The Seascape Ecology Lab at GOMCON 2024

The Seascape Ecology Lab and DEEPEND program had a great showing at this year's Gulf of Mexico Conference (GOMCON 2024) with several student presentations and posters, and including poster and oral presentations by me. The week kicked off with a workshop organized by Elizabeth Featherston (NOAA) to bring together marine mammal researchers and some of our DEEPEND team to talk about collaborative efforts that would help us all understand where, when, and ultimately why our different species of interest occur in different parts of the Gulf. Specifically, there is increasing evidence that several oceanic cetaceans rely on mesopelagic prey (particularly lanternfishes) to survive. Developing research links between our deep-sea research programs and those on marine mammals is an important step in understanding the distributions, trophic drivers, and potential threats facing species living in the oceanic Gulf of Mexico.

Ian Areford presenting in the Pelagic Ecology session at GOMCON 2024

DEEPEND students from Rosanna Milligan's Seascape Ecology Lab, and Tracey Sutton's Oceanic Ecology Lab at Nova Southeastern University

The scientific sessions occurred later in the week, and the session on pelagic ecology was very well represented by our DEEPEND and DEEPEND|RESTORE teams, including presentations by myself, and our recent Seascape Ecology Lab alumnus, Ian Areford. Sidney Trimble and Ian Areford were the lead co-authors on a poster presentation about some recent Length-Weight analyses, and I presented my time-series analysis of DVM rates as a poster.

Sidney Trimble and Ian Areford presenting their LW analysis poster at GOMCON 2024.

My attendance at GOMCON 2024 was supported directly by the NAS Early Career Fellowship Program, and I used funds from my NAS ECR award to support Sidney and Ian's attendance.