MACHIAS — For years, coastal communities in Maine have collected valuable data on soft-shell clam recruitment and the spread of invasive green crabs, but much of that information has remained fragmented, difficult to access or unavailable to the public.
The lack of a centralized, user-friendly system has made it challenging for clammers, municipal committees, educators and policymakers to understand long-term trends, compare sites across towns or use data to inform management and conservation decisions.
That gap is now being addressed through a new collaborative project led by Brian F. Beal, professor of marine ecology and director of the University of Maine at Machias’ Marine Science Field Station at the Downeast Institute, and Georgios Boumis, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maine, where he leads the Future Coasts Lab.
“Data is only valuable if people can access and understand it,” Beal said. “This project is about breaking down barriers between science and the public, and making long-term ecological information available to the clammers, towns, educators and policymakers who depend on it.”
The project — supported by a grant from the Maine Coastal and Marine Climate Action Fund — will create an interactive, publicly accessible web platform that compiles and visualizes long-term recruitment data for soft-shell clams and green crabs from 12 Maine coastal communities dating back to 2020.
“Communities have been collecting important fisheries data for years, but it hasn’t always been easy to use or share,” Boumis said. “By bringing it together in a single, open platform, we can help people see long-term patterns and make better-informed decisions.”
The platform will standardize years of existing data into a searchable database, allowing users to filter by town, site, species, year, density and size distribution, and to explore trends through interactive graphs and maps.
For coastal communities that rely on shellfish management programs, the platform will turn years of technical data into an accessible, practical tool for local decision-making.
“Easy access to this data will be so helpful when we prepare reports for Islesboro’s annual town report and for our Shellfish Committee, which is composed of volunteers from the community, as we make decisions about what to do to protect ‘our’ clams from predation,” said Janis Petzel, a volunteer shellfish committee member for the town of Islesboro.
Designed to serve a wide range of audiences, the web-based tool will be integrated into the Downeast Institute’s website and will include explanatory content, glossaries and tutorial videos. By making the data transparent and easy to use, the project aims to support workforce development in the clamming industry, strengthen local decision-making and improve public understanding of how environmental change is affecting Maine’s coastal ecosystems.
