New England Environment

Sarah presents community shellfish project

Graduate student Sarah Risley presented the State of the Damariscotta River Estuary report to the Damariscotta Board of Selectmen on Wednesday evening, November 3, 2021. You can watch the video recording of the presentation on the Town’s YouTube channel named, “Town of Damariscotta, Maine.” You can access the Damariscotta report here. Later in November, Sarah […]

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Melissa in the field

New research on aquaculture

Congratulations to Melissa on the publication of her Masters thesis research in Marine Policy! New aquaculture research highlights areas of consensus, disagreement

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Damariscotta StoryMap launched

Melissa Britsch and Heather Leslie have launched a StoryMap focused on research in the Damariscotta River Estuary. They highlight the roles diverse researchers and research stations have played in generating knowledge about the estuary, and marine ecosystems more generally. We expect this collection will be of interest to scientists and community members alike, and help […]

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Chadbourne, Damariscotta R Estuary

Mitchell Center highlights shellfish research

Graduate student Sarah Risley, together with Prof. Heather Leslie and Joshua Stoll, received an award from the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions earlier this spring for her engaged research on shellfish ecology and management in the Damariscotta River Estuary. Congrats, Sarah! Building Knowledge and Capacity for Community-Led Coastal Stewardship

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Update – Shellfish resilience project

Dr. Heather Leslie presented the Final Report on the 2019 Shellfish Resilience Project to the Joint Shellfish Committee of the Towns of Damariscotta and Newcastle on Jan 2, 2020. This presentation followed on an earlier presentation by Dr. Kara Pellowe, postdoc in the Leslie lab, in September 2019. Kara’s presentation was reported in the local […]

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Local shellfish project launched

The Leslie Lab at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center invites current and past shellfish license-holders to participate in shellfish surveys in July on Damariscotta tidal flats. These surveys will help inform future stewardship of the shellfish resources managed jointly by the towns of Damariscotta and Newcastle. For more information or to volunteer, contact Pellowe at 303.895.7674. […]

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New paper on intertidal alternate states

Menge, B. A., M. Bracken, J. Lubchenco, and H. M. Leslie. 2017. Alternative state? Experimentally-induced Fucus canopy persists 38 years in an Ascophyllum-dominated community. Ecosphere, doi: 10.1002/ecs2.1725. Experimental tests of the hypothesis that ecological communities can exist in “multiple stable states” are rare, and some argue, impossible, because of the unlikelihood that any system will […]

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