Grad students can be successful for countless reasons, depending on their unique projects and experiences. But unsuccessful grad students have several things in common. Fall semester starts this week at many universities, and lots of grad students are taking the leap for the first time. Here are a few tips. I finished grad school in…
To See a Coelacanth
This week’s post reflects on some time I am spending with Prosanta Chakrabarty. Prosanta, myself, and a research team are currently in rural, coastal Tanzania sampling Western Indian Ocean fish
9 Key Principles for Instructors to Help Students Learn
Guest Author: Dr. Don Orth Editor: Patrick Cooney We are all teachers and learners, albeit too often flawed, slow learners. Here, pictured with a filmstrip projector, I listened as the Beatles sang “You say you want a revolution. Well, you know. We all want to change the world.” (John Lennon / Paul McCartney Revolution lyrics…
Dollars and Data: The Science of Rewarding Fishers to Report Their Lucky Catch
By: Dana Sackett Mark and recapture is a common method used by ecologists and resource managers to estimate a species growth, movement, levels of harvest, population size, and/or natural mortality (the rate at which animals die from natural causes such as predators, disease, or old age). For fisheries scientists, this method often involves capturing a…
A Look Below: A Guide to Underwater Fish Photography
The ability to capture stunning images of life underwater has now become part of the mainstream when it was formerly but a rivulet.
The most common fish in the sea
The most common fish in the sea is likely a fish that you’ve never seen or even heard of…
Minnow misconceptions
Just like they say, ‘more species, more problems’…well, we’ve got lots of problems. The minnow family—Cyprinidae (Sy-Prin-I-Dee)—is the largest freshwater fish family in the world, boasting over 3,000 species from ~370 genera. But because of that great diversity, minnows are one of the most misunderstood groups of fishes on the planet. As a scientist who…
Great Lakes, Great #SciComm
Co-authored by Katie O’Reilly, Nicole Wood, and Solomon David #SocialGreatLakes: Communicating Great Lakes Science through Social Media was a special session at the 60th annual meeting of the International Association for Great Lakes Research held in Detroit, Michigan, from May 15-19, 2017. During #SocialGreatLakes, eleven speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines shared their…
The New GenX: A Tale of Water Pollution
Guest Author: Susanne Brander People in Wilmington, NC have stopped drinking water, from the tap that is, even though we have a water treatment facility, renovated just a few years ago, that boasts of the “latest and most innovative treatment technologies” on its website. Facebook has become dominated by parents exchanging opinions on reverse-osmosis filtration…
Gila Trout Swim Mineral Creek: Devastating fire cleared path for rare trout’s return
Wear and tear on boot soles and a helicopter—that’s what it took to get 1,033 Gila trout safely placed in the remote headwaters of Mineral Creek, well inside the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. On November 18, 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) working with its partner agencies, the New Mexico…
Determining Trophic Position: Everyone Gets A Trophy, but Only the Top Doesn’t Get Eaten
By: Dana Sackett For environmental scientists and biologists, there are some terms and phrases so commonly used that they become a part of everyday conversations. Trophic position is one of those terms that is often used in daily conversations without the realization that many do not have a clear idea of what it means. This…
What is Bowfishing?
Guest Author: Jason Emmel Editor: Patrick Cooney WHAT IS BOWFISHING? It’s not really fishing in the traditional sense. It’s not really bowhunting either. Bowfishing is somewhere in-between and the basic principle is quite simple. You spot a fish lurking in the shallows, carefully move in closer, draw back your specially equipped bow and arrow, take…
Happy BOFFFF Day!
While mama fish may not have the same maternal instincts of our own dear mums, they do their part to sustain fish populations, particularly BOFFFFs. “What is a BOFFFF?” might you ask…A Big Old Fat Fecund Female Fish.
Yellow Perch and the hypoxia Goldilocks zone
It may seem obvious that suffocation is not good, but determining a fish’s tolerance for low oxygen is increasingly important as hypoxia increases worldwide. Hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen concentrations) occurs naturally—it develops in the hot summers and cold winters beneath ice in small lakes and ponds. Hypoxia can also occur as a result of human…
Top 5 Most Dangerous Sea Creatures
A while back we covered the most venomous fish. And even though we are the Fisheries Blog, we still report on other aquatic critters now and then. Given the interest in our list of venomous fish, we wanted to expand to include other things in the ocean that can ruin your day. We are also not requiring that…
The Fisheries Blog 