlooking the behaviors and psycho-social motivations of environmental management. Using a nature-based salt marsh restoration project on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, we assess the role of human attitudes and preferences in evaluating social success for ecosystem management. We use structural equation modeling to compare the strengths of social variables in predicting restoration project support, and find public understanding to be a more important predictor than personal values. Our results show that even among stakeholders with strong pro-environmental values, a weak understanding of the management initiative can undermine support. We also find that project support does not necessarily translate to the prioritization of similar management strategies. Instead, when individuals consider overall management priorities, differences arise between particular resource user-groups. This suggests that strong public support for individual initiatives can misconstrue complexities in stakeholder preferences that emerge in more comprehensive management considerations. Future investigations of the psycho-social components of management solutions should address the potentially tiered nature of human preferences, as well as whether public perceptions of management effectiveness act as an additional context-dependency of social viability.

Efficacy of Two Systemic Insecticides With Stem Gall Wasp, Zapatella davisae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) on Black Oak.

Black oak, Quercus velutina Lamarck, is the dominant deciduous tree on Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and in recent years it has experienced widespread mortality and severe canopy loss due to infestations of a stem gall wasp, Zapatella davisae Buffington and Melika (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae). A single application of systemic insecticides emamectin benzoate and imidacloprid was found to reduce or prevent further accumulation of Z. davisae damage on infested black oak during a 1-yr trial.

Life History and Potential Hosts of Zapatella davisae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), a Recent Invader on Black Oak in the Northeastern United States

Abstract Quercus velutina (Black Oak) is a dominant deciduous tree in Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, MA. In recent years, Black Oak trees in these regions have experienced severe canopy loss due to the infestation of a stem-gall wasp, Zapatella davisae. In addition to infestations first documented in the Cape Cod region in 2012, Zapatella davisae has been present in Long Island, NY, since the 1990s. We investigated the life cycle of Z. davisae, specifically emergence patterns and timing of development. We evaluated differences in the severity of the infestations in Long Island and Cape Cod. We also identified towns in Cape Cod that contained Z. davisae infestations to better estimate the geographic extent of the infestation in the region. We found that Zapatella davisae completes 1 generation per year and emerges throughout the month of May. The severity of the infestation was the greatest in Cape Cod, an indication that something is controlling the population in Long Island. We concluded tha...