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She lives in San Jose with her husband, daughter, and cats.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/62085c2562a0b91949bfd6ff7548082e?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":null,"facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"science","roles":["author"]},{"site":"quest","roles":["subscriber"]}],"headData":{"title":"Danna Staaf | KQED","description":null,"ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/62085c2562a0b91949bfd6ff7548082e?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/62085c2562a0b91949bfd6ff7548082e?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/dannastaaf"},"gsinger":{"type":"authors","id":"8640","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"8640","found":true},"name":"Grace Singer","firstName":"Grace","lastName":"Singer","slug":"gsinger","email":"gsinger@kqed.org","display_author_email":false,"staff_mastheads":[],"title":null,"bio":"Grace is the winner of the new Dr. Allen Fuhs science communication scholarship and summer internship at KQED in San Francisco. She is a student of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at California State University, Monterey Bay. As a California native and a longtime resident of the Monterey Peninsula, she first developed her passion for nature by exploring tide pools as a child. Grace loves kayaking, paddle-boarding, yoga, music, painting, and animals of all shapes and sizes. Follow her on Twitter @gracestarbird\r\n\r\n ","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9ce7944fa79f81cfb2316dc4aeb07558?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":null,"facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"news","roles":["author"]},{"site":"science","roles":["editor"]}],"headData":{"title":"Grace Singer | KQED","description":null,"ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9ce7944fa79f81cfb2316dc4aeb07558?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9ce7944fa79f81cfb2316dc4aeb07558?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/gsinger"},"mseely":{"type":"authors","id":"11095","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"11095","found":true},"name":"Mike Seely","firstName":null,"lastName":null,"slug":"mseely","email":"mseely@kqed.org","display_author_email":false,"staff_mastheads":["science"],"title":"Producer","bio":"Mike is a Digital Media Producer for KQED Science and Post Production Coordinator for \u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/user/KQEDDeepLook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" aria-describedby=\"slack-kit-tooltip\">Deep Look\u003c/a>. Prior to his work at KQED, he worked independently for 15 years as a director, producer and cinematographer of documentary films about art, science, and social issues, collaborating with independent directors, corporate clients, non-profits, digital and broadcast networks. Previous to filmmaking life, he majored in biology as an undergrad at Oberlin College, and worked as a wildlife biologist on bird and seal population studies in California. He also holds an M.A. in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/53f7588ae9da24f7246d0b20e9015521?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":null,"facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"arts","roles":["contributor"]},{"site":"science","roles":["editor"]}],"headData":{"title":"Mike Seely | KQED","description":"Producer","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/53f7588ae9da24f7246d0b20e9015521?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/53f7588ae9da24f7246d0b20e9015521?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/mseely"}},"breakingNewsReducer":{},"campaignFinanceReducer":{},"firebase":{"requesting":{},"requested":{},"timestamps":{},"data":{},"ordered":{},"auth":{"isLoaded":false,"isEmpty":true},"authError":null,"profile":{"isLoaded":false,"isEmpty":true},"listeners":{"byId":{},"allIds":[]},"isInitializing":false,"errors":[]},"navBarReducer":{"navBarId":"news","fullView":true,"showPlayer":false},"navMenuReducer":{"menus":[{"key":"menu1","items":[{"name":"News","link":"/","type":"title"},{"name":"Politics","link":"/politics"},{"name":"Science","link":"/science"},{"name":"Education","link":"/educationnews"},{"name":"Housing","link":"/housing"},{"name":"Immigration","link":"/immigration"},{"name":"Criminal Justice","link":"/criminaljustice"},{"name":"Silicon Valley","link":"/siliconvalley"},{"name":"Forum","link":"/forum"},{"name":"The California Report","link":"/californiareport"}]},{"key":"menu2","items":[{"name":"Arts & Culture","link":"/arts","type":"title"},{"name":"Critics’ Picks","link":"/thedolist"},{"name":"Cultural Commentary","link":"/artscommentary"},{"name":"Food & Drink","link":"/food"},{"name":"Bay Area Hip-Hop","link":"/bayareahiphop"},{"name":"Rebel Girls","link":"/rebelgirls"},{"name":"Arts Video","link":"/artsvideos"}]},{"key":"menu3","items":[{"name":"Podcasts","link":"/podcasts","type":"title"},{"name":"Bay Curious","link":"/podcasts/baycurious"},{"name":"Rightnowish","link":"/podcasts/rightnowish"},{"name":"The Bay","link":"/podcasts/thebay"},{"name":"On Our Watch","link":"/podcasts/onourwatch"},{"name":"Mindshift","link":"/podcasts/mindshift"},{"name":"Consider This","link":"/podcasts/considerthis"},{"name":"Political Breakdown","link":"/podcasts/politicalbreakdown"}]},{"key":"menu4","items":[{"name":"Live Radio","link":"/radio","type":"title"},{"name":"TV","link":"/tv","type":"title"},{"name":"Events","link":"/events","type":"title"},{"name":"For Educators","link":"/education","type":"title"},{"name":"Support KQED","link":"/support","type":"title"},{"name":"About","link":"/about","type":"title"},{"name":"Help Center","link":"https://kqed-helpcenter.kqed.org/s","type":"title"}]}]},"pagesReducer":{},"postsReducer":{"stream_live":{"type":"live","id":"stream_live","audioUrl":"https://streams.kqed.org/kqedradio","title":"Live Stream","excerpt":"Live Stream information currently unavailable.","link":"/radio","featImg":"","label":{"name":"KQED Live","link":"/"}},"stream_kqedNewscast":{"type":"posts","id":"stream_kqedNewscast","audioUrl":"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/newscast.mp3?_=1","title":"KQED Newscast","featImg":"","label":{"name":"88.5 FM","link":"/"}},"science_1972559":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1972559","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1972559","score":null,"sort":[1612879213000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"these-acrobatic-beach-hoppers-shred-all-night-long","title":"These Acrobatic Beach Hoppers Shred All Night Long","publishDate":1612879213,"format":"video","headTitle":"These Acrobatic Beach Hoppers Shred All Night Long | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":1935,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]\u003cem>As the sun sets, hordes of tiny crustaceans called beach hoppers — also known as sand hoppers — emerge from underground burrows to frolic and feast. They eat so much decaying seaweed and other beach wrack that by morning all that’s left are ghostly outlines in the sand.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>TRANSCRIPT\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As the sun sinks behind the waves, these performers awaken and get ready for their all-night show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They take cues from the tides, the moon, and their appetite, emerging from sandy underground burrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might know them as sand fleas, but they don’t bite and they aren’t fleas. They’re called beach hoppers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These crustaceans are as small as an ant or as large as a cricket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their eyes are made up of hundreds of cells called ommatidia, but they don’t see much detail — just blurry shapes, light and dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ADDITIONAL RESOURCES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">Read more about \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0w1024x6\">the ecological value of beach wrack\u003c/a> and how regular mechanical beach grooming affects the sandy beach ecosystem.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">\u003ca href=\"https://explorebeaches.msi.ucsb.edu/\">Learn more about sandy beach ecosystems\u003c/a>, and the important role that beach hoppers play in the food web.