Lecture on SMURF Research

SMURF research. | Courtesy of Oregon Marine Reserves

The Nature Matters lecture series is sponsored each month by the North Coast Watershed Association and Lewis & Clark National Historic Park. The featured speaker for the Thursday, Feb.8 session will be Kirsten Grorud-Colvert of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), based at Oregon State University.  The presentation, free and open to the public (food and drink on your own), takes place at the Fort George Brewery (1483 Duane St. in Astoria) in the Lovell Showroom.  Doors open at 6 p.m., presentation starts at 7 p.m.

Dr. Grorud-Colvert will speak on SMURF (Standard Monitoring Units for the Recruitment of Fishes) research. As the director of PISCO's Science of Marine Reserves Project, she is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the PISCO educational tools that communicate the science of fully protected, no-take marine reserves to diverse national and international audiences. This scientific information forms the basis for a number of resources, including the most recent versions of The Science of Marine Reserves booklets and the geospatial reserve data viewed in the MPA Layer of Ocean in Google Earth. With a background in field research, Kirsten actively works to bridge the gap between scientific findings, policy implementation, and public understanding of marine reserves as a conservation tool, both in the US and internationally. She is involved in both research studies and syntheses of the effects of marine reserves, which have led to peer-reviewed publications and outreach materials aimed at diverse audiences.  SMURFing, her topic on this occasion, has nothing to do with cartoon characters, but rather deals with one of the key tools being employed to understand the effecgts of protecting habitat areas through Oregon's marine reserves.