Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative

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About the Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative:

The mission of the Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative (NBI) is to support and convey a deeper understanding of the biodiversity of Nantucket, Tuckernuck, Muskeget, and their associated waters by fostering collaboration, funding and facilitating research, and sharing scientific knowledge.

To visit NBI’s website, click here.

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Biennial Research Conference
Nantucket Biodiversity Research Conference 2023

Nantucket Biodiversity Research Conference 2023

The tenth biennial conference, a full day on 3 November 2023, opened by NBI chair Seth Engelbourg and run in four sessions with poster sessions in the breaks. Marine biodiversity first: Andrew Davinack of Wheaton College on DNA barcoding of invertebrates taken from island marinas and docks, where close to half the species he could barcode turned out to be introduced and a large share were cryptogenic, native or not by no clear evidence; Ryan Munnelly of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation on ancient peat deposits out on the continental shelf and whether they feed fisheries production, with two NBI-funded multibeam surveys either side of a storm season; and Cooper Kimball-Rhines of UMass Boston on sequencing the genetics of pickleweed for marsh conservation. Habitat management follows: Sarah Bois of the Linda Loring Nature Foundation on managing coastal sandplain grasslands as regional biodiversity hotspots; Karen Beattie of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation on designing the Windswept bog wetland restoration around its ecological data; Ian Ives of Mass Audubon on twelve years of rebuilding habitat for the eastern spadefoot toad; and Danielle O’Dell on the southern pine beetle outbreak and what it taught about forest management. Then plants: Patrick Farrar of the Woodwell Climate Research Center on two decades of change in Martha’s Vineyard plant communities, Alice Palmer on pickleweed and its microbiome in a city marsh against a country one, and Yingying Xie of Northern Kentucky University on how flowering times shape plant invasion here. Animals close the day: Richard Veit on vagrancy and dispersal in lesser black-backed gulls, Stephen St. Pierre of the Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket on three stranded animals and what their necropsies showed, Caroline Collatos of the New England Aquarium on sandbar sharks in Nantucket Sound, and Allison Snow on tick surveys across Nantucket, Tuckernuck and Chappaquiddick.

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Nantucket Biodiversity Research Conference 2021

Nantucket Biodiversity Research Conference 2021

Fourteen researchers over a full day, 5 November 2021, at the ninth biennial conference — the hybrid year, with some speakers in the room and some on screen, opened by NBI chair Jen Karberg and closed by Karen Beattie. The morning starts in the water and the marsh: Alyssa Novak of Boston University on an eelgrass health assessment and restoration in island waters, and Russ Hopping of the Trustees of Reservations on nature-based salt marsh work — filling ditches, cutting micro-runnels — meant to let a marsh keep pace with sea level rise. Then the land: Anastasia Pulak of the Woodwell Climate Research Center on what grows back on cranberry farms retired from agriculture, and Sarah Bois of the Linda Loring Nature Foundation on naturalized Scotch broom and the point on the invasion curve where a species is still worth catching. The second session is small animals: Greg Whitmore on the macroinvertebrate fauna of the island’s perennial and ephemeral streams, a decade of collecting in which beetles made up half the species and amphipods turned up at only one site; Allison Snow on the prevalence of ticks and tick-borne disease agents at sentinel sites on Nantucket and Tuckernuck; and Andrew David of Clarkson University on genetic barcoding that found the parasitic worm Polydora neocaeca in wild bay scallops here. After lunch, Kate Ruskin on monitoring tidal marsh birds, Danielle O’Dell on northern long-eared bats and white-nose syndrome and why coastal islands matter to them, and Amanda Tokash-Peters on microbial diversity in the gray seals at Great Point. The last session turns to the coast: Cynthia Dittbrenner and Brittany Hoffnagle on projected climate impacts to beaches and salt marshes across Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands, Ben Bray of MIT Sea Grant on faster workflows for water quality and habitat data, and Shea Fee on extending the life of barrier beaches with nature-based solutions.

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