Category: Fisheries and Wildlife
Fisheries and Wildlife Graduate Student Association actively engages online students with campus-based colleagues in activities, symposia, and professional development opportunities.
Four new online degree programs––Fisheries & Wildlife, Agricultural Sciences, Horticulture, and Environmental Economics & Policy—expand the college’s ability to serve non-traditional students globally.
http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/undergraduate/
Bruce Mate is leading a new U.S. Navy-funded research project investigating the movements of whales and how marine life will be affected by current El Nino conditions.
http://mmi.oregonstate.edu/bruce-mate
http://oregonprogress.oregonstate.edu/summer-2014/marine-mammal-institute
Chris Langdon, a shellfish biologist at the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, continues his research to help protect Oregon’s $70 million oyster industry by genetically improving oysters, making them larger, tastier, and more resistant to increasingly acidic oceans. Since 1996, his work has led to growths in commercial yields of up to 35%, injecting an estimated additional $4.5 million per year into the Northwest’s seafood economy.
http://oregonprogress.oregonstate.edu/summer-2015/build-better-oyster
A new study, led by Taal Levi (Fisheries and Wildlife), suggests that changing climate patterns may be altering the transmission of certain pathogens, including the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
AgSci researchers have developed a commercially viable strain of dulse, a fast-growing seaweed, that contains twice the nutritional value of kale and, perhaps more importantly, tastes like bacon. The very concept of a superfood alternative to bacon has landed this story on the webpages of CNN, TIME, and ABC News, shining the national spotlight on OSU’s Food Innovation Center (FIC) in Portland. Jason Ball, a food researcher at the FIC, is experimenting with dulse-based products ranging from trail mix and rice crackers to smoked dulse popcorn peanut brittle. Chris Langdon, the OSU professor and aquaculture researcher who patented the new strain of dulse, originally developed the seaweed to feed abalone, an edible sea-snail. The effort to commercialize the plant has been a collaboration led by Chuck Toombs, a professor in the College of Business, who is currently working with students on marketing strategies, with hopes of retailing dulse food products this fall. In January, Langdon’s new strain of dulse was recognized as a “specialty crop” by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which has led to new grants to fund further research. Culinary seaweed has enormous potential for growth as an industry in Oregon.
Food Science, economic development, industry, interdisciplinary, research, experiment stations
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/tech/dulse-bacon-flavored-seaweed/
http://time.com/3960421/seaweed-bacon-dulse-kale-super-food/
OAP, Summer 2015
