AP, MPBN Reports on $1.1M Collaborative Plankton Study
The Associated Press and Maine Public Broadcasting Network reported on a $1.1 million collaborative project involving the University of Maine and four other research institutions in the region that aims to better understand the physical and biological processes that control the abundance of a plankton species essential to the food web of the Northeast coastal ocean. The researchers will look at the effects of ocean warming on the marine copepod Calanus finmarchicus, the primary prey for herring and other forage fish, as well as for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. “The expectation from the statistical analysis is that this species may well disappear and that would have a pretty dramatic effect on the Gulf of Maine food web,” said Jeffrey Runge, a professor in UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences who will serve as project coordinator/principal investigator and is responsible for biological measurements throughout the study. FOX 25 (in Boston), Portland Press Herald, The Republic and WABI (Channel 5) carried the AP article. CapeCod.com also reported on the project.