Science Center for Marine Fisheries Archives

Coastwide Menhaden Catch Limit Cut by 20% as Potential Bay Cuts Loom

October 29, 2025 — In a marathon four-hour fishery management meeting on Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC)’s Menhaden Management Board grappled with menhaden catch limits up and down the East Coast. Under pressure from environmentalists to cut catch limits and from menhaden fishermen to protect their livelihoods, board members for the ASMFC voted to reduce the coastwide menhaden catch by 20% in 2026, allowing fishermen to land 186,840 metric tons. The total allowable catch will be revisited in time for the 2027 and 2028 seasons. This motion passed 16-2, with only Virginia and Pennsylvania voting against it.

Inside the Chesapeake Bay, however, the rules are different. The Virginia menhaden reduction fishery, led by purse seine operator Ocean Harvesters, adheres to its own limit, known as the “Bay Cap”, which is currently set at 51,000 metric tons of fish. But environmentalists argue that a much lower Bay Cap is needed to protect the environment. They want to cut the reduction fishery’s limit by 50%. Groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation believe menhaden are in trouble, and since menhaden are an important forage fish, that there isn’t enough food to go around for predators like osprey and rockfish. The Virginia menhaden fishing industry disputes the claim that menhaden are in trouble, or that the Bay’s osprey and rockfish population struggles are directly related to a lack of menhaden.

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) just funded a new project that will pull together all of the existing research on menhaden in the Bay, identify gaps in the research, and propose new study methods to fill these gaps. This would lead to solid research for setting a meaningful Bay harvest cap for that is based on data and is scientifically defensible.

Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA, will lead the project to develop a “research roadmap” for Bay fishery managers.

Since that future research won’t be available for some time, the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board moved to initiate a new addendum that would potentially change how the Bay Cap is used, or lower the limit. This addendum would “develop periods for the Chesapeake Bay Cap that distributes fishing effort more evenly throughout the season” and it would also develop “a range of options to reduce the Bay Cap.” These options could be anything from keeping the cap at its current level to a 50% reduction. The hope is to have a draft of the addendum ready to present at ASMFC’s next meeting this winter.

Read the full article at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

SCEMFIS funds new project to study menhaden in Chesapeake Bay

October 27, 2025 — As debate over the sustainability of the menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay continues between the fishing industry and environmental groups, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) has funded a new project that will create a detailed roadmap for managing reduction fishery more effectively.

SCEMFIS said in a release the new project will feature scientists from Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA and aims to establish meaningful harvest caps for Atlantic menhaden in the bay. The project will review existing menhaden science – including estimated biomass, migration patterns, and the consumption of menhaden by other species – and find gaps in information that can be filled via more research.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Statement of the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition on the Upcoming Atlantic Menhaden Management Board Meeting

October 27, 2025 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

Tomorrow, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Menhaden Board is slated to take up several issues which have the potential to gravely impact this historic fishery. First, it will consider the results of the menhaden and ecological reference points (“ERP”) stock assessment. Despite a lower estimate of menhaden fecundity, the stock status remains not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The assessment team attributed this to the fact that menhaden “management has consistently been more conservative than single-species reference points would have historically prescribed.”

The second and most immediately consequential decision facing the Board is setting the total allowable catch (TAC) of menhaden for 2026 through 2028. Some are calling for up to 55% cuts to the current TAC, which would devastate not only the 150-year-old reduction fishery, but small-scale bait fishermen all along the Atlantic coast and the lobstermen and crabbers that depend on them. This is wholly unjustified. As the scientists who prepared the ERP assessment noted, even if the current TAC were to be maintained, “the probability of exceeding the ERP F_THRESHOLD [that is, overfishing to the detriment of menhaden predators] is low.” They also affirmed that the fishery has little impact on predators like striped bass because, for one, they mostly rely on younger fish that are not targeted by the fishery and, two, because the “main driver for Atlantic menhaden availability to predators is recruitment success,” which is mostly determined by environmental factors.

That said, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition supports a precautionary reduction of no more than 15% to the current TAC (or 198,518 metric tons). This level would ensure that there is no chance of overfishing over the next three years and provides fisheries managers confidence that the stock will remain healthy. This is a responsible TAC that promotes conservation and protects families that rely on the fishery.

