Posted by Kristen Goodhue on July 20th, 2015
by Kristen Minogue
How exactly does one prepare for a 100-day voyage to the Arctic?
Matt Rutherford on a pollution survey across the Pacific (courtesy Nicole Trenholm)
“Chaotically,” says Matt Rutherford, head of the nonprofit Ocean Research Project. He’s sitting in the cabin of the Ault, a 42-foot-long sailboat in Annapolis that will embark the next day on a research cruise to Greenland. Rutherford and his partner, Nicole Trenholm, will navigate unexplored fjords collecting data for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and NASA. The 8,000-mile round-trip journey will take them to some of the few uncharted spots left on the map. But first they have to finish packing.
Nicole Trenholm tracks data on a Rappahannock River survey (courtesy Matt Rutherford)
“You’re always paying attention to how much water you have, how much power you have, how much fuel you have,” says Trenholm, a marine scientist who joined Rutherford in 2013. “It’s kind of a game.”
To conserve water, they’re running the sinks and showers with saltwater. The cabinets in the Ault’s galley are stuffed with trail mix, spices, Swiss Miss cocoa and freeze-dried food.
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Posted in Climate Change, Ecology | Comments Off on Cruising the Arctic’s Forgotten Fjords
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on July 16th, 2015
by Chris Patrick
Lovers of both the Smithsonian and the selfie stick, rejoice! Though the infamous monopods are banned in Smithsonian museums and galleries, they’ve found a new arena of use: labs.
Well, in one lab at least. Researchers in the marine ecology lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) are using selfie sticks to record fish behavior without scaring them. SERC’s marine ecology team wants to see if fish raised in low-oxygen conditions acclimate to breathing less oxygen. “I have never heard of someone else using the selfie stick for science,” said Seth Miller, a postdoctoral fellow in the marine ecology lab and collaborator on the project. “Although it probably occurs. Ecologists are pretty resourceful.”
Ashley Collier records a fish without scaring it by using a selfie stick. (Chris Patrick)
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Posted in Publications | Comments Off on Fish Don’t Fear Selfie Sticks
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on July 13th, 2015
Interns Julianne Rolf and Emily Bulger. (Chris Patrick)
by Chris Patrick
When 11 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center interns piled into a van headed for the Oyster Olympics, they had no idea what was in store. For the next three hours, they shoveled, scooped, scraped, sweated, poured, piled, folded, clamped, ran, and acquired minor injuries competing against interns from other environmental organizations in the area. Though the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) holds the Oyster Olympics annually at its Discovery Village in Shady Side, Md., this was the first year SERC interns vied for the golden oysters (think of gold-painted shells hanging from rope). From the get-go, it was clear SERC interns were the underdogs. Click to continue »
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Posted by Kristen Goodhue on July 8th, 2015
Male and female bluebirds at a nest box. (Matt Storms)
by Chris Patrick
Eastern bluebirds resemble flying, fist-sized jewels. Males are sapphire colored—royal-blue heads, backs, and wings contrast with rust-colored chests. Females are more gray than blue, but their wings are subtly tinted the same sapphire hue.
Since 2008, citizen scientists have monitored bluebirds at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). The Bluebird Project is citizen science intern Caroline Kanaskie’s self-proclaimed “baby” this summer. She is uncovering why bluebird numbers at SERC have been lower than usual. Click to continue »
Posted in Archaeology, Classes and Events, Ecology, Extreme Weather, From the Field, Interns, SERC Sites and Scenes | 1 Response »
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on July 2nd, 2015
by Chris Patrick
7-year-old Vivian and 6-year-old Gordon kneel in the dirt looking for insects.
“Camp Discovery!” shouts Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) education intern Josie Whelan.
“SCIENCE NINJAS!” a dozen 6- to 8-year-old campers respond as they strike ninja-esque poses. This is a callback, used by the three education interns—Henry Lawson, Addie Schlussel, and Whelan—to grab the attention of talkative future first- and second-graders at Camp Discovery. The education interns designed Camp Discovery this year, organizing a week of visits to SERC’s forests, fields, docks, and wetlands to foster understanding and respect for nature in campers. Click to continue »
Posted in Classes and Events, Ecology, Education, Interns, SERC Sites and Scenes | Comments Off on “Science Ninjas” Capture Bugs at Camp Discovery
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on June 26th, 2015
by Chris Patrick
Laurel Martinez checks her bread crate naked goby nests.
