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New data from satellite transmitters reveals migratory routes of shorebirds in decline

This spring and summer, Manomet scientists and partners tagged over 30 Whimbrels with state-of-the-art GPS trackers in the southeastern U.S. and Arctic. Here’s where those birds are now. By Shiloh Schulte In late May 2022, a team from Manomet and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service returned to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to continue our collaborative work studying Arctic nesting shorebirds. This year, we worked on several research projects including coastal plain shorebird surveys, a study of shorebird nest survival, remote audio monitoring of nesting birds, and a multi-year tracking study of nesting Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus). This is difficult work, and only possible thanks to consistent support from Manomet’s individual donors, as well as the National Fish and Wildlife...

Arctic research team faces unprecedented conditions while monitoring shorebirds

Manomet scientists and collaborators are pressing through rough camp conditions to complete key research objectives. By Stephen Brown There is a famous saying based on the Thomas Wolfe novel of the same title: “you can’t go home again.” And if you do try, things will be very different than when you were there before. This year, we went back to the arctic, which feels like “home” to many of Manomet’s field biologists, and true to form things were very different! The arctic is immense, so studying anything at the landscape scale is a huge undertaking. In 2000, we helped develop the Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM). In 2002, we launched our first team expedition with U.S. Fish...

Manomet’s Arctic shorebird researchers return to Alaska

This season, the Manomet team and research partners are surveying shorebirds on the Arctic coastal plain and assessing shorebird nesting success. They are also testing new audio recording and machine learning technologies that could greatly expand shorebird monitoring capabilities in remote locations. By Stephen Brown Welcome to the 2022 field season edition of Manomet’s Shorebird Science Blog!  We hope you enjoyed our first post about our exciting work underway in Texas with support from the Knobloch Family Foundation.  The format of the blog is a bit different from previous years, as you can see; we will be posting a series of articles describing each project as they unfold in the field. This introductory post is just to let you know...

Could quahogs, resilient to Maine’s rapidly-changing waters, soon be as beloved as the oyster?

Story and photos by Emily Renaud Portland, Maine | May 23, 2022 There was a pleasantly briney smell in the air as I walked up the stairs to the second-floor outdoor section at Luke’s Lobster in Portland. From the patio, I overlooked a cluster of docked lobster boats below as Casco Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Maine, gleamed under the late afternoon sun’s slanting rays. Hungry guests began to trickle in for the evening’s ‘Discover Maine Clams’ event, which was hosted by Manomet and partners Tidal Bay Consulting, Luke’s, Casco Bay Shellfish, and the Casco Bay Regional Working Group.  The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, forcing it through a unique...

On Cape Cod, genetic sequencing of shorebird prey could revolutionize conservation globally

By Kat J. McAlpine A team of New England scientists, supported by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant (USFWS), are embarking on new research to discover which prey species–such as worms and shellfish–are sustaining a threatened and fast-declining population of shorebird: the Red Knot found along the western Atlantic, Calidris canutus rufa, sometimes simply called “rufa” for short. What might normally require strenuous efforts to collect buckets of mud, sand, and silt from Red Knot feeding sites on Cape Cod will now only require small test tubes of environmental material. Genetic sequencing technology will do most of the heavy lifting through an analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA), a technique that pinpoints the genetic signatures of organisms within a field...

Central American coastlines take center stage in Atlantic shorebird conservation efforts

By Julia Salazar The Caribbean coastlines of Central America are poised to become the next key conservation priority for the Atlantic Flyway Shorebird Initiative (AFSI), an effort to contribute to the management and protection of shorebird habitat led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). As other stopover sites for birds migrating between the Arctic to South America decline due to human and climate-related impacts, Caribbean coastlines in Central America can provide alternative feeding and resting spots along these birds’ multi-continental journeys. This effort, which kicked off in February 2022, is led by Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN)'s executive office (housed within Manomet’s Flyways team) and is supported by an advisory committee of regional shorebird experts and the USFWS. By...

Why New England’s coastlines are especially vulnerable to climate change

By Emily Renaud All of Earth’s natural systems will be impacted by our rapidly warming climate, but some habitats–the natural homes where animals, plants, and other organisms live–are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than others. A recent climate vulnerability assessment, published in PLOS ONE, is the first report of its kind aimed at determining which habitats in the Northeast are most likely to feel the worst effects. Take, for instance, the Gulf of Maine. It’s a highly diverse and productive marine ecosystem, with coastal waters teeming with biodiversity, but it's warming faster than 99 percent of the world's oceans. The Gulf of Maine is getting hotter, quickly, and that's changing the population dynamics of the region's species...

Fall Field Guide for the Gulf of Maine

Fall is a time of many changes; on land, it’s hard to ignore the changing color of the leaves and cooling temperatures. While the changes happening underwater may not be as visible, if you look close enough, you’ll see that marine organisms go through their own transitions, too. Several species are currently preparing for the harsh winter conditions of the Gulf of Maine and the changing seasonal cues trigger many different types of behavior. If you find yourself in intertidal and shallow subtidal areas of the coast of New England this season, see if you can spot examples of these seasonal marine phenomena. For most shellfish, the growing season is during the warmer months, when there is more food available...

New fish on the block: The expanding range of black sea bass in the Gulf of Maine

The Gulf of Maine is one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems—the heart of New England’s fishing heritage for over 400 years. Today, the Gulf is one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the planet, leading to big changes in the marine environment and a changing mix of species that survive and thrive. Black Sea Bass – a temperate reef fish once a rarity in these waters – are becoming increasingly abundant. Join Dr. Marissa McMahan, Director of Fisheries, to learn how we are studying sea bass in its newly expanded habitat in order to understand its ecological impacts, as well as support the development of a black sea bass fishery in the Gulf of Maine.

eDNA Research

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is a new research and monitoring tool that Manomet uses in our fisheries and shorebirds research. All organisms shed DNA – in the form of scales, gametes, waste products, and more. By analyzing water and sediment samples, we can match DNA found in the samples to that of species of interest, allowing us to learn more about species distribution and population abundance. For our fisheries research, we are focused on river herring and shellfish. The mapping of the human genome was a huge breakthrough less than 20 years ago; now, the process of mapping genomes has become routine and the genomes of thousands of species are available from a federal database. The benefits of eDNA analysis...