Phoebe Jekielek has a long association with Block Island, including having done a scoping survey of Great Salt Pond shellfish in 2015, and the Block Island Maritime Institute is excited to welcome her back to share her insights at a Tuesday Night Talk on July 13.Jekielek is the director of research at the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership in Rockland, Maine. She has a diverse background spanning experiential education, science communication, and applied and collaborative research in a variety of ocean ecosystems.
Current research projects include evaluation of gear effects on gonad conditioning and spawn timing in sea scallops on aquaculture farms and in wild populations throughout Penobscot Bay, scallop tagging studies evaluating scallop movement and growth in the Lower Penobscot scallop rotational management area, and annual dive surveys and spat bag deployments to understand local Hurricane Island scallop populations.
In her talk at BIMI, Jekielek will discuss her work with sea scallops, using newly developed eDNA tools to develop an understanding of the timing andmagnitude of spawning in cultured and wild scallops. She’ll also discuss ecological and biological differences and similarities between sea and bay scallops, and review previous work done in the Great Salt