The third agenda item of concern is the potential for initiating an action to consider reallocation of the TAC among the states. The Coalition does not oppose a review of current allocations. However, any attempt to mitigate the impact of drastic quota cuts by forcing only one or two states to shoulder the burden of conservation is inconsistent with the ISFMP Charter, which requires that “management measures shall be designed to achieve equivalent management results throughout the range of a stock.” As the initial and subsequent allocation systems did, any reallocation should consider current use of and dependence on menhaden. If reductions in the TAC are enacted, the Board should reevaluate the allocation of TAC to states with no fishery.

Finally, the Menhaden Board will address Maryland’s proposal to put new, unjustifiable limits on the precautionary Chesapeake Bay menhaden reduction fishery cap. There is simply no scientific justification for any such new measures. The Science Center for Marine Fisheries, administered by the National Science Foundation and supported by the fishing industry, is undertaking new research, led by the most respected scientists in the field, to investigate issues related to management in the Chesapeake Bay. The Board should await this new and relevant science before taking further action.

About the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition
The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition (MFC) is a collective of menhaden fishermen, related businesses, and supporting industries. Comprised of businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition conducts media and public outreach on behalf of the menhaden industry to ensure that members of the public, media, and government are informed of important issues, events, and facts about the fishery.

Menhaden Fisheries Coalition Applauds Science-Based Review of Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Harvest Cap

October 24, 2025 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition today welcomed a newly funded Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) project to produce a research roadmap for Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay as a long-overdue opportunity to replace political compromise with sound science.

For nearly twenty years, the Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap, a harvest limit that applies only to the reduction fishery, has been managed without biological justification. Regulators and scientists have repeatedly acknowledged this fact. The new project from SCEMFIS will identify the research needed to finally develop what the scientists leading the project call a “scientifically defensible and ecologically meaningful Chesapeake Bay cap.”

Regulators Acknowledge Current Bay Cap Was Never Based on Science
When the cap was first imposed in 2006, it was a political compromise between Virginia, Maryland, and environmental groups, not a conservation measure grounded with a scientific justification. As the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) own Executive Director at the time, Vince O’Shea, testified before Congress in 2008, the Bay Cap was established “in response to a political problem” and “there was not a science basis for the Cap.”

That view was echoed by ASMFC’s scientific staff. In 2012, the Menhaden Plan Development Team concluded, “The annual Chesapeake Bay harvest cap is not based on a scientifically quantified harvest threshold, fishery health index, or fishery population level study.”

In a follow-up report that same year, the ASMFC Technical Committee stated: “The TC stands by its previous recommendation that, given the current fishery and history of landings, there has not appeared to be any biological benefit to the Chesapeake Bay Reduction Cap since it was implemented.”

The Technical Committee reinforced this position during the Commission’s December 2012 meeting, with the then-chairperson noting that, “Given the current structure of the industry right now, and the fish that they harvest, and the biological information that we’re collecting, there doesn’t seem to be any benefit” from the Bay Cap.

Previous ASMFC Chairman Confirms Lack of Evidence for Bay Cap
When Virginia appealed a 41% cut to the Bay Cap in 2018, ASMFC Chairman Jim Gilmore stated in a formal letter that “there is no evidence in Amendment 3 to support the view that lowering the Bay Cap was necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery area for menhaden and there is no evidence to suggest the Bay Cap is necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery for other species.” He concluded: “Leadership agrees the Amendment does not provide sufficient evidence to support such claims.”

Call for a Science-Based Approach
Despite repeated coastwide stock increases and consistent findings that the Atlantic menhaden population is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring, the Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap has remained fixed at 51,000 metric tons, less than half the level originally set in 2006. Meanwhile, the ASMFC has allowed other Bay fisheries, including Maryland and Potomac River bait harvesters, to increase their quotas.

The Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap has become a symbol of how fisheries policy can drift away from science with outside influence from special interest groups dictating management strategies. The ASMFC’s own scientists have said for over a decade that there is no biological justification for this cap.

The Need for a Research Roadmap
The SCEMFIS-funded effort, led by scientists from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA, will begin by conducting an extensive review of the existing data on relevant issues such as Atlantic menhaden biomass, the movement of schooling pelagic fish, and the consumption of Atlantic menhaden by Chesapeake Bay predators. They will also work with the industry to review data sources such as landings data and spotter pilot reports to complement existing peer-reviewed studies and other sources of data.

