Simen Kaalstad
Current Job: Director, Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership
Current Project: Florida Keys Prop Scar Restoration Project
State(s) working in: North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine
Where are you from: Texas
What do you think is the main reason we should protect SAV?
SAV provides critical habitat for several organisms and improves the health of coastal ecosystems and access to aquatic resources.
How do you feel your research will make a difference in the SAV community?
The mission of the Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership (ACFHP) is to accelerate the conservation, protection, restoration, and enhancement of habitat for native coastal, estuarine-dependent, and diadromous fishes through partnerships between federal, tribal, state, local, and other entities. By leveraging our numerous partnerships in multiple regions, we aim to promote SAV conservation by supporting a variety of SAV habitat restoration efforts along the Atlantic Coast of the U.S.
What is one of your best memories working with SAV?
Conducting SAV assessments throughout the lower Laguna Madre, from Corpus Christi, TX to the U.S. - Mexico border. We encountered an incredible amount of wildlife diversity and had the pleasure of presenting the importance of our findings at local community events.
What keeps you motivated to keep caring about the future of SAV?
Preserving the health and natural beauty of the coastal environment which encompasses a broad spectrum of ecological and recreational services.
More about Simen’s story
I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin where I spent a lot of time at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in the Gulf of Mexico. This led me to continue working in wetlands as I went on to complete a Master of Science in Fisheries and Mariculture Biology. Previous projects have involved the climate-induced encroachment of intertidal black mangroves into temperate salt marsh systems in the Gulf of Mexico and how the expanding range of this tropical species impacts the habitat preferences of resident fauna. This work also focused on investigating temperature thresholds for damage, mortality, and recovery in response to extreme freeze events and what types of ecological models best explain these responses. I have also led an SAV and Mangrove restoration project in the Bahamas. Now, as the Director of the Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership my work focuses on the conservation and restoration of important fish habitats while coordinating a multitude of on-the-ground projects along the eastern coast of the U.S.; many of which include SAV projects.
