Funding Ocean State Science

The Sea Grant and Land Grant College programs at URI have a long history of funding research and outreach in the natural sciences to benefit Rhode Island and beyond, thanks to federal grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, respectively.

Nationally, Sea Grant is a federal-state partnership between NOAA and individual state universities and research institutions. Its purpose is to conduct basic and applied research and training and to provide the public with useful information on coastal and marine issues.

Rhode Island Sea Grant, in fiscal 2003–04, builds on its research strengths in coastal ecosystem health and fisheries science and management. Projects examine the impacts of hypoxia in Narragansett Bay and nutrients and bacteria in Rhode Island’s coastal lagoons. Other projects examine the invasive species Phragmites australis and Grateloupia doryphora. Researchers will look at fisheries management techniques and their applications to Rhode Island fisheries, and will utilize new molecular techniques dealing with toxins in shellfish. For more information on Sea Grant–funded research, please visit: seagrant.gso.uri.edu/research.

The NOAA award will also fund Sea Grant outreach efforts in the state in coastal management, fisheries, public information, and education.

The Land Grant College Program has been extending university-based research for the benefit of families, farms, and the environment since the 1860s.

This cycle’s Land Grant–funded research also examines ecosystems, pathogens, and molecular research, among other topics. Projects scheduled to get under way this fall include: genetic research in turfgrasses that would make them more self-sustaining, developing tools to assess public priorities for conserving forests and wetlands, improving understanding of forest soil properties, examining local habitat for migrating songbirds, developing a vaccine for fish and poultry, and examining how development affects a watershed’s capacity to remove nitrate from groundwater.

For a complete list of Land Grant–funded projects, please e-mail 41N@gso.uri.edu. 

—Monica Allard Cox