2016 2016: The Biology Seminar Series presents Dr. Jefferson Turner

Dr. Turner will discuss his research results based on nearly 30 years of environmental monitoring in Buzzards Bay.

The 2015-2016 UMass Dartmouth Biology Seminar Series invites Dr. Jefferson T. Turner to discuss his research titled "A Quarter-century (Plus) of Environmental Monitoring in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, USA (1997-2016)."

For more than 28 years (from October 1987 through February 2016, with the exception of January 2004) when the SMAST research vessel known as the Lucky Lady was locked into ice, monthly sampling (totalling 349 cruises) was conducted at eight stations in Buzzards Bay.

Samples or data were collected for temperature, salinity, water transparency, inorganic nutrients, chlorophyll a, abundance and composition of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and ichthyoplankton, and bacterioplankton abundance. Additionally, since at least 2005, there have been repeated late-summer blooms with visible water discoloration (rusty orange) of a new species of tropical toxic dinoflagellate (Cochlodinium polykrikoides) in Buzzards Bay. This species was unrecorded for Buzzards Bay from 1987-1998.

"Most of the participants in this monitoring program were UMass Dartmouth undergraduate and graduate students, and this program has resulted in a series of publications, all coauthored by UMass Dartmouth graduate students," says Turner.

The seminar, which takes place Friday, March 4 at 12:00 pm on the campus of UMass Dartmouth in Dion 116, is free and open to the public.

About Dr. Jefferson T. Turner

Dr. Turner is Chancellor Professor in UMass Dartmouth's Department of Biology and the Department of Fisheries Oceanography at the School for Marine Science & Technology.

His research interests include long-term plankton and water-quality ecological survey of Buzzards Bay; plankton communities of Boston Harbor and adjacent waters; zooplankton feeding; food web accumulation and transport of red tide toxins; interactions between copepod feeding and reproductive success.

Turner earned his BS in 1969 from Guilford College, and his MA in 1972 University of South Florida. He holds a  PhD from Texas A&M University.    

This program has resulted in a series of publications, all coauthored by UMass Dartmouth graduate students.