Cammen Lab PhD student, Alice Hotopp, recently published an essay on her personal experience with ecological grief in Spire, The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability. Earlier this semester, she led our lab group in a discussion of this topic, and its relevance to our research on protected and endangered species. Check out her beautiful words and thoughtful perspectives here: https://umaine.edu/spire/2023/04/21/hotopp/
Cammen Lab PhD student, Christina McCosker, was featured in this month’s UMaine ARCSIM newsletter. ARCSIM is the Advanced Research Computing, Security & Information Management CORE service at the University of Maine. This service center helps connect our lab group with the powerful computing resources and staff expertise that we need to conduct our genomic data analysis. To learn more about this, check out the article on Christina’s research: https://umaine.edu/arcsim/2023/04/24/leveraging-data-to-understand-gray-seal-health/
Dr. Kristina Cammen presented a talk as part of the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions seminar series on September 26. The talk, entitled “Out of Our Depth: Interdisciplinary science for marine mammal conservation,” told two stories: one story followed the seals from a history of exploitation to present day protection and recovery; the second story told Kristina’s professional path. With an emphasis on integrating diverse fields of science and ways of knowing, Kristina shared her personal journey towards interdisciplinary science for marine mammal conservation and the promising impact she sees for this type of work in the field.
A summary of Kristina’s talk can be reviewed in this article by Maine Campus Media. You can also watch the recorded talk here.
We are excited to announce two recent publications resulting from our long-term spatiotemporal analysis of marine mammal strandings in the Gulf of Maine. This research represents a collaboration between the University of Maine and members of the Greater Atlantic Region marine mammal stranding network, including Marine Mammals of Maine and Allied Whale. From the Cammen lab, Holland Haverkamp and Emma Newcomb both played leadership role in the analysis, and were supported by many other Cammen Lab undergraduate research assistants. To learn more, check out our new pubs!
Haverkamp et al. (2022) A retrospective socio-ecological analysis of seal strandings in the Gulf of Maine. Marine Mammal Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.12975
Newcomb et al. (2021) Breaking down “harassment” to characterize trends in human interaction cases in Maine’s pinnipeds. Conservation Science and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.518
This summer, the Cammen Lab was lucky to host Amanda Cruz, an undergraduate student from Florida International University, who completed a 10-week research internship as part of the One Health REU program. Amanda’s research expanded our prior work on understanding the genetic diversity of the pinniped immune system. Amanda compared diversity at the MHC I gene of harbor seals that died during the recent outbreak of phocine distemper virus to harbor seals that survived the disease outbreak. Her research will help us understand which seals are more susceptible to disease and why.
Amanda’s internship culminated with an oral and poster presentation at the REU final symposium. 
The Cammen Lab, past and present, had a great showing, in person and virtual, at the 24th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals. Cammen Lab activities at the conference included:
Dr. Kristina Cammen co-organized the 2nd Workshop on Marine Mammal eDNA
Lauri Leach presented a speed talk, Examining the impacts of pinnipeds on Atlantic salmon: The effects of river restoration on predator-prey interactions.
Christina McCosker presented a poster, Molecular mechanisms underlying response to influenza in gray seals, a potential wild reservoir.
Emma Newcomb presented a poster, Breaking down “harassment” to characterize trends in human interaction cases in Maine’s pinnipeds
Julia Sunnarborg presented a poster, Optimization of environmental DNA for gray seal detection and population genetics.
Dr. Kristina Cammen was honored this week to be nominated and recognized by her students for her role as their mentor. Each year, students are asked to nominate faculty who have had an important impact on them, and Kristina was one of the faculty recognized with a University of Maine Faculty Impact Award during this year’s Maine Impact Week.
“Kristina is endlessly positive and puts an optimistic spin on research challenges… Kristina is also very welcoming and inclusive and has created a lab culture where even students who tend to be quieter have the space to participate in discussion.” – Alice Hotopp, PhD candidate
Emma Newcomb received High Honors today after defending her Honors thesis entitled Breaking down “harassment” to characterize trends in human interaction cases in Maine’s pinnipeds. Emma’s work represented the culmination of three years of work in collaboration with Marine Mammals of Maine and Allied Whale. As part of this research collaboration, Emma led the development of a new scheme for categorizing human interaction cases with seals that strand on the beaches in Maine, and put her new scheme to work, characterizing trends in human interaction cases over the past decade.
Emma will graduate this spring from the University of Maine with Honors and a Bachelors degree in Marine Sciences. After graduation, she will continue to work with the marine mammal stranding network and pursue graduate school opportunities.
Congratulations to Lauri Leach, who defended her Masters thesis, entitled Assessing predator risk to diadromous fish conservation in the Penobscot River Estuary. Lauri’s research assessed both the potential impact (through a spatiotemporal analysis of seal and prey distribution) and realized impact (through an analysis of seal-induced injury on Atlantic salmon) of seals in the Penobscot River. She also developed a photo-identification catalog of seals for future tracking of individuals in the Penobscot River. To learn more about Lauri’s fieldwork on the Penobscot River, check out her blog posts here.
Please join us in congratulating Lauri on this professional milestone and wishing her well on her next adventure as a Knauss fellow for the Marine Mammal Commission in Washington, DC!
The Cammen Lab is excited to welcome Christina McCosker, a new PhD student who is part of the inaugural class of the One Health and the Environment NRT program.
Christina’s interdisciplinary dissertation research will be co-advised by Kristina Cammen and Carly Sponarski, and include aspects of genomics, ecology, and human dimensions. Christina’s research will focus on understanding the drivers of disease susceptibility in gray and harbor seal populations in the Northwest Atlantic.
Seals on the Penobscot River. Photo by Lauri Leach.
