Stephen Colbert introduced millions to Skylar Bayer’s marine reproductive ecology research. When “The Colbert Report” aired a mock crime story about missing scallop gonads and a lonely lady scientist performing experiments, the audience laughed while it learned. That funny, true, personal stories can both inform and entertain resonates with Bayer, a doctoral candidate based at […]
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For some, a picture is worth a thousand words. For Jesica Waller, it’s worth $500, the opportunity to introduce people to her research through beautiful art and to be published in “Popular Science” magazine. Her photograph of a 3-week-old American lobster won the People’s Choice Award and its accompanying cash prize in the Vizzies, a […]
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Two marine science students at the University of Maine started off 2016 a little differently than they had previous years. For five days, Ashley Rossin and Elise Hartill collected red tree corals, Primnoa pacifica, from the Tracy Arm Fjord — a narrow, deep inlet of the sea nestled between high cliffs — located just south […]
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A graduate student at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center received a Young Investigator Award Honorable Mention at the 9th Florida State University Mote Symposium in October. Ruleo Camacho, who is a pursuing a dual master’s degree in marine biology and marine policy, presented his thesis research, “Antigua’s Community Based No-Take Reserves: Developing a […]
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The director of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center says ecosystem-based approaches to restore ocean health provide a flexible framework for marine management and allow scientists and stakeholders to move beyond reactive and piecemeal solutions. “Ecosystem-based management (EBM) accounts for the diverse connections between people and oceans and the trade-offs inherent in managing for […]
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Heather Leslie, director of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center, is leading a research project to deepen her interdisciplinary investigations of ecological and human dimensions of small-scale fisheries in Mexico’s Baja peninsula. A $1.79 million award from the National Science Foundation’s Coupled Natural and Human (CNH) Systems Program funds the three-year project. “My studies […]
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Rachel Lasley-Rasher wanted to learn more about highly mobile shrimp that are important food for baleen whales and commercial fish along the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia. Because of their significance in the marine food web, she said a better understanding of shrimp migration patterns could fill knowledge gaps and help predict […]
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Jesica D. Waller, a graduate student at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center, was interviewed for an Al Jazeera English television piece about ocean acidification and lobsters. “The cause for worry is really we don’t know enough to worry,” says Waller, whose research focuses on how American lobster larvae develop in acidic ocean conditions. […]
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An underwater sea slug has evolved chemical foraging and defense abilities that are functionally identical to those of terrestrial insects, despite being unrelated to their land-based counterparts and living in vastly different habitats for 400 million years. “Specialized herbivores on land and sea appear to make a living in similar ways,” says University of Maine […]
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University of Maine scientists have deployed an ocean-observing buoy at the mouth of the Damariscotta River to help scientists understand how different types and scales of aquaculture can fit into Maine’s multi-use working waterfront. The buoy is part of a National Science Foundation’s Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANET) project geared to assist the aquaculture sector […]
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