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Galápagos Islands Have 10 Times More Alien Marine Species Than Once Thought

Thursday, March 28th, 2019
View of dock on San Cristobal Island

A cargo dock on San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos. Manmade structures like docks can help non-native marine species thrive by providing a hard surface to grow on. (Inti Keith/Charles Darwin Foundation)

More than 50 non-native marine species have found their way to the Galápagos Islands, over 10 times more than scientists previously thought, reports a new study in Aquatic Invasions published Thursday, March 28.

The study, a joint effort of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Williams College, and the Charles Darwin Foundation, documents 53 species of introduced marine animals in this UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the largest marine protected areas on Earth. Before this study came out, scientists knew about only five. Click to continue »

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These Creatures Crossed the Pacific on Plastic Tsunami Debris. Now, a New Struggle for Survival.

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019

by Kristen Minogue

Black mussels, pink barnacles and other sea creatures on buoy
Mediterranean mussels, acorn barnacles and anemones crossed the Pacific on this buoy found in Long Beach, Washington, in February 2017. (Photo: Nancy Treneman)

On March 11, 2011, a 125-foot tsunami struck Japan’s Tōhoku coast, triggered by a massive earthquake just hours earlier. The cost in human life and property damage was devastating. When it receded, it set in motion another chain of events—one scientists are still watching unfold eight years later. It’s a story of millions of pieces of plastic that journeyed across the ocean, and the plants and animals that rafted with them.

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8 Ways Nature Can Help Us Conquer
Climate Change

Thursday, November 15th, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

The United States may be officially pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, but scientists are still brainstorming ways the country could meet its original goals. Mother Nature can lend a far more powerful hand than we thought, if given the chance.

Led by The Nature Conservancy, a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and other organizations looked at 21 “natural climate solutions,” like restoring forests and wetlands or planting cover crops. According to the report published Wednesday in Science Advances, these tactics could knock an estimated 1.2 trillion kilograms off the U.S.’s yearly carbon emissions—just enough to hit the country’s 2025 targets for the Paris agreement. And they come with a range of side benefits, including increased yields for farmers and decreased risks of catastrophic wildfires.

But to work, they would also require a serious rethinking of how our society values carbon. Today, saving 1,000 kg of carbon is worth about $10. To provide enough incentive to make these solutions widespread, the authors estimated those credits would need to go for at least $100 per 1,000 kg.

We’ve highlighted eight of these solutions below, but you can read about all 21 in the full report.

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eDNA emerges as powerful tool for tracking threatened river herring in Chesapeake Bay

Thursday, November 1st, 2018

Article contributed by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Using environmental DNA (eDNA) to track the presence of fish in waterways is emerging as a powerful tool to detect and understand the abundance of species in aquatic environments. However, relatively few studies have compared the performance of this emerging technology to traditional catch or survey approaches in the field.

Researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center field tested using eDNA—tracking the presence of fish by identifying DNA that has been left behind in the water—to detect river herring in tributaries of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. They found that tracking and quantifying herring DNA from the environment corresponded well to more traditional field methods and has great potential to assist future monitoring efforts of river herring abundance and habitat use.

“Sampling a single river, you need a net, crew, permits, it can be expensive,” said study author Louis Plough of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “The eDNA approach is an alternative where you just take water and you get an idea of the abundance of fish.” Click to continue »

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Teaching Moment: Research Takes a Right Turn

Friday, October 5th, 2018

by Philip Kiefer

In the messy world of science, real progress often happens when experiments don’t go as planned. It’s in these moments that scientists learn that the world doesn’t work like they expected. This year, two teaching fellows at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) had a taste of that during a summer project on oyster predation. Although the data they collected didn’t answer their questions about oysters, it did tell an unexpected story about the coastline. They’re bringing that knowledge back to their classrooms, to show students that science isn’t just about collecting facts, but about how to creatively interrogate the natural world.

This summer, SERC’s West Coast lab hosted two fellows from California’s STEM Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program. The fellowship supports STEM teachers who want to actively pursue science research during the summer in order to bring that experience back to their classrooms.

Two people standing in front of a mudflat

Evie Borchard and Jason Thomas, teacher-researchers at SERC, stand in front of prime oyster habitat in the San Francisco Bay. (Philip Kiefer/SERC)

“We want to give teachers the opportunity to do research that they can share with their students,” said Erin Blackwood, an education and outreach coordinator at San Francisco State University who organizes the STAR program locally. “At the same time, the program gives our scientists a new perspective on science education–they have to think about how they would teach their research to a high-school student.”

