contact: John Fear, jmfear@ncsu.edu
or Justin Ridge,justin.ridge@deq.nc.gov 

Matt Bues is the 2026 North Carolina Coastal Research Fellow. Bues, a master’s student in marine biology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, is investigating how North Carolina’s estuaries support the development of commercially important fish eggs and larvae.

The Coastal Research Fellowship is jointly funded by North Carolina Sea Grant and the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and Estuarine Research Reserve. Through the fellowship graduate students across North Carolina have the opportunity to apply for funding to pursue research at one or more of the Reserve’s research sites.

“The species that I work with mean a lot to me, both as a researcher and a recreational angler,” says Bues, “I am excited to branch out my research focus into our important estuaries.”

The protection offered by landforms like mudflats and marshes, as well as the abundance of different food sources, make estuaries an ideal location for many fish to lay their eggs and for larvae to grow and develop before fish venture into open ocean. Seventy-five percent of commercially important fish in North Carolina rely on estuaries for at least one of their developmental stages. 

North Carolina’s estuaries vary greatly in their size, salinity, and landscape, all of which can provide different benefits and pose different challenges to larval fish. Bues is investigating these differences by sampling and evaluating both water and larvae from three different Reserve sites.

“I hope to learn how fish are using the estuaries within the Reserve to spawn and how we can apply that to fisheries management,” says Bues.

“We are very excited about this research endeavor,” says Justin Ridge, research coordinator for the Reserve. “It will help further connect the Reserve’s long-term water quality monitoring program across our sites with observations of larval fish community dynamics, which is relatively understudied in our southern sites. This will help us better track ecological community changes and better capture the role of our Reserve sites in the life cycles of fish that are commercially and recreationally important.”

The results of this research will help inform future conservation and management strategies for the delicate estuarine environments to promote sustainable fishing practices. Bues also plans to work directly with the NC Recreational Fishing Collaboration to raise awareness among anglers and boaters about the important role estuaries play in protecting their favorite species.

Learn more about the Coastal Research Fellowship.