Meet Connor Jones – Fishers Island Seagrass Management Coalition

There is a delicate balance on Fishers Island with regards to preserving and protecting its natural habitat. But under the watchful eye of Connor Jones, project coordinator for the Fishers Island Seagrass Management Coalition, its future is looking brighter. Jones, who joined the Museum’s staff in March 2020, says, “Once habitat is gone—whether it is a seagrass meadow, an upland meadow, a saltmarsh, or a hardwood forest—you also lose the ecosystem services it provides and that habitat’s associated flora and fauna, some of which may also be important to local economies.” A trained ecologist with a background in marine science, he received his undergraduate degree in biology with a focus on ecology from Binghamton University in New York. He earned a Master of Science degree in marine science at the University of New England in Maine, where his master’s thesis involved a two-year project in which he worked closely with a local mussel farm to determine a baseline of the physiological health assessment of blue mussels.