Plastic bread crates rest on the floor of the Rhode River, suspended by ropes from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s dock. Eight PVC pipes arranged in a starburst sit horizontally on the bottom of the bread crates. In each tube there is a rolled sheet of thin, clear plastic. These rolled sheets are goby egg nests.
Or they’re supposed to be. Laurel Martinez, intern in the marine ecology lab this summer, slides out a plastic sheet and exclaims, “The mud crabs took over!”
This isn’t the plan. She wants the sheets to house naked gobies, bottom-dwelling fish. Martinez needs naked goby eggs for her summer project. Female gobies, who usually lay their eggs inside dead oyster shells, are supposed to go into the tubes, lay eggs on the plastic sheet, and leave. A male will fertilize the eggs and stay with them, guarding and caring for them until they hatch. Click to continue »
Posted in Climate Change, Ecology, From the Field, Interns, SERC Sites and Scenes | Comments Off on Building Plastic Nests and Gutting Fish in the Room of DOOM
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on June 23rd, 2015
by Chris Patrick
Tepolt holding a Humboldt squid at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California. (Tom Hata)
Before I was the science writing intern at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), I volunteered in SERC’s marine invasions lab sorting white-fingered mud crabs with Monaca Noble, researcher and public relations coordinator. The mud crabs are tiny, ranging from the size of a tick to the size of a quarter. They reek of preservative alcohol, and milky mittens glove their pincers. While sorting, I met Carolyn Tepolt, a postdoctoral fellow at SERC.
34-year-old Tepolt (which sounds like a fusion of “teapot” and “catapult”) offered me homemade lemon bars the day we met. Working together, we discovered we were both undergraduates at the College of William and Mary—we lived on the same floor of the same freshman hall 14 years apart. Tepolt visited the lab to learn the crab-sorting process because this summer she will use genetics to study how mud crabs are adapting to their parasite, Loxothylacus panopaei, or Loxo. Click to continue »
Posted in Ecology, Invasive Species, Parasite Hunting | Comments Off on Under the Apron, into the Genome
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on June 5th, 2015
by Kristen Minogue
Candy Feller inspects a white mangrove stand in Florida. (Anne Chamberlain)
Mangroves—those tangled trees with strange roots common along tropical coastlines—are masters at protecting their territory from hurricanes. So, logically, tall mangroves should be stronger than short ones.
Except when they’re not. Sometimes tall mangroves are weaker, something Smithsonian ecologist Candy Feller discovered after two hurricanes tore through her experiments in Florida. Click to continue »
Posted in Ecology, Extreme Weather, Publications | 1 Response »
Posted by Kristen Goodhue on May 29th, 2015
by Kristen Minogue
Common pillbug Armadillidium vulgare
(Walter Siegmund)
In the battle to hold back climate change, Mother Nature has supplied several allies, from the rainforest to bacteria. Now we can add one more to the list: Woodlice, tiny scavenger bugs that feed off rotting plants.
More than 3,000 species of woodlice are known to man, and they go by many names. If you’re American, chances are you know them as pillbugs or roly-polies. They’ve inherited stranger-sounding titles in other parts of the world, from monkeypigs and carpetmonsters to granfy croogers. (For a list of 40-some-odd British variations, see here.) But they all point to the same thing: a 14-legged, millipede-like crustacean roughly half the size of a dime.
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Posted by Kristen Goodhue on May 21st, 2015
by Monaca Noble and Katrina Lohan
Oysters and other life grow on dock pilings at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama
(Kristina Hill-Spanik)
A robin is a robin. It isn’t often confused with other birds. But some marine organisms are very difficult to identify because they look similar, too similar even for taxonomists trained to detect differences. Oysters are like this.
Oyster shells come in all shapes and sizes. As oysters fight for space and battle to survive in tough environments, their shells can change appearance based on conditions where they live. This makes it very hard to distinguish similar-looking species. Using DNA, we can identify these difficult species and provide new insights into their distribution, ecology, and ranges—insights not possible using shell morphology alone. In Panama, this DNA detective work led to two surprising discoveries.
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Posted in Ecology, Fisheries, Invasive Species, Publications | Comments Off on DNA Detects Two Hidden Oysters in Panama
