Scientists and managers have long thought that disease spreads from oyster aquaculture to wild populations. New research, however, has shown that aquaculture operations can actually limit the spread of diseases like dermo. The team, including Tal Ben-Horin of the University of Rhode Island (URI), Colleen Burge of University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Ryan Carnegie of [...]
Virginia Sea Grant (VASG) and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science are excited to announce a joint Postdoctoral Research Associate in Communicating Science position, with an emphasis on climate change and resilience in coastal communities. The Postdoctoral Associate will conduct research as well as design, test, and deliver training in the Virginia and mid‐Atlantic regions. [...]
Scientists across the Bay have long speculated that oysters improve water quality, leading managers to restore oyster reefs as a best management practice. Researchers Lisa Kellogg and Mark Brush at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and Jeff Cornwell of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) have developed a web-based, interactive computer [...]
Then-doctoral student Josh Stone tests the buoyancy of a bay nettle in the Zooplankton Ecology laboratory at VIMS. (Photo by D. Malmquist/VIMS) Scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) have been investigating a Bay-wide scarcity of nettles (aka: jellyfish). The research, published in September in Estuaries and Coasts, serves as the most [...]
Environmentalists and watermen have come together to reach a broad set of recommendations for restoring oysters in the Choptank and Little Choptank rivers. OysterFutures, led by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) and funded by National Science Foundation, is a research project aimed at achieving thriving oyster populations. Watermen and environmentalists have long [...]
A team led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO), and including participants from Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), University of Maryland (UMD), Old Dominion University (ODU) George Mason University (GMU), and several other institutions conducted a large initiative to document the biodiversity of the Chesapeake Bay on July [...]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports summer research opportunities for undergraduates across the country. Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) are programs with cohorts of 10-15 students designed to give students the opportunity to pursue independent research projects outside of their university. The students work closely with a mentor on a specific research project and are granted [...]
Rob Hale, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), has been studying plastics since the 1990's. His research in the past showed substantial levels of flame retardants, which are often added to plastics to reduce flammability, in wastewater, sewage, soils, sediments, dust, and in organisms. His findings led to worldwide limitations on these [...]
Submerged aquatic vegetation, or bay grasses, in the Severn River Sanctuary in Anne Arundel County, Md., on July 10, 2016. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program) Scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) have led surveys of underwater grasses since 1979. In 2017, they recorded 104,843 acres of grasses, exceeding the Chesapeake [...]
April brought its traditional showers and some very good news for the Chesapeake Bay region. For the first time since the decades-old underwater grass monitoring program began, underwater grass acreage exceeded 100,000 acres. In 2017, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science mapped an estimated 104,843 acres of underwater grass throughout the Chesapeake Bay. This marks the [...]
