Smithsonian Magazine recently released an article titled “How Shipwrecks Shape the Seafloor”. The article interviews several shipwreck researchers, including Dr. Leila Hamdan, to discuss how sunken vessels influence marine ecosystems. Shipwreck ecosystems are vitally important to understand and our lab at The University of Southern Mississippi is continuing to make discoveries in the field.

As Dr. Hamdan said at the end of the article, ‘“All you need to do is, wherever you are right now, look out your window,” Hamdan said. Consider how humans have shaped the terrestrial world and the distribution of organisms within it. We’re doing that with the seafloor as well, we just don’t see it,” she said. “We now know that human debris is changing the most fundamental units of life on the seabed, just by being there.”’

Read the full article here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2022/05/12/how-shipwrecks-shape-the-seafloor/

Stay tuned to our website to continue learning about our research. We have two new publications coming soon!

-RDM