After the review, the researchers will identify knowledge gaps, and will propose new study designs and methodologies to fill these knowledge gaps to inform a Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap that is based on data and is scientifically defensible.

SCEMFIS is a collaborative project between the fishing industry and leading finfish and shellfish researchers aimed at improving our understanding of important commercial species and supporting sustainable management of the fisheries that depend on them. It is part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program.

About the Menhaden Fishery
Atlantic menhaden support the largest commercial fishery by weight on the U.S. East Coast and sustain hundreds of unionized, family-supporting jobs in rural Virginia communities where few comparable opportunities exist. Fishermen are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400, earning family-sustaining wages and full benefits. The fishery is certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, the gold standard for responsible fisheries, and the ASMFC has repeatedly found that menhaden is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.

SCEMFIS Funds Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Research Roadmap to Inform a Scientifically Defensible Bay Cap

October 23, 2025 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) has funded a new project that will create a detailed and actionable roadmap that identifies the research needed to develop a scientifically defensible and ecologically meaningful Chesapeake Bay harvest cap for Atlantic menhaden.

The project, funded at the Center’s fall meeting, is being led by scientists from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), and NOAA. The team is experienced in matters related to Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay, bringing decades of peer-reviewed research, assessment leadership, and survey design expertise to this work.

What the project will do
Drs. Genevieve Nesslage and Michael Wilberg (UMCES), Drs. Robert Latour and James Gartland (VIMS), and Dr. Amy Schueller (NOAA SEFSC), will conduct an extensive review of existing menhaden science, focusing on factors such as estimated menhaden biomass, migration patterns of schooling fish, and the consumption of menhaden and other forage species by Chesapeake Bay predators. The review will identify gaps in available information and propose specific study designs, analytical approaches, timelines, and estimated costs to guide new Bay-focused menhaden research.

Research recommendations will likely involve a combination of new data collection and analyses of existing datasets, including industry data such as landings information and spotter pilot reports.

The roadmap is intended to be practical and actionable, leveraging tools and data already in use and identifying where new information, such as novel tagging, hydroacoustics, and spatial modeling, would add significant value.

Why this matters
Current menhaden management in the Chesapeake Bay is built around a landings limit rather than a Bay-specific biological target. Commercial reduction landings of Atlantic menhaden from the Bay are currently subject to a 51,000-metric-ton Bay cap. This cap is based on the average of 2012–2016 reduction landings from the Bay, but it is not a biological reference point, and thus cannot, by itself, inform managers about the status of the portion of the stock within the Bay or the potential ecological impacts of harvest on other species.

Over time, the Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap has been adjusted as a matter of policy: reduced from 109,020 metric tons (2006) to 87,216 metric tons (2012) and then to 51,000 metric tons (2017). These caps were not based on Bay-specific biological analyses, and were intended as precautionary, interim limits. This project will define the research activities needed to evaluate Bay-specific conditions and ecological interactions so that future decisions about the Bay Cap can be grounded in robust, transparent science.

Economic importance of Atlantic menhaden
Atlantic menhaden support the largest commercial fishery by weight on the U.S. East Coast and play a critical role as forage for predators. The fishery supports a unionized workforce with strong wages and full benefits in a rural region with few comparable opportunities.

Project Team (selected qualifications in Atlantic menhaden & Chesapeake Bay)

Genevieve M. Nesslage, Ph.D., Associate Research Professor, CBL (UMCES)
- Quantitative fisheries scientist with research focusing on Atlantic menhaden spawning locations and larval dispersal, fishery sampling, survey design, overwintering habitat use, and predator-prey modeling. Former Senior Stock Assessment Scientist at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Michael J. Wilberg, Ph.D., Professor of Fisheries Science, CBL (UMCES)
- Fisheries stock assessment and management strategy evaluation specialist with research focused on Atlantic menhaden movement, mortality, growth, and predator-prey modeling. Lead author of the 2020 survey design for Atlantic menhaden in Chesapeake Bay.

