May 17 is Endangered Species Day. This year we’re highlighting some of the silent victims in the orchid gallery below.

Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii)
This ethereal leafless orchid haunts the swamps of Florida’s deep south, the only state where it can be found. It is a frequent target of poaching, and generally dies within a year of being taken out of the wild.
Status: Endangered in Florida.

Ghost orchid (NC Orchid)

Dragon’s Mouth Orchid (Arethusa bulbosa)
This orchid prospers by tricking its pollinators, usually inexperienced queen bees. Its bright colors and sweet scent lure them in, but it offers no nectar as a reward.
Status: Endangered in Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

Dragon’s mouth orchid (Chris Meloche)

Yadon’s Piperia (Pipera yadonii)
This tall, slender orchid grows in dense patches with as many as 200 plants in a few square meters. But in the U.S. it appears only in a single county in California.
Status: Federally Endangered

Yadon’s piperia (Raymond Prothero)

Yellow Fringeless Orchid (Platanthera integra)
The yellow fringeless orchid prefers bogs, streamside savannahs and other damp places. But like many orchids, its exact location is kept a secret to protect it from poachers.
Status: Endangered in Florida, New Jersey and Tennessee

Yellow fringeless orchid (NC Orchid)

Western Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera praeclara)
An orchid of the Great Plains, this flower seems to require periodic fires, grazing or other disturbances to thrive, but the exact extent is unclear.
Status: Federally threatened. Endangered in Minnesota and Missouri.

Western prairie fringed orchid (NC Orchid)

Small-whorled pogonia (Isotria medeoloides)
Endangered in 16 of the 20 states where it still survives, the small-whorled pogonia has earned the title “rarest orchid east of the Mississippi.”
Status: Federally threatened. See the USDA for a full list of states where it is endangered.

Small-whorled pogonia (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center)

Luquillo Mountain Babyboot Orchid (Lepanthes eltoroensis)
This flower takes its name from the Luquillo mountains of Puerto Rico, where it grows on moss-covered trees more than a mile above sea level. It puts forth a single red blossom dwarfed by an enormous leaf.
Status: Federally endangered. Endangered in Puerto Rico.

Luquillo mountain babyboot orchid (Benjamin J. Crain)

Ute Lady’s Tresses (Spiranthes diluvialis)
Ute lady’s tresses thrive in wetlands and marshes, but habitat loss from agriculture and urban development have caused many populations to disappear.
Status: Federally threatened. Endangered in Washington.

Ute lady’s tresses (Bekee Hotze/USFWS)

Creative Commons images licenses:
Yellow fringeless and Western prairie fringed orchids (NC Orchid)
Ghost orchid (NC Orchid)
Yadon’s piperia (Raymond Prothero)
Luquillo mountain babyroot orchid

Brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) caused the local extinction of more than half of Guam’s native birds and lizards after they invaded the island in the 1940s. (National Park Service)

For decades, ecologists have assumed the worst invasive species—such as brown tree snakes and kudzu—have an “away-field advantage.” They succeed because they do better in their new territories than they do at home. A new study led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center reveals that this fundamental assumption is not nearly as common as people might think.

The away-field advantage hypothesis hinges on this idea: Successful invaders do better in a new place because the environment is more hospitable to them. They escape their natural enemies, use novel weapons on unsuspecting natives and generally outcompete natives on their own turf by disrupting the balance of nature in their new ecosystems.

“They’ve been presumed to be good citizens at home and bad citizens away,” said ecologist John Parker, lead author of the paper published in the May issue of the journal Ecology. But when researchers investigated it on a large scale, they discovered the assumption was not true for all, or even most, of the species they looked at.

The research team, which included 24 invasion biologists from the National Science Foundation-funded Global Invasions Network, compiled data on 53 different plant and animal invaders. They pulled 37 from the list of “100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species,” and 16 from an exhaustive search of the published literature. They ended up with a list that included European green crabs, Asian kelp, nutria, brown tree snakes, garlic mustard and other common suspects. After combing through hundreds to thousands of papers to find published demographic data, they were able to do a statistical analysis of whether invaders were bigger, more reproductively successful and thus more abundant in their introduced ranges.

Kudzu, a vine from eastern Asia, now more commonly known as “the vine that ate the South.”
(Galen Parks Smith)

This suggests that the key to a successful invasion depends less on the environment, and more on the individual species doing the invading. Plants, for example, were more likely than animals to thrive abroad in this study. But even the plants showed a wide range of variability, with many (like garlic mustard) performing equally well in both their introduced and home ranges.

