The Living Marine Resources Institute (LIMRI) was created by the New York State Legislature in 1985 after concerns arose regarding the future of New York’s fishery resources. LIMRI is housed within SoMAS to enhance the expertise and capabilities in fisheries and aquaculture and to apply these capabilities more directly to priority fishery issues.

From its inception, LIMRI has developed a balanced program of fundamental and applied research. This research has focused on several key areas: interaction of the biology of finfish during early life history stages (larval and post-larval) with physical transport (currents and eddies) in the nearshore waters of the mid-Atlantic coast; causes, nature, and effects of noxious marine algal blooms (especially the “brown tide”); the population biology of commercial shellfish species (Mercenaria mercenaria, Spisula solidissima Mya arenaria); environmental factors affecting shellfish resource productivity; determinants of larval recruitment success in commercial finfish and crustaceans (lobsters and crabs); catastrophic mortalities of young cultured oysters; and effects of coastal development on nearshore fishery habitat.