The School of Marine Sciences (SMS) was founded on July 1, 1996, by faculty from the former Departments of Oceanography, Botany and Plant Pathology, and Zoology. Together, SMS had three strengths: 1) marine organismal, population and ecosystem biology, and aquaculture; 2) physical and biogeochemical marine sciences; and 3) marine policy. SMS now contains the largest […]
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Eight students from Maine universities delved into the science and practice of marine aquaculture last week, thanks to an innovative new program developed by the University of Maine and University of Maine at Machias. Students visited sites from Walpole to Eastport under the leadership of UMaine Darling Marine Center director Heather Leslie and UMM professor […]
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An international research team led by Heather Leslie found fishers’ decisions are shaped by differences in both natural and social environments. The team discovered the community with stronger fishing rights exerted more control over fishers’ decisions than communities with weaker rights, and did so in a way consistent with the impacts of climate variability on […]
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Rhian Waller received an incredible gift to celebrate the National Park System’s 100th anniversary in 2016. The University of Maine associate professor led the first-ever extensive expedition of the underwater fjords in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska. “Glacier Bay National Park is such an amazing area, it’s very hard to put it […]
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In November, Noah Oppenheim won the best student oral presentation award at the American Lobster in a Changing Ecosystem symposium in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. “Forecasting the future of the American lobster in the Gulf of Maine and Southern New England: trouble on the horizon?” was the title of his talk. In it, the University […]
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The director of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center says ecosystem-based approaches to restore ocean health provide a flexible framework for marine management and allow scientists and stakeholders to move beyond reactive and piecemeal solutions.
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Heather Leslie, director of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center, is leading a research project to deepen her interdisciplinary investigations of ecological and human dimensions of small-scale fisheries in Mexico’s Baja peninsula. A $1.79 million award from the National Science Foundation’s Coupled Natural and Human (CNH) Systems Program funds the three-year project. “My studies […]
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Rachel Lasley-Rasher wanted to learn more about highly mobile shrimp that are important food for baleen whales and commercial fish along the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia. Because of their significance in the marine food web, she said a better understanding of shrimp migration patterns could fill knowledge gaps and help predict […]
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An underwater sea slug has evolved chemical foraging and defense abilities that are functionally identical to those of terrestrial insects, despite being unrelated to their land-based counterparts and living in vastly different habitats for 400 million years. “Specialized herbivores on land and sea appear to make a living in similar ways,” says University of Maine […]
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