FARMINGTON — Western Maine Audubon will host a lecture by William “Barney” Balch, a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Lab for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 12.

 

It will be held in room 101 of the Roberts Learning Center at the University of Maine at Farmington.

 

Bigelow Lab’s mission is to investigate the microbial drivers of global ocean processes, essential to the conservation and responsible use of the ocean. A major part of the research at the lab in on climate change and ocean health.

 

For the past 18 years, Balch has run the Gulf of Maine North Atlantic Time Series, a scientific study that includes regular collection and analysis of samples along the same transect across the gulf.  One of the most striking observations of the project was an 80 percent decline in the primary production of the gulf’s marine phytoplankton – the vital organisms at the bottom of the marine food web upon which all sea-life depends.