Jun 11, 2015

Meet Meryl Mims, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences graduate student

With two degrees under her belt and dissertation research to complete, Meryl Mims found herself in southeastern Arizona’s Sky Islands in the summer of 2013. In a landscape known for the juxtaposition of its sprawling features—where towering, forested mountains seep upward through the desert’s dry, cracked surface—a two-inch long frog captured Mims’ attention. “We were already out there and we were hearing the Arizona treefrogs.

Washington Sea Grant’s Ed Melvin wins presidential award for seabird-saving streamer lines

A Washington Sea Grant staff scientist is sharing top honors for developing gear that nearly eliminates seabird bycatch in long-line fisheries from the West Coast to South Africa. Twenty years of work on sea and land to save threatened seabirds from becoming fishing bycatch have won national recognition for senior fisheries scientist, Ed Melvin, also an affiliate associate professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.

Chemical tags in ear bones track Alaska's Bristol Bay salmon

Scientists from Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and other institutions are learning a lot about where Chinook salmon swim in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region through chemical signatures recorded in their ear bones. Similar to a tree’s growth rings, this bone—called an otolith—accumulates layers as the fish grows. Acting as a little recorder, each layer of the otolith corresponds to the unique chemical signatures of the waters in which they swam.

UW ecologist and citizen scientists lead the charge against invasive crayfish

There’s no time like the present for Pine Lake residents—an invasive species of crayfish has taken hold in their backyard and community members are mobilizing to give them the boot. Even though it means setting aside several hours a week during western Washington’s best weather months, these citizen scientists swap their fishing poles for cage traps, hiking boots for clipboards, and swimsuits for scientific instruments to restore the lake’s ecosystem.

Common birds bring economic vitality to cities, new study finds

A new study published in the journal Urban Ecosystems and co-authored by Environmental and Forest Sciences‘ John Marzluff and Sergey Rabotyagov tries to determine the economic value urbanites place on having birds in their parks, backyards, and green spaces. After conducting and analyzing nearly 700 surveys taken by residents in Seattle, Washington and Berlin, Germany, Marzluff and his team found that people in both cities place a sizable value on the enjoyment they derive from birds.