Systemic racism has consequences for all life in cities
Photo illustration by Megan Kitagawa/UW Tacoma
An aerial view showing the differences in tree cover in two neighboring cities. The more affluent city of University Place, Washington (left) has more tree cover, while a neighborhood in the city of Tacoma, Washington (right) has fewer trees. The neighborhoods are about 4.5 miles apart.
Social inequalities, specifically racism and classism, are impacting the biodiversity, evolutionary shifts and ecological health of plants and animals in our cities.
That’s the main finding of a review paper led by the University of Washington, with co-authors at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Michigan, which examined more than 170 published studies and analyzed the influence of systemic inequalities on ecology and evolution. Published Aug. 13 in Science, it calls on the scientific community to focus on environmental justice and anti-racism practices to transform biological research and conservation.
The main purpose of the paper is to show the scientific community that fundamental practices in science are based on systems that support white supremacy and perpetuate systemic racism, the authors said. They hope their colleagues in science fields will begin to dig into the history of the various laws and practices that built present-day inequalities — such as redlining and Jim Crow laws — and then start to reevaluate how they run their labs and conduct their research.
“Identity matters, and creating space for researchers who aren’t straight white cis males to pursue questions that arise from their lived experiences can really strengthen science,” said co-author Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, assistant professor and social scientist in the UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “I hope that scientists will read this paper and be inspired to think about representation in our labs and departments, and how that might matter for science going forward.”
Ultimately, the authors said, environmental issues should be recast to encompass societal issues, which departs from what traditional, mostly white environmentalists advocate.
This image of Shanghai in October 2019 shows that although China’s air quality is improving, cities can experience high levels of pollution. The combination of high average pollution and strict lockdown policy made a good test for how pandemic-related changes affected air quality.
Atmospheric scientists have analyzed how the February near-total shutdown of mobility affected the air over China. Results show a striking drop in nitrogen oxides, a gas that comes mainly from tailpipes and is one component of smog.
Learning how behavior shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic affect air quality is of immediate importance, since the virus attacks human lungs. The event is also a way for Earth scientists to study how the atmosphere responds to sudden changes in emissions.
“During the February 2020 shutdowns in China there was a large and rapid decline in nitrogen dioxide — an air pollutant largely associated with transportation — that is unprecedented in the satellite record,” said Michael Diamond, a University of Washington doctoral student in atmospheric sciences.
“On the other hand, our analysis shows no dramatic changes in the total amount of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, or in cloud properties. This suggests the immediate climate-related impacts from the shutdown are negligible,” Diamond said.
He is lead author of the study published Aug. 19 in Geophysical Research Letters.
While other studies have already looked at air quality during the pandemic, this is the first to take a more rigorous view, using all 15 years of satellite data. It uses a statistical method that compares what was seen in February 2020 to what would have been expected without the pandemic.
Global study reveals hope for recovery in declining shark populations
Kirk Gastrich
A blacktip reef shark cruises the lagoon on Tetiaroa in French Polynesia.
In a first-of-its-kind study published in Nature, scientists report on the conservation status of reef shark populations worldwide. The results are grim; reef sharks have become rare at numerous locations that used to be prime habitat, and in some cases sharks may be absent altogether. A long history of human exploitation is the culprit, with depleted shark populations strongly tied to socio-economic conditions, lack of governance and the proximity of reef environments to large human population centers. These patterns were recognizable across the globe.
Yet even in the familiarity of what seems like another gloomy study about the environment, researchers remain hopeful and see bright spots for recovery.
“At twenty percent of the reefs we surveyed, we didn’t detect any sharks where you would expect to see them,” says Aaron Wirsing, associate professor of environmental and forest sciences and collaborator on the project. “That was alarming and a bit of a surprise. But in other places, even those with lots of human activity and tourism, like the Bahamas, sharks are doing relatively well. These locations exemplify the power of effective governance, and it is uplifting to see high performing regions near high human population centers.”
