February 10, 2026 — Karen Stamieszkin, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, was out on the Gulf of Maine three years ago when she saw red pooling in different directions beneath the waves: a large spring bloom of plankton.
“You could see these plumes of this fat, rich copepod population right at the surface,” said Stamieszkin, referring to a type of tiny crustacean. “That is what drives the Gulf of Maine’s iconic fisheries.”
She was examining the masses of an organism that plays a central role in the Gulf of Maine’s ecosystem, feeding on plant-like plankton and then transferring that energy up the food chain, thereby fueling the region’s cod, herring, and tuna populations.