Feb 4, 2021

A whale murder mystery in the Arctic

From a small aircraft flying over the Pacific Arctic, scientists with the Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals (ASAMM) project surveyed the movements and interactions of marine mammals for more than four decades. Observations and images from these surveys offer clues informing our understanding of the lives, and deaths, of marine mammals in this remote region. A new study, published in Polar Biology and led by researchers at the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES), is particularly interested in the ‘death’ part of those survey observations, and has uncovered the first direct evidence of killer whales as the primary cause of death for one of the Arctic’s endangered species, bowhead whales of the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort seas stock.

We’re coping with COVID by going outdoors, but how is nature coping with us?

If you’ve hit the trails or the water this year, you know COVID-19 has transformed the way many people are recreating in our wild spaces. Places that were previously “off the beaten track” are as popular as they’ve ever been, and the usual hotspots are overwhelmed with hikers, campers and skiers. What does this mean for our wild spaces, and how can we be better stewards?

Marine organisms use previously undiscovered receptors to detect, respond to light

Students with an oceanography instrument

Just as plants and animals on land are keenly attuned to the hours of sunlight in the day, life in the oceans follows the rhythms of the day, the seasons and even the moon. A University of Washington study finds the biological light switches that make this possible. Single-celled organisms in the open ocean use a diverse array of genetic tools to detect light, even in tiny amounts, and respond, according to a study published the week of Feb.

Emeritus professor Robert Edmonds pens history of forestry science at the UW

Saving Forest Ecosystems: A Century Plus of Research and Education at the University of Washington book cover

In a new history of forestry science education and research at the University of Washington, Robert Edmonds covers the field from its early logging days to the preservation of old-growth forests and the current era of climate change. In 1973, past UW president Henry Schmitz published a history titled “The Long Road Traveled,” tracing the then College of Forestry from 1907 to the mid-1960s.