First Culture

A historic event in the Adams Larval Ecology and Development Lab - we made our first larval culture!

We had to borrow beg and steal to get some of the supplies (note the shelves waiting to be filled) but we scrounged enough to spawn two sand dollars, Dendraster... mix their eggs and sperm together... and voila our first LARVAE!

Rutgers undergraduate, Ryan Buttone, transferring the culture.

Ryan at the microscope marveling at watching embryonic development before his eyes.

Dendraster pluteus under DIC transmitted light.

Blue Ribbon for the Indispensable Ocean

GPO Blue Ribbon Panel of Ocean Experts - CEOs to activists

Today, a unique panel of business, government, conservation and academic leaders convened by the Global Partnership for the Oceans (GPO) has agreed on a global strategy for aligning ocean health and human well‐being. USAID is a founding donor partner in the 140+ member Global Partnership for Oceans – a partnership committed to working together to solve the critical issues affecting the health of our oceans. 

The Blue Ribbon Panel, which includes 21 global experts from 16 countries, emphasizes that without action to turn around the declining health of the ocean, the consequences for economies, communities and ecosystems will be irreversible. But there is good news: solutions exist that benefit both oceans and economies, according to the Blue Ribbon Panel’s report, Indispensable Ocean.

According to the panel, fragmented approaches that fail to consider social, political, economic and ecological relationships will fail to meet the complex challenges facing ocean health. The report calls for an integrated approach to ocean investment and emphasizes the essential role of public‐ private partnerships.

The panel agreed that the Global Partnership for Oceans is a platform that brings together the multi‐stakeholder support, technical expertise and finance needed to change the course on oceans.

The panel did not identify a “silver bullet” to resolving urgent ocean challenges. Instead, it proposes five principles to ensure effective GPO investments: (1) sustainable livelihoods, social equity and food security; (2) a healthy ocean; (3) effective governance systems; (4) long‐term viability and (5) capacity building and innovation.

A rocky start

I'm not sure where September went, but I find myself in a new office in New Brunswick over looking trees donning the multi-hues of fall... as an new Assistant Professor at Rutgers's Institute of Marine and Coastal Science.

Have I finally settled? This is the illusive tenure-track faculty position - achieved! Like a barnacle cyprid, I'm testing out furniture arrangements before cementing it in place. I'm overwhelmingly excited and also overwhelmed - with the stuff to purchase, with living in a hotel and then finally moving (our sewer main was discovered broken less than 48 hours after closing!), with bringing personnel on board, and well, the whole thing. Hopefully, my rocky start will lead to a better over all hold as well. Right now, I feel woefully behind.

A new website is in the works. I hope to share it shortly!