MARINE RESOURCE ASSESSMENT (MRA)

Starting in fall 2009, the College of Marine Science will be offering a new, interdisciplinary concentration in Marine Resource Assessment (MRA) as part of its Ph.D. and M.S. programs in marine science. The new concentration will provide training in the emerging field of ecosystem-based management. Its mission will be to train a new generation of scientists that can effectively address issues concerning the sustainability of the world’s living natural resources.

A 2008 Report to Congress documented a national shortage of graduates possessing the skills required for managing living marine resources (NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-91). At the College of Marine Science, the concentration in MRA will address this problem by requiring a quantitative approach to ecosystem analysis and living resource assessment. Students will learn to create theoretical and field investigations that provide new methods, data, principles, models, technologies, and assessment criteria for use in advancing the field of ecosystem-based management. The new concentration will have the same core requirements as the other concentrations in marine science—Biological Oceanography, Chemical Oceanography, Geological Oceanography, and Physical Oceanography. However, students in the new concentration will be required to take additional courses related to MRA, as directed by their graduate committees. Those courses will focus on such topics as population dynamics, fish biology, marine ecosystem dynamics, ecological modeling, sampling theory, and applied multivariate statistics. Total hours for the master’s and doctoral programs will remain unchanged at 32 and 90 semester hours beyond the baccalaureate degree.

© Diane Rome Peebles

Students with concentrations in MRA will be expected to engage in thesis or dissertation topics that deal directly with interactions between living resources and anthropogenic- or climate-driven factors, including subjects such as bio-physical interactions, changing predator-prey relationships, over fishing, and identification of essential linkages that determine habitat quality. It is expected that students who select the MRA concentration will interact strongly with one or more of the state and federal resource-management agencies that are located near the College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, including the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Regional Office, and the Florida Integrated Science Center of the US Geological Survey. These agencies represent a collective wealth of knowledge, expertise, and practical experience and will serve as vital assets to the new concentration and its students. The concentration in MRA is designed to produce resource assessment scientists who can introduce relevant ecosystem-level variables into the traditional, single-species assessment process, complementing and enhancing the development of the science-based management policies that protect living marine resources. The MRA curriculum will prepare students for employment in academia, the environmental consulting industry, and government. In the US, government employment opportunities exist in six National Marine Fisheries Service Science Centers, on five regional Fishery Management Councils, on two interstate Marine Fisheries Commissions, and at a large number of state marine fisheries management agencies.