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re drawn toward shadowy blobs on the horizon. They hope it’s kelp, their favorite food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they find it, they eat and eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes they even eat one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This large beach hopper is piercing the other right behind its eye, holding it in place with its claws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For protection, they dig burrows about a foot deep where the sand is damp and cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And males will fight over control of burrows, especially if there are females inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deep in the night, the beach hopper acrobatics build into a dazzling show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A powerful flick of their curled-up tail launches them skyward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They do not stick the landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A beach hopper can jump as high as your knees, dozens of times the length of its body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a quick way to travel — toward food or mates. Or to get out of harm’s way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beach hoppers’ diets are mostly beach wrack — anything natural that washes ashore. Wrack is an essential source of nutrients for sandy beach ecosystems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These shredders break down the wrack into smaller parts. It’s the first step in sending nutrients into the food chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When predators like shorebirds or insects eat beach hoppers, they can carry these nutrients further inland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without these hungry acrobats, beaches the world over would be strewn with rotting seaweed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a night of fighting and feasting, they leave only silhouettes behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the sun rises, the beach hoppers retreat to their burrows, just beyond the tide’s reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The performers need their rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another spectacle is just a night away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While we’re on the subject of unconventional crustaceans, check out this episode about Mantis Shrimp — their eyes see colors we can’t even comprehend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, jump on over to Terra, a shiny new science channel from PBS Digital Studios. You’ll travel to Antarctica, fly with drones, see inside a wildfire. Link in the description and tell them Deep Look sent you.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":null,"status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704846767,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":32,"wordCount":534},"headData":{"title":"These Acrobatic Beach Hoppers Shred All Night Long | KQED","description":"As the sun sets, hordes of tiny crustaceans called beach hoppers — also known as sand hoppers — emerge from underground burrows to frolic and feast. They eat so much decaying seaweed and other beach wrack that by morning all that’s left are ghostly outlines in the sand. TRANSCRIPT As the sun sinks behind the","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"These Acrobatic Beach Hoppers Shred All Night Long","datePublished":"2021-02-09T14:00:13.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T00:32:47.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"videoEmbed":"https://youtu.be/zz8P8ig459g","sticky":false,"path":"/science/1972559/these-acrobatic-beach-hoppers-shred-all-night-long","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"dl_subscribe","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cem>As the sun sets, hordes of tiny crustaceans called beach hoppers — also known as sand hoppers — emerge from underground burrows to frolic and feast. They eat so much decaying seaweed and other beach wrack that by morning all that’s left are ghostly outlines in the sand.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>TRANSCRIPT\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As the sun sinks behind the waves, these performers awaken and get ready for their all-night show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They take cues from the tides, the moon, and their appetite, emerging from sandy underground burrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might know them as sand fleas, but they don’t bite and they aren’t fleas. They’re called beach hoppers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These crustaceans are as small as an ant or as large as a cricket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their eyes are made up of hundreds of cells called ommatidia, but they don’t see much detail — just blurry shapes, light and dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ADDITIONAL RESOURCES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">Read more about \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0w1024x6\">the ecological value of beach wrack\u003c/a> and how regular mechanical beach grooming affects the sandy beach ecosystem.\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\" data-en-clipboard=\"true\">\u003ca href=\"https://explorebeaches.msi.ucsb.edu/\">Learn more about sandy beach ecosystems\u003c/a>, and the important role that beach hoppers play in the food web.\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re drawn toward shadowy blobs on the horizon. They hope it’s kelp, their favorite food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they find it, they eat and eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes they even eat one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This large beach hopper is piercing the other right behind its eye, holding it in place with its claws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For protection, they dig burrows about a foot deep where the sand is damp and cool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And males will fight over control of burrows, especially if there are females inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deep in the night, the beach hopper acrobatics build into a dazzling show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A powerful flick of their curled-up tail launches them skyward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They do not stick the landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A beach hopper can jump as high as your knees, dozens of times the length of its body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a quick way to travel — toward food or mates. Or to get out of harm’s way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beach hoppers’ diets are mostly beach wrack — anything natural that washes ashore. Wrack is an essential source of nutrients for sandy beach ecosystems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These shredders break down the wrack into smaller parts. It’s the first step in sending nutrients into the food chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When predators like shorebirds or insects eat beach hoppers, they can carry these nutrients further inland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without these hungry acrobats, beaches the world over would be strewn with rotting seaweed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a night of fighting and feasting, they leave only silhouettes behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the sun rises, the beach hoppers retreat to their burrows, just beyond the tide’s reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The performers need their rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another spectacle is just a night away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While we’re on the subject of unconventional crustaceans, check out this episode about Mantis Shrimp — their eyes see colors we can’t even comprehend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, jump on over to Terra, a shiny new science channel from PBS Digital Studios. You’ll travel to Antarctica, fly with drones, see inside a wildfire. Link in the description and tell them Deep Look sent you.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1972559/these-acrobatic-beach-hoppers-shred-all-night-long","authors":["11095"],"series":["science_1935"],"categories":["science_2874","science_30","science_2873","science_4450","science_86"],"tags":["science_314","science_804"],"featImg":"science_1972561","label":"science_1935"},"science_1970711":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1970711","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1970711","score":null,"sort":[1605016830000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"sea-hares-scrub-seagrass-by-the-seashore","title":"Sea Slugs Scrub Seagrass by the Seashore","publishDate":1605016830,"format":"video","headTitle":"Sea Slugs Scrub Seagrass by the Seashore | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":1935,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“They’re so majestic,” ecologist Brent Hughes says as he looks out across Elkhorn Slough, a large winding estuary off the Monterey Bay coastline. He’s not talking about whales or pelicans. He’s talking about a tiny, slimy, aquatic slug — the eelgrass sea hare. Donning his wetsuit, Hughes hops into his kayak and paddles off toward a section of water where the sea hares live, in an underwater meadow of seagrass.