Tales of a Marine Scientist

It's what I tell my campers all summer long when they are working on their research projects... "No data is still data." Just because you went out looking for something and didn't find it, doesn't mean you throw everything out and give up. If your goal is to assess the population of spider crabs in a particular place and time, and you go out searching and find none, it doesn't mean to walk away. It simply means you found a place and time at which there are no crabs. Now keep going... Week two came quickly on the heels of a delicious, successful week one. Monday's email arrived and my species this time were: Tilefish (any local species) ( Lopholatilus sp. ) Sea Urchin ( Arbacia punctulata or Strongylocentrous droebachiensis ) Blue crab ( Callinectes sapidus ) John Dory ( Zeus faber ) I knew right away that I would easily be able to find blue crab, but that I wouldn't be able to find any that was local. Although at work we've been pulling...

Aaaaannnnddd we're off.... This past week was the first week of 26 of "eating like a fish." For detailed information about the study I'm participating in and what's involved, make sure to stop over to my Eat Like a Fish page to read up about the protocol. This week's post will likely be longer than all the other 25 to come as I work out kinks, get over the novelty of participating (this may take a while though), and familiarize all my non-existent readers with the process. On Monday May 8th I received my first email with a link to a Google Doc for the assignments for all 92 participants in the study. I've got to admit, I was pretty excited to get my homework and get started and see what everybody else was going to be looking for. My four assigned species for week 1 were: Quahog ( Mercenaria mercenaria ) Dab/American plaice ( Hippoglossoides platessoides ) Bluefish ( Pomatomus saltatrix ) Red Hake/Squirrel Hake/Mud Hake/Ling ( Urophycis chuss ) ...

Eat Like A Fish! In March I received an email from a marine science related listserv that I am subscribed to regarding a study being conducted by a Rhode Island based non-profit called  Eating with the Ecosystem . This organization was looking to enlist participants as citizen scientists for the second phase of a study called "The Other EBFM: Designing Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Marketing Strategies to Complement Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management." The overall goal of the study is to help make our local seafood markets more closely resemble our local ecosystems. Seeing the words 'citizen science' combined with 'local seafood' my immediate response was "WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!?" After filling out an online survey and patiently waiting, I was ecstatic to find out that I was chosen as a participant for this part of the study. Phase II will be utilizing 92 participants from all six New England states as market researchers. A small trai...