Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Beth is a marine ecologist who studies species distributions and environmental drivers of movement. Her doctoral dissertation work focused on the migratory drivers and sexual segregation of blacktip sharks, Carcharhinus limbatus, along the U.S. East Coast using acoustic telemetry, an animal-borne tracking technology. In her postdoctoral appointment, she is developing recommendations for acoustic telemetry applications to offshore wind and supports a mid-Atlantic Marine Biodiversity Observation Network. Her other research interests include effects of climate change on animal distribution, movement modeling, satellite telemetry, reproductive biology, survivorship, and kinematics.

Publications:

Bowers, M. E., & Kajiura, S. M. Seasonal distribution and environmental predictors of male blacktip shark movement, Carcharhinus limbatus, off the United States East Coast. (In Revision).

Bowers, M. E., & Kajiura, S. M. (2024). A novel process to infer the reliability of ecological information derived from passive acoustic telemetry track reconstruction. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14340.

Bowers, M. E., & Kajiura, S. M. (2023). A critical evaluation of adult blacktip shark, Carcharhinus limbatus, distribution off the United States East Coast. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 106(8), 1797–1813. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-023-01449-3.

Williams, B. L., Bowers, B., & Kendall, M. S. (2019). Blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus) use of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. In Using Acoustic Telemetry to Understand Connectivity of Gray’s Reef National Sanctuary to the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Ocean (pp. 20–22).

Young, J. M., Bowers, M. E., Reyier, E. A., Morley, D., Ault, E. R., Pye, J. D., Gallagher, R. M., & Ellis, R. D. (2020). The FACT Network: Philosophy, evolution, and management of a collaborative coastal tracking network. Marine and Coastal Fisheries, 12(5), 258–271. https://doi.org/10.1002/mcf2.10100.