Dr. Rebecca Lewison is the lead author of a paper released today in BioScience that promotes an adaptive approach, using real-time data, to managing ocean ecosystems and the resources within our oceans. Lewison and her coauthors suggest that by incorporating flexibility into the management framework and putting science to work, these complex systems can be better managed, striking a balance between ocean resource use and conservation. Read more in the SDSU NewsCenter press release or BioScience.

Alexander Gaos, a PhD Candidate in the Lewison Lab, recently helped spearhead research into a previously undiscovered hawksbill sea turtle hotspot in the Choco region of Colombia. During the short expedition, the research team, which in addition to San Diego State, included such organizations the World Wildlife Fund, the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative, CIMAD and Colombian National Parks, located 11 hawksbills inhabiting a pristine coral reef in the waters of Utria National Park. Gaos' current Doctoral research seeks to understand connectivity between this and other hawksbill populations in neighboring countries using genetic tools. Read more about the recent expedition to Colombia HERE. Learn more about the events leading up to this discovery and Alexander's work as highlighted in San Diego's Newspaper UT San Diego or by visiting our Research page.

Lewison Lab post-doctoral researcher, Megan Jennings, has been working to evaluate wildlife movement across State Route 67, a rural highway in San Diego County that has proven to be dangerous to people and wildlife. The California Department of Transportation, CalTrans, has been working to make the highway safer, and we're helping them study how to do that for wildlife. Check out this video to see Megan discuss our CalTrans-funded research to assess wildlife movement across the highway and identify safe and appropriate road crossings.

More than 20 years ago, an accidental ecological experiment began when the infamous drug lord, Pablo Escobar, died and his private collection of exotic wildlife wandered off his compound in Antioquia, Colombia. The hippos that were part of that collection have now reproduced and their population has grown and appears to be thriving in the water-rich Colombian rainforest. Listen in to an interview with WBEZ's Worldview where Dr. Rebecca Lewison shares her knowledge of hippos and discusses what to make of the hippos of Colombia.

Research in the lab has long been focused on understanding landscape and seascape connectivity - how animals move, or don't move, across the landscape. From desert tortoises and bobcats, to sea turtles and sharks, a number of projects are working to improve tools and approaches to understand how animal movement patterns over time are shaping the populations we observe.

To find out more about one project, go to http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news.aspx?s=75148