“The general notion that invasive species are doing something fundamentally different in their new versus their old ranges may be a fair starting point overall, but there is a lot of grey area even for the worst-case invaders,” Parker said. “These findings might also have applications for management. Some species might be invasive regardless of novel conditions, whereas others thrive only because of their new environment. If this ‘newfound’ success is reversible, it’s these latter species that might be our best bet to try and control.”

Because they must learn to navigate under sea ice in just over a month, baby Weddell seals are born with near adult-sized brains. (Samuel Blanc)

By the time they are born, baby Weddell seal brains have already reached 70 percent of their adult size. (The brain of a human infant is a mere 25 percent of its adult size.) But the researchers found this rapid development carries a hefty price tag.

The research team, consisting of Olav Oftedal (SERC), Charles Potter (NMNH) and led by Regina Eisert (SERC and the University of Canterbury, NZ), studied brain mass in 12 Weddell seals that died of natural causes in ice-covered McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The seals studied included two adult females and 10 newborn pups zero to eight days old when they died. The scientists also measured intracranial volume of Weddell seal skulls from a collection held at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

The pups’ average brain mass measured 69 percent of the adults’ average brain mass. The figure reached an even 70 percent when they combined their work with data from earlier studies, an absolute record among newborn mammals studied to date.

Radiographs of the skulls of an adult (top) and newborn Weddell seal. The cranium of the newborn is already close to adult size at birth. (Suzan Murray/National Zoological Park)

But why does the newborn Weddell seal need such a large brain? Marine mammals need extra processing capacity to orient themselves in a three-dimensional underwater environment, and tend to have larger brains than comparable terrestrial species. (Living in trees, another kind of 3D environment, is also associated with larger brain size).

As an added challenge, baby Weddell seals take up diving under the ice at less than three weeks old. Ice-diving is extremely dangerous for mammals, as they risk drowning if they cannot locate their exit in time. Most marine mammals will not dive under closed ice even as adults, with the exception of three species: the Baikal seal, the ringed seal and the Weddell seal.

And why are baby Weddell seals—which may be seen shivering from their icy swims at just a week old—in such a rush to brave the dark, freezing, and potentially lethal waters in the first place? It appears that they have no choice. Weddell seal mothers attend their pups for only 40 to 50 days. After that, the young are on their own. With such a small window of time, pups are under a lot of pressure to master the under-ice navigation skills they will need for the rest of their lives.

But such hyper-fast maturity comes with a cost. The brain is a metabolically expensive organ, requiring a constant supply of oxygen and glucose (blood sugar). Any interruption of the brain’s fuel supply may result in loss of consciousness, so keeping the brain going takes top priority. Other tissues may even be broken down to help supply glucose for the brain. The team estimated a newborn Weddell seal pup of 30 kg (65 lbs.) needs between 30 and 50 grams of glucose per day, with the brain taking roughly 28 grams.

Weddell seals sleeping on the ice. While nursing their young, Weddell seal mothers go through a fasting period and can sacrifice a great deal of body mass to sustain their pups. (Regina Eisert)

Ultimately it’s up to the mother to supply that glucose through her milk. In a second paper published in March, Eisert, Oftedal and collaborators from New Zealand reported that the amount of milk sugar supplied by seal mothers (39 grams per day) matches the offspring’s needs almost exactly. This came as a surprise: Until now, it had been assumed that the sugar content of milks of seals and other marine mammals was negligible.

But this again carries a price. Lactating Weddell seal mothers have one of the highest rates of mass loss of any marine mammal, sacrificing their own body tissues to make milk for their large-brained offspring.

Photo: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

To some following the blue crab recovery, the news earlier this month may have come as a shock. In 2012, the Chesapeake-wide Winter Dredge Survey estimated a record 764 million blue crabs in the Bay—the highest seen since 1991. Juvenile crab densities jumped to their highest levels ever. Then the 2013 survey released April 19 saw both those numbers drop.

Managers greeted the dwindling juvenile population with some depression. But those numbers may not matter as much, according to biologists Tuck Hines and Matt Ogburn of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Ecologists at SERC have been tracking blue crabs for more than 30 years, almost a decade before the winter dredge survey began. They’ve discovered the population that really needs watching is the spawning females. Here is what the numbers are telling us:

1. Female protection is working overall. The 2008 change in crab fishery management targeted protection of spawning females.  In four of the five years since then, the Winter Dredge Survey has recorded higher numbers of mature females and all females bigger than 2.4 inches compared to the period of very low levels from approximately 1994 to 2008. This indicates a positive outcome of reduced fishing pressure on female crabs.

