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News2026-01-27T21:46:33+00:00

TBS News

Stay current with our latest updates and announcements.

We know she doesn’t love being the center of attention, but this weekend is all about our superstar, Sherryl!! 👆🎉 We appreciate everything she does for us (and for science!) and wish her the happiest of birthdays, filled with good music, dancing, family, friends, and lots of fun! 🥳💃🎶
🎣🎰 FISHING LOTTERY: LAB EDITION 🧪😂 When everyone’s available, but the samples aren’t going to label themselves… 😅 Aaliyah took matters into her own hands and let fate decide! 🎶✨ 🎵 Make my dreams come true 🎵 🎉 Three lucky winners pulled from the marine storage box…🧪 One final name left to stay behind and prep the jar labels! Around here, even sample prep comes with a little suspense. 😂🔬 Video credits go to Alexandra Lee… who will have first dibs for the next fishing trip! #TampaBaySurveillanceProject #LabLife #EveryoneWantsToFish
From contaminants in Tampa Bay to exploring the deep sea!  🌊🧪⚓️   Master’s student Layne Leggett also known as our “Barnacle Queen” 👑 recently got the opportunity to strengthen her skills in another one of her passions: seafloor mapping!  🗺️🌎   Last month, Layne spent 31 days at sea aboard E/V Nautilus (@nautiluslive) ⛴️as a mapper and navigator🧭, supporting remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives and exploring the deep sea! During ROV operations, she worked alongside the pilots to help monitor and navigate the vehicle while the team explored deep-sea habitats and documented the incredible organisms living around Wake Island (one of the most remote areas of the Pacific Ocean)! 🌊When the ROV wasn’t in the water, she helped monitor the continuous stream of multibeam sonar data, which allows scientists to map the seafloor and better understand the underwater landscapes!🏔️   Before diving headfirst into the contaminant world 🧪, Layne already had a background in seafloor mapping, so she was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to put those skills to work at sea and experience ocean exploration from a whole new perspective. Following her advisor Steve’s example of wearing many scientific hats,🧢 Layne is a big believer in never limiting yourself to one field. Keep building your skills, stay curious, and see where they take you! 🌎   Swipe through for a few snapshots of life aboard Nautilus, Layne in action, and some of the amazing critters spotted during ROV dives! (Can you spot the deep-sea acorn barnacle?) ✨ 🦀🐙🪸   While she had an AMAZING time at sea, she’s excited to be back home and get back to the important work of finding out what’s in our barnacles here in Tampa Bay! 🔬 👩🏼‍🔬   #OceanExploration #DeepSea #SeafloorMapping #ROV #nautiluslive   Photo Credit:   Headshot in top middle on Slide 1: Ocean Exploration Trust  Underwater ROV Images on Slide: 4: Ocean Exploration Trust, NOAA
🎣 CAPTAIN FEATURE: MATT SANTIAGO Captain Matt is one of the local charter captains that helps make the work of the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project, Barnacle Baseline, and the McKay Bay project research efforts possible. Our partnerships with local captains are incredibly valuable. These are the people who know Tampa Bay — its waters, fish, tides, seasons, and changing conditions — from years spent on the water. Their knowledge helps scientists better understand the Bay and allows us to get where we need to go to do the work. We’re grateful for everything Captain Matt brings to our projects, from his expertise on the water to his willingness to work alongside scientists to the tunes he plays for us on his boat! We truly could not do what we do without him! We asked Captain Matt a few questions about his career, his favorite memory working with the TBS crew, and what he does when not working with us. Swipe to see the sweet tarpon caught by his wife! 🎣 Thank you, Captain Matt, for being such an important part of our Tampa Bay science community! 💙
The Tampa Bay Surveillance team has been out sharing research and connecting with colleagues at two recent conferences! Last week, Sherryl Gilbert, Assistant Director of Marine Research and Development, and graduate researcher AJ Gross attended the FLERA Conference in Jacksonville, where they presented on Wastewater and Stormwater Impacts in Florida’s Estuaries. This week, anthropologist Dr. Heather O’Leary is attending the Science of PFAS Conference, learning about the latest PFAS research while surveying conference attendees about fish consumption as part of TBS’s social science research. These opportunities to share research and learn from others help inform our ongoing work to understand contaminants and their impacts in Tampa Bay. #tampabaysurveillance #pfas #wastewater #socialscience #marineresearch
TBS doctoral student researcher Kylee Rullo-Soletti has a new publication in Fisheries Oceanography! Drawing from Kylee’s master’s research, this study uses stable isotopes in tuna eye lenses to explore how yellowfin and blackfin tuna change their diets and move through the Gulf over their lifetimes, offering new insight into their movement patterns and residency. Congrats, Kylee et al.! 🎉🐟 Link to full publication in our stories 🔗
Cheers to ONE year of TBS on social media! 🥳 WOW. We’ve come a long way and we’ve loved bringing you on the journey. 🐟🦪 Outreach is a huge part of what we do, because science shouldn’t stop in the lab… it’s meant to be shared, understood, celebrated, and put into action! 🌎✨ #tbsproject #outreach #tampabay #environmentalhealth
