Goals & Objectives

The major goal of RUMFS, and the parent institution, the Rutgers University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS), is to create a corridor for research, from the upper reaches of the Mullica River drainage basin, down through the Great Bay estuary, to the inner continental shelf, where a Long-Term Ecosystem Observatory (LEO-15) at 15 m depth has been established.

Much of the current activity by resident scientists at RUMFS is focused on the life history and ecology of fishes with special emphasis on the role of habitat as it affects recruitment success for the dominant species in the estuary and on the continental shelf. Much of the emphasis is on the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) at Mullica River-Great Bay. With the relatively unimpacted JCNERR as a baseline, we have developed protocols for long-term (some over 10 years) monitoring of larval and juvenile fish abundance and assemblage structure. We are also using this estuary as a baseline to make functional comparisons to other more impacted estuaries. Our research is focused in several areas. In order to improve our ability to manage fish resources in the Middle Atlantic Bight it is necessary to enhance our understanding of the life history of fishes. An emphasis on fish habitat ecology has several objectives including developing the techniques and data to determine habitat quality for fishes in the estuary and on the continental shelf including submarine canyons. To that end we use towed camera sleds, fixed underwater cameras, autonomous underwater vehicles and submersibles to determine the relationship between fish and their habitat. A series of other habitat-related projects are evaluating the effectiveness of large-scale marsh restoration by determining fish response. Our studies of recruitment in estuarine fishes is based on an examination of the relationship between larval supply to the Great Bay-Little Egg Harbor estuaries in the JCNERR and abundance of settled individuals.