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also known as the Taylor’s sea hare, these humble, zebra-striped slices of green jello are actually crucial to the health of their eelgrass meadow ecosystem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eelgrass sea hares — named for the bunny-like tentacles on top of their heads — can be found munching on the microscopic algae that grow on the surface of eelgrass, a type of marine seagrass. They don’t eat the grass itself; instead they help the meadows grow by clearing the way for sunlight to reach the plants, scraping the blades of grass clean with their rows of tiny teeth. The seagrass, in turn, serves as a safe haven to lay their eggs, and protection from predators like crabs and fish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970800\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1970800 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_slide.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares symbiotically co-evolved with eelgrass, a type of seagrass found near coastlines worldwide. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy /KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The blades of grass also protect more than just these voracious little cleaners. At Elkhorn Slough off of the Monterey Bay, the eelgrass beds form a habitat for a diverse community of animals and plant life, which includes sea otters, Dungeness crabs, clams, skeleton shrimp and various fish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Eelgrass is like the ugly duckling of the charismatic habitat world,” says biologist Grace Ha of UC Davis, who studied the camouflage of the Taylor’s sea hare. “Seagrasses are among the most productive habitats in the world, if you compare them to rainforest or coral reefs, but most people don’t even know what eelgrass is.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eelgrass forms submarine meadows in shallow seawater, estuaries and salt marshes across the Northern Hemisphere. Seagrasses absorb carbon from the atmosphere and prevent coastal erosion, but climate change, and human activities like large-scale agriculture threaten their existence worldwide. Biologists compare the steady decline of seagrass beds to the global crises of disappearing rainforests and coral reefs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For decades, the eelgrass meadows of Elkhorn Slough were also disappearing. Since the 1950s nitrogen-based fertilizers from farms in the Salinas Valley have drained into the estuary, overloading the water with nutrients, causing massive algae blooms. Too much algae living on the surface of the water blocks the sunlight necessary for eelgrass meadows to grow, and the grasses begin to die out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970796\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1970796 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares clean the eelgrass of the microscopic algae that coats it. Seagrass meadows help absorb carbon from the atmosphere and control erosion. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2013, Hughes, now at Sonoma State University, published the results of a surprising discovery. He noticed that the eelgrass in Elkhorn Slough was actually rebounding, despite the extreme algal blooms. Strangely, his data showed, this was happening right around the time sea otters were reintroduced to the area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sea otters had been totally missing from the estuary ecosystem since the early 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> century. By that time, fur traders had hunted otters almost to extinction along the California coast. But in the late 1980s, the Monterey Bay Aquarium rereleased a small population of sea otters back into the slough, and their numbers have steadily increased.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hughes’ research established that the hungry otters were eating copious amounts of local crabs, a natural predator of Taylor’s sea hares. “The otters recovering allowed for an explosion of sea hares that really kind of facilitated the resilience of that seagrass.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970797\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970797\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When sea otters were reintroduced to Elkhorn Slough, they started eating the crabs that eat the sea hares. This meant the sea hares could get back to work cleaning the eelgrass of excessive algae, enabling the eelgrass to grow again. Researchers call this a trophic cascade, when a top predator, like a sea otter, has a balancing effect on the ecosystem. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hughes and his colleagues had uncovered a trophic cascade in which the reintroduction of a top predator (in this case the sea otter) results in a balancing effect on the food web.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an eelgrass ecosystem like Elkhorn Slough, where nutrient-polluted waters cause regular extreme algal blooms, the “grazers just become really, really important for controlling that algal overgrowth.” When otters were missing and not eating crabs, the crab population grew and ate too many sea hares, so the eelgrass had less help dealing with the suffocating algae growth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The remarkable thing is that the nutrients are still climbing,” Hughes said. “It’s insane how high the nutrients are in that system.” Despite this continued stress on the ecosystem, the eelgrass meadows in Elkhorn Slough have in fact steadily expanded over the past three decades. Hughes credits the otters and their trophic cascade relationship with the sea hares. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970798\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970798\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Runoff from farms carries excessive nutrients into Elkhorn Slough, which spurs the growth of thick mats of algae. Left unchecked, these algal blooms block sunlight from reaching the eelgrass, and cause them to die. The eelgrass sea hare’s constant appetite for algae helps to counterbalance these harmful effects. \u003ccite>(Brent Hughes/Sonoma State University)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“These grazers are so abundant in Elkhorn Slough, you just have to reach over and grab some seagrass and you’ll end up grabbing a few sea hares too.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further north, in the San Francisco Bay, Kathy Boyer has been working for years to restore native eelgrass ecosystems. Eelgrass sea hares had also been easy to find in the meadows she was restoring, until recently.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">2017 was an extremely wet winter and spring for the San Francisco Bay Area. Storm after storm brought so much fresh water to the bay that salinity dropped well below the usual level (below ten parts per thousand). Very soon after this dramatic drop in salinity, Boyer and her colleagues noticed that the Taylor’s sea hare (and another symbiotic grazer called the eelgrass isopod) had disappeared from the meadows in the bay. The sea hares had simply vanished from the eight eelgrass restoration sites she and her team had been monitoring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was shocking,” she says. “We’ve definitely seen fluctuations in invertebrate populations, but we’ve never seen the complete loss of species.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970799\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 700px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970799\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_bunny_edit.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea hares get their name from the bunny-ear-like tentacles on top of their heads called rhinophores, which they use to sense temperature, water movement and smell. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyer and her team realized at that moment that the only places in the San Francisco Bay with living Taylor’s sea hares were the experimental holding tanks where she does most of her eelgrass restoration studies, at San Francisco State University’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyer immediately recognized the importance of the animals in her tanks. “We’ve got to try to keep these guys alive, because it’s all that’s left of this population.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She hopes to grow the population, and eventually reestablish them throughout eelgrass meadows in the bay. The good news is “they’re reproducing like crazy, they’re really happy in the tanks. They’ve got no predators, so they’re just doing their thing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Having worked in ecosystem restoration for years, Boyer intimately understands the complexities inherent to the work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s lots of interest in just going out and restoring a bunch of eelgrass, but the grass doesn’t live in a vacuum out there in the bay. It interacts with all these other species. It brings up lots of questions about ‘What are restoration best practices?’”