Robert J. Latour, Ph.D., Professor, VIMS (William & Mary)
- Quantitative fisheries ecologist focusing on predator–prey interactions, population dynamics, and habitat modeling. Lead/co-author of the 2023 study on female Atlantic menhaden reproductive biology and fecundity and co-author (with Gartland) of Virginia’s 2023 Atlantic Menhaden Research Planning report to the General Assembly.

James Gartland, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, VIMS (William & Mary)
- Quantitative fisheries scientist with extensive experience in the development of fisheries monitoring surveys, prey consumption models, and ecological indicators, including in Chesapeake Bay. Co-author of the 2023 menhaden fecundity study (with Latour and Schueller) and co-author of Virginia’s 2023 Atlantic Menhaden Research Planning report guiding Bay-specific research priorities.

Amy M. Schueller, Ph.D., Research Fish Biologist, NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center
- Lead assessment analyst for Atlantic and Gulf menhaden and key contributor to the working group on ecological reference points (ERPs) that underpin Atlantic menhaden management.

About SCEMFIS
The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) brings together academic and industry expertise to address urgent scientific challenges facing sustainable fisheries. Through advanced methods, analytical tools, and collaborative research, SCEMFIS works to reduce uncertainty in stock assessments and improve the long-term sustainability of key marine resources.

SCEMFIS is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center supported by the National Science Foundation. Industry organizations join SCEMFIS through an Industry Membership Agreement with one of the center’s site universities and contribute both financial support and valuable expertise to help shape research priorities.

Its university partners include the University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary. The center also collaborates with scientists from a broad network of institutions, including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the University of Maryland, and the University of Rhode Island. These researchers bring deep expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal science.

Demand for SCEMFIS’s services continues to grow, driven by the fishing industry’s need for responsive, science-based support. The center provides timely access to expert input on stock assessment issues, participates in working groups, and conducts targeted studies that lead to better data collection, improved survey design, and more accurate modeling-all in service of sustainable, science-driven fishery management.

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Seeking New Members to Continue Support for Groundbreaking Scientific Research

October 14, 2025 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The fishing industry depends on timely, relevant scientific research to function. It is at the heart of many of the challenges currently facing the industry, from ensuring that fishery managers are accurately setting catch levels, to knowing how climate change is impacting the health and life cycles of fish stocks, or developing new technologies to address problems such as bycatch.

Since its founding, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) has sought to work with the industry to address these issues with its own cutting-edge, breakthrough research. The Center is now looking to expand that partnership and is seeking new members of the finfish and shellfish industries to join and support the latest critical marine science.

SCEMFIS is a unique partnership between the industry and marine researchers. It is one of the centers that make up the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program, and the only one to focus on fisheries and ocean sciences. IUCRCs bring together businesses and other stakeholders with academics in related fields to collaborate on relevant research projects, fill gaps in scientific knowledge, and utilize the results of completed research to fill industry needs.

As part of its mission, SCEMFIS scientists and its industry partners meet twice each year to identify the industry’s scientific priorities, and fund the research projects that best address them. For 2025, the Center and its partners funded $495,000 in research. Over the last five years, the Center has funded over $1.6 million in finfish and shellfish research.

This funding has supported key issues facing finfish and shellfish fisheries. On climate change, researchers have thoroughly and repeatedly documented how changing temperatures in the Northwest Atlantic have shifted the habitats of Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog, influenced the maximum size of Atlantic surfclams, and caused ocean quahogs to grow and mature quicker; these impacts all have long-term implications for how the species are managed.

SCEMFIS research has helped improve fisheries management for several finfish and shellfish species. Studies by Center researchers have looked at how to deal with scientific uncertainty when managing economically important species like Atlantic surfclam and menhaden. They have devised new and innovative methods to age and estimate the populations of species including ocean quahog, other shellfish, and Atlantic menhaden. These projects have all benefited the Center’s industry partners by giving fisheries managers a more accurate picture of the age and size of the fish populations they are managing, leading to more sustainable fisheries and better management.

Researchers have updated the fecundity and maturity schedule for Atlantic menhaden, explored food web relationships of Gulf menhaden predators, and developed an internet-based data portal for Gulf menhaden fisheries independent survey.

SCEMFIS-funded research has invested in improving fishing technology, with researchers focusing on updating clam dredges and other shellfish gear. Researchers have also documented the economic impacts of commercially important fisheries like summer flounder, scup, and longfin squid, highlighting the contributions member industries make to their regional economies.

