We know that fences around farms and homes can change how wildlife species move across a landscape, but what happens if the farms are under water? In 2018, the Munroe Lab began experiments and surveys to look at this question on oyster farms in the lower Delaware Bay. The wildlife...
Ghost Forests
The earth is getting warmer, sea levels are rising, and this is reflected in the occurrence of “ghost forests” in the Mullica Valley in southern New Jersey. The increase is obvious in most of our lifetimes and especially since Superstorm Sandy, when salty water was pushed far upstream. One result...
Life at the Extremes – Microbiology of deep-sea volcanoes
Of all environments on Earth at which life flourishes, deep-sea volcanoes are probably the most extreme. Temperatures within many of these systems range from 2-400°C, pressures are in excess of several hundred atmospheres, and concentrations of hydrogen sulfide and many heavy metals (e.g., Cu, Zn, Fe, Cd, Pb) frequently exceed...
A white polka dot coral reef
The last two summers in Hawaii were hot, hot, hot. Our temperature loggers in the water reached temperatures of over 32˚C (over 90˚F!) on the reef crest. Many of the corals we study were clearly stressed and bleached - they lost their algal symbionts which usually give them a golden...
Stratified coastal ocean interactions with tropical cyclones
This week, a paper by members of Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership was released in Nature covering how the coastal ocean can dictate the intensity of tropical cyclones. The cooling of coastal surface waters ahead of hurricanes has the capacity to reduce their intensity, according to a study...
Who’s out there in this weather?
November-December in the North Atlantic can be a brutal time of year to conduct scientific research, with winds reaching 50 knots and waves higher than 20 ft. Researchers aboard the R/V Atlantis answered the challenge to conduct science in these conditions as part of the North Atlantic Aerosol and Marine...
They’re On The Move
On November 13th the Science Magazine published a special issue highlighting the effects that climate change has on the oceans. An article by Marianne Lavelle examines how climate change is creating problems for fisheries by causing valuable fish stocks to move in response to a warming ocean. The article features...