A reef shark’s image is captured on a baited remote underwater video.
The status of sharks in coastal habitats has been in question for years. To understand what’s happening globally, scientists working under the Global FinPrint initiative recruited shark experts worldwide to take part in the study. Using baited remote underwater video systems at over 15,000 individual sites, they were able to survey 371 reefs in 58 countries. The bait lures in sharks who might be in the neighborhood, allowing scientists to record who stopped by for a bite.
Wirsing’s research made him an ideal candidate to join the collaboration, having studied sharks and other top predators in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems around the world. “We have been monitoring sharks since 2014 in French Polynesia thanks to generous support from the Tetiaroa Society and the Seeley Family. Support for long term monitoring, which we enjoy in Tetiaroa, is critical to generating the kinds of data that make efforts like FinPrint possible.”
Sharks navigate a slew of obstacles to survive, from overfishing (both as a targeted species and when accidentally caught as bycatch) and loss of habitat, to a lack of conservation measures in place and the inability to enforce regulations. Proximity of reefs to large population centers, especially places with market demand for sharks, saw a stronger correlation with low abundance.
Sharks are important contributors to healthy marine ecosystems, playing the role of top predator. Their conservation is vital to the conservation of coral reef systems as a whole, an issue that has been gaining traction with people worldwide. “The public has a huge appreciation for coral reefs and the troubles they face,” says Wirsing.
John Meyer
Healthy coral reefs and lagoons are prime habitat for reef sharks.
Wirsing emphasizes that humans have the tools to reverse this trend. One approach is to set aside large areas in the ocean as preserves where suitable habitat can be protected, like French Polynesia which is essentially the world’s largest shark sanctuary, according to Wirsing. But since sharks are highly-mobile species, restricting human use in parts of the ocean is not feasible in many places. In these cases, effective policy and governance, like enacting well-regulated shark fishery reforms, restricting the numbers of sharks that can be harvested and implementing gear restrictions like banning the use of gill nets and long lines, can have strong, positive effects. On top of that, those who rely on reef ecosystems for their livelihoods need new options to generate income.
“There must be efforts to promote local economic opportunity so people can switch away from damaging activities,” says Wirsing. “And local governments must be empowered such that regulations aimed at recovering reef sharks and their habitats are supported and have efficacy.”
Regardless of the challenges facing sharks illuminated by this work, Wirsing sees a silver lining. “Borrowing a line from my favorite Dr. Seuss story, ‘The Lorax’, the message of this study is not that shark populations are doomed, but rather that they will continue to decline in many places unless…This study identifies areas that are supporting healthy shark populations and pathways to recovery where sharks are in trouble, providing hope, and hope motivates action.”
Pristine air over Southern Ocean suggests early industrial era’s clouds not so different from today’s
Jorgen Jensen/NCAR
Isabel McCoy directing cloud sampling while serving as a flight scientist during the 2018 SOCRATES campaign.
A new study uses satellite data over the Southern Hemisphere to understand the makeup of global clouds since the Industrial Revolution. This research tackles one of the largest uncertainties in today’s climate models — the long-term effect of tiny atmospheric particles on climate change.
Research led by the University of Washington and the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom uses remote, pristine parts of the Southern Hemisphere as a window into the early-industrial atmosphere.
The team compared satellite measurements of cloud droplet concentration in the atmosphere over the Northern Hemisphere — now heavily polluted with today’s industrial aerosols — and over the relatively pristine Southern Ocean. They used this to measure how particles from pollution may have affected Earth’s temperature since 1850.
The results, published the week of July 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that early industrial aerosol concentrations and cloud droplet numbers were much higher than many global climate models estimate. This could mean that human-generated atmospheric aerosols, or particulate pollution, is not damping the warming from carbon dioxide as much as some climate models estimate. The study suggests that the cooling effect of pollution is likely to be more moderate.
“One of the biggest surprises for us was how high the concentration of cloud droplets is in Southern Ocean clouds,” said co-lead author Isabel McCoy, a UW doctoral student in Atmospheric Sciences.
