Forests help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by storing it in trees, but a sizable amount of the greenhouse gas actually escapes through the soil and into rivers and streams. That’s the main finding of a paper to appear Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s the first study to comprehensively look at how carbon moves in freshwater across the entire U.S.
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After making an exhausting migration from river to ocean and back to river—often multiple years in a row—one species of Alaskan trout decides to call it quits and retire from migrating once they are big enough to survive off their fat reserves. This is the first time such a “retirement” pattern has been seen in fish that make this river-to-ocean migration, according to University of Washington-led research published in July in the journal Ecology.
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Sarah Schooler spent her summer in the Alaskan bush, collecting data on salmon and the habits of hungry grizzly bears with the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.
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An international team of experts in fisheries management, spearheaded by UW professor Ray Hilborn from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, is trying to lead the conversation about sustainable fisheries using a less traditional approach—reaching the general public directly through a new website and social media outreach. The initiative is called the Collaborative for Food from Our Oceans Data, or “CFOOD” for short, and offers data and commentary on the sustainability of global fisheries.
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Freshwater streams and rivers actually release carbon dioxide, but the source of those emissions has been unclear to scientists for years. Now, researchers have shown that the greenhouse gas appears in streams by way of two difference sources—either as a direct pipeline for groundwater and carbon-rich soils, or from aquatic organisms releasing the gas through respiration and natural decay. David Butman, professor of environmental and forest sciences and civil and environmental engineering, is part of the team that recently found that CO2’s origins—land or life—depend largely on the size of the stream or river.
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