Maine’s coastal communities face multiple environmental and socioeconomic changes, including declining fisheries, loss of working waterfronts, and warming oceans. With more than 3,500 miles of coast, Maine people have important questions about how their communities are preparing for and adapting to these changes. Marina Cucuzza, a graduate student in the University of Maine […]
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UMaine shellfish study highlights changes in the Damariscotta River WALPOLE, Maine — The rich ecosystem of the Damariscotta River estuary still holds many mysteries. Some of its most visible residents — oysters, alewives, seals and birds — are counted regularly. But, until this year, the wild shellfish of the upper estuary, have gone uncensused. […]
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A study published in Ecology and Society by University of Maine researchers Kara Pellowe and Heather Leslie found that regulations and financial resources that influence how people fish have as great an effect on how they deal with change as where and how they fish. The ecologists, based at the Darling Marine Center […]
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Coral reefs are the world’s most diverse and endangered marine ecosystems, particularly in the Caribbean. For the past five years, ecologist Bob Steneck has studied and monitored coral reefs in the Dominican Republic. Steneck is a University of Maine faculty member in residence at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole. This year, trends revealed that the […]
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Heather Leslie and Deborah Bronk lead scientific institutions that are advancing and collaborating on cutting-edge marine research from opposite sides of the Damariscotta River. Leslie, director of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center (DMC), and Bronk, president and CEO of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, regularly look for opportunities to strengthen the longstanding partnership […]
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Two new studies published by University of Maine scientists are putting a long-standing survey of the American lobster’s earliest life stages to its most rigorous test yet as an early warning system for trends in New England’s iconic fishery. The studies point to the role of a warming ocean and local differences in oceanography in […]
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ORONO, Maine — Even with ocean warming, coral bleaching and an intense hurricane, local conservation actions helped a Caribbean coral reef ecosystem rebound in about a decade. Bob Steneck began studying coral reefs off the island of Bonaire, near Venezuela in the Dutch Caribbean in 2002. And for more than 15 years, the University of […]
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University of Maine Semester by the Sea students from the Darling Marine Center ran the touch tank Sept. 29 at the Pemaquid Oyster Festival. The Pemaquid Oyster Company and Schooner Landing Restaurant host the annual festival in Damariscotta at the restaurant’s Main Street location. The free festival includes educational exhibits, vendors, music and plenty of […]
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Kara Pellowe, who recently earned her doctorate at the University of Maine and now is a postdoctoral researcher, will present results of a summer shellfish project at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 18 at the Damariscotta Town Office. In July, Pellowe and others gathered data at low tide to assess the abundance, composition and size of soft-shell […]
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Carl Huntsberger, who for three years studied the challenge of crustacean age determination, earned a Master of Science in marine biology at the University of Maine. Huntsberger grew up lobstering on the coast of Maine. After completing his bachelor’s degree in marine science at Roger Williams University in 2012, he worked at a nonprofit research lab […]
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