SCEMFIS has also contributed to the emerging science on offshore wind power, particularly on its interactions with nearby fish populations and existing fisheries. SCEMFIS-funded research has highlighted how wind development may interact with important oceanographic features.

Another vital part of SCEMFIS’ mission is supporting the next generation of marine science researchers. Each year, SCEMFIS’ academic partners sponsor undergraduate internships and graduate student fellowships. These internships and fellowships give students valuable hands-on research experience, and helps them further their careers in academia, fisheries science, and fisheries management.

All of this research is made possible through the support of our industry partners. By joining SCEMFIS, your business will directly benefit from the breakthroughs produced by the research of SCEMFIS academics, and you will have a direct say in which research priorities are funded. Partnering with SCEMFIS allows for low overhead costs, letting most of your contributions go to directly support scientific research. A healthy industry and sustainable fisheries depend on good research, and SCEMFIS membership is one of the best ways to support it.

If your business is interested in joining SCEMFIS, please contact either our Chair, Joe Myers, our Vice Chair, Greg DiDomenico, or either of our Directors, Dr. Eric Powell or Dr. Roger Mann, to learn more about the benefits of membership.
About SCEMFIS
The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) brings together academic and industry expertise to address urgent scientific challenges facing sustainable fisheries. Through advanced methods, analytical tools, and collaborative research, SCEMFIS works to reduce uncertainty in stock assessments and improve the long-term sustainability of key marine resources.

Mississippi study of predator fish diets could alter fisheries management strategies for key commercial species

July 30, 2025 — A new study conducted by the University of Southern Mississippi has revealed more details of the diets of common predators in the Gulf of Mexico – currently referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government – and the findings and methodology could impact fisheries management of key commercial species.

The study, funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), combined both extensive existing data and new stable isotope analysis to determine what common predators in the Gulf eat. The study – which was summarized in a video on the SCEMFIS YouTube channel – looked at more than 30 different predator species and used hundreds of published stomach content studies dating back to the 1950s.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

What Do Gulf Predators Really Eat? Groundbreaking Study Finds Menhaden Play a Smaller Role Than Expected

July 30, 2025 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

What do some of the Gulf of America’s most iconic predator fish really eat? Scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi are moving closer to answering that question with a groundbreaking new study that delivers some of the most detailed insights to date on the Gulf food web. To do this they’ve combined two powerful approaches: cutting-edge stable isotope analysis and an extensive meta-analysis of hundreds of published stomach content studies dating back to the 1950s.

Despite the ecological and commercial importance of species like red drum, summer flounder, and spotted sea trout, our understanding of their interactions with prey species has been limited. This new research challenges long-standing assumptions, most notably the idea that Gulf menhaden is a primary food source for these key predators.

Funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), a member of the National Science Foundation’s Industry–University Cooperative Research Center program, the study provides a comprehensive understanding of the Gulf food web and charts the trophic interactions that structure it. The findings have fishery management implications for several of the species evaluated in the study. Most notably, Gulf menhaden was not found to be a primary food source for any of the predator species studied.

“We looked at some 30-plus predator species, many of them exceptionally well-studied. We did not find any single species where we would say Gulf menhaden was the most important fish in their diet,” said Dr. Robert Leaf, one of the authors of the study and Director of the School of Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi.

“When you look at the information that we have, what we find is that Gulf menhaden are a prey item—certainly they play a role in the trophic dynamics of predators—but not to the extent of other prey items, which are also very important—in fact, more important,” Dr. Leaf continued.

Traditionally, determining what predators eat has been limited to analyzing samples of their stomach contents. This provides information about what predators have eaten recently, but it offers only a limited snapshot and does not reveal long-term dietary patterns or prey availability. To bridge this gap, the study incorporates new data, developed from analyzing stable isotope levels taken from predator tissue samples.

Stable isotopes are heavier forms of elements, like carbon and nitrogen, that are present in all species and at all points in the food web. Because these isotopes do not decay, they accumulate in predator species in different proportions, depending on the diet of the predator. By analyzing the levels of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in predator species, the study authors are able to determine what types of diet sources the predators generally rely on, as well as what trophic level they predominantly feed on. This technique offers a much broader view of predator diets than stomach content analysis alone.

