field sites
Sean Lyman
sjl3 at acpub.duke.edu
Thu Nov 6 15:56:42 EST 1997
Hello Coral Listers--
I am writing to seek guidance as to appropriate field sites for a
dissertation project that I'm planning. First, please allow me to
introduce myself--my name is Sean Lyman, and I'm working at the Duke
Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC, USA.
The project I'm planning is a first cut at evaluating whether marine
protected areas (MPAs) really do enhance surrounding fisheries given
enough time. The literature I've seen has been equivocal, and most (if
not all) evaluative projects were based on fishery landing data. I'd
like to take a different tack and take a shot at measuring larval export
out of protected areas.
The way I plan to do this is a two-component project. The first is a
suite of larval traps (like those in Doherty's work) strategically
positioned to measure larval import and export. The second is a basic
life-history analysis, determining age and size structure of fish
populations as well as growth rates and age at first reproduction. I
plan to look at a well-protected area, an exploited area, and an area
somewhere in between. Alternatively, I could use three reserves of
varying age. I believe that the combination of these two methods becomes
a powerful test of the larval export hypothesis.
For this experiment to be successful, however, I need to be clever about
choosing both target species and field sites. To make the larval trap
component work effectively, I need to find a site in an area of known and
simple flow regime. This area also needs to have sites with the three
levels of protection I mentioned above.
I write to seek the advice of those who may know of good locations to do
this research. I'm considering the Florida Keys, but I'm open to
consideration of any coral reef sites, though preferably in the
Atlantic. I'm also beginning to think about target species so if you can
offer advice on this I would also be appreciative.
Finally, I would like to invite anyone working on similar problems or
interested in this sort of project to contact me as discussions could
only prove helpful.
Thank you for your time, and I apologize for the lenth of this message.
Cheers,
Sean
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sean J. Lyman
Duke University Marine Laboratory sjl3 at acpub.duke.edu
135 Duke Marine Lab Road sean.lyman at duke.edu
Beaufort, NC 28516 USA
Phone: (919) 504-7565
Fax: (919) 504-7648
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