By: Troy Farmer, a postdoctoral researcher at Auburn University On a global scale, aquatic systems are warming. Average temperatures in the world’s oceans have been steadily increasing over the past 50 years. Given that the observed warming trends are predicted to continue, our job, as fisheries scientists, is to understand how fish are presently being…
Category: Guest Expert
Talking trash in the deep sea
By: Anela Choy (guest blogger and postdoctoral researcher at MBARI) Plastic debris in the ocean is no stranger to headline news… Surfers gliding through waves filled with plastic in Indonesia. The world’s largest landfill in the middle of the ocean, a vast area otherwise deemed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Sea birds ingesting large amounts…
Biologists take over Twitter
by Anne Hilborn, guest blogger Many scientists (myself included) are initially suspicious of using social media professionally, thinking it a bit too show offy, a bit too much like tooting your own horn, a bit too much of a waste of time. However, many of us eventually discover it can be a great tool for…
Three Things You Should Know About North Carolina’s Sharks
The shark population of North Carolina has been in the news quite a bit lately. Thanks to a record-setting string of eight bites on people so far this summer (about four times what North Carolina has in an average year), there has been a surge of interest in what sharks are doing in the state’s…
Thank You Jaws! The Upside for Sharks 40 Years Later
By: Tobey Curtis, guest blogger When Jaws hit theaters 40 years ago this week, it changed everything for sharks. Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Peter Benchley’s monster shark novel is now so iconic that it requires no introduction. The thrumming, two-note cello riff can still send shivers down your spine even if someone starts humming…
Giving back: a fisheries biologist’s mission
by Aaron Cushing, guest blogger Fisheries biologists love fish. It’s that simple. We all work long days in the summer sun to improve fisheries resources in lakes and streams across the world. In freshwater, we electrofish after dark to sample as many fish as possible to get the best data, often going to bed when…
Fish Take Underwater Elevator Before Surgery (videos)
By Patrick Cooney During the cold winter this year at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, one of Shedd’s researchers was heading to the warm waters of the Bahamas to better understand the movement patterns of Nassau Grouper. Dr. Kristine Stump joined Shedd Aquarium about a year ago as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and has a history of leading…
The Prolific Life of Barton Evermann
Anyone who’s studied fisheries science will have seen the name “Barton Evermann.” He was a full-fledged member of the gilded age of American ichthyology and created a greater good working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ancestral U.S. Fish Commission. Barton Evermann was born in Iowa in 1853, and came of age on an…
The Mystery of the Unidentified Fish Prey
What do fish eat? With regard to the non-native Blue Catfish in Virginia’s tidal rivers, this question is routinely answered as “everything!” Once these Blue Catfish grow over 23 inches, however, they shift to piscivorous (eating mostly fish) diets that allow them to grow to weights in excess of 100 pounds! These fishy diets wouldn’t…
Winter: the forgotten study season
As researchers, we’ve built sampling regimes that ignore an entire season because winter is harsh and unforgiving.
Q-n-A: Marine Fisheries Observer
Bycatch from commercial fishing vessels is a major fisheries issue. But did you ever wonder how bycatch is estimated and accounted for? This week, we sat down with Mitchell Masser, a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) certified North Pacific groundfish observer, to get a feel for the importance of the work of marine fisheries observers….
What is the actual value of our nation’s fisheries?
Why should you care about fisheries in the United States? The Factual Fish Squeezer eloquently explains the economical, ecological, and cultural reasons in the following video. Dr. Jesse “Factual Fish Squeezer” Trushenski is a fisheries scientist, foodie, and fish culturist, or “fish squeezer” as they are affectionately known. The Factual Fish Squeezer is committed to communicating…
Radioactive fish: probably not going to turn you into Aquaman
By: Dr. Dana Sackett with contributions and edits by Dr. Daniel Madigan, an expert in the field of radioactivity in the environment. Articles ranging from fear-inducing hysteria to ‘everything is totally cool’ have been hitting the media about radioactivity in the Pacific Ocean over the last several years following the disaster at Fukushima. This week…
Stream Planning Tools in the 21st Century
By Mark Scott, Guest Blogger The noted flowing-water ecologist H.B.N. Hynes wrote about the stream and its valley, pointing out that water quality, channel form, biological communities, and other stream conditions are linked to characteristics of the drainage basin. Countless studies have since reinforced that observation, and although Clean Water Act provisions to address point…
River roaches: The Quest to Better Understand Crayfish
by Michael Moore, guest blogger Some call them yabbis, mudbugs or spoondogs. But most of you know them by a different name: crayfish. My scientific introduction to crayfish was by another name–“ the cockroaches of the creek“; they eat everything and everything eats them!”This was the answer I received when asking a scientist about crayfish. Comparing something…
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