College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences

The effects of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation on plant and bird communities in coastal marshes from Maine to Virginia are the focus of a 10-state study by researchers from the University of Maine, University of Connecticut, University of Delaware and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Information gathered from more than 1,700 sites before and […]

Warming waters and reduced food supply off the coasts of the United States and Canada are threatening the North American Atlantic salmon, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Maine and Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI). “During the last 30 years, salmon populations have declined in a similar manner across […]

A state-of-the-art sensor buoy system has been deployed in Jordan Pond at Acadia National Park to begin a high-tech water quality monitoring program in light of recent concerns about decreasing clarity in what is considered one of the clearest lakes in Maine. The monitoring program is made possible by a partnership led by Friends of […]

Mary Ellen Camire is among the first food scientists nationwide — and the first at UMaine — to be certified by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). More than 1,400 food scientists nationwide were in the inaugural class of Certified Food Scientists, a certification program created by IFT that recognizes the applied scientific knowledge and […]

Massachusetts native Kristine Hoffmann feels right at home in her wading boots in vernal pools in Orono, Maine. As a youngster, she enjoyed exploring a spring wetland close to her Bay State backyard. And these days, vernal pools — forest floor depressions that fill with water in the spring and generally dry out in late […]

Many Mainers earn their livelihoods from harvesting bounty — including blueberries and lobsters — from the land and sea. And Samuel Belknap and Kourtney Collum, the first students to enroll in the University of Maine’s new anthropology and environmental policy doctoral program, want to preserve those storied traditions, as well as the state’s natural resources. […]

Jeffrey Benjamin, University of Maine associate professor of forest operations, recently received the Northeastern Loggers’ Association’s 2012 Outstanding Service to the Forest Industry Award at a banquet in Brewer, Maine. NELA President Dennis Allard touted Benjamin’s research on developing woody biomass retention guidelines and his study of innovation of logging operations. The Northeastern Loggers’ Association, […]

Kate Ruskin, a Ph.D. student in the University of Maine School of Biology and Ecology, and her field crew have been blogging about their experience in the field as part of the 2013 SHARP Maine Demographics project surveying tidal-marsh birds. The Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program, or SHARP, was founded by a group of […]

Edward Ashworth, dean of the University of Maine College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture, has announced the creation of the School of Food and Agriculture. Ashworth says the departments of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Food Science and Human Nutrition and Plant, Soil, and Environmental Sciences will merge to create the new school starting July […]

Boron, a semimetallic chemical element, may be most commonly known for its various inorganic compounds such as the antiseptic boric acid, the cleaning agent borax and tourmaline, Maine’s state mineral. But scientists have discovered this element may have had more of an effect on life on Earth than forming semiprecious gemstones and aiding with household […]