2. To increase juvenile crabs, we need to protect their mothers. It is not surprising that the number of juveniles in the 2013 Winter Dredge Survey is very low. The number of females in 2012 that formed the spawning stock was near the same record low levels of great concern during the late 1990s and 2000-2008 and was unlikely to produce a large number of small juveniles in the 2013 Winter Dredge Survey.  This emphasizes the importance of protecting the female spawning stock.

3. Survival matters—winter numbers alone don’t predict reproduction. The number of females in the Winter Dredge Survey provides a projection of the number of spawners in the coming summer, and into the following summer after that. But it is not a direct measure of the amount of spawning taking place. Following the Winter Dredge Survey, female crabs in Maryland need to migrate to, and in the case of juveniles over-winter in, the lower Bay before actually spawning.  In order to determine the actual amount of spawning each summer, we need a much more accurate measure of factors regulating mortality (survival) of crabs from winter to summer, including juvenile mortality and the components of the fishery in various parts of the Bay, AND their reproductive success/output.

4. Location matters. Our sampling last summer (2012) indicated that the large number of juveniles recorded in the 2012 Winter Dredge Survey did not result in large numbers of juveniles in Maryland waters of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

5. It’s too early to blame the red drum. The statement that the increase in juvenile red drum was the cause of the mortality of 2012 juveniles should be viewed with caution and skepticism.  While juvenile crabs may be important in the diet of red drum, it has not been demonstrated that predation by red drum is a major factor in regulating juvenile crab abundance. Our long-term experimental data in the upper Bay indicates that fish predation is not a major factor regulating juvenile crab survivorship, and we did not observe this type of predation in 2012. The biggest threat to juvenile crabs is still predation by adult crabs. The 2012 results were entirely consistent with juvenile crab mortality being directly related to numbers of large crabs.

6. We need to learn more about why females don’t spawn. The concern about poor reproduction of female blue crabs is a major ongoing focus of research in our laboratory.  We need to understand more about the factors regulating the production of egg sponges and the role that males play in supplying enough sperm for females to fertilize eggs during their first AND second spawning seasons.

Dr. Tuck Hines is a marine biologist with over 30 years of experience working on blue crabs in Chesapeake Bay. His research addresses broad problems of population and community ecology using long-term quantitative sampling and innovative experiments at multiple spatial and temporal scales. His studies analyze human impacts and natural change in estuarine and marine systems.

Dr. Matt Ogburn is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and author of the Blue Crab Blog. In addition to his work in Chesapeake Bay, he has studied blue crabs in North Carolina and Georgia. His other research involves using a combination of long-term data and directed field work to study estuarine ecology, fish biology, shrimp behavior, oyster restoration and other topics.

The European green crab has been on the east coast of the U.S. since 1817. (SERC)

The title question was raised by one of the readers of last month’s feature story on green crabs (Carcinus maenas). The reader asked, “If the green crab was first seen here [the East Coast of the US] in 1817, is it still considered an invasive species 200 years later? How far back do you go to claim something is invasive vs. native?” Several groups of people have drawn their own lines in the sand, but we wanted to examine current thoughts and perceptions. The following article is based on views expressed in a recent listserve discussion.

The term invasive was used in the green crab article because the crab is on the list of the world’s 100 worst invasive species. But it is also commonly used as a synonym of introduced. Which brings us to the importance of terms and definitions.

As one respondent pointed out, there are different interpretations of the term “invasive.” Some people define invasive in terms of a species’ ecological impact or behavior, while others use it to refer to a species’ origin, and sometimes both are part of the definition. If a species’ characterization as invasive is based only on its ecological behavior, then it is possible for a species to be both native and invasive. But if the species’ origin is part of the definition, then only nonnative species can be invasive. Others add another dimension to the word by making the mode of introduction important. Species can be spread naturally through dispersal and/or through human-mediated transport. Some people use invasive in reference to human-mediated introductions of nonnative species. Unfortunately, when we hear the word “invasive” we rarely know the definition behind it.

But whether something is considered invasive appears to be largely a matter of perception rather than just definition, and there are many contributing factors that muddy the water. Most responses from the discussion fell into three perception categories represented by these questions:

1) Do we benefit from the species, or is it harmful?

2) Is the species part of what we consider the natural landscape?

3) Is the species native?

Maybe our problem is that we view nature in the time frame of a biologist’s career-span.”

