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Reposted by Jen Bowen

Plum Island Ecosystems LTER @pie-lter.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks to @uslter.bsky.social #APEAL project for kick-starting this work by enabling engagement and collaboration with the local shellfishing community, whose concerns guided these new projects. 5/5

#NSF #REU #PES @mblscience.bsky.social @northeasternu.bsky.social

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Reposted by Jen Bowen

Plum Island Ecosystems LTER @pie-lter.bsky.social · 20d

Whether predation or poor larval settlement has caused the decline in iconic softshell clams is being studied using recruitment boxes that protect larval and baby clams from predators. Local aquaculture is increasing oyster harvests. Efforts like these can help restore and support the fishery. 4/5

David Kimbro presents a poster done by REU student Lindsey Davies showing results from recruitment box that were harvested mid-season. Bar graphs on the poster show that yes, the boxes had clams! On a table is an example of one of the boxes, and an aquarium holds some predatory crabs.

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Plum Island Ecosystems LTER @pie-lter.bsky.social · 20d

But if contaminants are in the water, shellfish may ingest those as well, with negative effects on the shellfish and harvestability. @bowenlab.bsky.social and @myadarsan.bsky.social are using new approaches to better identify sources and types of contaminants which may help mediate inputs. 3/5

Mya and Jen stand at their table, with a graphical poster behind them describing current microbial methods and examples of coliform bacteria colonies growing on culture plates displayed on the table. The two methods are to be used side by side.

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Plum Island Ecosystems LTER @pie-lter.bsky.social · 20d

Filter-feeding shellfish like oysters and clams remove algae from estuarine water (thereby also remove nitrogen), promoting water clarity and quality, easily visible and measurable in demo tanks of shellfish with algae compared to tanks with no algae, even approaching the clarity of tap water. 2/5

Two large and two small aquaria set up on a table under a shade tent. One large aquarium holds softshell clams and the other holds oysters. Microalgae had been added to both. The small aquaria hold clear water or water clouded with microalgae for comparison.

Hannah Orton measures the change in turbidity in the aquaria using a water quality sonde.

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Reposted by Jen Bowen

Plum Island Ecosystems LTER @pie-lter.bsky.social · 20d

Fun Trails and Sails event this week showcasing new work centered on how estuary and shellfish health are intertwined and the need for people to foster both. We always get engaged attendees from the local community and make great new connections! 1/5
trailsandsails.org

A group of six people stand around a display table under a shade tent to talk about using current methods in microbiology to identity sources and types of microbial contamination that may be present in estuarine waters, especially after a rainstorm.

A group of six people, standing under a shade tent, watch a demonstration of oysters and softshell clams filter the water held in separate aquaria, and compare them to an aquarium with clear water, and one with water clouded by microalgae but containing no shellfish.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Sep 13

I have always maintained that a big part of the justification for the protocol focus was shedding themselves of the responsibility of moderation and heaping it onto others instead

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · Sep 13

We knew from the start we can’t get everything right. Moderation is a hard problem, and it’s impossible to please everyone. So we built a protocol where you always have the right to leave. If you don’t trust us, or don’t like our decisions, you deserve the right to choose an alternative.

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Aug 24

Amazing! I grew up near the mouth of the Penobscot river and still have a camp on a lake west of Belfast, where we are now, to close up for the winter.

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Aug 24

Gorgeous. Looks like late fall blueberry barrens in Maine but too early for that. What is it?

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Aug 20

This also drifted into my feed and Gracie, too, sends her best black (ish) dog vibes for healing to all.

another black pit mix who looks a lot like the other dogs in this thread.

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Jun 17

Check out this story on work led by recent PhD student Hillary, looking at the role marsh run els can play in maintaining salt marsh ecosystem services.

Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · Jun 17

news.northeastern.edu/2025/06/05/s...
#saltmarsh @bowenlab.bsky.social

What are runnels, the man-made channels that help restore salt marshes?

