Morel mushrooms pop up, cluster together after wildfires

The researchers collected morels in the forest that burned in Yosemite National Park. Current park regulations allow the collection of 1 pint per person per day.

Avid mushroom hunters will tell you that fire is essential for finding morels. These fungi, distinguishable for their dark, honeycomblike caps, pop out of the ground by the bushel in spring after a large wildfire. This ecological knowledge is mostly anecdotal, shared among morel enthusiasts for recreational hunts and commercial harvesting, in what is now a multimillion-dollar, worldwide industry. Yet few scientific studies have actually quantified morels’ abundance after a fire. 

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Atlantic Ocean's slowdown tied to changes in the Southern Hemisphere

Earth

The ocean circulation that is responsible for England’s mild climate appears to be slowing down. The shift is not sudden or dramatic, as in the 2004 sci-fi movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” but it is a real effect that has consequences for the climates of eastern North America and Western Europe. Also unlike in that movie, and in theories of long-term climate change, these recent trends are not connected with the melting of Arctic sea ice and buildup of freshwater near the North Pole. 

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UW gets NOAA grant to begin testing new forecast for toxic shellfish

The automated Environmental Sample Processor will analyze seawater for algal species and toxins. Researchers deployed it in May about 13 miles off Washington’s coast.

A new NOAA-sponsored University of Washington project brings together academic, federal, state and tribal scientists to develop forecasts for toxic harmful algal blooms in the Pacific Northwest, like the massive bloom that closed Pacific Northwest beaches to shellfish harvesting in summer 2015. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August awarded a five-year, $1.3 million grant to start working on the forecasts. 

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Ocean conditions contributed to unprecedented 2015 toxic algal bloom

A magnified image of Pseudo-nitzschia australis, which dominated the 2015 bloom.

A study led by researchers at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration connects the unprecedented West Coast toxic algal bloom of 2015 that closed fisheries from southern California to northern British Columbia to the unusually warm ocean conditions — nicknamed “the blob” — in winter and spring of that year. “We have toxic algae events that result in shellfish closures off the Washington and Oregon coast every three to five years or so, but none of them have been as large as this one,” said lead author Ryan McCabe, a research scientist at the UW’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a collaborative center with NOAA. 

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