By: Dana Sackett When a specific trait about an animal makes it more likely to survive and produce offspring, that trait will get passed on to the next generation becoming more frequent in successive generations than those traits that do not help individuals survive and reproduce. For example, if being able to swim away from…

By: Dana Sackett, PhD Recent research has found that fish may be more important to the ocean carbon cycle than previously predicted.  A compound called calcium carbonate, which is the main ingredient in the shells of marine organisms (coral reefs, oysters, clams, sea urchins, some plankton), is predicted to become more and more limited to…

With the 149th American Fisheries Society Meeting jointly in full swing with The Wildlife Society in Reno, Nevada this week, we decided a re-run of a previous post about a topic that could impact both fish and wildlife was appropriate. In addition, this post is timely as it puts the potential consequences of the recent…

The famous Chattahoochee River starts as a spring-fed mountain stream in the southern Appalachians. After it fills Lake Lanier with drinking water for Atlanta, it travels south through the Piedmont, forming the state line between Georgia and Alabama. As it makes its way over rocky shoals towards the coastal plain and the Gulf of Mexico,…

By: Dana Sackett While the title of this article may bring to mind runway models in lab coats, this week I want to discuss those ‘super’ models that scientists use to describe, understand, and predict the world around us.  These types of models allow us to better understand why an ecosystem is the way it…