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Faculty Development Grant Recipient
Jayne Gardiner received a Faculty Development Grant to support her summer research and teaching activities, which included supervising three New College thesis students in conducting field-based projects that involved tagging sharks in Sarasota and Terra Ceia Bays. She also worked in the Marine Biology lab with two additional students and expanded upon their thesis research for potential publication.
The grant also helped Professor Gardiner continue her own research on the navigation and homing behaviors of the blacktip shark in Sarasota Bay, including the purchase of 10 acoustic shark tags, each with a 10-year battery life. She implanted the tags into newborn blacktip sharks, enabling Gardiner and the students to track the animals through maturity. “New College students are really passionate about learning and exploring the world around them,” comments Professor Gardiner, who is also director of the College’s Pritzker Marine Biology Research Center.
“My summer work once again proved that they are capable of incredible things.” In fall 2018, Professor Gardiner and her fellow researchers received a $17,000 grant from Mote Scientific Foundation for research to understand if sharks, rays and bony fish may have hidden in the Manatee River to escape the red tide that killed millions of fish and other creatures in Sarasota Bay. Also this past fall, she and Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Brad Oberle began collecting baseline data for a $294,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify the best methods for restoring a mangrove habitat in Sarasota Bay.