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970795\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970795\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass meadows provide a safe haven for sea hare eggs and protection for their young. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The disappearance of the sea hares offers a rare opportunity to observe what happens when a species suddenly vanishes from an ecosystem. “Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose a bit of it,” Boyer said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, Elkhorn Slough has sea otters, but the San Francisco Bay does not, which translates to a big difference in how the food webs function in each location.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Whether the trophic cascade will have the same levels, and effect, as Brent is seeing down in Elkhorn, we really have no idea,” says Boyer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are different sets of animals in the food web in the San Francisco Bay, but it seems that reintroducing otters is a real possibility. Because their populations have been so scarce over the past century, scientists had assumed sea otters lived primarily in ocean waters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970801\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970801\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_XCU1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares symbiotically co-evolved with eelgrass, a type of seagrass found near coastlines worldwide. Their patterning helps them bland seamlessly into their grassy home. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The amazing thing with the otters is that as they’re recovering, they’re revealing their true range of habitats that they can use right now,” Hughes says, citing the recent success of the Elkhorn Slough otter population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Now researchers are focusing on these estuaries as areas for sea otter recovery, in areas away from predators, away from big waves that you might experience in a kelp forest, somewhat removed from human influence”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both Boyer and Hughes are co-authors of a research paper suggesting that if properly reintroduced, the San Francisco Bay could be home to as many as 6,000 sea otters, effectively tripling the current population of sea otters in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether or not sea otters should be a part of the Taylor’s sea hare reintroduction plan in the San Francisco Bay is still an open question, but it is definitely on Boyer’s mind as she wrestles with the complex decisions of when and how to bring the sea hares back to the bay’s meadows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the challenges of eelgrass ecosystem restoration, Hughes remains inspired by the example of the Taylor’s sea hares. He says Elkhorn Slough is “a gold mine in terms of scientific discoveries. It’s a story of recovery, of conservation, and it involves not only the imperiled species, the sea otter, but these imperiled habitats that they’re returning to, such as seagrasses and salt marshes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s also a story of how even a little green slug can be so much more important than its modest appearance might, at first, suggest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"These sea slugs may look like lazy spoonfuls of jello, but they are actually environmental heroes.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704846951,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":32,"wordCount":1818},"headData":{"title":"Sea Slugs Scrub Seagrass by the Seashore | KQED","description":"These sea slugs may look like lazy, zebra-striped spoonfuls of jello, but eelgrass sea hares are actually environmental heroes. Their voracious appetite for algae helps keep underwater meadow ecosystems in balance – which is great news for sea otters.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","socialDescription":"These sea slugs may look like lazy, zebra-striped spoonfuls of jello, but eelgrass sea hares are actually environmental heroes. Their voracious appetite for algae helps keep underwater meadow ecosystems in balance – which is great news for sea otters.","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Sea Slugs Scrub Seagrass by the Seashore","datePublished":"2020-11-10T14:00:30.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T00:35:51.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"videoEmbed":"https://youtu.be/kjvhVVu5uqE","sticky":false,"path":"/science/1970711/sea-hares-scrub-seagrass-by-the-seashore","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"dl_subscribe","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“They’re so majestic,” ecologist Brent Hughes says as he looks out across Elkhorn Slough, a large winding estuary off the Monterey Bay coastline. He’s not talking about whales or pelicans. He’s talking about a tiny, slimy, aquatic slug — the eelgrass sea hare. Donning his wetsuit, Hughes hops into his kayak and paddles off toward a section of water where the sea hares live, in an underwater meadow of seagrass.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also known as the Taylor’s sea hare, these humble, zebra-striped slices of green jello are actually crucial to the health of their eelgrass meadow ecosystem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eelgrass sea hares — named for the bunny-like tentacles on top of their heads — can be found munching on the microscopic algae that grow on the surface of eelgrass, a type of marine seagrass. They don’t eat the grass itself; instead they help the meadows grow by clearing the way for sunlight to reach the plants, scraping the blades of grass clean with their rows of tiny teeth. The seagrass, in turn, serves as a safe haven to lay their eggs, and protection from predators like crabs and fish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970800\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1970800 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_slide.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares symbiotically co-evolved with eelgrass, a type of seagrass found near coastlines worldwide. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy /KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The blades of grass also protect more than just these voracious little cleaners. At Elkhorn Slough off of the Monterey Bay, the eelgrass beds form a habitat for a diverse community of animals and plant life, which includes sea otters, Dungeness crabs, clams, skeleton shrimp and various fish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Eelgrass is like the ugly duckling of the charismatic habitat world,” says biologist Grace Ha of UC Davis, who studied the camouflage of the Taylor’s sea hare. “Seagrasses are among the most productive habitats in the world, if you compare them to rainforest or coral reefs, but most people don’t even know what eelgrass is.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eelgrass forms submarine meadows in shallow seawater, estuaries and salt marshes across the Northern Hemisphere. Seagrasses absorb carbon from the atmosphere and prevent coastal erosion, but climate change, and human activities like large-scale agriculture threaten their existence worldwide. Biologists compare the steady decline of seagrass beds to the global crises of disappearing rainforests and coral reefs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For decades, the eelgrass meadows of Elkhorn Slough were also disappearing. Since the 1950s nitrogen-based fertilizers from farms in the Salinas Valley have drained into the estuary, overloading the water with nutrients, causing massive algae blooms. Too much algae living on the surface of the water blocks the sunlight necessary for eelgrass meadows to grow, and the grasses begin to die out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970796\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1970796 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_MW2-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares clean the eelgrass of the microscopic algae that coats it. Seagrass meadows help absorb carbon from the atmosphere and control erosion. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2013, Hughes, now at Sonoma State University, published the results of a surprising discovery. He noticed that the eelgrass in Elkhorn Slough was actually rebounding, despite the extreme algal blooms. Strangely, his data showed, this was happening right around the time sea otters were reintroduced to the area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sea otters had been totally missing from the estuary ecosystem since the early 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> century. By that time, fur traders had hunted otters almost to extinction along the California coast. But in the late 1980s, the Monterey Bay Aquarium rereleased a small population of sea otters back into the slough, and their numbers have steadily increased.