The Tampa Bay Surveillance Project launched in late 2023, and since then, three companion studies have expanded our work across Tampa Bay. 🎣 Tampa Bay REACH expands our investigation of fishing habits and community knowledge of contamination. 🦪 The Barnacle Baseline Project is helping us better understand contaminant sources and concentrations using barnacles as sentinel species. And through 🔬 McKay Bay TRACE, we’re examining contaminants in fish and people in one of Tampa Bay’s most heavily urbanized and industrialized areas. Together, these projects are building a more comprehensive picture of contamination in Tampa Bay—from contaminant sources and environmental pathways to wildlife and human exposure, and what that means for communities connected to the bay. 🎞️ Take a look at the video for a brief snapshot of each project, including its timeline, current status, and some highlights from the work to date. #TampaBay #TampaBayResearch #EnvironmentalResearch #MarineScience #Contaminants
Introducing McKay Bay TRACE (Targeted Research and Assessment of Contaminants in the Estuary) … and two different types of field days with the same week! 🐟🧪 McKay Bay TRACE is a new companion project to our Tampa Bay Surveillance (TBS) study. Similarly to our TBS study, McKay Bay TRACE will investigate contaminants in sediment, oysters, and recreationally harvested fish, but with a targeted focus on McKay Bay and the lower Palm River. 🎣 Field sampling is officially underway! Throughout the duration of the project, our team will take a closer look at what’s in these waters, what’s making its way into the species people catch and eat, and what it means for the health of this unique urban estuary. Learn more about the project by clicking the link in our story and follow along as we TRACE McKay Bay! 🌊🔬 #contaminants #TampaBay #McKayBay #marineresearch #PalmRiver waterquality
Join us Thursday, August 6, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. EDT for @noaa Student Experiences 3-Minute Lightning Talks: Gulf of America Forum Webinar. Tampa Bay Surveillance Project graduate students Kylee Rullo-Soletti and Alexandra Lee will share their research in fast-paced, three-minute presentations: 📍 Kylee Rullo-Soletti: “Location, Location, Contamination: Spatial Patterns of PFAS in Tampa Bay Red Drum” 🐟 Alexandra Lee: “Investigating Parental Offloading of Chemical Pollutants in Spotted Seatrout” Fellow @usfmarinescience graduate student Hallie Repeta will also present “Evaluating Climate-Responsive Management Strategies for Gulf Menhaden Using an End-to-End Ecosystem Framework.” Tune in for a quick and engaging look at the impressive research being conducted by students throughout the Gulf region! Register here ➡️ https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4196055686550101592 (find the live link in our stories)
Meet Alexis Mitchem, a PhD candidate in Dr. Mya Breitbart's lab and our resident DNA Diva! 🧬🐟 For the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project, Alexis is uncovering what common snook are really eating using DNA metabarcoding and stable isotope analysis. By piecing together these underwater food webs, she's exploring predator-prey relationships, trophic positions, and how snook diets change as they grow. Her research helps us better understand Tampa Bay's ecosystem and provides valuable information to support fisheries management and conservation. Every DNA sequence tells a story—and Alexis is helping us read the menu! 💙🌊 Check out where she hopes to go next in her career path, what her favorite field snack is, and advice to her younger self in this staff feature! #StaffFeatureFriday #TampaBaySurveillance #Snook
What’s in the freezer? A whole lot of fish stomachs...and food-web clues. 🐟🔍 Before stomach dissections begin, Dr. Steve Murawski and members of the Tampa Bay Surveillance team gathered to take stock of the samples and discuss methods for the work ahead. Next came a visit to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) for hands-on training with Julianne Knight, a veteran of the Fish Feeding Ecology Lab, affectionately known as the “Guts Lab.” Julianne shared her expertise and plenty of tips for dissecting fish stomachs and identifying their contents, including fish, crabs, mollusks, parasites and even bait. It’s as gross as it sounds, and every bit as fascinating. Identifiable features such as shells, bones and other hard structures can reveal important clues about what these fish are eating. (Thank you, Julianne and FWRI!) Graduate researchers Lauren Bulik and Alexis Mitchem recently joined the TBS team to help take this work further. By combining diet analysis with research on contaminants across trophic levels, they will help us better understand predator-prey relationships and how contaminants move through Tampa Bay’s food webs. We’ll be introducing Alexis, the DNA Diva, this Friday. Stay tuned! 📻 🧬 🔍
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Funding for this work was made available through award NA23NOS4690261 of the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Competitive Research Program to the University of South Florida Tampa Bay Surveillance Project.

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