Congratulations to SMEA postdoc Jimmy O’Donnell for leading his new paper “Spatial distribution of environmental DNA in a nearshore marine habitat” to publication! Additional authors include SMEA Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly, SMEA alumna Natalie Lowell, and collaborators Jameal Samhouri, Ole Shelton, and Greg Williams. The paper shows that environmental DNA in the nearshore marine environment (in this case Carkeek Park in north Seattle) does not travel very far at all, such that eDNA samples show a very local snapshot of marine biodiversity. 

SMEA Professor Nives Dolšak and UW Professor Aseem Prakash recently authored an article featured on The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage titled “Yes, consumers can change public policies — sometimes. Here are the challenges.” The article discusses how consumer movements can succeed in changing corporate policies, but political consumerism faces challenges and has a harder time changing public policy. To read the full article, click here. 

SMEA Professor Patrick Christie recently attended an international workshop in Kiel, Germany hosted by Future Earth to highlight the importance of human dimensions ocean science and links to policy making. The “Workshop on the Development of an Integrative Ocean Research Network (Future Earth Oceans Knowledge-Action Network)” assembled around 100 representatives from several existing academic and practitioner communities dealing with ocean sustainability. 

SMEA Professor Nives Dolsak and UW Professor Aseem Prakash recently wrote a piece for The Conversation offering a way to reduce carbon consumption while improving the economy. Their suggestion; consumption-based policies, not conventional regulation. These policies are designed to discourage the consumption of carbon-intensive products and services. Read more in their article “Here’s a better way to regulate carbon – and change the tired environment-versus-economy debate“. 

Congratulations to SMEA Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly, Research Associate Jimmy O’Donnell and second year graduate student Jimmy Kralj on their latest publication in Frontiers in Marine Science titled: “Genetic and Manual Survey Methods Yield Different and Complementary Views of an Ecosystem.” The article published on January 9 compared results of environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys and traditional methods of measuring biodiversity and concludes that in order to confidently interpret eDNA results in the context of existing ecological study, it is necessary to compare the results of eDNA with those of more established methods of ecological sampling. 

Congratulations to SMEA graduate Annie Hillier and SMEA professors Ryan Kelly and Terrie Klinger! Their article “Narrative Style Influences Citation Frequency in Climate Change Science” published December 15 in the journal PLOS ONE, looked at the abstracts from more than 700 scientific papers about climate change to find out what makes a paper influential in its field. Rather than focusing on content, they looked at writing style.  

SMEA Professor Patrick Christie, Co-PI Brad Warren of Global Ocean Health, and second year SMEA Student Haley Kennard, co-hosted a workshop with the Tulalip Tribes this past Monday, December 12th at the Tulalip Tribes Headquarters. The workshop, entitled “Navigating Coastal Squeeze: Identifying Needs and Priorities to Scale Up Estuarine Restoration in Puget Sound” was generously funded by Washington Sea Grant and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

SMEA Professor Nives Dolsak and UW Professor and Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash published a new piece in The Conversation entitled “The US environmental movement needs a new message.” The piece highlights that most Americans care about the environment, but didn’t vote that way this year. In the article, Professor Dolsak and Prakash state “In our view, the [environmental] movement needs a new agenda and communications strategy to reach beyond its roots and connect with working-class voters and immigrants.” The article can be accessed at https://theconversation.com/the-us-environmental-movement-needs-a-new-message-70247. 

Professor Ryan Kelly was recently interviewed on KNKX regarding his work with environmental DNA (eDNA). In the interview, Professor Kelly discusses the potential uses of eDNA, such as getting baseline information from bodies of water that may be at risk of suffering an oil spill disaster, such as the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Professor Kelly was a lead author on a paper published in the fall that utilized eDNA and found urban Puget Sound shorelines support a denser array of animals than in remote areas. 

A paper recently published by Research Associate Nathan Bennett, and co-authored by Professor Patrick Christie and researchers from universities and organizations around the world concludes that in order to increase local support and the effectiveness of conservation, people must be considered. Authors found that oftentimes conservation organizations and activities don’t fully consider the human dimensions of conservation. “When people are ignored and conservation measures are put in, we see opposition, conflict and often failure,” Bennett stated in a UW Today article.