The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica has few aerosol particles from human activity, but the cloud droplet concentration remains high, especially in summer.
Big ships and underwater robots: heading out to sea with the Ocean Observatories Initiative
R. Scott, UW
The R/V Thompson heading out to sea for a month with the remotely operated vehicle Jason and 1,000’s of lbs of equipment to be deployed as part of the Regional Cabled Observatory cruise.
It’s summertime, and that means scientists across the University of Washington College of the Environment are in the field collecting data. Researchers in the School of Oceanography are no different and are working off the Oregon coast on their annual expedition to maintain the long-running cabled ocean observatory. Part of the broader National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), UW oversees the Regional Cabled Observatory that spans several sites in Pacific Northwest waters, ranging from shallow coastal locales to deeper waters in the open ocean more than 300 miles offshore. Each site hosts internet-connected scientific instruments that measure physical, chemical, geological and biological properties of the marine environment, providing a 24/7, real-time presence in the ocean. The broad goal is to help scientists answer questions about how our planet works, especially in relation to climate and ecosystem changes, and tectonic and volcanic activity in the sea.
For nearly all of August, 13 scientists and engineers from UW will be at sea collecting data and maintaining infrastructure aboard the UW’s R/V Thomas G Thompson. We caught up with Deb Kelley, director of the Regional Cabled Array at the UW, to see what’s in store.
Q: Tell me about the cruise. What do you have planned?
A: It’s about a month-long intense cruise, pretty similar to past expeditions. We’ll handle over 200 instruments while at sea — using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason, the team will recover about a hundred instruments from the seafloor and from state-of-the-art moorings, and put a hundred other instruments back in.
On our cruise, working around the clock, we might have three or four dives a day: the deepest site is 9,500 feet beneath the oceans’ surface. The shallowest site is only an hour off shore, which is at a depth of about 650 feet. We’re going to be going back out to Axial Seamount, the most active underwater volcano off our coast, having erupted in 1998, 2011 and 2015 — and it is poised to erupt again. We will also be working at methane seeps sites again where methane ice is exposed on the surface of the seafloor and where explosions of methane-rich bubbles issue from the seafloor. With the ship operating 24/7 the scientists and engineers onboard work full out during this month-long expedition.
Q: What most excites you most about heading to sea?
UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI; V19.
A swarm of large sable fish investigate the robotic vehicle Jason and an instrumented profiler that rises up and down through the water column.
A: I am always excited to see how much the sites change, with dramatic changes in the seafloor topography and associated biology. Coming from the geology world, most evolution is long-term, but at these sites it’s daily. And the fact that you can go to active volcanoes like Axial Seamount and the underwater hot springs that it hosts, or Southern Hydrate Ridge and the seafloor doesn’t look anything like what it did the year before is always amazing to me.
At the coastal sites, the geology doesn’t change as dramatically, but the animal populations can change significantly. There’s one site at about 2,000 feet water depth. Last year, there were just swarms of sablefish darting in and out in front of the ROV. In 2015, 3 months after Axial erupted, when we visited for the first time the still hot lava flow was more than 400 feet thick — truly remarkable! Another one of our platforms at about 260 feet water depth close to shore was completely covered in animals. You can’t even tell that it’s a platform — it looks like an island of sea anemones that are really beautiful.
UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI; V19.
A lush bush of red-headed tube worms thrive on the outside of an underwater hot spring at the summit of Axial Seamount. Microbes inside the worms thrive on gasses within the warm fluids exiting the vents, and provide nutrients for the worms.
At Southern Hydrate Ridge, every year it’s a place where there are explosions or methane bubbles issuing from the seafloor that rise over 1000 feet into the water column, supporting bacteria that use the methane as an energy source. So the ocean’s phenomenally dynamic, both at the surface and deeper, so it’s always good to see what’s going on out there. Every year it changes remarkably, and we’re always surprised how much.
Q: How has COVID-19 made this cruise different?