Money Matters

People provided several examples of nonnative species that might be called naturalized because they provide commercial benefit to us. Many of us can point to game species that were introduced, sometimes intentionally, and are managed in such a way as to protect and grow their populations. For example, game species like the brown trout (Salmo trutta) and striped bass (Morone saxatilis) might be called naturalized and are sometimes stocked and managed as a fishery.

The common carp (Cyprinus carpio) is a delicious treat to some; an irritating pest to most. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

“It has been here so long that many people don’t realize that common carp are not native to the United States, and they are clearly ’naturalized‘ under some definitions of that word,” says Duane Chapman of the U.S. Geological Survey. “In most cases where undesirable effects occur, the ‘new normal’ is just the ‘normal’ for most people, and they don’t realize that fishing for more desirable fishes might be better if the carp were not there. But people still hate the carp, and most of those that know that common carp are not native would consider them an undesirable invasive.”

In the case of game species, the desirability of the species may be at least as important, if not more so, as the length of time the species has been around.

History

Alternatively, length of time may be the determining factor for some species, especially if no one is around who remembers the ecosystem before the introduction. Green crabs are a perfect example. Green crabs are commonly sold as bait along the East Coast and until a recent education effort, many of these bait shops advertised the green crabs as native. The bait shop owners were not trying to mislead customers; rather, most people believed the crabs were native because there was no institutional memory of the crabs’ arrival in 1817. Bruce E. Coblentz, Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Oregon State University, puts it this way: “Some invasive species may well cause severe disruption to ecosystem processes and functions which eventually lead to some new approximate steady state. This might take decades, centuries, or perhaps millennia. Because future generations will view this altered state as the ‘normal’ by default, the invasives probably won’t be considered as such. Maybe our problem is that we view nature in the time frame of a biologist’s career-span.”

However as Robert Hilliard from Intermarine Consulting Pty Ltd. in Western Australia pointed out, “The mechanisms of natural selection imply that introduced species cannot remain novel forever and that over time the native community and its various species ‘learn’ to adapt, eventually accommodating and coexisting with the newcomer. The same mechanisms will also cause the introduced species to evolve to fit better into its new environment. The Australian dingo, which was introduced by canoe traders visiting north-east Australia about 4000 years ago, is an example. Native marsupials have had time to develop some avoidance responses to their new predator, while the dingo race is now genetically distinct from nearest present-day relatives.”

The Australian Dingo arrived in Australia roughly 4,000 years ago, giving the ecosystem plenty of time to adapt to it. (Alessandro from Milan, Italy/Wikimedia Commons)

Not native, but naturalized?

While no one had an answer for how long a species needs to be around to be considered naturalized, the history of invasion and a species’ native or nonnative status was very important to most people. For example, researcher Linda McCann from the Smithsonian Marine Invasions Research Laboratory says, “I think we never want to give these species a ‘native’ designation to preserve their history, but at some point we should consider giving them a ‘naturalized’ designation.” Many others agree that preserving nonnative status and introduction history were very important, but did not think a naturalized designation should be added because their definition of invasive included the establishment of species beyond their historical range and thus, once an invasive, always an invasive.

This brings us back to our original question: Is there a statute of limitations on invasive status? Perhaps yes, but it seems to depend on many factors including the definition of invasive and our personal perceptions about a particular species (i.e., desirability and historical perspective). Is there a time when a species is no longer considered introduced? Most people would say no.

Lumbricus rubellus, a European earthworm that is now one of the most common in the eastern U.S. More than 10,000 years ago, Pleistocene glaciers wiped out native earthworms. Today virtually all earthworms in the U.S. north of Pennsylvania are invasive. (Holger Casselmann)

But for wild orchids, they’re more of a menace. Earthworms could prevent roughly half a forest’s orchid seeds from even germinating, ecologists from Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and Johns Hopkins University discovered in a study published online this March in Annals of Botany Plants.

The small size of orchid seeds (they are barely the size of dust grains) makes them particularly vulnerable. As earthworms chew up forest litter, they ingest orchid seeds as well. When that happens, two things can keep the seeds from germinating: One, the process of passing through an earthworm’s gut can render them unviable. Or two, if the seeds survive ingestion, they can end up buried so deep that they can’t access the fungi they need to germinate and grow. As a general rule, deeper soils are much less likely to have those fungi.

