Climate Resilience – Aquaculture Research Institute

A Farmer to Farmer Exchange Program to Support Innovation in Maine’s Aquaculture Sector

Lead PI: Chris Davis PI Email: christopher.v.davis@gmail.com Co-PI: Anne Langston Noll, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center Project Team: Chris Davis & Anne Langston Noll, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center Abstract: Small aquaculture businesses tend to operate using locally-derived processes and technologies, often without regard to practices conducted elsewhere, resulting in frequent “reinvention of the wheel”. An aquaculture-specific […]

Ocean Smart Farm: Mechanizing Biofouling Control in Oyster Farming

Lead PI: Keith Butterfield PI Email: keith@butterfieldshellfish.com Project Team: Austin Donnelly, Butterfield Shellfish; Karen Butterfield, Butterfield Shellfish; Dana Morse, Maine Sea Grant; Chris Davis, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center; Aaron Pannell, FlipFarm Abstract: The ultimate goal of this project is to completely transform oyster farming in the U.S. by implementing mechanical devices to control biofouling and […]

Expanding green sea urchin production by removing key aquaculture challenges

Lead PI: Coleen Suckling, University of Rhode Island PI Email: coleensuckling@uri.edu Co-PI: Stephen Eddy Project Team: Coleen Suckling, University of Rhode Island; Stephen Eddy, University of Maine CCAR; Luz Kogson, University of Maine CCAR; Dana Morse, University of Maine Sea Grant; David Quinby, Ocean Resources, Inc.; Jordan Kramer, Winnegance Oyster Farm; Sarah Redmond, Springtide Seaweed Abstract: This proposal […]

Resilience of cold water aquaculture: a review of likely scenarios as climate changes in the Gulf of Maine

Lead PI: Ian R. Bricknell Authors: Ian R. Bricknell, Sean D. Birkel, Susan H. Brawley, Tyler Van Kirk, Heather J. Hamlin, Kyle Capistrant-Fossa, Kimberly Huguenard, G. Peter Van Walsum, Zhilong L. Liu, Longhuan H. Zhu, Gretchen Grebe, Emma Taccardi, Molly Miller, Brian M. Preziosi, Kevin Duffy, Carrie J. Byron, Charlotte T.C. Quigley, Timothy J. Bowden, […]

Scallop Aquaculture Initiative

Lead PI: Desmond Fitzgerald Project Team: Hugh Cowperthwaite, Blaine Grimes, Jake Ward, Jonathan Labaree, Gayle Zydlewski, Mike Bonney Abstract: The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, University of Maine, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., and the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center plan to partner with Maine private farmers and coastal communities to look at the status of scallop aquaculture in […]

Assessment of Aquaculture Structure Resilience to Environmental Change

Project Description Two significant challenges to offshore aquaculture are loading from storms and the costs of anchoring equipment at depth. Much of the anchoring expense is from installation, where barge/vessel size, a limited supply of advanced anchor installation equipment and expertise, and risk associated with over water operations drive costs. A critical objective for marine […]

Attenuating Waves with Kelp Farms

Project Description Coastal cities are vulnerable to risks associated with storms. Typical storm surge and wave damage includes beach erosion, flooding, and impairment of coastal infrastructure. Often hard engineering structures are used to mitigate these influences, though they have adverse impacts to adjacent coastlines and can be viewed unfavorably by society. Soft (or green) engineering […]

Environmental Change and Water Level Variability

Project Description Predictions of the impact of environmental change include increased storm intensity and frequency. To date, most research has focused on studying storm surge. Researchers have typically relied on models to represent idealized scenarios of storm surge behavior. Without observations to capture how storm surge behaves inside an estuary, the actual effects remain a […]

Laboratory and Field Experiments Looking at Sediment Buffering with CaCO3 to Enhance Recruitment of Mya arenaria

Project Description The project aims to determine if sediment CaCO3 saturation state is a recruitment cue for settling marine bivalves employing Mya arenaria as a model species. Earlier work (on hard clams Mercenaria mercenaria) has shown sediment pH is correlated with numbers of settling bivalves, and there is an ‘active’ process of site selection where […]

Assessment of Aquaculture Structure Resilience to Environmental Change

Project Description Two significant challenges to offshore aquaculture are loading from storms and the costs of anchoring equipment at depth. Much of the anchoring expense is from installation, where barge/vessel size, a limited supply of advanced anchor installation equipment and expertise, and risk associated with over water operations drive costs. A critical objective for marine […]