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Huntsman Overview Vision, Mission & Value Teammates Careers More Aquatic Research Technician II – Aquatic Toxicology Specialist The Huntsman Marine Science Centre Aquatic Biosciences department is looking to fill an Aquatic Research Technician II Specialist position with an individual having specific interest, experience and skillset associated with Aquatic Toxicology . We are looking for a highly motivated and dynamic individual who works well both individually and within a team of technicians and research scientists to conduct a diverse set of confidential research contracts and projects for commercial, government, and university sponsors. This is primarily a laboratory position but there may be occasional fieldwork opportunities. WAGE AND BENEFITS: Hourly wage commensurate with experience plus benefits, including health care, annual and sick leave, life insurance and retirement plan available. This full-time position will be offered on an indeterminate basis and is funded through research contracts. RESPONSIBILITIES: Coordinate and lead In Life Phase aquatic toxicology studies, including organize staff, trial preparation, conduct exposures, ongoing husbandry and data collection, and quality checks with entry of collected data. Mentor and train less experienced members of the team and visiting students. Assist with laboratory management and organization, including laboratory supplies and equipment. Develop methods and design of experimental set-ups, involving troubleshooting and prototype testing, with research and technical staff. Comprehend, assimilate and adhere to regulatory requirements (such as Good Laboratory Practices), laboratory Standard Operating Procedures, study protocols and other instructions. Prepare Standard Operating Procedures related to project activities and complete required technical staff training. Other duties may involve preparation of analytical standards, reagents, and/or solutions; preparing appropriate glassware; maintaining thorough documentation; work with diverse analytical instrumentation. Reliably work independently as well as within a team of study participants having diverse talents and personalities. Verify data recorded on Data Capture Forms to ensure compliance with department Standard Operating Procedures and Study Plans/Study Protocols as necessary. Undertake data QA/QC when required. Cross training in other department disciplines as needed to meet project and business demands. QUALIFICATIONS: Must be able to work in a production-focused laboratory, while being detail-oriented and efficient. Relevant Bachelor degree or technical diploma or equivalent experience. Demonstrated understanding of aquatic toxicology study principles through a combination of hands-on experience and coursework. Experience handling aquatic species and life stages that Huntsman Marine projects rely upon, including but not limited to marine fish and invertebrates, amphibians, freshwater invertebrates, and live feed production. Proficiency in computer use including spreadsheets, word processing and internet is expected. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Demonstrated experience to coordinate and assign varied tasks to numerous team members is an asset. Experience with analytical instrumentation, such as spectroscopy, fluorometry and qPCR, is an asset. GLP experience is a plus. Valid driver’s licence – class 5. Ability to legally work or obtain a Visa to work in Canada. This position is expected to involve weekend and holiday work, answering emergency calls and shift work might be necessary and as part of a staff rotation. Travel may also be required to support field sample collection and field trials. APPLICATION: Applications are now accepted with the position anticipated to begin as soon as possible. Applicants should indicate current citizenship and work permit status for employment in Canada. Although Canadians and permanent residents to Canada will be given priority, all qualified candidates will be given full consideration. Only those selected for interviews will be contacted. Send single electronic submission with cover letter, CV, and names of three references (including e-mail and telephone number) to: Huntsman Marine Science Centre 1 Lower Campus Road St. Andrews, NB E5B 2L7 E-mail: huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca

Huntsman Overview Vision, Mission & Value Teammates Careers More Shares & Investments Donate appreciated investments to avoid capital gains taxes while impacting ocean stewardship! Giving your appreciated publicly listed securities of stock, bonds or mutual funds to Huntsman Marine allows you to positively impact ocean stewardship while receiving a charitable tax credit on the full market value and avoiding the capital gains tax that you would otherwise incur following its sale. This giving strategy allows the donor to increase the amount of your gift without increasing its cost to you. The donor must initiate the electronic transfer of their security, typically through a professional advisor, to Huntsman Marine as the recipient. Please connect with us directly to initiate your security donation at huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca or by calling 506-529-1200. The below downloadable form must be completed and submitted to Huntsman Marine and TD Waterhouse Canada to provide legal indication that you are the registered holder of the listed shares and their imminent transfer. Note that the top form are for securities denominated in CANADIAN dollars while the bottom form are for securities denominated in US dollars. Charitable Donation of Securities in Kind – Denominated in CANADIAN DOLLARS Charitable Donation of Securities in Kind – Denominated in US DOLLARS Below is an example for illustration purposes , using a combined tax rate of 45% that may vary across provinces, to show the benefit of donating appreciated publicly listed securities directly to Huntsman Marine (OPTION #1) versus selling these same securities then donating the proceeds (OPTION #2). We encourage all prospective security donors to consult with your qualified investment manager and discuss your specific situation.

