Maine Sea Grant

David Fields Senior Research Scientist Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences The Gulf of Maine is warming at a rapid rate, with unknown consequences for marine life, including commercially and culturally important species such as American lobster and soft-shell clams. Previous work by Bigelow and UMaine scientists provided some of the first indication that temperature is […]

Bailey Bowden Town of Penobscot Alewife Committee Penobscot, ME The Bagaduce River Estuary is the focus of a watershed-wide effort to restore passage for sea-run fish and enhance ecosystem integrity, including participation in the SEANET project and NOAA’s Habitat Blueprint. The effort is led by the Town of Penobscot with support from Sedgwick and Brooksville, […]

Monique Coombs Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association   In 2017, Bert Jongerdon, General Manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, called the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association because he had a load of cusk and could not find a buyer. MCFA couldn’t identify a buyer, either, and the fish ended selling for pennies. Shortly after, MCFA discussed the […]

Alice Kelley School of Earth and Climate Sciences University of Maine More than 2,000 historic Wabanaki shell middens are located on the coast of Maine.  These human-created accumulations of shells, faunal remains, and artifacts were once seen as trash heaps, but are now viewed as archives of over 4,000 years of coastal lifeways and environmental […]

Darren Ranco Coordinator of Native American Research University of Maine   Katherine Allen School of Earth and Climate Science University of Maine   The flow of water across Maine’s landscape, through its rivers, and into the sea represents a key link in the regional water cycle, impacting both terrestrial and marine environments. River runoff contributes […]

Carolyn Tepolt Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution   Genetic adaptation may play an important role in the ability of lobsters to adapt to changing environmental conditions in the Gulf of Maine. Earlier research has suggested that lobsters may have evolved genetic variation related to temperature. However, the potential of rapid genomic adaptation to contribute to lobster […]

Kathleen Thornton Darling Marine Center University of Maine Citizen groups, aided by new technologies such as autonomous buoys, sondes, and other hand held instrumentation, as well as an expanding network of volunteer monitors, are obtaining a steadily increasing volume of coastal and estuarine water quality data. Even as the amount of data increases, there exist […]

Meredith White Mook Sea Farm   Some of the greatest risks facing oyster growers in Maine stem from ecosystem changes including increased temperature and changes to seawater chemistry that affect abundance of Vibrio species, an illness-causing bacteria. Illnesses linked to consumption of shellfish from cooler northeast waters had historically been rare but has increased in […]

Sarah Gladu Damariscotta River Association Damariscotta, ME The Maine Coastal Observing Alliance (MCOA) consists of nine coastal citizen monitoring groups who collect water samples and analyze pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nutrients (total nitrogen), salinity, and turbidity in eight coastal estuaries and embayments between Casco Bay and Penobscot Bay. This coastwide survey, initiated in 2013, of […]