(Posted April 1, 2002)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Vincent Buonaccorsi, assistant professor of biology at Juniata College, will present a talk on "West Coast Marine Reserves: Casting Hope Onto America's Marine Fisheries" as part of the as part of the Bookend Seminar lecture series at 4:30 p.m., April 10 in 202 Good Hall on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The Bookend Seminar series features afternoon lectures each month by Juniata College faculty.

Buonaccorsi's talk will focus on marine fisheries and how the fishing resources of the ocean often can be a finite resource. He will detail how the expansion of marine reserves, ocean areas along the West Coast where people are not allowed to fish, is being proposed in an effort to protect the area's natural fish populations and stimulate the fisheries along the coast.

To determine if the rockfish from these protected marine reserves are thriving and migrating into other areas of the ocean, scientists are using genetic markers to track whether the fish are "seeding" other areas of the coast.

Buonaccorsi earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1993 and went on to earn a doctorate in marine science from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. in 1998. He joined Juniata's faculty in 2001 after working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Marine Fisheries Service in San Diego, Calif.

His research interests center on population genetics, including population structure, population dispersal, speciation, species identification, molecular evolution and Endangered Species Act issues. He has published articles in Molecular Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.