Huntsman Overview Vision, Mission & Value Teammates Careers More Benthic Taxonomic Specialist SUMMARY: The Huntsman Marine Science Centre is expanding its Taxonomy team with additional Marine Benthic Taxonomic Specialist positions – individuals having specific interest, experience and skillset associated with benthic taxonomic identification of marine species, especially from the western Atlantic Ocean. We are looking for highly motivated and dynamic individuals who work well both individually and within a team of technicians and research scientists to conduct a diverse set of confidential research contracts and projects for commercial, government, and university sponsors. The ideal candidate will have expertise in sorting benthic samples and identifying benthos, preferably from Atlantic Canadian, or biogeographically related, waters. This is primarily a laboratory position but there may be occasional fieldwork opportunities. WAGE AND BENEFITS: Hourly wage commensurate with experience plus benefits, including health care, annual and sick leave, life insurance and retirement plan available. This full-time position has comparable responsibilities to the Huntsman Aquatic Research Technician II position, has an indeterminate term, and is funded through research contracts. RESPONSIBILITIES: Identifying marine benthos to species with a high degree of precision. Working with stereo dissecting and compound microscopes, balances, and other lab equipment. Transferring samples out of chemical preservatives and subsampling according to approved laboratory techniques. Recording raw data promptly, accurately, and in compliance with Standard Operating Procedures while retaining responsibility for data quality. Verifying data recorded on DCFs to ensure compliance with department Standard Operating Procedures and Study Plans/Study Protocols as necessary. Undertaking data QA/QC when required. Organizing and researching taxonomic identification materials from lab-provided and internet sources to enable efficient and accurate identification of species. Coordinating taxonomic identification projects on marine infauna, including developing protocols, organising staff, and data QA/QC. Preparing Standard Operating Procedures and protocols related to project activities. Mentoring and training less experienced members of staff and students. Assisting with laboratory management and organization, including managing laboratory supplies and equipment and Health and Safety. Assisting or leading field collection as required. Reliably working independently as well as within a team of study participants having diverse talents and personalities. Undertaking cross-training in other department disciplines as needed to meet project and business demands. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Relevant Bachelor degree or technical diploma or equivalent experience to demonstrate Specialist level knowledge. Experience and expertise in identifying marine benthos. Must be able to work in a production-focused laboratory while being detail-oriented and efficient. Significant experience with microscope work. Proficiency in computer use, including spreadsheets, word processing, and internet. Physical ability to perform assigned duties that may require work in adverse environmental conditions; and/or carry or lift heavy materials; and/or work with toxic, volatile, and corrosive chemicals or carcinogenic substances. Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. Ability to legally work or obtain a Visa to work in Canada. DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS: Expertise in identifying species from Atlantic Canada or biogeographically related waters. Experience of staff management or training. Ability to travel to other locations to complete sampling events. APPLICATION: Applications are now accepted with the position anticipated to begin as soon as possible. Applicants should indicate current citizenship and work permit status for employment in Canada. Although Canadians and permanent residents to Canada will be given priority, all qualified candidates will be given full consideration. Only those selected for interviews will be contacted. Send single electronic submission with cover letter, CV, and names of three references (including e-mail and telephone number) to: Huntsman Marine Science Centre 1 Lower Campus Road St. Andrews, NB E5B 2L7 E-mail: huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca

