The Utility of Combining Stable Isotope and Hormone Analyses for Marine Megafauna Research
By: Olivia Wigon, SRC Intern Marine megafauna face many threats such as ship strikes, climate change, ocean noise and habitat destruction, which have caused many populations to decline. Typically, conservation takes a reactive approach instead of a proactive one which makes it hard to maintain healthy populations of marine megafauna. Alyson H. Fleming and her […]
“Boo! Did we scare you?”: behavioral responses of reef-associated fish, prawn gobies (Amblyeleotris steinitzi and Amblyeleotris sungami) to anthropogenic diver disturbance
By: Allison Banas, SRC Intern There are many factors that can affect the health of coral reef communities, SCUBA diving being one of them. Studies have shown that divers’ activities can have significant detrimental effects on the ecosystem, and this paper from Valerio et al. (2018) looks at the effect divers can have on the […]
Investigating the vulnerability of European Seafood Production to Climate Warming
By: Gaitlyn Malone, SRC Intern As the world’s climate continues to change, economic, social, and environmental changes will undoubtedly occur along with it. One sector that is expected to be economically affected by climate warming is seafood production (Breitburg et al., 2018). Seafood production, which includes both farmed and captured fish, shellfish, and seaweed in […]
Effectiveness of MPA’s
By: Peter Aronson, SRC Intern One might think that setting aside marine protected areas (MPA’s) – areas of the ocean where human activity is more heavily restricted – would reduce fishing pressure and overexploitation of marine species. However, that is not always the case. A group of researchers sought to determine if MPA’s experience intense […]
Are Polar Bears on Thin Ice?
By: Kaylie Anne Costa, SRC Intern When you think of polar bears what comes to mind? Is it a mama bear and a cub struggling to swim miles to find a piece of sea ice? Because that is exactly what is beginning to occur in the Arctic. With the rise of the sea surface temperatures, […]
The Importance of Horizon Scans for Finding Emerging Conservation Issues
By: Molly Rickles, SRC Intern Often times, there are many conservation issues that go unnoticed because the general public and government are focusing on larger, more easily accessible issues. However, this doesn’t mean that the smaller, more localized conservation issues aren’t important. Horizon scans of emerging issues brings to light some of these other equally […]