Riverside Conservancy

Dr. Corie Charpentier of Stetson University will be the guest speaker for Riverside Conservancy’s Lagoon Lecture series on Thursday, April 30.

The presentation, “Night Vision: How Light Pollution Impacts Fish Food in Our Lagoon,” will be held at 1 p.m., at the Edgewater Public Library.

An associate professor of biology at Stetson, Dr. Charpentier will explore how light influences the biology of coastal animals by cueing behavior and biological clocks.

Charpentier notes that over the last 150 years, artificial light has increasingly illuminated the nighttime sky. Many coastal invertebrates begin life as planktonic larvae in waters exposed to artificial light at night along developed coastlines, but little is known about the impact of this light pollution on larval behavior.

During her presentation, she will explore how marine life responds to light pollution and will focus on the larval stages of invertebrates that are crucial contributors to coastal food webs and biodiversity, such as crabs, shrimp and oysters.

Dr. Charpentier is a marine biologist who pursues research in the ecology and physiology of coastal animals. She earned her bachelor’s degree in marine science at Eckerd College, her Ph.D. in marine biosciences from the University of Delaware and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University.

The library is located at 103 West Indian River Road, Edgewater. Admission is free and open to the public.