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hughes’ research established that the hungry otters were eating copious amounts of local crabs, a natural predator of Taylor’s sea hares. “The otters recovering allowed for an explosion of sea hares that really kind of facilitated the resilience of that seagrass.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970797\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970797\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_sea_otter2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When sea otters were reintroduced to Elkhorn Slough, they started eating the crabs that eat the sea hares. This meant the sea hares could get back to work cleaning the eelgrass of excessive algae, enabling the eelgrass to grow again. Researchers call this a trophic cascade, when a top predator, like a sea otter, has a balancing effect on the ecosystem. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hughes and his colleagues had uncovered a trophic cascade in which the reintroduction of a top predator (in this case the sea otter) results in a balancing effect on the food web.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an eelgrass ecosystem like Elkhorn Slough, where nutrient-polluted waters cause regular extreme algal blooms, the “grazers just become really, really important for controlling that algal overgrowth.” When otters were missing and not eating crabs, the crab population grew and ate too many sea hares, so the eelgrass had less help dealing with the suffocating algae growth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The remarkable thing is that the nutrients are still climbing,” Hughes said. “It’s insane how high the nutrients are in that system.” Despite this continued stress on the ecosystem, the eelgrass meadows in Elkhorn Slough have in fact steadily expanded over the past three decades. Hughes credits the otters and their trophic cascade relationship with the sea hares. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970798\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970798\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Elkhorn_Slough_algal_bloom.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Runoff from farms carries excessive nutrients into Elkhorn Slough, which spurs the growth of thick mats of algae. Left unchecked, these algal blooms block sunlight from reaching the eelgrass, and cause them to die. The eelgrass sea hare’s constant appetite for algae helps to counterbalance these harmful effects. \u003ccite>(Brent Hughes/Sonoma State University)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“These grazers are so abundant in Elkhorn Slough, you just have to reach over and grab some seagrass and you’ll end up grabbing a few sea hares too.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further north, in the San Francisco Bay, Kathy Boyer has been working for years to restore native eelgrass ecosystems. Eelgrass sea hares had also been easy to find in the meadows she was restoring, until recently.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">2017 was an extremely wet winter and spring for the San Francisco Bay Area. Storm after storm brought so much fresh water to the bay that salinity dropped well below the usual level (below ten parts per thousand). Very soon after this dramatic drop in salinity, Boyer and her colleagues noticed that the Taylor’s sea hare (and another symbiotic grazer called the eelgrass isopod) had disappeared from the meadows in the bay. The sea hares had simply vanished from the eight eelgrass restoration sites she and her team had been monitoring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was shocking,” she says. “We’ve definitely seen fluctuations in invertebrate populations, but we’ve never seen the complete loss of species.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970799\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 700px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970799\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_Eelgrass_Sea_Hare_bunny_edit.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea hares get their name from the bunny-ear-like tentacles on top of their heads called rhinophores, which they use to sense temperature, water movement and smell. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyer and her team realized at that moment that the only places in the San Francisco Bay with living Taylor’s sea hares were the experimental holding tanks where she does most of her eelgrass restoration studies, at San Francisco State University’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyer immediately recognized the importance of the animals in her tanks. “We’ve got to try to keep these guys alive, because it’s all that’s left of this population.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She hopes to grow the population, and eventually reestablish them throughout eelgrass meadows in the bay. The good news is “they’re reproducing like crazy, they’re really happy in the tanks. They’ve got no predators, so they’re just doing their thing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Having worked in ecosystem restoration for years, Boyer intimately understands the complexities inherent to the work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s lots of interest in just going out and restoring a bunch of eelgrass, but the grass doesn’t live in a vacuum out there in the bay. It interacts with all these other species. It brings up lots of questions about ‘What are restoration best practices?’”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970795\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1970795\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_baby-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass meadows provide a safe haven for sea hare eggs and protection for their young. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The disappearance of the sea hares offers a rare opportunity to observe what happens when a species suddenly vanishes from an ecosystem. “Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose a bit of it,” Boyer said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, Elkhorn Slough has sea otters, but the San Francisco Bay does not, which translates to a big difference in how the food webs function in each location.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Whether the trophic cascade will have the same levels, and effect, as Brent is seeing down in Elkhorn, we really have no idea,” says Boyer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are different sets of animals in the food web in the San Francisco Bay, but it seems that reintroducing otters is a real possibility. Because their populations have been so scarce over the past century, scientists had assumed sea otters lived primarily in ocean waters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970801\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970801\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/DL719_eelgrass_sea_hare_XCU1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eelgrass sea hares symbiotically co-evolved with eelgrass, a type of seagrass found near coastlines worldwide. Their patterning helps them bland seamlessly into their grassy home. \u003ccite>(Mike Seely/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The amazing thing with the otters is that as they’re recovering, they’re revealing their true range of habitats that they can use right now,” Hughes says, citing the recent success of the Elkhorn Slough otter population. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Now researchers are focusing on these estuaries as areas for sea otter recovery, in areas away from predators, away from big waves that you might experience in a kelp forest, somewhat removed from human influence”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both Boyer and Hughes are co-authors of a research paper suggesting that if properly reintroduced, the San Francisco Bay could be home to as many as 6,000 sea otters, effectively tripling the current population of sea otters in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether or not sea otters should be a part of the Taylor’s sea hare reintroduction plan in the San Francisco Bay is still an open question, but it is definitely on Boyer’s mind as she wrestles with the complex decisions of when and how to bring the sea hares back to the bay’s meadows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the challenges of eelgrass ecosystem restoration, Hughes remains inspired by the example of the Taylor’s sea hares. He says Elkhorn Slough is “a gold mine in terms of scientific discoveries. It’s a story of recovery, of conservation, and it involves not only the imperiled species, the sea otter, but these imperiled habitats that they’re returning to, such as seagrasses and salt marshes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s also a story of how even a little green slug can be so much more important than its modest appearance might, at first, suggest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1970711/sea-hares-scrub-seagrass-by-the-seashore","authors":["11095"],"series":["science_1935"],"categories":["science_2874","science_30","science_35","science_4550","science_40","science_4450","science_86"],"tags":["science_314","science_192"],"featImg":"science_1970966","label":"science_1935"},"science_1920952":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1920952","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1920952","score":null,"sort":[1520879697000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"why-do-sea-snake-species-flourish-in-the-indian-and-pacific-oceans-but-not-in-the-atlantic-or-caribbean","title":"Why Do Sea Snake Species Flourish In The Indian And Pacific Oceans, But Not In The Atlantic Or Caribbean?","publishDate":1520879697,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Why Do Sea Snake Species Flourish In The Indian And Pacific Oceans, But Not In The Atlantic Or Caribbean? | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>Beachgoers often find unusual things that have washed up with the tides. But many people were surprised when a \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sea-snake-newport-beach-20180111-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">venomous yellow-bellied sea snake\u003c/a> recently was found alive on California’s Newport Beach. Sea snakes are less well-known than other marine reptiles, particularly sea turtles, even though they number more than 60 species, most of which evolved 1 to 8 million years ago.[contextly_sidebar id=”PHNPZJw7BtCE8SvYWQmNIJKtUbQ6YzgX”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea snakes are found only in the Indian and Pacific oceans. For many years, herpetologists and biologists like me have pondered why there are no sea snakes in the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. With colleagues at the University of Florida and elsewhere, I’ve recently proposed some answers to this long-standing question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wide-ranging, With Limits\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways it was not surprising to see a yellow-bellied sea snake, Hydrophis platurus, wash ashore in California. This is the only species of sea snake that is “pelagic,” drifting and following the broad circulation patterns of oceanic currents. It has the broadest distribution of any squamate reptile (the group that includes lizards and snakes), ranging from the tip of South Africa across the Indo-Pacific to the Pacific coast of Central America. The snake that turned up at Newport Beach was the fourth found in California since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 488px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1920958\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-800x408.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"488\" height=\"249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-800x408.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-160x82.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-768x392.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-960x490.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-240x122.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-375x191.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-520x265.png 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn.png 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 488px) 100vw, 488px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Global distribution of sea snakes, with Coral Triangle region circled. Lillywhite et al., BioScience 68 (1), 2018., CC BY-ND\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Normally, however, this far-ranging sea snake occurs in more tropical waters where temperatures are appropriate for it. Why not the Caribbean or Atlantic? I tackled this question with\u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/herpetology/about-us/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Coleman Sheehy III\u003c/a>, collections manager at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida Museum of Natural History\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/h/halfh/www/cv.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harold Heatwole\u003c/a> of North Carolina State University; \u003ca href=\"http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/h/halfh/www/cv.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">François Brischoux\u003c/a> of France’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrs.fr/fr/organisme/presentation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Committee\u003c/a> for Scientific Research; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/museum-voices/david-steadman/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Steadman\u003c/a>, curator of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. In our \u003ca href=\"https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix132\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> we considered sea snakes’ biology, evolutionary history and environmental conditions that we believe have prevented them from migrating into the Atlantic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climatic And Current Barriers\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Not all sea snakes spend their entire lives in the ocean. Some species, called \u003ca href=\"http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/banded_sea_krait\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sea kraits\u003c/a>, can live on land or in water and lay their eggs on land. This limits their range because they need to stay near land to reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, all entirely marine sea snakes are viviparous: They give birth to fully-formed young at sea, without laying eggs. This essential trait allowed the pelagic yellow-bellied sea snake to extend its range across the entire Indo-Pacific from an area of origin somewhere in the\u003ca href=\"http://ctatlas.reefbase.org/coraltriangle.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Coral Triangle\u003c/a> of Southeast Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time it reached Central America’s Pacific coast however, the \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=4073\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Isthmus of Panama\u003c/a> had formed, fully separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. When the \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panama-Canal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Panama Canal\u003c/a> opened in 1914, it became possible for an occasional sea snake to enter Caribbean waters accidentally. However, this species tends to drift with currents, so it is highly unlikely that enough could pass through the canal and find one another to the east to establish a breeding population. In fact, no population of sea snakes has been established on the eastern side of the canal since its completion in 1914.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1920959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-800x526.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-800x526.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-768x505.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-960x632.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-240x158.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-375x247.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-520x342.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Banded Sea Krait (Laticauda colubrina) returning to the sea in Malaysia. Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sea snakes also could enter the Atlantic Ocean by swimming from the Indian Ocean around the tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Yellow-bellied sea snakes do occur in the waters immediately east of the cape, but two major obstacles prevent them from traveling farther west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, just west of the cape, the \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Benguela Current\u003c/a> brings upwelling of very cold water to the coast of southwestern Africa. This current is 200 to 300 kilometers wide, and its water is too cold – about 55 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface – for sea snakes that might drift there to survive for long or reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, as my research has shown, sea snakes \u003ca href=\"http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1782/20140119\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">require fresh water\u003c/a> for drinking and will dehydrate at sea without it. They drink from “lenses” of fresh or brackish water that form temporarily on the ocean’s surface after large downpours of rain. But the climate of coastal southwest Africa is characterized by a large zone of permanent high pressure, which makes the region very dry with almost no rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evolving From Land To Sea\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Sea snakes also could become established by making evolutionary transitions from terrestrial or freshwater habitats to marine habitats in the island systems of the Caribbean. We know that \u003ca href=\"http://web.