After a few days exploring the marine environment around Les Escoumins we are now headed for the Saguenay Fjord. Carved by glaciers during the last ice age, the Saguenay Fjord is a thin U-shaped valley, 105 km long and on average only 1.6 km wide. Cliffs tower above the surface of its waters, reaching 412 m at their highest point, Cap Trinité. They continue to plunge into depths of over 275 m. High cliffs at the edge of the Saguenay Fjord. Credit: Ellen Fanning/Huntsman Marine Skipper Carl Tremblay has quizzed us about our diving experience to make sure we are qualified enough to safely dive the fjord. All divers must have experience of night diving and diving in currents. But why night diving when we are here in the daytime? We are ready for our first dive, and it is time to find out! The team onboard the Accès Plongee Saguenay boat with skipper and dive expert Carl Tremblay. Charlie, Claire, Andrea and Jo prepare to dive. Credit: Ellen Fanning/Huntsman Marine Explos-Nature diver Julian, my buddy for today, and I are ready to dive. We step off the platform at the back of the boat and swim rapidly to the wall to avoid being swept away by the current. We check in with each other and start to descend. There are two distinct water layers within the fjord. As we start to sink, we are first passing through the upper freshwater layer. At this time of year, it is pleasantly warm, it can reach up to 20°C in summer, but in winter it freezes. Mussels cover the wall. Only freshwater species can live here, salinities range between 5 and 26 ppt. I look up towards the surface. The light is an eerie reddish-orange colour. This freshwater comes from Lake Saint-Jean and the tannins and iron from the forests that surround the lake make it a tea-like colour. The brown surface water blocks out light so by the time we reach 15 m it is almost completely dark. I am very glad of my large video lights. I check in with Julian and we continue to descend. The water starts to shimmer and become hazy, it’s hard to see Julian even though he is right next to me. The top fresh layer and the deeper marine waters are starting to mix, causing this effect. We are now entering the seawater that forms most of the fjord. This layer is fully marine, varying in salinity from 26 to 31 ppt. It is also much colder than the surface waters for much of the year, typically between 0 and 4°C, although recently it has been warming and today it is around 6°C. The unique environments found in fjords mean that you often find deep-sea organisms much shallower than they would normally be present. So, sampling here is a great opportunity for us to get specimens of deeper water species for our project. We reach our target depth and I start to sample. The rock walls are covered with life: bright red sea strawberry soft corals, basket stars with tangled arms, and most exciting for me, many sponges. Although I have to admit the iridescent bobtail squid are rather more fun to watch! Sea strawberry soft corals and basket stars on the wall at Cap Trinité. Jo is using bright lights to take this photo, or this would be pitch black. Credit: Jo Porter This sea slug species was common, here you can see a group and their egg masses to the left. Credit: Claire Goodwin/Huntsman Marine Bobtail squid were frequent in the Saguenay Fjord. Credit: Claire Goodwin/Huntsman Marine

“So,” Charlie explains, “you simply put on your fins and crawl backward over the rock into the water. Then to get out, you can grasp onto this spike to help pull yourself out of the water.” Charlie is the Diving Officer for Explos-Nature and our dive guide for today. The three of us look at her, slightly horrified, rock climbing wasn’t in my risk assessment! We are all wearing twin sets (two scuba tanks) with heavy lead weight belts and are loaded down with sampling bags and cameras. We have also already hiked down the hill pushing our dive kit in wheelbarrows and then carried it over the uneven rocks to the edge of the water. Following Charlie’s advice, we slide down the sloping rock like three clumsy seals. But when we have sunk down to the seabed it is worth the struggle. Large red anemones and scarlet sea cucumbers cover the rock wall. Between them are lots of smaller animals – including bryozoans. We