Increasing carbon dioxide in the air penetrates into the ocean and makes it more acidic, while robbing seawater of minerals that give shellfish their crunch. The West Coast is one of the first marine ecosystems to feel its effects. A new tool doesn’t alter that reality, but it does allow scientists to better understand what’s happening and provide data to help the shellfish industry adapt to these changes.
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Scientists using a microbe that occurs naturally in eastern cottonwood trees have boosted the ability of two other plants—willow and lawn grass—to withstand the withering effects of the nasty industrial pollutant phenanthrene and take up 25 to 40 percent more of the pollutant than untreated plants. The approach could avoid the regulatory hurdles imposed on transgenic plants—plants with genes inserted from or exchanged with other plant or animal species—that have shown promise in phytoremediation, the process of using plants to remove toxins from contaminated sites, according to Sharon Doty, associate professor of environmental and forestry sciences and corresponding author on a paper about the new work in Environmental Science & Technology.
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Dean Lisa Graumlich and associate dean Julia Parrish are among several signatories from the College of the Environment and UW calling to increase the diversity of voices in how we practice conservation. Joining over 200 others, the authors of a new comment in Nature discuss how increasing diversity at the conservation table can help move us globally to a more “shared vision of a thriving planet.”
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In a country that boasts an awe-inspiring system of national parks, the Pacific Northwest may be especially lucky. But even remote parks and forests can’t escape the problem of human-induced climate change. Future shifts could affect everything from how people access the parks to what activities are possible once they arrive—not to mention the plants and animals that call those places home.
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Is it plastic, metal, a fragment, sharp? Does it have a loop in it that a marine animal might stick its head through? Is it small enough and in the color range that an albatross might mistake it for flying fish eggs and eat it? The latest University of Washington program powered by citizen scientists aims to characterize debris washed up on beaches in terms of potential harm to seabirds and other marine animals.
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