Coastal Studies Institute teaches environmental stewardship
Outer Banks Field Site director Lindsay Dubbs conducts research to better understand and protect marine ecosystems.
Lindsay Dubbs credits one of her high school science teachers in Pennsylvania with nurturing her love of biology, the environment and specifically marine ecology.
“He would always come back from these fantastic diving trips and show us videos and photos from places like New England and Fiji,” recalls Dubbs, now a research associate professor at the UNC Institute for the Environment and director of UNC’s Outer Banks Field Site. “When you’re a kid that grows up in a landlocked place, water has this allure. You just want to know more.”
Dubbs is a biogeochemist and ecosystems ecologist based at the Coastal Studies Institute in the Outer Banks. As part of the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program, her lab seeks to better understand this ecosystem and how potential renewable energy installations could affect species and protected habitats, such as sargassum, brown algae found in the Gulf Stream.
“I want to do science to help with decision-making and to help us be better at balancing what we want from the environment and the functioning of the environment,” Dubbs says.
For each field site season, Dubbs helps select a topic relevant to locals, vetted through the site’s community advisory board, who consult with students throughout the semester. Students compile their data and present it to the board, discussing with them how best to protect the area’s people and ecosystems.
“I see the Outer Banks as a place where students can learn to be stewards of their environment and also the community around them,” Dubbs says. “The tools that we teach and the way that we teach students to be observant of their surroundings helps them to become stewards elsewhere when they leave this place.”
Dubbs (right) collects a Sargassum sample on a research cruise in the Atlantic Ocean. (Submitted photo)
Seaweed science
For her own work, she studies sargassum, seaweed that floats offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, often in mile-long masses called mats that support a diverse food web. The mats provide habitat and breeding grounds for many animals, such as seabirds, young sea turtles and other marine life.
These seaweed mats are transported by the Gulf Stream, one of the world’s most powerful currents, and a potential source of renewable ocean energy generation. But scientists do not yet fully understand how these emerging technologies might affect ecosystems.
“I’m thinking about the potential implications and the trade-offs,” Dubbs says. “All these functions occur in this ecosystem. What is going to happen to them if we harness that energy?”
To address these concerns, Dubbs and her team have gathered extensive long-term observations on sargassum for almost a decade, collecting data on the seaweed itself and the organisms attached to it.
Coastal collaborations
Collecting this data is challenging because it’s hard to predict when and where the mats may appear.
At first, Dubbs timed her research cruises based on satellite imagery, but through talks with local charter boat captains and commercial anglers, she learned that the seaweed appeared much more often than satellite studies suggested.
Dubbs now works with a charter boat company, traveling 15 to 25 miles offshore to search for the seaweed mats. She enjoys introducing students to the area’s unique ecosystems and people.
“The Outer Banks is a special place because it’s just so beautiful,” she says, tears in her eyes. “It’s where I can link ecology with a community that continues to rely on natural resources for many different reasons. It’s the kind of place where I feel at home because of all those connections and where my work can take place and benefit from it.”
