iMESA Lab members Mina Surprenant, Sammy Morrison, Patrick Erwin & Susanna Lopez-Legentil challenged themselves a bit differently this time... doing a Rugged Maniac! 3 miles and 25 obstacles successfully completed! April 9, 2022 ; Rockingham, NC - We missed you Brenna Hutchings!

After several years of Zoom meetings, Mina Surprenant, Brenna Hutchings and Susanna Lopez-Legentil made it to the first in-person Benthic Ecology Meeting (BEM) since 2019! The event took place in Portsmouth, NH, March 29 to April  2, 2022.
Go Seahawks!

February 26, 2022 three members of the iMESA Lab: graduate student Mina Surprenant, and faculty members Patrick Erwin and Susanna Lopez-Legentil, ran a marathon! That is 26.2 miles! Other UNCW graduate students from the department of Biology and Marine Biology also participated (and completed) the challenge!! Well done everyone!!

Students enrolled in BIOL 534 (Advanced topics in Ecology: Molecular Ecology - Labs) collected 12 specimens each of the solitary ascidian (sea-squirt) Styela plicata. The students will thus contribute to a 15 year long project that is monitoring the genetic structure of the species population at the UNCW Center for marine science docks.
Pictured: Graduate students Brenna Hutchings and Yesmarie de la Flor, undergraduate student (FYRE program) Tabitha Ormond.