A: For me, the biggest impact and the one that I most regret is that we’ll only have two students on board. We usually have 15-25 students each year on board. And another big change is that we’re 10 people down for the cruise than normal. That’s a lot of “hands” missing for us. Preparing for the cruise has certainly taken more of many people’s time. Imagine you’re at sea for 30 days, but then you add a strict two-week quarantine before you go. That means no going out, no walking the dog, no going to the grocery store. So people had to get everything done early because there’s a ton of stuff to get ready: over 80,000 pounds of gear was sent to the ship for our mobilization. We have over 30 different types of instruments, the infrastructure’s complicated, a lot of moving parts. That’s a big ask for people, and I think one of the really remarkable testaments to our team is everybody said they were willing to do that.
Q: Are you going as chief scientist, like you have in the past?
A: This’ll be the first time in 30 years that I haven’t been to sea — I am having my knee replaced. So when I found out I couldn’t go as chief scientist, we thought about who could step in and sail as chief scientist, we reached out to Brendan Phillip. He was an undergraduate as part of our VISIONS at-sea experiential learning program and then a graduate student here in Oceanography. He sailed with us for 4 years and then he worked as part of the Regional Cabled Array team, now he’s at George Washington University. I don’t know of many people at his career stage that will help lead a 30 day major expedition that’s very complicated. So, I think that’s a great testament to the UW and our dedication to mentorship, and this will be a good trial, a good learning experience. We have 100 percent faith in him.
Q: How can people stay up to speed while you are at sea?
A: We are now streaming live again on our Interactive Oceans website, both on deck and as soon as Jason goes in the water. We have Twitter, Instagram, and then will post semi-daily updates on the blog. We are excited about the community being able to look live over our shoulders as we work on this NSF-funded underwater facility that brings the internet directly into the oceans.
Expert FAQ: Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest during the COVID-19 pandemic
Kari Greer / U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region
Taylor Creek and Klondike Fires, Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest, Oregon, 2018
Forest fires are one of nature’s oldest land management tools. For more than 10,000 years, Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest have harnessed the power of fire to control the threat of destructive wildfires and encourage new growth across landscapes. In recent centuries, as the number of people living in forested areas has increased and large amounts of fuel have built up over years of suppression, large seasonal wildfires are becoming more common. The impacts of these fires have been felt far and wide — and not just by those directly affected by the flames.
Mounting research shows that wildfire smoke can adversely affect populations living many miles away from the actual location of the fires. As the Northern Hemisphere moves into summer in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, the confluence of risks that fires present to our landscape and our public health has been brought into stark focus.
The University of Washington has a long history of leading research into the impacts of wildfires from an ecological and health perspective. We worked with two experts including School of Environmental and Forest Sciences Professor Brian Harvey to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, including the ways that the pandemic is increasing our community’s vulnerability to extreme wildfire events in the region.
New studies show how to save parasites and why it’s important
Emily Wood
Chelsea Wood alongside one of the ponds in the research experiment.
Parasites have a public relations problem.
Unlike the many charismatic mammals, fishes and birds that receive our attention (and our conservation dollars), parasites are thought of as something to eradicate — and certainly not something to protect.
But only 4% of known parasites can infect humans, and the majority actually serve critical ecological roles, like regulating wildlife that might otherwise balloon in population size and become pests. Still, only about 10% of parasites have been identified and, as a result, they are mostly left out of conservation activities and research.
An international group of scientists wants to change that. About a dozen leading parasite ecologists, including University of Washington’s Chelsea Wood, published a paper Aug. 1 in the journal Biological Conservation, which lays out an ambitious global conservation plan for parasites.
“Parasites are an incredibly diverse group of species, but as a society, we do not recognize this biological diversity as valuable,” said Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “The point of this paper is to emphasize that we are losing parasites and the functions they serve without even recognizing it.”
The authors propose 12 goals for the next decade that could advance parasite biodiversity conservation through a mix of research, advocacy and management.
