March 11, 2019 — The National Science Foundation is awarding nearly $800,000 to an ocean science center in Maine that studies the warming of the sea and its impact on fisheries.
The foundation is giving the money to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute for work the center is doing on the impact of climate change on the growth and population patterns of cod and lobster.
March 6, 2019 — The National Science Foundation awarded the Gulf of Maine Research Institute a $789,659 grant to examine the impact of a warming climate on growth and population patterns in cod and lobster in the Gulf of Maine.
The study will also document marine habitat shifts across the northwest Atlantic caused by rising temperatures, according to a March 4 news release issued jointly by the offices of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine.
The funding will aid the institute in its work to better understand and mitigate the impacts of changing ocean conditions on Maine communities, marine ecosystems and economy, King and Collins said in the release.
The grant was awarded through the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences.
Read the full story at Mainebiz
February 4, 2019 — When biological oceanographer Deborah Steinberg bundles up and steps onto the deck of the Laurence M. Gould research vessel, this is what she sees: ice, ice and more ice.
“I see icebergs, I see sea ice, I see crabeater seals floating by on ice floes, the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula,” Steinberg said in a shipboard phone interview Friday. “It’s gorgeous.”
But it’s what she can’t see, what lies beneath the icy waters of the South Atlantic Ocean off northwestern Antarctica, that concerns Steinberg and an international team of marine researchers: krill.
January 24, 2019 — A cooperative research center that brings together seafood industry leaders and academic experts has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to continue its work on a number of issues that impact sustainable fisheries.
The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS) will use the federal money to study four issues, including how climate change affects fisheries and how to settle differences between offshore energy producers and the fishing community.
Other research the center will perform as part of the grant will focus on management practices that keep catch limits below levels that reduce jobs and inhibit economic growth. According to a press release from the center, the key focus will be to reduce uncertainty for the commercial industry.
According to the NSF, the grant is worth USD 100,000 (EUR 88,021). Work is expected to start on 1 March and last for five years.
January 23, 2019 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:
Following the completion of its initial 5-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS) has been awarded a new Phase 2 grant by the NSF to continue its work. SCeMFiS will use the new grant to further its track record of quality, collaborative research with its fishing industry and academic partners.
The grant is part of NSF’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) program, which was developed to initiate long-term partnerships among industry, academia, and government. SCeMFiS is the only Phase 2 IUCRC program dedicated exclusively to fisheries and marine science research.
“Our new Phase 2 grant will allow SCeMFiS researchers to continue our collaborative work with the fishing industry,” said Center Director Dr. Eric Powell, of the University of Southern Mississippi, one of the academic members of SCeMFiS. “The Phase 2 grant will enable SCeMFiS to continue to fund the groundbreaking research necessary to maintain healthy fish stocks and healthy fisheries at a time when reliance on the best available science is increasingly critical.”
As it moves into Phase 2, SCeMFiS will focus on reducing scientific uncertainty; the effects of climate change on fish stocks and fishing communities; resolving issues between fishing and offshore energy interests; and developing sound ecosystem-based fisheries management.
“Our priorities for Phase 2 reflect the biggest challenges in the future of the fishing industry,” said Center Site Director Dr. Roger Mann, of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, another SCeMFiS academic institution. “To meet these challenges, the industry and fisheries managers will need the kind of innovative research that SCeMFiS has regularly produced over the last 5 years.”
In its first 5 years, SCeMFiS has done groundbreaking research on finfish and shellfish. Among other projects, the Center produced the first age-frequency distributions for ocean quahog, one of the longest-lived species in the ocean. SCeMFiS scientists conducted the first benthic survey on important ocean habitat east of Nantucket, and mapped the shifting range of surfclams, documenting how climate change is beginning to affect the species.
SCeMFiS has also designed a pelagic survey for Atlantic menhaden and provided recommendations to improve port sampling for the species, carried out the only scientific work to date on Atlantic chub mackerel, and carried out an economic analysis for longfin squid.
All of these projects were reviewed, approved, and funded by the industry members on our Industry Advisory Board, who rely on sound science for the health of their fisheries and businesses.
“Fisheries management is only as good as the science it’s based on,” said Greg DiDomenico, Executive Director of the Garden State Seafood Association and a member of SCeMFiS’ Industry Advisory Board. “That’s why it’s so important for the fishing industry to maintain its partnership with SCeMFiS. We need to promote the best available science.”
September 19, 2018 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will receive nearly $7 million in grant funding to continue the operation of its Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health.
The collaborative award from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences will be dispersed over 5 years.
The funding will benefit three centers and four projects aimed at improving public health by investigating the ways oceanic processes affect the distribution and persistence of human pathogens or the products of toxin-producing algae.
“These projects bring together scientists doing basic research on the oceans and Great Lakes with those in biology and human health to study processes that affect millions of people,” said Hedy Edmonds, a program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which co-funded the awards.
Read the full story at CapCod.com
August 2, 2018 — The long wait for a White House science adviser is over. President Donald Trump announced today that he intends to nominate meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, a university administrator and former vice-chair of the governing board of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The OSTP director traditionally, but not always, also holds the title of the president’s science adviser.
