REU Site: Ecological and social change in a rapidly warming ocean region

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI),located in Portland, ME, will host a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program that will bring six undergraduates to the GMRI campus each summer for three years to complete a 10-week research experience. GRMI will provide undergraduate students with an interdisciplinary research experience in the Gulf of Maine.

The primary objective of the GMRI program is to train the next generation of scientists capable of describing, quantifying and communicating the interconnections between environmental and human influences on marine ecosystems. The GMRI REU students are exposed to multiple scientific approaches, including classic experimental ecology, observational science, qualitative analyses and statistical and dynamical modeling.

Students can choose to work with a broad range of mentors who are active in marine fisheries and coastal ecology and dynamics, biological oceanography, resource economics, climate resilience, and the learning sciences. Applications are encouraged from students attending colleges with limited research opportunities, such as two-year and four-year primarily undergraduate institutions, veterans and first-generation students.

REU students at GMRI explore the structure and function of the Gulf of Maine fishery ecosystem (plankton to seafood), how it is changing over time (trends and prediction), how it responds to perturbations (e.g., climate and fishing), and how changes may affect local communities and economies. They develop independent, hypothesis-driven research projects and are exposed to multiple scientific approaches, including classic experimental ecology, observational science, and statistical and dynamical modeling.

Students also receive training for research safety and ethics and participate in workshops about data management, data analysis and scientific communications. These, along with social activities, a journal club, regular seminars and a student symposium to share results are designed to foster a sense of shared experiences, critical to the success of the program.

Student research will contribute to an ecosystem approach to marine resource management in a rapidly changing environment, lessons from which can be applied to other coupled systems around the world.

This project is jointly funded by the Division of Ocean Sciences and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.