Research efforts by the Witman Lab to characterize the response of Galapagos marine ecosystems to climate change and El Niño are currently funded by the Galapagos Conservancy. This is the only US non-profit dedicated to conserving the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. Read a recent blog post about our work with GC over the past year!

Jon Witman was featured on the cover of 41 North, Rhode Island's coastal and ocean magazine this month. You can read the entire issue here, or download the story on the Witman Lab here.

Robbie recently co-authored a paper on the biogeographic, energetic, and anthropogenic determinants of fish communities on tropical oceanic islands, believed to be some of the most pristine marine ecosystems left in the world. Below is the press release from Ecography.

A documentary called "Adapt or Die", about climate change impacts in the Galapagos Marine Reserve will be shown this Sunday, May 20, at 8pm - on CBS.

The documentary resulted from a CBS TV crew coming on our January research cruise, which they filmed along with several other researchers working in the region. 

It's CBS' streaming service (think netflix) so Sunday at 8 will be the full show, and after that the doc itself will be available online and in streaming (on any smart TV.)

Disclaimer: we haven't seen it yet either!!

Maya's study, "Evaluating the ecological role of Damselfish species in the Galapagos Marine Reserve", will test the territory defense capacities of different damselfish species in a comparative analysis, and evaluate the importance of damselfish territories as a microhabitat and food resource. Calvin's study "Effects of grazer diversity and upwelling strength on ecosystem functioning in the Galapagos subtidal ecosystem" asks how variation in the richness and abundance of herbivores interacts with the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface (increasing primary productivity) to determine the richness, biomass, and resource utilization of benthic algae.

Congratulations to Maya and Calvin!

The Witman Lab's work describing the unique marine communities on Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine was highlighted in "Our Daily Planet", a daily blog on the environmental, sustainability, and conservation. Read the article here, and check out the paper by Witman & Lamb that recently came out in Plos One.

Fiona Beltram traveled to the University of Pennsylvania for the inaugural Ivy League Undergraduate Research Symposium (ILURS). The symposium consisted of 200 undergraduate students from Ivy League schools who were involved in independent research at their respective schools. Most students presented posters, while others gave short talks. Guest lectures by University of Pennsylvania and visiting faculty were also arranged throughout the three-day conference. Research topics ranged from art history and public health to astronomy and cancer research. Fiona gave a poster presentation detailing the results of her current work, which will serve as the first two chapters of her thesis for honors in the Biology degree. She is studying the appearance of cyanobacterial mats on the Galapagos reefs, the potential for a temperature-mediated introduction mechanism that is closely tied to El Niño extremes, and the ecological effects of the species’ continued presence on the reef.