The move caps a search process of record-setting length—nearly 560 days, double the longest time taken by any other modern president to name an OSTP director. Many in the research community had lamented the delay. But the wait may have been worth it: Droegemeier, a respected veteran of the Washington, D.C., policymaking scene, is getting positive reviews from science and university groups.
“He’s a very good pick. … He has experience speaking science to power,” says environmental policy expert John Holdren, who served as science adviser under former President Barack Obama and is now at Harvard University. “I expect he’ll be energetic in defending the R&D budget and climate change research in particular.”
Maria Zuber, a planetary geophysicist and vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agrees that Droegemeier will stand up for climate science. “He always has. I see no reason why he wouldn’t now.” But she says his style is not confrontational. “He’s a good old boy. He wears cowboy boots. … He’s a personable guy.” She adds that “he’s got solid conservative credentials,” noting that his web page is emblazoned with “God Bless America!!!”
“He is an excellent choice,” says Tobin Smith, vice president for policy at the Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C. “He has a strong understanding of issues of concern to research universities.”
“Kelvin is a solid scientist, excellent with people, and with deep experience with large bureaucracies,” says Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “A moderate voice that won’t politicize the science.”
Droegemeier, who has served on the faculty of The University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman for 33 years and been the school’s vice president for research since 2009, has long been rumored to be in the running for the OSTP job, which entails advising the president on technical issues and overseeing coordination of federal science policy. He is no stranger to Washington, D.C.; then-President George W. Bush named him to the National Science Board, which oversees NSF, in 2004, and Obama reappointed him in 2011. He served as the board’s vice-chair from 2014 to 2017.
Read the full story at Science Magazine
July 13, 2018 — The National Science Foundation has selected a group of oceanographers in New England to operate a new research vessel.
The University of Rhode Island said Thursday the $100 million vessel will be delivered to its Graduate School of Oceanography in 2021.
URI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the University of New Hampshire formed the East Coast Oceanographic Consortium to apply for one of three new research vessels awarded nationwide.
URI already operates a foundation vessel, the Endeavor. It’s more than 40 years old and scheduled to retire within five years.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Midland Reporter-Telegram
February 21, 2018 — CORVALLIS, Ore. – Savvy Northwest anglers have long known that when patches of warm Pacific Ocean water drift closer to shore each summer, it’s time to chase after the feisty and tasty albacore tuna.
Now a new study confirms that tuna are more likely to be found in regions of the California Current System with certain oceanographic conditions – and that commercial fishermen who work those areas more frequently bring in up to three times the revenue of other tuna anglers.
Results of the study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and led by Oregon State University, were published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
These oceanographic conditions are more complex than simply being warmer temperatures, said James Watson, an OSU marine ecologist and lead author on the study. Their technical name is Lagrangian Coherent Structures, though scientists often refer to them as “the skeletons of the sea.”
“Essentially they are physical ocean fronts where surface waters converge,” Watson said. “If you toss two tennis balls in the water and they converge quickly, it is considered a Lagrangian Coherent Structure, or LCS.”
“What we’ve found is that the stronger the convergence, the more likely it is to attract certain things, beginning with the aggregation of phytoplankton, which in turn attracts larger organisms like tuna – and, ultimately, tuna fishermen.”
The researchers sought to discover whether anglers were utilizing these LCSs and if so, whether it had an economic impact. They compiled data from a vessel monitoring system on the location of more than 1,000 fishing vessels every hour in the U.S. California Current Large Marine Ecosystem for a four-year period – a total of more than 340,000 trips. They then collected fisheries catch and price data.
January 29, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Warming ocean waters will have a big impact on Maine’s $547 million lobster industry in coming years, but the future would look a lot bleaker if not for the conservation efforts of the state’s thousands of lobster fishermen.
According to a study led by scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, conservation practices long advocated by Maine lobstermen are helping make the lobster fishery more resilient to climate change.
For generations, lobstermen in Maine have returned large lobsters and egg-bearing female lobsters to the water rather than keeping them. Lobstermen first marked the tails of the egg bearers with a distinctive “V-notch” to give them further protection.
According to the scientists, these conservation practices, developed by custom and now mandated by state law, distinguish the fishery in the Gulf of Maine, where Maine harvesters trap some 83 percent of all lobster landings, from southern New England, where fishermen historically refused to take the same steps to preserve large, reproductive lobsters.
Funded by the National Science Foundation and published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study shows how warming waters and contrasting conservation practices have contributed to significantly different results in the two fisheries.
Over the past decade (at least until this past year), Maine lobster landings have climbed steadily, setting new records nearly every year. During the same time period, the southern New England lobster population, and lobster fishery, has collapsed.
According to figures compiled by regulators, the commercial lobster landings in Connecticut fell from more than 2.5 million pounds in 1995 to about 200,000 pounds in 2015. In Rhode Island, the catch fell from more than 5 million pounds in 1995 to less than 2.4 million pounds in 2015. In New York, the commercial lobster industry has virtually disappeared.
Led by Arnault Le Bris of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the scientists used advanced computer models to simulate the ecosystem under varying conditions. The results show that temperature change was the primary contributor to population changes, but conservation efforts made significant differences in how the lobster population responded.
Read the full story at the Ellsworth American