Speaker Series - John A. Cigliano, Ph.D.

Massachusetts’ estuaries and embayments were once lined with extensive reefs built by the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica). Overharvesting, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change have since reduced those reefs to a small fraction of their former range. The Massachusetts Oyster Project (Mass Oyster) is working to bring them back to coastal waters across the Commonwealth. But why restore oyster reefs?

Join marine conservation ecologist Dr. John A. Cigliano, vice chair of the board of Mass Oyster, to find out. Oyster reefs provide essential ecological services. They filter excess nitrogen and suspended particles from seawater, pollutants that can otherwise fuel algal blooms and fish kills. They serve as nurseries and shelters for juvenile fish and invertebrates, many of them commercially important, and they increase biodiversity overall. Reefs also protect coastal habitats and towns by reducing wave energy and shoreline erosion and by acting as buffers against storm surge and sea level rise. In this talk, John will explore the history of Massachusetts’ native oyster reefs, their decline, the work Mass Oyster is doing to restore them, and how you can get involved.

John brings a lifetime of ocean research to the conversation. He earned his doctorate at Boston University, where he studied the behavioral ecology of two octopus species. His research since then includes a long-term project on how a new marine protected area affected a queen conch population in the Sapodilla Cayes of Belize, and a recently completed study of how ocean acidification and warming affect rocky intertidal communities in Acadia National Park. His current focus is the effects of microplastics on marine species and communities.

John is also an expert in applying citizen science to marine conservation. As a Marine Science Advisor for Seaside Sustainability, he is helping develop a citizen science program on microplastics, and he is leading a TownGreen project to monitor the health of salt marshes. He is a Director of the Society for Conservation Biology and President of the Society’s Participatory and Citizen Working Group. An avid photographer and passionate SCUBA diver, John has dived on six continents, including Antarctica, and has explored all seven.