Ali Kishwar, a volunteer tourist from Pakistan, navigates the muddy terrain across from SERC’s beaver pond with caution. (Credit: SERC)
For most people, summer vacation means stretching out on a beach in the South Pacific, touring the ruins of ancient Greece, or (for the more outdoors-inclined) hiking the Inca Trail in Peru. It does not usually entail wading through ankle-deep mud to measure the diameters of trees.
Paul Smith, a 63-year-old retired engineer, travelled to SERC all the way from the United Kingdom to do it. So did Ali Kishwar, a Pakistani doctorate student who took a break from studying medicinal plants at the University of Reading in Berkshire, also in the U.K. Smith and Kishwar joined a motley group of seven citizen scientists who paid to spend a week at SERC doing field work. Click to continue »
Research suggests some species in the tropics and subtropics may be more resistant to climate change than species closer to the poles. (Credit: SERC)
The threat of radical climate change has made predicting the future of biodiversity a critical challenge for scientists. However, untangling the many intricacies of how climate can affect plant and animal species can also be quite daunting. SERC ecologist Sean McMahon and co-authors, including three Nobel Laureates from the U.N. IPCC report, tackle the issue in a paper published this month in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Broken down, here’s what we already know about biodiversity and climate, what we still need to know, and what to do next. Click to continue »
Aerial view of Mangal Cay in the western Caribbean – just one of many mangrove havens Ilka Feller has explored.
As global temperatures rise, mangrove forests from the southeastern US are pushing farther north. Scientists don’t know how long, how fast, or what the exact consequences will be, but images from NASA satellites – and $1.3 million – will help them find out.
Ilka Feller, senior ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, will lead the effort to track more than 100 miles of Florida mangrove forests encroaching on their northern neighbors, the salt marshes. Feller has been studying mangroves for almost 20 years, keeping tabs on their progress in Florida, Panama, Belize and Australia. The new grant is one of 15 NASA-sponsored projects that will combine satellite data with field work to give scientists a bird’s-eye view of climate change.
SERC researcher George Smith opens an air vent on the ship Patcantrell for a ballast water experiment. (Credit: Timothy Mullady/SERC)
The global economy depends on marine transportation. But in addition to cargo, the world’s 50,000-plus commercial ships carry tiny stowaways that can cause huge problems for the environment and economy. A new model, published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, will help ships screen more accurately for dangerous species before they unload.
What are these rocks doing on the mudflat? That was the question a group of researchers in San Francisco’s South Bay asked in 2005. They were engaged in a native oyster restoration project when they stumbled upon some rather large rocks. They kicked one to the surface and recognized it as a bryozoan colony. SERC researcher Chela Zabin realized that this free-living bryozoan colony was very unusual; normally they grow on hard surfaces. Zabin and Joshua Mackie, of San Jose State University, identified the organism as Schizoporella errata, a type of calcified encrusting bryozoan that usually grows on pilings, boat hulls and docks. Click to continue »
By Florian von Bechtolsheim and Anne Phillip, 2010 Summer Interns
“Anybody got some heavy-duty, double-zipper, sandwich-size Ziploc bags?” We had many such questions for everyone at SERC. We were known this summer as two students, looking for random stuff and entrenching ourselves in the wet lab. There was a reason for that. Click to continue »
This summer from August 7th through August 13th, 9 students went on a journey through the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This trip was organized and led by Josh Falk, an Education Specialist at SERC, and Kevin Schabow, an educator at the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. The purpose of this trip was to immerse high school age students in the complex nature of the science, culture and natural resources that the Bay’s watershed has to offer. This year, the students were assigned to report on what they learned and what they did. Here is their story. Click to continue »
As summer wanes in the Chesapeake Bay, many female blue crabs are preparing for an epic journey. Come September they will walk and swim their way toward the mouth of the Chesapeake to release their eggs. Some will travel more than 150 miles. SERC scientists have studied the blue crab’s migratory patterns for more than a decade. Their findings have revealed new insight into the life history of this important species and have helped inform management policies. Tracking these invertebrates is not easy: it involves thousands of pink plastic tags, a unique collaboration with watermen and a blue crab hotline…
Go behind the scenes and into SERC’s photobiology lab. This is where photobiologist Pat Neale spends a great deal of time examining the impact of UV radiation on photosynthesis. In this video you’ll get a look at one experiment that seeks to determine what would happen to the ocean’s phytoplankton if the ozone layer was suddenly destroyed by cosmic radiation.
Video credits: Anne Goetz, Editor; Lia Kvatum, Producer/Writer/Camera; Tony Franken, Music.
Learn more about this experiment in an earlier Shorelines post.
SERC senior scientist Denise Breitburg will lead the NOAA-funded study of hypoxia and acidification in the Chesapeake Bay.
Marine ecologist Denise Breitburg and her colleagues have thought up many novel ways to investigate the impacts of dead zones and acidification on Chesapeake Bay fish and invertebrates. Among their ideas: attaching tiny transmitters to fish and monitoring their movement in relation to oxygen and pH levels. A new $1.4 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will enable them to pursue this experiment and a host of others. Click to continue »
