Lab News

This past year, I had the opportunity to work with a great group of colleagues on a new book describing Maine’s rich natural heritage.  The book, Our Maine: Exploring Its Rich Natural Heritage, is a series of chapters, essays, and photographs that “paint a vivid portrait of Maine’s wild places and wild creatures, as well as of human impacts and the way the state’s heritage has changed.”  My contribution tracks the history and contemporary state of harbor seals in Maine.

To check out our book, you can purchase it online or at many local bookstores in Maine!

Jamie Fogg holding an eDNA sampler.

Jamie Fogg, a Maine Top Scholar and undergraduate student working in the Cammen Lab, was recently awarded a fellowship from the University of Maine’s Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR).  We are so excited to work with Jamie on her research project, “Beyond the shoreline: Investigating gray seal eDNA in coastal waters.” Co-advised by Kristina Cammen and Julia Sunnarborg, Jamie will use qPCR to analyze eDNA samples she collected with collaborators at the Center for Coastal Studies earlier this year off the coast of Cape Cod. Her research aims to better understand the dynamics of environmental DNA (eDNA) around gray seal haulouts.

Check out the latest UMaine press release about our research collaboration with Maine Sea Grant, NOAA, and Maine DMR to improve our understanding of river herring recovery in the Penobscot River.  Funded by the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, this research explores environmental DNA (eDNA) as a complementary survey tool to existing hydroacoustic surveys of fish in the Penobscot River Estuary.  Julia Sunnarborg, a PhD candidate in the Cammen Lab, is leading this research in close collaboration with Justin Stevens at Maine Sea Grant.

Photo courtesy of Maine Sea Grant