Saving Seafood

UConn Helps Sea Scallop Communities Adapt to Ocean Warming

March 17, 2026 — A combination of conservation measures has helped the industry weather the effects of overfishing. Now, warming and acidifying oceans are posing new threats and prompting new solutions.

A team of researchers co-led by UConn Associate Professor of Marine Sciences Samantha Siedlecki, Shannon Meseck, of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and Robert “Bobby” Murphy, a social scientist with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, is exploring how environmental data can be used to develop a new management approach adapted for and responsive to a changing ocean. With the support of a three-year grant of just over $1 million from NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program (OAP), the project will integrate oceanographic modeling, industry engagement, and socioeconomic research to create actionable strategies for industry and management. The project is one of six announced by OAP in November aimed at helping U.S. coastal communities adapt to ocean acidification.

“This is one of the earliest attempts to forecast optimal regions for Atlantic sea scallop growth, based on both carbon content and ocean temperature,” says Siedlecki.

Ocean acidification occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) sent into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is absorbed by the oceans. Like sponges, the oceans of the world soak up about one-third of the CO2 generated by humans. Once dissolved in seawater, the CO2 forms carbonic acid, which increases acidity and reduces the carbonate ions that shell-building sea life, like sea scallops, need to form shells and skeletons.

Read the full article at UConn Today

New tool skillfully predicts marine habitat shifts

February 8, 2024 — As global temperatures rise, so do ocean temperatures. The ocean absorbs about 90% of the world’s excess heat, and this leads to changes to the marine environment that go beyond temperature, making some areas uninhabitable for some marine species.

Researchers are working to understand and anticipate how these environmental changes will impact marine habitat shifts. A team of scientists, including UConn Department of Marine Science researchers Zhuomin (Jasmine) Chen and Samantha Siedlecki, is working together to improve forecasts of the habitat shifts for different . Their findings have been published in Nature Communications

Habitats shift or shrink as marine species seek environments suitable for their survival and for satisfying other essential ecological activities such as growth, feeding, and reproduction. The ability to anticipate these shifts has great value for policymaking, research, and helping the fishing industry cope with the changing environment.

Chen explains that the multidisciplinary team predicted interannual-to-decadal habitat shifts for diverse marine species in the upper 600 meters of 11 North American Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), based on a key metabolic index combined with a suite of decadal forecast systems.

Read the full article at the University of Connecticut

Humans Altered the Genetic Make-up of a Species Through Fishing

August 5, 2019 — Over recent decades, many commercially harvested fish have grown slower and matured earlier, which can translate into lower yields. Scientists have long suspected that rapid evolutionary change in fish caused by intense harvest pressure is the culprit.

Now, for the first time, researchers have unraveled genome-wide changes that prompted by fisheries – changes that previously had been invisible, according to a study published in Science by a team of researchers including Hannes Baumann, UConn assistant professor of Marine Sciences, who collaborated with researchers at Cornell University, the University of Oregon, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Stanford University.

In unprecedented detail, the study shows sweeping genetic changes and how quickly those changes occur in fish populations extensively harvested by humans, says Baumann.

Read the full story at UConn Today