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Elapidae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">elapid snakes\u003c/a> – a family of venomous snakes with short, fixed-front fangs, such as cobras – have done this in the Coral Triangle region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, most of today’s sea snakes originated and evolved into different species in this part of the globe between 2 to 16 million years ago. At that time, this region was a vast wetland complex associated with Southeast Asia and the Australasian archipelago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Land and sea are interlaced throughout the Coral Triangle, and have been so for several million years. This region is also characterized by high rainfall, low and variable water salinity, and relatively stable tropical warm temperatures. Throughout much of its geological past, sea levels rose and fell many times, opening and closing marine corridors and causing mangrove fringes and mud flats to form and disappear. All of these conditions are favorable for evolutionary transitions from land to sea, and stable, shallow marine habitats have persisted for the past 3 million years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1920960\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-520x292.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Coral Triangle covers 5.7 million square miles and is the most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystem on the planet. NOAA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Similar changes occurred in the Caribbean, but the Coral Triangle is a much larger and more complex system. Multiple ancestral lineages of snakes occur in Southeast Asia, and there are four to five times more viviparous (live-bearing), estuarine species within the Coral Triangle than occur in the Caribbean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In my view and that of my co-authors, the presence of appropriate lineages of snakes and a dynamic of ecological conditions favored speciation of sea snakes in the Coral Triangle much more so than in the Caribbean or anywhere else in the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, the Coral Triangle, broadly defined, appears to be the only region where viviparity is characteristic of the majority of estuarine snakes. These snakes live in coastal waters contacting freshwater habitats, and they were most likely to undergo an evolutionary transition from terrestrial or freshwater to marine habitats and give rise to sea snakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Navigating Changing Oceans\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Could future oceanic and weather conditions permit sea snakes to disperse from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean? I believe this is quite unlikely. Thus, we do not expect any sea snake to show up on the beaches of Florida, like those occasional snakes that have drifted to land on beaches in California. There is simply no source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are already signs that some populations and species of sea snakes are in decline or have gone extinct, owing to changes in \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12239/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rainfall patterns\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/52/2/257/673808\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">water temperatures\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2014.06.004.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">environmental contamination\u003c/a> or human exploitation. Future climatic changes might bring negative as well as positive impacts on the biogeography of sea snakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From my own experience watching sea snakes swim with graceful undulations over coral reefs, losing them (or any other marine organism) would be tragic and could threaten the health of coral reefs where sea snakes are top predators and considered to be harbingers of ecosystem change.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91452/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Harvey Lillywhite is Professor of Biology and the Director of Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory at the University of Florida. This article was originally published on \u003ca href=\"http://theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Conversation\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Scientists look at environmental conditions and other factors that may be preventing sea snake migration.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704928126,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":22,"wordCount":1290},"headData":{"title":"Why Do Sea Snake Species Flourish In The Indian And Pacific Oceans, But Not In The Atlantic Or Caribbean? | KQED","description":"Scientists look at environmental conditions and other factors that may be preventing sea snake migration.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Why Do Sea Snake Species Flourish In The Indian And Pacific Oceans, But Not In The Atlantic Or Caribbean?","datePublished":"2018-03-12T18:34:57.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:08:46.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"source":"Oceans","sticky":false,"nprByline":"Harvey Lillywhite, University of Florida, For\u003cbr />The Conversation\u003cimg src=\"https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91452/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" />","path":"/science/1920952/why-do-sea-snake-species-flourish-in-the-indian-and-pacific-oceans-but-not-in-the-atlantic-or-caribbean","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Beachgoers often find unusual things that have washed up with the tides. But many people were surprised when a \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sea-snake-newport-beach-20180111-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">venomous yellow-bellied sea snake\u003c/a> recently was found alive on California’s Newport Beach. Sea snakes are less well-known than other marine reptiles, particularly sea turtles, even though they number more than 60 species, most of which evolved 1 to 8 million years ago.\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea snakes are found only in the Indian and Pacific oceans. For many years, herpetologists and biologists like me have pondered why there are no sea snakes in the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. With colleagues at the University of Florida and elsewhere, I’ve recently proposed some answers to this long-standing question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wide-ranging, With Limits\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways it was not surprising to see a yellow-bellied sea snake, Hydrophis platurus, wash ashore in California. This is the only species of sea snake that is “pelagic,” drifting and following the broad circulation patterns of oceanic currents. It has the broadest distribution of any squamate reptile (the group that includes lizards and snakes), ranging from the tip of South Africa across the Indo-Pacific to the Pacific coast of Central America. The snake that turned up at Newport Beach was the fourth found in California since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 488px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1920958\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-800x408.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"488\" height=\"249\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-800x408.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-160x82.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-768x392.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-960x490.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-240x122.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-375x191.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn-520x265.png 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakes-file-20180308-30954-q3h3vn.png 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 488px) 100vw, 488px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Global distribution of sea snakes, with Coral Triangle region circled. Lillywhite et al., BioScience 68 (1), 2018., CC BY-ND\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Normally, however, this far-ranging sea snake occurs in more tropical waters where temperatures are appropriate for it. Why not the Caribbean or Atlantic? I tackled this question with\u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/herpetology/about-us/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Coleman Sheehy III\u003c/a>, collections manager at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida Museum of Natural History\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/h/halfh/www/cv.