Species conservation depends on robust population assessment. Data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are critical for effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. I describe a pygmy blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) population in New Zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. This...
REFEWLS - REnewable Food Energy Water on Land and Sea Nexus
This project will explore the connections between food, energy, and water uses along Oregon's mid coastal regions with a emphasis and focus on Newport. On average Newport uses approximately 2,000,000 gallons of water per day, but in the tourist...
This lesson introduces students to the concepts of salinity and density. In this lesson students create and test a hypothesis about how the distance from the mouth of an estuary influences salinity levels.
Cytochrome B sequence data (FASTA format) from the paper “Seasonal distribution and environmental associations among late larval and juvenile rockfish (Sebastes spp.) off Oregon and Washington: new insights based on genetics”. The data was generated from a sample of 2534 unknown, field collected late-larval and juvenile rockfishes from the Pacific...
Using a combination of population‐ and individual‐based analytical approaches, we provide a comprehensive examination of genetic connectivity of Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) along ~1,200 km of the California Current System (CCS). We sampled individuals at 33 sites in 2012 to establish a baseline of genetic diversity and hierarchal population genetic...
To determine the invasion threat to the NE Pacific of marine algae arriving on Japanese debris from the 2011 Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, my colleagues and I identified the algal species on 42 of the most heavily fouled debris items that landed on the shores of Oregon and Washington...
Bird scaring lines (BSLs) protect longline fishing gear from seabird attacks, save bait, reduce incidental seabird mortality and are the most commonly prescribed seabird bycatch mitigation measure worldwide. We collaborated with fishermen to assess the efficacy of applying BSL regulations from the demersal longline sablefish fishery in Alaska to a...
To determine the invasion threat to the NE Pacific of marine algae arriving on Japanese debris from the 2011 Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, my colleagues and I took up the task of identifying the algal species on 42 of the most heavily fouled debris items that landed on the...
Limited approaches exist for studying population connectivity in widely dispersing marine benthic invertebrates. Genetic techniques can provide important insights toward identifying recruitment trajectories. Here, 10 microsatellite loci were used to examine connectivity among Oregon Dungeness crabs (Cancer magister, Dana, 1852) in the California Current System (CCS) (n = 801) as...
Carbon dioxide emissions greatly affect the carbon chemistry mechanisms within the ocean. Carbon absorbed by the ocean, drops the pH level and creates an environment that is acidic. Acidic conditions prevent calcification mechanisms in coralline algae, and hinder their ability to establish within the intertidal. Coralline algae display structural relevance...
The Oregon Sea Grant Visitor Center at Hatfield Marine Science Center attracts 150,000 visitors a year and does not require an admission fee. Surveying visitors, 39% of all people indicated that half or more of their reason for coming to the Oregon coast was to visit the Visitor Center.
Understanding connectivity of marine organisms is necessary for determining the appropriate scale of conservation and management strategies. For species that inhabit both the coastal ocean and partially enclosed water bodies (i.e., estuaries or fjords), this information is even more critical since estuaries and fjords are often characterized by hydrological complexities...
Two species of burrowing shrimp occur in high densities in US West Coast estuaries, the ghost shrimp, Neotrypaea californiensis, and the blue mud shrimp, Upogebia pugettensis. Both species of shrimp are considered ecosystem engineers as they bioturbate and irrigate extensive galleries within the sediment. While their burrows comprise a dominant...
Identification and classification of behavior states in animal movement data can be complex, temporally biased, time-intensive, scale-dependent, and unstandardized across studies and taxa. Large movement datasets are increasingly common and there is a need for efficient methods of data exploration that adjust to the individual variability of each track. We...
Part of the Hatfield Marine Science Center's Sea Lion exhibit.This public exhibit is about the projected shift in temperature that could be associated with significant movements in the small fishes that make up much of the diet of California sea lions. If they prey moves, perhaps the sea lions will...
The Augmented Reality Sandbox was developed by the UC Davis W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES, http://www.keckcaves.org), supported by the
National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL 1114663.
Periodic weighing of seabird chicks is labour-intensive and repeated handling can cause high levels of disturbance to chicks. Although automatic weighing systems using a fibreglass nest have been designed for albatross species with a pedestal nest made of mud, this approach is inappropriate for great albatross species (genus Diomedea) whose...
The interplay of natural selection and genetic drift, influenced by geographic isolation, mating systems and population size, determines patterns of genetic diversity within species. The sperm whale provides an interesting example of a long-lived species with few geographic barriers to dispersal. Worldwide mtDNA diversity is relatively low, but highly structured...
Interannual variability in salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) production in the northeast Pacific is understood to be driven by oceanographic variability and bottom-up processes affecting prey availability to juvenile salmon. Scyphozoan jellyfish have an important role in shaping the pathways of energy flow through pelagic food webs. While jellyfish obtain high production...
Accurate estimation of historical abundance provides an essential baseline for judging the recovery of the great whales. This is particularly challenging for whales hunted prior to twentieth century modern whaling, as population-level catch records are often incomplete. Assessments of whale recovery using pre-modern exploitation indices are therefore rare, despite the...