Katherine Kahl and Graduate Student, Amanda Davis Receives Collaborative Research Seed Grant

Katherine Kahl and Graduate Student, Amanda Davis Receives Collaborative Research Seed Grant

Courtesy of UMass News & Media   ADVANCE Team Announces Collaborative Research Seed Grant Recipients October 25, 2019 The ADVANCE program has announced that two research teams are recipients of ADVANCE’s first Collaborative Research Seed Grants. The competitive grants aim to foster the development of innovative and equitable collaborative research projects among faculty. Recognizing longstanding gender gaps in the academy, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds universities to build institutional transformation programs in order to advance gender equity for faculty in science and engineering. Through the power of collaboration, ADVANCE cultivates faculty equity and inclusion—especially for women and minorities in science and engineering. Two winning teams demonstrated innovative research and well thought-out and equitable collaborations. One team will be working on the project "Elucidating mechanoselective adhesion and antibiotic resistance for catheter-associated bacterial infections using genomics approaches.” The principal investigators for this team are: Lauren Andrews, Marvin and Eva Schlanger Faculty Fellow, assistant professor, department of chemical engineering Jessica Schiffman, James M. Douglas Career Development Faculty Fellow, associate...
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Graduate Student, Lucas Griffin’s Tarpon Research Featured

Graduate Student, Lucas Griffin’s Tarpon Research Featured

By Mark Wilson, FOX 13 News Posted Aug 02 2019 02:43PM EDT Video Posted Aug 02 2019 02:50PM EDT Updated Aug 02 2019 02:53PM EDT ENGLEWOOD, Fla. (FOX 13) - With the tarpon population believed to be in decline, a non-profit group is employing new state-of-the-art trackers to better understand and protect Florida's most-prized sport fish. In the waters off Little Gasparilla Island and Boca Grande, charter fishermen like Captain David Hutcherson hook up with the silver kings, get their photos, then allow them to be tagged and tracked. "They're beautiful, they're so powerful," said Hutcherson. "It really is amazing and it's worth conserving." On a steamy July morning, Hutcherson has a full boat, with FOX 13 cameras and JoEllen Wilson and Lucas Griffin of the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. Hutcherson spots a tarpon, casts quickly and hooks up in mere seconds. What follows is a heart-pounding, awe-inspiring dance of the silver king as the 100-pound fish leaps out of the water, twisting and turning until it eventually frees itself of the hook. "Awww, so close,"...
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Lisa Komoroske Co-Leads Team While Following Breeding Green Sea Turtles in Remote Islands of Brazil

Lisa Komoroske Co-Leads Team While Following Breeding Green Sea Turtles in Remote Islands of Brazil

Courtesy of Office of News & Media Relations | UMass Amherst UMass Amherst ecologist, team will study reproductive and migration patterns July 24, 2019 Contact: Lisa Komoroske 413/545-2491 AMHERST, Mass. – The National Science Foundation this month announced that assistant professor of environmental conservation Lisa Komoroske will co-lead a four-year, $1.4 million, multi-institution grant to study how reproductive behaviors will influence the effects of climate change on green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas). Her team will spend months in the field at turtle nesting beaches on Fernando de Noronha, a marine reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site composed of archipelago of 21 islands about 220 miles off the coast of Brazil. She and collaborators at Florida State and Oregon State universities will also work with the Brazil-based non-profit conservation organization PROJECTO TAMAR on the project. Komoroske and her colleagues believe this work will be the first comprehensive examination of resilience to environmental change among these turtles and will provide insights relevant to other temperature sex-determined species. Komoroske, an expert in the use...
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Brian Cheng and Colleagues Find Marine Protected Reserves Do More Than Restore Fish

Brian Cheng and Colleagues Find Marine Protected Reserves Do More Than Restore Fish

Courtesy of UMass News & Media Relations  UMass Amherst, Smithsonian, Florida research reports wider ecological benefits April 1, 2019 Contact: Brian Cheng 413/545-2454   AMHERST, Mass. – In a new analysis of the effectiveness of marine protected areas worldwide, University of Massachusetts Amherst marine ecologist Brian Cheng and colleagues report that reserves not only replenish target fish populations, they also restore ecological functioning. However, not all reserves performed equally well. Ecological functioning is a measure of the activities that maintain life, Cheng points out. In this case, it involves rates of predation and herbivory, or when animals eat other animals or plants, he adds. Without these activities, these ocean habitats would be radically different, providing fewer benefits to society. Analyzing field experiments from across the globe, he and collaborators at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Florida say their findings reveal that marine reserves increase predation rates by protecting predators that were once heavily fished by humans, allowing their numbers to thrive. Their study appears online in the...
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