Northeastern research finds that the narrow channels help salt marshes remove nitrogen before it can pollute waterways.

news.northeastern.edu

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Apr 30

lternet.edu/stories/coll... Cool work @pie-lter.bsky.social is doing with soft-shell clam fishers. Love fried clams when visiting coastal New England? Populations are declining and LTER scientists are teaming up with fishers to figure out why. Great job @janetucker.bsky.social @uslter.bsky.social

Collaboration with Shellfishers: an APEAL Seed Project - LTER

In October, over fifty attendees at the PIE LTER gathered in a local pub to acknowledge one another's' concerns for issues in the Sound.

lternet.edu

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Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · Apr 23

See @bowenlab.bsky.social Bowen lab undergrad intern Luke Bagdonas demonstrating our #saltmarsh organ set-up in North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in April 2023. (Part 1 of 2)

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Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · Apr 22

Two years ago, we planted our greenhouse-reared Spartina alterniflora plants into these marsh organs. A marsh organ is a set of PVC pipes at different elevations (they look a little like a pipe organ!). Here are Luke and Stephanie out there planting, at North Inlet and @pie-lter.bsky.social.

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Sassy Little Hobbit @sassypolitico.bsky.social · Apr 17

If your God identifies as god, human, holy spirit and mysteriously also bread, do you really get to complain about other people’s gender identity 🤔

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Apr 3

Brilliant!

Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · Apr 3

I have tariffed
the penguins
that are on
Heard Island

and which
you were probably
assuming
did not export goods

forgive me
they were taking advantage of us
so cunning
and so cold

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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · Feb 8

8/8. So, if you’re feeling down about these attacks, I understand—I feel that way too. But just remember that they’re not attacking because your work doesn’t matter; they’re attacking *precisely* because it does. So, get some rest, connect with your people, and keep doing it.

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Feb 3

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social nails it - this is so spot on: "Who while being beneficiaries of unearned privilege imagine themselves as naturally superior even while demonstrating their clownish mediocrity again and again." meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/welcome-to-m....

Welcome to Meditations in an Emergency

We are very clearly in a lot of emergencies right now. They demand action. But action demands thought and thoughtfulness: who are we, what are our values, our goals, our allies, our possibilities, and...

meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io

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Nancy Knowlton @nancyknowlton.bsky.social · Jan 30

taking small victories where I find them. www.iflscience.com/rabbit-feare...

Rabbit Feared Extinct Spotted For The First Time In 130 Years, And It's Feisty

“I was happy to have found a species that was practically extinct to science," expedition leader Alberto Almazán-Catalán told IFLScience.

www.iflscience.com

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Jan 29

Imagine being so small you shut down the nation’s research enterprise (among other things) because it is benefiting from diverse perspectives that don’t singularly focus on making you and your billionaire class even richer. It hurts my brain.

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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · Jan 27

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

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Reposted by Jen Bowen

Henning @geohenning.bsky.social · Jan 27

Happy 5th "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" anniversary! #Geology ⚒️

Twitter post screenshot of the San Miguel Sheriff account. 5 years ago they posted about a boulder on the road but referred to it as "Large boulder the size of a small boulder".

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Dec 3

I love this.

Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · Dec 3

This reminds me a lot of Veryln Klinkenborg’s “Several Short Sentences About Writing” which several academics who have written gorgeous trade books I admire recommended to me when I started attempting to do the same…

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Nov 16

For no reason in particular, I am reading this interesting little book called “On Tyranny” (thanks to @randallhughes.bsky.social) First lesson: Do Not Obey In Advance.

Cover of book “On Tyranny: twenty lessons from the 20th century. By Timothy Snider.

Title page of first lesson. It reads: do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who seats in this way is teaching power what it can do.

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Nov 15

Amazing job!! Students like Johanna give the hope for the future!

Northeastern MES/CSI/MSC @northeasternmes.bsky.social · Nov 15

Congratulations to Johanna L’Heureux who successfully defended her dissertation yesterday! Johanna’s work in the Bowen Lab on salt marsh social-ecological and microbial systems will help us better protect and manage these critical ecosystems. Congratulations, Dr. L’Heureux! @bowenlab.bsky.social

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Jen Bowen @bowenlab.bsky.social · Nov 15

@kyleagarces.bsky.social

Adam Frew @frewecologist.bsky.social · Nov 15

New paper out in Global Change Biology, led by PhD student Meike Heuck, examining if current life history strategy frameworks used for AM fungi are at all useful in agro settings under climate change.

doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

Evaluating the Usefulness of the C‐S‐R Framework for Understanding AM Fungal Responses to Climate Change in Agroecosystems

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi play a key role in terrestrial ecosystems. However, critical gaps in understanding AM fungal ecology still limit predictions of their responses to global change in a...

doi.org

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