For several years now, SUNY has had a partnership with the University of the West Indies (UWI) to further collaborative research and instruction by teams of faculty members from both institutions. As part of that collaboration Dr. Brad Peterson (SUNY) and Dayne Buddo (UWI) have offered a course in “Marine Invasive Alien Species in Tropical and Temperate Climate”.
This summer, in addition to their week-long program, nine visiting students from UWI were able to join the R/V Seawolf for a sampling cruise in Long Island Sound. Most of the students were from Jamaica but UWI is a multi-national university and the group also included students from Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Guyana and India. The second half of the course will see all students spending a week in Jamaica working on lionfish and blast water management. This provides the students a way to compare first-hand marine invasive alien species in both climatic regions.
