A top lobster scientist told a gathering at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday night that the Massachusetts Lobster Hatchery in Oak Bluffs should become operational again. With new advances in the understanding of how lobsters live, the use of hatcheries can be far more effective, said Jelle Atema, a professor and Boston University marine biologist.

His talk included a presentation about the dynamic relationships that lobsters have with each other. While it has long been understood that lobsters will attack each other, evidence suggests that they are tribal as well as territorial. Lobsters have a strong sense of smell, Mr. Atema said, and are able to distinguish members of their own tribe from others.

The talk was one in a series of lectures about the issues being faced by Vineyard fishermen. Mr. Atema was introduced by Warren Doty, a Chilmark selectman and president of the Menemsha Fisheries Development Fund. In his introduction, Mr. Doty outlined efforts by his organization to help the fishing industry by working on revitalizing the shellfishery. He said lobsters are in trouble in area waters and need help.

Mr. Atema said considerable work has been done with small fish about their uncanny ability to find their way through large areas of open ocean and still find their home.

He said lobsters can do the same thing. Through an extensive study, Mr. Atema said he and a group of scientists have concluded that lobsters in northern Maine are genetically and behaviorally different from lobsters that reside in the waters of Rhode Island. Lobsters from the two areas will not mingle, he said, showing that the creatures prefer to live among their own kind.

He showed an underwater film of a lobster and its den. The short movie monitored the relationship between a dominant male and a female lobster.

Studies of lobsters in the Gulf of Maine have shown that lobsters have their own territories, and male lobsters have their own preferences when it comes to females, Mr. Atema said. He said female lobsters prefer male lobsters with big claws.

Though lobsters can wander for hundreds of miles when they are in their swimming stage, they are primarily territorial and prefer the areas where they were hatched.

All this information can be helpful to lobster hatcheries, Mr. Atema said. He is trying to get the Maine Penobscot East Resource Center in Stonington, Me., to release hatchery-raised lobsters from birth into the area where their eggs were collected. He said his study shows that juvenile lobsters have a better chance of survival if they are returned to the home of their parents because they have a better chance of being accepted into the tribe.

Mr. Atema said the work of the study examining differences in Maine and Rhode Island lobsters involved comparison of detailed measurements and study of behavior patterns.

The results, he said should have profound impact on the future management of lobsters.

He also said the dreaded shell disease that afflicts lobsters in Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts will probably not spread to northern waters. The affliction is area specific and likely connected to water temperature, an abundance of bacteria and nutrients in the water column.

And Mr. Atema said lobsters in Vineyard waters have the potential to thrive.

Lobsters like to feed on starfish, and starfish are an unwanted predator for shellfish, including bay scallops and quahaugs.

John Hughes, the former director of the Massachusetts Lobster Hatchery in Oak Bluffs was in the audience on Wednesday night. Mr. Atema gave high praise to Mr. Hughes for the work he had done in lobster research and raising lobsters.

He said that lobster hatcheries have been very effective in Maine in maintaining lobster populations, and he said the Vineyard lobster hatchery could be brought back to life.

Mr. Doty said that he felt the state discontinued the Vineyard lobster hatchery because of fiscal problems and because there was no science at the time to demonstrate that the hatcheries were effective enough to warrant the cost of operation.