get to work sampling. Andrea, Julian, Claire and Jo prepare to enter the water at Les Escoumins. Credit: Explos Nature The steep rocky shores at Les Escoumins made for some tricky entries. Credit: Ellen Fanning We are diving in Baie des Anémones at Les Escoumins. This is a popular base for scuba diving from the shore, operated by Parks Canada. Les Escoumins is situated on a rocky peninsula on the north shore of the St Lawrence Estuary. Here, the rocky shores drop rapidly to depths of 300 metres. The upwellings and currents supply abundant food for filter feeding animals, so the sites are very rich in marine life. Filter feeding anemones, sea peaches (ascidians) and sea cucumbers cover every surface in the Baie des Anemones. Credit: Jo Porter Ellen is acting as our shore safety attendant, poised ready to help if there is any incident while we are diving. This can be a fairly boring job, watching the divers’ bubbles or buoy until they surface. But on this trip whales entertain Ellen while we are underwater. Because the shore here is so close to deep water, you can whale watch right from the rocks. A humpback whale surfaces before flipping its tail up to dive. In the distance Ellen spots a blue whale! Meanwhile, the divers underwater are oblivious to this wildlife spectacle as they intently examine rocks and boulders for marine invertebrates. While we are diving Christy and Mary are off exploring the intertidal zones of the shore or pontoons in marinas. This also isn’t without its hazards – Mary returns from one trip covered in mosquito bites. The first shore site is a rocky mussel bed at Cap de Bon-Désir. Many tourists watch from the rock bluffs as a humpback whale entertains us only about 30 feet away. This shore is dominated by blue mussels, amphipods (Gammarus) and large predatory worms (Alitta virens). Rocky shore at Cap de Bon-Désir. Credit: Mary Spencer Jones On day two, we head to a very different intertidal habitat with a sandy beach at Pointe à John. Here, the fauna reminds me much more of that in subarctic Churchill, MB, than in the Bay of Fundy. In particular, castings of the lugworm Arenicola marina litter the beach. We walk out for 30 minutes, but we are still only halfway to the low water edge. We decide to stop here and see what we can find. Mary examines the seaweeds for white patches of bryozoans while I dig and sieve the sand for organisms. We have a window of about 1 hour before the tide comes back in and threatens to carry away our buckets and tools. Sandy beach at Pointe à John. Credit: Mary Spencer Jones We are also using a grab to sample. This is a device that has jaws that close to grab a chunk of the seabed. Normally we would use a winch on the boat to haul the full grab from the seabed, but the Explos-Nature boat is small and does not have a winch. So, we must hand haul the grab. We soon develop a good system, three of us hauling at once. But it is hard work! Hauling up the grab aboard the Explos-Nature vessel the Merveille C. Credit: Explos Nature After our sampling trips we head back to the lab to examine and identify our finds. We’re not looking only for the big stuff that is obvious underwater but also tiny animals that are hard to see with the naked eye. We hunt over rocks for the tiniest bryozoan crusts, pick minute shrimp off weed and pull minuscule worms out of seafloor mud and sand. We have to photograph each specimen, give it a field ID and preserve it in ethanol so we can examine it further later and send tissue off to be barcoded. The team hard at work in the lab examining the day’s catches. Credit: Ellen Fanning

We’re off on the road again, and this time we are headed to Quebec on fieldwork for our barcoding project. This project will create a barcode library for Atlantic Canadian marine invertebrate species. It's funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada under a program that aims to develop tools for monitoring Marine Protected Areas. Barcodes are short fragments of DNA that we can use to identify species instead of examining their physical characteristics. However, this is only possible if the species are already in a barcoding reference database, and we estimate that over half of our marine species are not yet barcoded. To learn more about barcodes check out Christy’s blog from last year