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All Brown Bag Seminars (unless otherwise noted) are held from 12 noon - 1 p.m. in the NOAA Central Library, 2nd Floor, SSMC#3, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring. Teleconference is available - email Library.Reference@noaa.gov. Call Mary Lou Cumberpatch (301-713-2600 ext.129) or Skip Theberge (301-713-2600 ext. 115) for further information or to set up a Brown Bag.
A list of previous Brown Bags is available on the Archive Brown Bags page.

Upcoming Seminars are on September 16, 18; October 2, 16, 30; November 6, 20

Tuesday, September 16 at 11:00
Jacklyn Shafir, Program Manager, D.C. Environmentors Program, will present a review of the benefits to NOAA employees in serving as a mentor to area Senior High School Students, development of a science project and many other volunteer opportunities to help high school students consider careers in the environmental sciences. It is a great opportunity for NOAA employees to share their expertise.

Thursday, September 18 at 12 noon
Corals/Marine Protected Areas: Fifth in a Series of Panel Presentations given by Knauss Sea Grant Fellows

Fine scale genetic population structure in the threatened Acropora palmata and Acropora cervicornis in Southwest Puerto Rico
Joselyd Garcia, Marine Mammal Commission
During the 1980s and 1990s, populations of Acropora palmata and Acropora cervicornis experienced region-wide declines of up to 95% or more in some areas due mostly to disease. Once considered the most important reef builders in the Caribbean, their rapid decline prompted their listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2006. To understand the genetic connectivity between reefs in southwestern Puerto Rico, sequences of the mitochondrial control region were recovered from geographically adjacent and distant populations of A. palmata and A. cervicornis. Results suggest that there is fine scale population structure and recovery of these reefs might rely on the survival and sexual reproduction of local populations rather than replenishment from distant reefs. In this presentation, I will also discuss my current project and the experiences gained through the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.

Do closed fishing areas in New England qualify as marine protected areas?
Christine Patrick, Ocean Exploration and Research Program
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often presented as a new addition to the “traditional toolkit” of fisheries management measures used by the U.S. federal government. However, temporary or rotational closed areas have been used in New England since before the creation of the federal exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the expanded federal power to manage fisheries. Despite this fact, the MPA canon does not acknowledge New England closed fishing areas as MPAs, or even as the theoretical ancestors of MPAs. Is this exclusion justified? What are the differences between New England closed fishing areas and MPAs?

October 2 at 12 noon
Dr. John L. "Jack" Hayes, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Weather Services and Director, National Weather Service will present a seminar.

Upcoming Sea Grant Fellow seminars:
Thursday October 16
Thursday October 30
Thursday November 6
Thursday November 20

Additional seminars: OneNOAA Science Discussion Seminar Series