Featured Posts
New species of boa found in The Bahamas
Finding new species these days is usually the business of researchers who work with small things like insects and crustaceans. However, every once in a while researchers uncover big animals. These rarities have hidden away in [...]
Fish Rules
A substantially revised version of the fishing regulations app Fish Rules is out. It is really cool - check it out.
Rats!
Over the last few weeks I've been noticing extensive damage to shrubs and small trees. The bark has been removed over long sections of living and (now) dead plants. I wondered what could be doing [...]
A closer look at a mangrove die-off
The first day of the 7th biennial ASAC meeting has come to an end! Here is a link to the talk about the mangrove die-off in The Marls: A closer look at a mangrove die-off [...]
What if we are wrong about the lionfish invasion?
The bi-annual Abaco Science Alliance Conference is here. We want to get all posters and talks featured on Abaco Scientist (the first poster is up so far). One talk on Friday will hopefully generate discussion [...]
Andros Creek Restorations Ten Years On
We headed to Andros last week to check up on previous projects and think about future directions. I was excited to see how well our first two small creek restoration projects looked. When you restore flow [...]
Controversies and consensus on the lionfish invasion in the Western Atlantic Ocean
A very interesting perspective on the lionfish invasion in this new paper (it is long, but an easy read). The author takes a social science perspective, assessing how the media, resource managers and other stakeholders view [...]
Humans drive coloration shifts in Bahamian mosquiotofish
Back in August we published a paper in Evolutionary Applications that we've been working on for a few years. It's finally out, here's the link: Link to .pdf. But read below for a brief summary: Humans [...]
Five Things to Know About the Mangrove Die-back in The Marls (At this point, anyway)
1. This die-back appears to be the result of multiple stressors acting together. Think of it in the sense of our own body- when our immune system is down, we are often more susceptible to [...]
History of Food Web Ecology Paper Out
Working with a group of NCSU graduate students, we put together a brief history of "food web ecology", i.e., model networks of consumer-resource interactions among a group of organisms, populations, or aggregate trophic units. We [...]
A View of The Marls Die-off From Above
We've been posting about this die-off for quite some time now but for those of you who have not been able to see the die-off first hand, we now have some aerial video of it. [...]
2015 BREEF Teacher Training Workshop on San Salvador
We spent last week on San Salvador working with a group of 30 teachers from across The Bahamas at the Annual Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) Teacher Training Workshop! It was an extremely rewarding and [...]
Wetland Fragmentation and Bird Communities
Dinorah Chacin's paper on Abaco bird wetland communities is out. Counter to our a priori expectations, she found no differences in the communities of birds found on the blocked (by roads) and unblocked sides. This [...]
Abaco Mangrove Survey Update
So far we have had 65 submissions! Samples have been collected from mangroves in North, Central, and South Abaco but we still need more samples to fill in the gaps. The graph below shows the distribution of [...]
Another Fish Pee Feature Article
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences featured Jake Allgeier's recent paper. A somewhat more readable summary than the incredibly complex paper itself.
I cant get enough of the Andros artificial reef videos…..
Thanks to Flamingo Cay for a remarkable trip. It is going to be hard for me to get back to regular work today, as I just want to watch these videos over and over.
Imagine a reef where no one fishes….
Probably would look a lot like West Andros.
A new non-native species on Abaco: the Eastern narrow-mouthed toad.
While grabbing a late-night dinner in Dundas town last night, I heard a chorus of shrill, nasal bleats emanating from behind the building. I recognized the call right away as the mating call of the Eastern narrow-mouthed [...]
When Bristle Worms Attack
One of the most fun things in science is discovering something completely new. Dr. Betsy Stoner has done just that, observing bristle worms attacking and gorging on the upside-down jellyfish (which has few, if any, [...]
Did we mention lionfish claims might be going a bit too far?
Lionfish now are affecting GDP? Really?
Substantial Among Reef Variation
One of the primary reasons for conducting our current reef project is to see how variation in ambient nutrient availability and the number of fish affect the fish pee-seagrass connection. After six months, preliminary observations suggest [...]
NOAA & The Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Launch the Invasive Lionfish Web Portal
The Invasive Lionfish Web Portal is your one-stop-shop for all information pertaining to the lionfish invasion. The Web Portal is broken down into a Home Page and four topic-focused interior pages including Education & Outreach, [...]
What are Lionfish Really Doing on Reefs?
I think we are going to start seeing a number of studies that question the conventional wisdom regrading the dramatic impacts lionfish are having on reef fish communities. Here is one from Los Roques in [...]
Are there too many turtles?
This easy to follow paper suggests that may indeed be the case in some areas. Turtle populations are thriving in many areas (including The Bahamas), due to extensive conservation initiatives as well as overfished top [...]
Building a Reef in 78 Seconds
Thanks to Loggerhead Productions! Looking forward to their video production on the Haiti fishery - coming soon.