Could a solar-powered sailboat help monitor red tide?

June 9, 2016 Hayley Rutger

Seeking new ways to study red tide, Mote Marine Laboratory scientists are helping makers of solar-powered, sailboat drones test their technology in tandem with underwater robots Mote normally deploys to monitor harmful algae in the Gulf of Mexico.  

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Deepwater Horizon anniversary: Preliminary results and 2016 research

April 18, 2016 Hayley Rutger

Since the early days of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which began April 20, 2010, Mote Marine Laboratory has played a significant role in research investigating how oil exposure can affect marine life during and even after a spill. Today, Mote scientists are working toward developing rapid health-diagnostic tests based on sub-lethal responses that will better predict short- and long-term impacts of oil exposure in Gulf of Mexico fishes.   Mote and partners presented preliminary research results at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference during Feb. 1-4 in Tampa, Florida. Those results helped lay groundwork for large-scale fish studies that Mote began this month, April 2016.

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Demolition to make way for Mote’s new lab in Keys

February 8, 2016 Hayley Rutger

 Mote Marine Laboratory will begin demolishing its buildings in the Florida Keys to make way for the construction of its new research and education facility. The new facility, expected to open in early 2017, will more than double Mote’s research and education space in the Keys, allowing the Lab to expand programs focused on studying and restoring damaged coral reefs and on finding new ways to address global threats to reefs — particularly climate change and ocean acidification.

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Greenhouse gas can escape the deep ocean in surprising way, new study says

January 18, 2016 Hayley Rutger

A new scientific journal article reports that carbon dioxide can emerge from the deep ocean in a surprising way — a new piece of the global carbon “puzzle” that researchers must solve to fully understand major issues like climate change.   The article, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Marine Chemistry, was authored by a Mote Marine Laboratory scientist who performed the research with Georgia Institute of Technology and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement in France. The study was funded in part by the U.S.-based National Science Foundation and France’s Agence Nationale de la Recherche.

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Moving U.S. Marine Aquaculture Forward: The Gulf Aquaculture Plan

January 13, 2016 mote

The worldwide demand for seafood continues to grow, yet U.S. marine aquaculture (fish farming) produces far less seafood than aquaculture in Asia, Europe, Canada, Central and South America. More than 91 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported. In 2011, the U.S. seafood trade deficit was $11.2 billion — second only to the trade deficit for oil.  Now, a new federal rule is poised to help the U.S. decrease that deficit by farm-raising more sustainable, domestic seafood in the Gulf of Mexico. Mote Marine Laboratory scientists are paying close attention to this unfolding story: The new federal rule opens doors for increasing seafood production using the kinds of sustainable and economically sound aquaculture practices that Mote researchers have been studying and developing independently for years.

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