The Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab is launching a new project partnering with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). In 2020, the State of New York finished collecting three years of acoustic and visual data on large whales in state waters. MGEL will work on an analysis of this data, correlating the visual …
MGEL has played a large role in the mapping of Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) for cetaceans, a project that aims to expand on previous BIA work. This second iteration, BIA II, has resulted in a series of publications, four of which MGEL has contributed to. In this context, Biologically Important Areas represent areas and times …
New and Improved: Mapping Updated Biologically Important Areas for Cetaceans Read More »
A recent article on Project Wildlife and Offshore Wind (WOW) was written by MGEL staff and published as a Tethys Story. Tethys is a database and online space for the international community of those interested in the environmental effects of wind energy. Tethys Stories are written by individuals working at the intersection of marine systems …
In a constantly changing ocean, how can we understand how the myriad of threats faced by marine mammals affects their lives? This is the driving question behind Population Consequences of Multiple Stressors (PCoMS), a collaborative working group that aims to understand the impact of multiple stressors on the long-term health of marine mammals. The group …
Though humans need proper documentation to travel back and forth across the Canada/US border, right whales have no such restriction. As the climate changes, North Atlantic right whales (NARW) are shifting their habitat use patterns within US and Canadian waters. As such, understanding where NARW are distributed throughout their habitat range is a critical and …
MGEL takes part in international collaboration for North Atlantic right whale modeling Read More »
Duke University recently hosted “Winds of Change: Tracking the Development of US Offshore Wind Energy,” a one-day symposium to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the offshore wind energy sector. This event was jointly orchestrated by the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, and the Center for Energy, …
Winds of Change: Tracking the Development of US Offshore Wind Energy Read More »
Debbie Brill is the marine mammal subcommittee coordinator for the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative for Offshore Wind (RWSC), which works to coordinate and direct efficient research efforts to support environmentally friendly offshore wind energy development in the U.S. Atlantic. She is a relatively new recruit to MGEL, starting work with the lab in 2021. As …
Data, the word, is plural. Everyday English slips into treating the word as a singular, data is, but data are. Understanding the biodiversity of the ocean requires data that are very very plural, the effort of thousands of scientists observing thousands of species. OBIS-SEAMAP plays an important role in centralizing the data we have for …
The Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke University and the University of Exeter, UK are undertaking a collaborative project to support the process of defining marine turtle high use areas, including ways to handle the data that can contribute to answering this question. This pilot effort will focus on loggerhead marine turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Northwest …
Our new collaboration for loggerhead conservation Read More »
This project was a collaboration led by Connie Kot and Sarah DeLand (Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment), Drs. Annette Broderick, Brendan Godley, and ALan Rees (University of Exeter, Centre for Ecology and Conservation) and Dr. Matthew Godfrey (Duke University/North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission). This project was supported by the University of Exeter & …