Prof. Elisabeth Sikes Awarded 2022 SCAR Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research

Liz Sikes on board the RV Thomas Thompson in 2018 during the CROCCA-2s voyage to the Southern Indian Ocean. Ile Amsterdam, in the background, is one of the most remote islands in the Southern Ocean.

Elisabeth Sikes, professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, has been jointly awarded the 2022 SCAR Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Sikes and 2022 co-recipient Professor Pippa Whitehouse of Durham University, UK, received the award on August 5 as part of the closing session of the SCAR 2022 Open Science Conference. Sikes’ …

Rutgers Board of Governors Professor Paul Falkowski Profiled by the National Academy of Sciences

Rutgers Board of Governors Professor Paul Falkowski. Photo credit: Yuan Gao, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ.

This profile first appeared in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Paul Falkowski spent much of his research career analyzing the activity of aquatic microorganisms, which captured his interest early in life. As a child, growing up in a New York City Housing Project in Harlem, he received a small fish tank from a family friend, and his father …

Celebrate the Rutgers Marine Field Station with Inaugural Special Collections Apparel

Working with the Rutgers University Marine Field Station, University Communications and Marketing developed a merchandise special collection to celebrate the Marine Field Station’s 50th anniversary preserving the coastal ecosystem for sea life in New Jersey. The Marine Field Station is in Tuckerton, New Jersey. Pictured are two of the six designs.

University Communications and Marketing has introduced a new initiative to showcase points of pride at Rutgers through a limited-edition collection of retail merchandise, only available online and at the University Bookstore. SEBS and NJAES have been selected to kick off the series, just in time for the Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) to celebrate 50 years of preserving the …

Is Decline in Bee Population a Natural Phenomenon or a Warning?

bees

Rutgers scientists track the decline at New Jersey and Pennsylvania farms asking what’s behind this dramatic trend A dramatic decline in the bee population at fruit farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has Rutgers scientists wondering whether it is a natural phenomenon or a warning about a future threat to the world’s food supply. In a study published in the science journal Insect …

Cultivating Super Corals Alone Is Unlikely to Protect Coral Reefs From Climate Change

coral

Restoration efforts need to be conducted at much greater spatial and temporal scales to have long-term benefits A popular coral restoration technique is unlikely to protect coral reefs from climate change and is based on the assumption that local threats to reefs are managed effectively, according to a study co-authored by Rutgers, Coral Research Alliance and researchers at other institutions. …

Six SEBS Faculty Selected for 2022-23 Provost’s Teaching Fellows Program

Ethan Schoolman

Congratulations to the six faculty in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences who are  among the 2022-23 Cohort of Provost’s Teaching Fellows announced by the Office of the Chancellor-Provost. The program was initiated in 2021 to support pedagogical innovation aimed at improving student learning outcomes. It includes full cohort sessions to share goals and build networks, as well as small group …

Ninth Annual Personal Bioblitz Results Break All Records, Again!

Pediastrum duplex, a colonial green algae, CC-BY-NC SEBS professor Lena Struwe.

The Personal Bioblitz was launched in 2014 by Lena Struwe, director of the Chrysler Herbarium and professor of botany in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, challenging participants to observe and report as many wild species as possible from everyday life using the global community science website and free app, iNaturalist. Congratulations to the top winners—every species and person—and to the Personal …

Nuclear War Would Rewire the Physical, Biological and Ecological States of Oceans

sea turtle

Rutgers scientist helps produce world’s first large-scale study on how nuclear war would affect marine ecosystems. Even the smallest nuclear war would devastate ocean systems, leading to sharp declines in fish stocks, expansion of ice sheets into coastal communities and changes in ocean currents that would take decades or longer to reverse, according to a Rutgers researcher and an international …

Offshore Wind Farms Expected to Reduce Clam Fishery Revenue, Study Finds

wind farm

An important East Coast shellfish industry is projected to suffer revenue losses as offshore wind energy develops along the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts, according to two Rutgers studies. The studies, which appear in the ICES Journal of Marine Science (here and here), examined how offshore wind farms planned for the eastern United States could disrupt fishing of the Atlantic surfclam, a major economic …

Rutgers Launches Citizen-Led Project to Combat Tick-Borne Diseases

The only female Gulf Coast tick, Amblyomma maculatum, collected in NJ. Photo James Occi.

The Center for Vector Biology (CVB), part of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, launched New Jersey Ticks 4 Science!, a citizen-led science project supported by the state that asks New Jerseyans to submit tick specimens they find to help track tick populations and help prevent tick-borne illness. “The purpose of the effort is to better understand who …