The idea that earthworms can be good for gardens but terrible for forests isn’t surprising to the study’s authors. SERC ecologists Melissa McCormick and Dennis Whigham have spent several years tracking the trouble with earthworms, along with Katalin Szlavecz of Johns Hopkins University. Many forest plants, especially in older forests, are used to getting their nutrients from the soil. But earthworms’ ability to make nutrients easier to access can favor invasive plants that can later take over the understory. Added to that, almost all earthworms in the eastern U.S. aren’t native to the area. The issue with orchids is just their latest discovery.

Flowers of the Goodyera pubescens orchid (downy rattlesnake plantain). Melissa McCormick/SERC.

Finally, they investigated how deep earthworms buried the seeds. McCormick had already calculated that in order for Goodyera orchids to germinate and grow, they need to be in the top 5 centimeters of soil. Anything deeper and there wouldn’t be enough of the fungi they require to grow properly. Of the seeds that were ingested, almost a third were buried deeper than the 5-centimeter cutoff point.
Expanding the numbers over an entire year, the team estimated 49 percent of Goodyera orchid seeds would be lost in older forests (120-150 years old). In younger forests (50-70 years old), where non-native earthworms generally do better, the figure jumped to 68 percent.

But McCormick suspects even these numbers may be too low. The worms didn’t chew up nearly as much material in lab as they do in nature, and they weren’t able to count seeds that were fragmented or completely digested. What the authors uncovered is probably the lower limit—the true number of orchid seeds lost to earthworms is almost certainly higher.

SERC pond on the morning of March 25. The short-lived spring snowstorm dumped up to 6 inches throughout Maryland, but most of it melted within 24 hours. (Kristen Minogue)

If the massive snowstorms that pummeled the northeast this winter—and at least one downpour in spring—seem out of place in a warming world, climate scientists have a message: Don’t fret, it’s just physics.

For several years, scientists have anticipated a future of “less snow, more blizzards” in the winters ahead. The message may sound like a paradox. But for the planet, it boils down to one simple truth: Warm air holds more moisture than cold air.

Snowstorms occupy a narrow zone on the thermometer: To produce snow, the temperature has to be below freezing (32 °F). But the air also has to be warm enough to hold water—generally somewhere in the 20s. Monster snowstorms are much less likely to form with temperatures in the teens or lower. There isn’t enough moisture in the air to create snow in the first place.

This means that just a small upward nudge in temperature can turn a dry cold front into a blizzard. For each degree Celsius the temperature rises, the air is able to hold about 7 percent more water. And in the Northeast, winter temperatures are rising faster than summer temperatures. Since 1970 average winter temperatures went up 2°C (about 4°F)—twice as much as the average throughout the entire year, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. And they’re projected to rise another 2°C before the end of the century.

Scientists suspected this early as 2006, before the likes of Nemo and Snowmageddon buried the east coast. In a study tracking snowstorms over the entire 20th century, they discovered between 60 and 80 percent of the biggest snowstorms (6 inches or more) occurred in warmer-than-normal years. To the authors, the writing on the wall was clear: their findings suggested “a warmer future climate will generate more winter storms.”

Warmer winters equal more moisture. More moisture equals more intense snowstorms. But there’s still the issue of less snow overall. That is a little easier to explain.

As annual temperatures rise, winters don’t last as long. Spring is already arriving 10 days earlier than it used to. Spring snow cover has shrunk 1 million square miles over the last 45 years in the northern hemisphere, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Climate change is forcing snowstorms to work on an increasingly tight schedule. The blizzards that do fall are more severe, but it isn’t enough to make up for the lost time.

At some point, says Weather Underground director and meteorologist Jeff Masters, we may reach a threshold that’s too warm for heavy snowstorms. But for the next few decades, blizzards like the ones in 2013 and 2010 probably aren’t going anywhere.

More in Extreme Weather:

Land Hurricanse: The Science Behind the Derecho >>

Snowmageddon vs. Caribbean Creep >>

Hurrricanes, Snakeheads and Dead Zones: What 2011 Weather Meant for the Chesapeake >>

European green crabs are eating and marching their way up the west coast.

One of nine marine invertebrates to make the list of the world’s 100 worst invasive species, they’ve had major economic impacts on shellfisheries in New England, including blue mussels, the Virginia oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and Bay scallops. Impacts are mounting on the west coast too, where losses to bivalve fisheries (Pacific littleneck, Japanese littleneck, softshell clams and blue mussels) are projected to reach $20,000-60,000 per year. Ecologically, their impact has been no less severe, as they prey on and compete with other crabs, bivalves, gastropods like snails and slugs, and many other invertebrates.

