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The Importance of Connectivity in Marine Reserve Performance

By John Proefrock, SRC intern Marine Reserves are essential parts of ocean conservation across the world. They provide protection for sensitive species and prevent overfishing in areas essential for the recovery of those species. The effects of overfishing include a massive disruption of the marine food web which can cause dangerous rises in primary producers […]

The Great Barrier: The Road to Blue Restoration

By Oliver Topel, SRC intern This blog post covers the scientific paper Blue Restoration–Building Confidence and Overcoming Barriers, written by Phoebe J. Stewart Sinclair et al. The main subject of this paper is a process called “Blue Restoration,” which is the interventions made for the rehabilitation of marine and coastal habitats. Some examples of these […]

Traditional knowledge of Fishers versus an environmental disaster from mining waste in Central Brazil

By Rebecca Varnam, SRC intern In recent years, the depths of human impacts on the environment have become even more clear (Nyssen, 2004). These impacts are not just specific events that occur in single, isolated locations, but rather multiple events that occur around the world, and in multiple different forms (Phillips, 2001). Here, I am […]

SRC Highlights in 2019

UM SRC had a productive 2019. Here are some of the highlights we are proud to share with you. We published 13 research papers in scientific journals. These papers ranged in scientific topics from determining the ecosystem consequences of shark declines to determining the extent to which sharks are under threat from commercial fishing. Two […]

Refugia under threat: Mass bleaching of coral assemblages in high‐latitude eastern Australia

By Victor Munoz, SRC MPS student When hearing about the effects of climate change on coral reefs, most will likely think of damage from coral bleaching events (Goldberg & Wilkinson, 2004). Because bleaching has been associated with higher sea temperatures, coral reefs exposed to colder waters can sometimes be viewed as more resilient to rises […]

Don’t Treat Your Marine Sediments Like Dirt

By Sander Elliot, SRC intern Marine sediments are home to a surprisingly diverse ecosystem of global importance. Subseafloor Life and its Biogeological Impacts (D’Hondt et al., 2019) overviews this ecosystem and roles it plays. Marine sediments are often overlooked because they are removed from our daily lives. If one takes the time to look into […]

Foraging energetics and prey density requirements of western North Atlantic blue whales in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

By Nicholas Martinez, SRC intern Pelagic predators throughout the world’s oceans face the same challenge: foraging for food in an environment where much of their prey are available in clusters, centralized around specific areas of the ocean. For this reason, many pelagic predators have unique ways to find these limited resources, all the while adjusting […]

Preventing ecosystems from feeling clammy: what monitoring giant clam populations can tell us about human perseverance

By Maria Geoly, SRC Intern Every aspect of our lives depends on the health of our natural resources. Clean water, nutrient rich soil, and access to timber are often considered humanity’s three most essential natural resources because they provide the four essential needs of living things: oxygen, water, food, and shelter. Often overlooked, however, is […]

Mapping the global network of fisheries science collaboration

By Julia Saltzman, SRC intern Collaboration is something which we all learn about as children. We are taught to work together in teams, to share our toys, and that ideas are better when many individuals contribute to them. As science has become increasingly internationalized, scholars investigating the shifting spatial structure have posed questions to whether […]