Rebecca Selden - News

Testifying to the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife

5/1/2019

I was invited to give my perspective on climate as an emerging issue for fisheries to members of Congress during a hearing on the State of Fisheries. My full written testimony and the entire hearing can be found here: https://naturalresources.house.gov/hearings/the-state-of-fisheries

Becca to join Wellesley College as Assistant Professor

1/16/2019

Becca is thrilled to be joining the Biology faculty at Wellesley College, a premier liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Wellesley has a strong commitment to undergraduate research, and she hopes to launch the careers of the next generation of women scientists, as her own liberal arts education at Bowdoin College prepared her to do. Her research program will investigate the cumulative impacts of harvest, climate change, and species invasion on marine ecosystems, utilizing the Gulf of Maine as a key local study system. She is excited to continue her collaborative work with members of the Nereus program to examine these phenomena on regional and global scales. She is enthusiastic about making her research relevant to management. As such she will engage with government scientists at NOAA NEFSC and policymakers in the region.
www.wellesley.edu/biology/

New paper published in Fisheries Research

4/12/2018

We find that piscivorous fish across three large marine ecosystems (LMEs) vary widely in the degree to which their diets differ as they grow in size. The timing of diet shifts drove tradeoffs between fisheries yield and the strength of predator-prey interactions.

RL Selden, RR Warner and SD Gaines (2018) Ontogenetic shifts in predator diet drive tradeoffs between fisheries yield and strength of predator-prey interactions Fisheries Research 205: 11-20
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2018.03.021

Invited seminar speaker at Hopkins Marine Station

4/6/2018

Becca met with graduate students and faculty as the invited seminar speaker at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. She also discussed her research with Larry Crowder's Marine Conservation Biology course.

Educational resource launched on Science Friday!

3/16/2018

Becca Selden teamed up with DataSpire's Kristin Hunter-Thomson to develop an educational resource with Science Friday's educational director Ariel Zych. The resource teaches 7-12th grade high school students to interpret the impacts of warming oceans on marine ecosystems.
Check it out at:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/interpreting-the-impacts-of-rising-ocean-temperatures-on-ecosystems/

Warming alters predator-prey interactions

8/28/2017

Our new research published in Global Change Biology suggests warming oceans will alter the functional role of Atlantic cod in the Northeast U.S LME, but warm-water predators like spiny dogfish may compensate. Functional diversity in temperature preferences among piscivores may buffer the impacts of warming on predator-prey interactions.
Research is featured here

AFS Symposium: Marine Species on the Move

8/22/2017

A two-day symposium I organized with Roger Griffis (NOAA) and Jay Peterson (NOAA) highlighted recent research on shifting species distributions and their consequences for fisheries. Presenters provided insights from a diverse array of expertise from natural science, economics, social science, and law. Abstracts for the symposium: Day 1, Day 2
The symposium was featured here

When it comes to predators, size matters

2/15/2017

Our research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that protection of large sheephead in a marine reserve enhances urchin mortality, especially for the biggest urchins.

Research featured here
Article can be found here

Invited as seminar speaker at Bowdoin College

10/26/2016

Becca was invited to present her PhD and post-doctoral research in the departmental seminar series at Bowdoin College, her alma mater. She presented a talk entitled “Climate, fishing, and marine food webs: predator-prey interactions in a changing ocean.” Her research and career to date were featured on the Bowdoin website! See community.bowdoin.edu/news/2016/10/becca-selden-06-looks-into-the-sea-to-study-climate-change/ for more!

Close encounters with whale sharks

12/18/2015

While vacationing in La Paz, we had the chance to snorkel with whale sharks that come into the bay in December to feed on abundant krill. I swam with this one continuously for about 5 minutes, and had the opportunity to encounter 7 others during the trip. It was an incredible experience, and one to cross off the bucket list!