Biofouling negatively affects shellfish production through several pathways, including: 1) reducing natural mussel spat settlement rates; 2) preying upon mussel spat and juveniles; 3) competing for food with mussels; and 4) smothering established mussels. These problems are well documented in the...

This project has increased our understanding of the importance of seagrass habitats to larger, commercially valuable, species of fish by combining experimental and correlative scientific principles. We found that many small fish use seagrass habitats for nutrition and to avoid predation by large...

The fishing industry needs accurate ways to measure the age of animals to manage their populations better. The project shows that researchers studied the growth of receptors in crabs and lobsters to see if they could be used to determine age. They found that counting the number of receptors is only...

Management of the valuable Australian abalone fishery is difficult because catch/effort information for abalone does not provide warnings of declining stocks. In fact abalone fisheries in Alaska, California and Mexico have collapsed or declined dramatically, with little warning. Management must rely...