WHOI/MIT Sea Grant has awarded Prof. Jefferson Turner $150,000 to study the toxic dinoflagellate Cochlodinium polykrikoides, which has been increasing in frequency of blooms in Buzzards Bay over the last decade. Although unrecorded in previous published Buzzards Bay plankton studies, this fish-killing species has been forming massive blooms with “rust-colored” water discoloration in the northern Bay in August and September in the last few years.
Prof. Turner’s Biological Oceanography/Plankton Ecology Laboratory at UMass Dartmouth (Biology Department and SMAST) has been monitoring Buzzards Bay monthly since 1987. Continue reading
Since 2009, SMAST students have been participating directly in international fisheries science and management through the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded $534,660 to SMAST for research to benefit the sea scallop fishery, $373,922 to support “Broadscale Video Survey of Georges Bank Scallop Open Areas,” (Prof. Kevin Stokesbury, PI), and $160,738 to fund “Scallop Fishery Bycatch Avoidance System 2015” (Dr. Catherine O’Keefe, PI).
Prof. Kevin Stokesbury, Chair of SMAST’s Department of Fisheries Oceanography, delivered the keynote address “Marine protected areas and the US sea scallop fishery” at the 20th International Pectinid Workshop in Galway City, Ireland, on April 25.