UMaine mentioned in Press Herald report on year’s top sustainability stories
The University of Maine was mentioned in a Portland Press Herald article that listed some of the positive actions and events related to sustainability that took place in Maine during 2017. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allocated a grant of $908,015 for research into sustainable processing of aquacultured seaweed and development of new value-added products, according to the article. A team from the UMaine School of Food and Agriculture will take the lead on that project. Another grant from NOAA went to Brian Beal of the Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education, who also is a professor at the University of Maine at Machias. He was awarded $249,238 to study the large-scale culture of blue mussel seed. While Maine’s mussel farms are doing well, they can’t keep up with demand, and according to UMaine, the major factor limiting their expansion is seed production. Beal will evaluate the best ways to both collect and culture mussel seed, the article states. This fall, Brunswick native and former UMaine student Hillary Morin Peterson discovered a new wasp species in Harpswell and named it Ormocerus dirigoius. Peterson also was the subject of the Press Herald’s recent “Meet” column.