“When an animal eats a prey item, there is a differential uptake in the carbon and the nitrogen,” said Dr. Kevin Dillon, another author of the study and an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. “So we can measure those small differences to try to piece this together and look at each organism’s trophic position within that food web. So we’re able to tell from a fish’s isotopic signature whether the fish was eating phytoplankton or if it was eating another fish that had eaten phytoplankton.”

The study pairs the data from the stable isotope analysis with a meta-analysis of hundreds of previously published stomach content databases dating back to the 1950s. Integrating the two data sources into a single modeling framework provides clearer insight into the role of low-trophic-level species in the Gulf. The scientists found that species like red drum, summer flounder, and spotted sea trout are general, opportunistic feeders that do not rely solely on a single prey species. Instead, their diets vary depending on factors such as seasons, prey availability, and other climatic conditions.

Species like Gulf menhaden are important parts of the diet, but there is no single prey species that these predators overwhelmingly rely on. There is no “most important” prey species in the Gulf.

While this study focused on the Gulf ecosystem and food web, its insights may have broader relevance for similar species and predator–prey dynamics in other regions. On the East Coast, for instance, Atlantic menhaden play a role comparable to their Gulf counterparts, serving as forage for many similar predators—including striped bass, summer flounder, weakfish, and bluefish—which are also common in the northern Gulf of America. While additional research is needed, the Mid-Atlantic ecosystem likely exhibits similarly complex trophic dynamics and variability in predator diets.

8-Minute Video Brings the Science to Life
An eight-minute YouTube video released alongside the study features Dr. Robert Leaf and Dr. Kevin Dillon explaining how their team used stable isotope analysis and decades of stomach content data to map the Gulf’s complex food web. Viewers will see the inside of the university’s isotope lab, close-up footage of the specialized equipment used to analyze predator tissue samples, and field scenes from the Mississippi coast where the research team collected specimens.

Dr. Leaf and Dr. Dillon walk through how their findings overturn long-held assumptions about the role of Gulf menhaden in predator diets—revealing instead a diverse, seasonally shifting prey base that includes crabs, shrimp, anchovies, and Atlantic croaker. They demonstrate how isotopic tracers such as carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 help identify what predators eat over time and how high they sit in the food web.

Also featured is graduate student Calvin Chee, who offers a field-level perspective and personal observations about the Gulf’s biodiversity. Together, the scientists describe how combining isotope data with traditional stomach content analysis provides a more complete, long-term view of predator–prey interactions.

About the Methodology
Around the world, scientists have increasingly turned to this emerging method of combining stable isotope analysis (SIA) and stomach content analysis (SCA) to better understand what animals eat. Stomach content analysis provides a direct but short-term snapshot of recently ingested prey, while stable isotope ratios in muscle tissue reflect assimilated diet over longer time frames. When used together, the two methods offer complementary perspectives on trophic relationships across seasons, habitats, and life stages.

This dual approach has now been used successfully in ecosystems around the globe from tropical rivers to polar seas, including nine species in the Eastern Adriatic Sea, coral reef groupers in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and Nile perch in East Africa’s Lake Victoria.

No such combined study has been conducted involving menhaden species in U.S. waters—until now.

Note on Naming: The body of water traditionally known as the Gulf of Mexico has been renamed “Gulf of America” within U.S. federal usage, following Executive Order 14172 issued earlier this year. As of early 2025, U.S. agencies, including the Coast Guard, and major platforms like Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc. (for U.S. users) have adopted the new name in compliance.

US research center announces funding for stock management, clam aging, and other seafood projects

July 15, 2025 — The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), a U.S. research center, has announced nearly USD 500,000 (EUR 429,000) in funding for new finfish and shellfish research projects.

At the organization’s annual spring meeting, SCEMFIS announced USD 218,531 (EUR 187,300) in new funding, adding to the USD 277,000 (EUR 237,400) which the organization dedicated to groundbreaking finfish and shellfish research at the beginning of the year.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Approves Additional $218,000 in Finfish and Shellfish Research

July 14, 2025 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

At its annual spring meeting, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) approved $218,531 in funding for new finfish and shellfish research projects. These new projects are in addition to the $277,000 in research funding that the Center approved at the start of the year and continue the Center’s commitment to identifying and supporting groundbreaking finfish and shellfish research.