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Invasive Plants Can Boost Blue Carbon Storage

Monday, October 1st, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Green marsh banks alongside river on a cloudy day

Some invasive plants like Phragmites australis, the light-brown stalks on this Maryland marsh, could more than double the ability of marshes and other coastal ecosystems to store blue carbon. (Credit: Gary Peresta/SERC)

When invasive species enter the picture, things are rarely black and white. A new paper has revealed that some plant invaders could help fight climate change by making it easier for ecosystems to store “blue carbon”—the carbon stored in coastal environments like salt marshes, mangroves and seagrasses. But other invaders, most notably animals, can do the exact opposite.

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New Invasive Bryozoan Arrives in Alaskan Waters

Thursday, September 27th, 2018

By Philip Kiefer

Alaska has a near-pristine marine ecosystem: There are fewer invasive species in its waters than almost any other state in the U.S. But that could be changing. With help from local volunteers, biologists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Temple University have reported a new invasive species in the Ketchikan region, the invertebrate filter-feeder Bugula neritina, and documented the continuing spread of three other non-native species.

A branching animal, shaped like a bunch of pine needles.

The newly discovered invasive bryozoan, Bugula neritina. (Melissa Frey/Royal BC Museum)

Ketchikan, a town of about 8,000 people on the southern tip of Alaska, is a gateway to more remote Alaskan waters in the north. It sits fewer than 100 nautical miles from British Columbia, so invasive species travelling from southern ports are likely to appear in Ketchikan first. But detecting marine invasive species is a constant challenge, even in a single harbor. By collaborating with citizen scientists from Ketchikan, Smithsonian researchers were able to document these new invasive species hopefully as soon as they arrived.

Crab covered in orange tunicate

The invasive tunicate Botrylloides violaecus has nearly completely covered this crab’s shell. (Gary Freitag/University of Alaska Fairbanks)

“It’s really important to know when new non-native species show up. They may be tiny invertebrates, but they can create big problems,” said lead author Laura Jurgens, who was a SERC postdoc at the time of the study. “Early detection means you have a better chance of controlling them before the populations get established. In other places, like California, Oregon and Washington, these organisms have displaced local marine animals or had economic impacts by fouling boats, fishing or aquaculture gear.”

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800 Million Tons of Blue Carbon May Lie Buried in U.S. Tidal Wetlands

Thursday, June 21st, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Man with muddy clothes in grassy wetland

Smithsonian ecologist James Holmquist explores a wetland in Humboldt Bay, California. (Credit: Lauren Brown)

It’s a true story of “grassroots science.” A team of over two dozen researchers set out to estimate how much carbon tidal wetlands across the U.S. can store. But the official datasets didn’t give them much info to work with. So they pooled their resources, creating a new dataset of nearly 2,000 wetland soil cores.

Their final estimate: Nearly 800 million tons of carbon may lie buried in the tidal wetlands of the contiguous U.S. The team published the discovery June 21, in a new study in Scientific Reports led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. The study also leaves another major legacy. The 1,959 soil cores they compiled could help finally unlock some secrets of wetlands, ecosystems that have been overlooked for centuries.

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Is Your Plant Dead or Just Dormant?

Thursday, May 10th, 2018

by Mollie McNeel

pink lady's slipper orchid

Pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule), an orchid that can remain dormant for over 20 years. (Credit: SERC)

If a gardener told you that her plants had died and had come back to life years later, you might think she had gone crazy. But actually, she may be on to something.

Some fully-grown plants can “hibernate” in the soil for up to 20 years, researchers from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) discovered in a study published in the May issue of Ecology Letters.

The so-called “Rip Van Winkle” plants, nicknamed after the fictional character who slept for two decades, include many species of orchids and some ferns. Click to continue »

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The Ugly Fish That Sings Its Own Song

Friday, April 27th, 2018

by Kristen Minogue

Orange-brown toadfishwith red eyes

Male Bocon toadfish of Panama attract mates by singing in a series of “grunts” and “boops.”
(Photo: Study authors)

The sing-off begins when the sun goes down. Every night off the coast of Bocas del Toro, Panama, Bocon toadfish start calling from their burrows, trying to win over females by showing off their vocal talents and drowning out the competition.

If you’ve never heard of the singing toadfish, you’re not alone. They don’t have the charisma of dolphins or whales. They’re mud-colored reef dwellers, with bulging eyes, puffed-out cheeks and fleshy barbels dangling from their mouths. By most human standards, the toadfish isn’t exactly the prettiest fish in the sea.

“It’s kind of like a troll that lives under a bridge and sings,” said Erica Staaterman, a marine biologist who recorded individual toadfish songs in Panama for a new study published this month.

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