Feeling the pulse of Mumford Cove

23 March 2023. For almost 8 years now, the Evolutionary Fish Ecology Lab has conducted research in nearby Mumford Cove, a small, eelgrass covered embayment on eastern Long Island Sound. Using a set of battery-powered probes we have continuously measured temperature, pH, oxygen, salinity, and depth in 30 min intervals in the Cove - almost 120,000 times. This ongoing effort is not funded by any grant or institution; instead, it has been sustained over all these years by the firm belief in the prescient, if undervalued societal service of monitoring, an activity without short-term reward but important long-term benefits in understanding how ecosystems change on short and long time-scales. To commemorate the effort, we simply thought that it is time to show you some data, some pictures, and draw some early, cautious conclusions about the very interesting case of Mumford Cove. Have a look!

Fig01---Mumford-Cove-sketch
Fig.1: Schematic section of the upper part of Mumford Cove, showing the deployed probe (blue) between the bottom anchor (grey) and a subsurface float (orange), marked by a surface float (white). The probe sits in the deepest part of the Cove (Channel), at constant 50 cm distance to the bottom, but variable water level above (red histogram).

"Future generations will certainly have better theories, tools, models, and computers, but they will still depend on the data and measurements taken here and now."

Aerial01
Aerial view of Mumford Cove (Picture: Jamie Vaudrey)