SCEMFIS, part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Center program, is a collaborative project between the fishing industry and leading finfish and shellfish researchers. The projects funded by SCEMFIS at their biannual meetings have been identified by the Center’s fishing industry partners as improving both our understanding of these species, and the sustainable management of the fisheries that depend on them.

Additional projects funded for 2025 include developing new ways to model and predict the varying growth of surfclam populations; improving the current assessment model used for shortfin squid; using computer modeling to more quickly and efficiently age surfclams; providing a complete picture of the mineral and nutritional profile of Atlantic surfclams and ocean quahogs; and determining to what extent predator and prey species abundance affect each other in the Gulf of America.The following new research projects were funded by SCEMFIS:

Development of a model for the prediction of the temporal and geographic variability in Atlantic surfclam growth:
Atlantic surfclams vary greatly in size across regions and over time. This variability has traditionally presented challenges for fisheries management, which imposes size-based fishing limits to control harvests. As a result, being able to predict this variability more accurately has been identified as one of the best ways to improve surfclam management. This project, by Dr. Eric Powell of the University of Southern Mississippi, will build on previously funded SCEMFIS surfclam projects that studied surf clam growth; the project will use temperature and other data that strongly correlate with surfclam growth, combined with other growth data, as part of a model that will be used to estimate growth rates across regions. ($48,890 in funding)
Advancement of a new approach for assessing shortfin squid:
Shortfin squid is a commercially important fish stock that supports a critical fishery. Despite this, there has not been a stock assessment of the species that has passed peer review. Fisheries managers have had a difficult time determining the stock status due to an inability to estimate factors such as fishing mortality, biomass, and ecological reference points. This project, from Drs. Michael Wilberg and Geneviève Nesslage of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, will analyze and refine available shortfin squid data that has been collected from fishery and non-fishery sources, and examine factors such as life history, catch distribution, and catch per unit of effort. The refined data will be prepared for use in the model eventually used for the shortfin squid assessment. ($55,629 in funding)
Employing computer vision in clam age estimation:
SCEMFIS has supported several significant shellfish research projects, particularly projects that have provided better understanding of the age structure of ocean quahog. These projects have helped improve the management of the fishery and confirmed the overall sustainability of the resource. In advance of the upcoming stock assessment, a representative sample of 800 quahogs will need to be aged for use in the assessment model. Traditionally a time- and labor-intensive task, this project, from Drs. Roger Mann and Miranda Lv at the Virginia Institute for Marine Sciences, will use a computer vision model to more quickly and accurately age shellfish samples of both surfclams and ocean quahogs. The model will be trained on existing images of already-aged clams, which will then be used in an algorithm to age future shellfish samples. ($27,869 in funding)
Comprehensive Analysis of Iodine and Essential Mineral Content in Mid-Atlantic Clam Products:
This project, conducted by Dr. Stella Volpe of Virginia Tech, will conduct an essential mineral content analysis of Atlantic surfclams and ocean quahogs, building a nutritional profile of minerals such as iodine, zinc, selenium, copper, iron, and magnesium. This is important both to promote the nutritional value of surfclams and quahogs, and because these minerals are often lacking in the average American diet, with some groups, like pregnant women, at particular risk for deficiencies such as iodine. The project will collect representative samples of Atlantic surfclams and ocean quahogs from across the Atlantic coast, categorize them according to factors such as origins, size, and other variables, and use mass spectrometry to get a full breakdown of the mineral profile of the samples. ($45,000 in funding)
Data-driven inference of population dynamics of recreationally-targeted stocks in the GOA:
The populations of both predator and prey species are influenced by the extent and the dynamics of how they interact. This project, from Dr. Robert Leaf at the University of Southern Mississippi, will develop a model to determine to what extent prey abundance is responsible for predator abundance in the northern portion of the Gulf of America. The model will focus specifically on the dynamics between commercially important predator and prey species, such as red drum, spotted sea trout, and Gulf menhaden. The model will include environmental and biological data, and will analyze variables such as harvest levels, the relative abundance of each species, weight, and other environmental factors in determining the extent of the relationship between the predator and prey species. ($41,143 in funding)