https://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/post/soi-expedition-blog-post-2-what-is-a-barcode-christy-carr. Last year, during the first phase of the project, Christy completed a gap analysis to determine which marine species barcodes were missing with a primary gap being from the Phylum Bryozoa where few species had been barcoded to date. Bryozoans can be erect, like Dendrobeania murrayana (top) or encrusting like Parasmittina jeffreysi (bottom). Credit: HMSC. Bryozoans or moss animals are colonial, aquatic organisms. Their colonies are composed of individuals called zooids. Bryozoan colonies can grow over rocks, shells and seaweed in thin sheets or form upright fan or bush structures. Although all zooids in a colony are genetically identical, they can look very different and perform different jobs, including feeding, excretion, defence and reproduction. Bryozoans are filter feeders and use a crown of tentacles, called a lophophore, to take small particles, such as bacteria and plankton, from seawater. The bryozoan Flustrellidra hispida feeding. Credit: Mary Spencer-Jones. Unfortunately, there are currently no bryozoan specialists working on the east coast of Canada, so for this trip we have imported some from the United Kingdom! Mary Spencer Jones is the Senior Curator of Recent Bryozoa from the Natural History Museum in London, Andrea Waeschenbach, also from the Natural History Museum, is a Researcher who specialises in molecular systematics, and Professor Jo Porter from Heriot Watt University. The bryozoan team Andrea, Mary and Jo did occasionally escape the lab to sample Canadian delicacies like poutine. We’ve chosen to go to Québec to get samples of more northern fauna for our project. The Gulf of St Lawrence has much colder waters than our Bay of Fundy, so we find Arctic and boreal species there. We’ll be working with Explos-Nature (https://explosnature.ca; a non-profit organization with some similar activities as Huntsman Marine but in Québec). Their team have extensive diving experience in the local area and will guide us to the best spots. Our survey is within the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park and we have permits from both Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Parks Canada to allow us to sample. The team will travel from Huntsman Marine to Les Escoumins and the Saguenay Fjord, both are within the Saguenay-St Lawrence Marine Park. Credit: Map data from Google. Cool facts about bryozoan Many bryozoans have calcium carbonate skeletons – we identify their species by looking at the shape of the zooids. We often have to look at them at very high magnification to see clearly. We sometimes must use a scanning electron microscope to do so. A colony of the bryozoan Dendrobeania murrayana seen under the scanning electron microscope. Credit: HMSC. Romans used to grind up bryozoans to use as toothpaste. Their calcium carbonate skeleton is abrasive to scrub off dirt and stains. However, the Romans might not have been too discriminating as they also used urine and mouse brains for teeth cleaning! We can use the chemicals in bryozoans (or the bacterial colonies that live inside the bryozoan) to develop new drugs. Bryozoans produce chemicals to stop predators from eating them. Many of these have medicinal properties against diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. Bryozoans can grow very big. One specimen of the potato crisp bryozoan Pentapora foliacea trawled up in the UK was over two metres wide. Sadly, bryozoans rarely grow this large now as they are easily damaged by mobile fishing gear (and scientific sampling gear!). A colony of the potato crisp bryozoan Pentapora foliacea. Credit: Natural History Museum, London. Some bryozoans have structures called avicularia that look like bird heads. The beak snaps at predators to deter them from eating the colony or removes organisms that try to settle on it. A colony of Dendrobeania murrayana in close up showing birds head avicularia. Credit: Mary Spencer-Jones. Bryozoans can form reefs similar to coral reefs. One reef at Western Port in southern Australia covers an area of 1.74 km2 and up to 1.5 m high. https://fathompacific.com/project-spotlight/western-port-bryozoan-reef-project/ We can find bryozoans from the seashore to the deep sea. The deepest a bryozoan has been found so far was at 8,300 m in the Kermadec Trench in the Pacific Ocean.