Dr. Phil Yund, DEI’s Senior Scientist since March 2012, has had five scientific journal articles published in four peer-reviewed journals during 2015. Dr. Yund was the primary author of two publications. One of these concerned new work on a colonial ascidian (a marine invertebrate filter-feeder known as a tunicate or sea squirt) found in downeast Maine as well as in Europe. Dr. Yund and his co-workers determined that the species Botryllus schlosseri is not an invasive species along our shores, as previously thought. Instead, the team determined by comparing the genetic diversity of populations of the same species in other parts of the world that there is evidence that the presence of this sea squirt in Maine and other parts of the Northwest Atlantic substantially pre-dates human colonization from Europe. Colonial tunicates generally grow quickly on a wide variety of different substrates, and their sheet-like shape often lets them replace resident plants and animals by overgrowth and smothering. Another paper focused on the distribution of larvae and adults of two different species of blue mussels – Mytilus edulis and Mytilus trossulus – within the boundaries of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current. That work has implications for other bivalve species such as sea scallops and soft-shell clams.
For a complete description of the five papers plus others that Dr. Yund has published at DEI, click here.