European Green Crab Carcinus maenas. Green crabs have visited every continent but Antarctica. They’ve colonized parts of the Americas from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. (Arthro)

Green crabs are exceptional world travelers, making it from their native region along the European Coast to six major regions of the world, including the Northwest Atlantic (Maryland to Newfoundland), the Northeast Pacific (California to British Columbia), Patagonia, South Africa, Japan and Australia. Their mode of transport may vary, but evidence suggests they’ve been transported with the live-bait trade and in ships’ ballast water.

Green crabs have been on the East Coast of the US for about 200 years, according the NEMESIS database. They made their first appearance near New Jersey in 1817. From there they moved north, reaching the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia in 1953, the Gulf of St. Lawrence by 1994, and finally, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland in 2007. Their southward expansion stopped at the Chesapeake Bay; possibly they couldn’t compete with the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus).

On the West Coast, green crabs were first recorded in 1989 near Bodega Harbor, California, and appeared in San Francisco Bay a year later. Their northward march took them to the north end of Vancouver Island in British Columbia by 2007. By 2011 they were 200 miles from the Alaskan border, the known current extent of their range. Similar to their movement on the East Coast, southward dispersal has been much slower. They reached Morro Bay, their current southern limit, about 200 miles south of San Francisco Bay by 1998.

A young volunteer shows off a fish caught in a crab trap. (Catie Bursch)

Volunteers set traps for the green crabs in Kachemak Bay. (Catie Bursch)

Armed with this information and the knowledge that green crabs are advancing northward rapidly, researchers at SERC began training citizens to monitor for green crabs in Alaska. The first citizen-based monitoring effort began in 2004 at the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve. Soon after, sites around Prince William Sound and Southeast, Alaska were added. Monitors include summer cabin residents near the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve, tribal environmental technicians, retired biologists and teachers. In Kachemak Bay, teachers incorporated the monitoring effort into their classrooms, with kids as young as 10 participating in the trapping.

See also: Small lagoon fights off occupation >>

“The monitoring program has been a totally engaging way for students to learn about Kachemak Bay’s intertidal life, invasives, and how scientists track changes in marine life,” said the mother of one young monitor. “The students are able to be actual marine biologists, gathering authentic data. Students also gain an appreciation for their own ‘backyard’ and the need to monitor/protect it.”

And the monitors are doing just that.

Monitors trap throughout the summer months recording their catch for inclusion in a statewide database and serving as an early warning system for green crabs. In an effort to recruit additional volunteer monitors in other parts of Alaska and help existing monitors find information and upload their monitoring data, SERC created the Green Crab Watch website. So far no green crabs have been found, but the traps have held many other wonders. Monitors are learning about native Alaskan crabs and fish, as yet unaffected by invasive species and with any luck, their efforts will keep it that way.

Sunset from the dock at the Bocas del Toro Marine Station, Smithsonian. (Katrina Lohan)

We had very little trouble finding two of the oyster species we needed at three different places. But with only three days left in our trip, we had yet to find Ostrea sp. at more than one location. With our hopes high, we headed toward Portobelo to see if we could find a saline river-like environment that had Ostrea sp. in high enough abundance for us to sample. The drive was gorgeous! We drove along the Atlantic Coast of Panama and stopped at five separate “rivers”, though most of them were pretty small and should probably be called streams instead. We also briefly drove into Portobelo so that we could drive past the old Spanish forts in the city.

We only found Ostrea sp. at one of the rivers, and we didn’t find enough to sample there. Our final stop on our way back to Naos was the French Canal. We had borrowed an inflatable canoe from Mark Torchin, which took us about 20 minutes to pump up. Once we did, we were able to get the canoe into the water and used it to more closely investigate what oysters were growing on the bridge pilings. We had our fingers crossed that it would be Ostrea sp. but, alas, it was Crassostrea sp. instead. Well, I can’t be too upset. While we didn’t get the ideal sampling we were hoping for, it was still a very successful trip!

Next month we head to Merida, Mexico to continue our sampling adventures. Stay tuned!

Complete parasite-hunting stories from Panama >>

Kristina Hill investigates a mangrove root at Rio Alejandro, Panama, to determine what kinds of oysters are living on it. (Katrina Lohan)

The day after arriving in Panama City, we went out into the field to continue collecting. During our trip in December, we had sampled two locations on the Atlantic side of the Canal. Now we had to complete our sampling for the three genera we had been sampling in Bocas. So we headed out to an area near Colon, Panama, and rented a boat for a few hours to go find oysters in the mangroves. We were successful at finding all three species at one location and two of the three species at another location. Not bad for a single morning.