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harold Heatwole\u003c/a> of North Carolina State University; \u003ca href=\"http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/h/halfh/www/cv.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">François Brischoux\u003c/a> of France’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnrs.fr/fr/organisme/presentation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Committee\u003c/a> for Scientific Research; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/museum-voices/david-steadman/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Steadman\u003c/a>, curator of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. In our \u003ca href=\"https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix132\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> we considered sea snakes’ biology, evolutionary history and environmental conditions that we believe have prevented them from migrating into the Atlantic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climatic And Current Barriers\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Not all sea snakes spend their entire lives in the ocean. Some species, called \u003ca href=\"http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/banded_sea_krait\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sea kraits\u003c/a>, can live on land or in water and lay their eggs on land. This limits their range because they need to stay near land to reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, all entirely marine sea snakes are viviparous: They give birth to fully-formed young at sea, without laying eggs. This essential trait allowed the pelagic yellow-bellied sea snake to extend its range across the entire Indo-Pacific from an area of origin somewhere in the\u003ca href=\"http://ctatlas.reefbase.org/coraltriangle.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Coral Triangle\u003c/a> of Southeast Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time it reached Central America’s Pacific coast however, the \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=4073\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Isthmus of Panama\u003c/a> had formed, fully separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. When the \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panama-Canal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Panama Canal\u003c/a> opened in 1914, it became possible for an occasional sea snake to enter Caribbean waters accidentally. However, this species tends to drift with currents, so it is highly unlikely that enough could pass through the canal and find one another to the east to establish a breeding population. In fact, no population of sea snakes has been established on the eastern side of the canal since its completion in 1914.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1920959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-800x526.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-800x526.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-768x505.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-960x632.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-240x158.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-375x247.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz-520x342.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnake3-file-20180308-146691-1urg1vz.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Banded Sea Krait (Laticauda colubrina) returning to the sea in Malaysia. Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sea snakes also could enter the Atlantic Ocean by swimming from the Indian Ocean around the tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Yellow-bellied sea snakes do occur in the waters immediately east of the cape, but two major obstacles prevent them from traveling farther west.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, just west of the cape, the \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Benguela Current\u003c/a> brings upwelling of very cold water to the coast of southwestern Africa. This current is 200 to 300 kilometers wide, and its water is too cold – about 55 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface – for sea snakes that might drift there to survive for long or reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, as my research has shown, sea snakes \u003ca href=\"http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1782/20140119\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">require fresh water\u003c/a> for drinking and will dehydrate at sea without it. They drink from “lenses” of fresh or brackish water that form temporarily on the ocean’s surface after large downpours of rain. But the climate of coastal southwest Africa is characterized by a large zone of permanent high pressure, which makes the region very dry with almost no rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Evolving From Land To Sea\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Sea snakes also could become established by making evolutionary transitions from terrestrial or freshwater habitats to marine habitats in the island systems of the Caribbean. We know that \u003ca href=\"http://web.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Elapidae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">elapid snakes\u003c/a> – a family of venomous snakes with short, fixed-front fangs, such as cobras – have done this in the Coral Triangle region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, most of today’s sea snakes originated and evolved into different species in this part of the globe between 2 to 16 million years ago. At that time, this region was a vast wetland complex associated with Southeast Asia and the Australasian archipelago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Land and sea are interlaced throughout the Coral Triangle, and have been so for several million years. This region is also characterized by high rainfall, low and variable water salinity, and relatively stable tropical warm temperatures. Throughout much of its geological past, sea levels rose and fell many times, opening and closing marine corridors and causing mangrove fringes and mud flats to form and disappear. All of these conditions are favorable for evolutionary transitions from land to sea, and stable, shallow marine habitats have persisted for the past 3 million years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1920960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1920960\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p-520x292.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/03/seasnakemap-file-20180307-146661-1tu1o3p.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Coral Triangle covers 5.7 million square miles and is the most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystem on the planet. NOAA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Similar changes occurred in the Caribbean, but the Coral Triangle is a much larger and more complex system. Multiple ancestral lineages of snakes occur in Southeast Asia, and there are four to five times more viviparous (live-bearing), estuarine species within the Coral Triangle than occur in the Caribbean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In my view and that of my co-authors, the presence of appropriate lineages of snakes and a dynamic of ecological conditions favored speciation of sea snakes in the Coral Triangle much more so than in the Caribbean or anywhere else in the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, the Coral Triangle, broadly defined, appears to be the only region where viviparity is characteristic of the majority of estuarine snakes. These snakes live in coastal waters contacting freshwater habitats, and they were most likely to undergo an evolutionary transition from terrestrial or freshwater to marine habitats and give rise to sea snakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Navigating Changing Oceans\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Could future oceanic and weather conditions permit sea snakes to disperse from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean? I believe this is quite unlikely. Thus, we do not expect any sea snake to show up on the beaches of Florida, like those occasional snakes that have drifted to land on beaches in California. There is simply no source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are already signs that some populations and species of sea snakes are in decline or have gone extinct, owing to changes in \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12239/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rainfall patterns\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/52/2/257/673808\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">water temperatures\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2014.06.004.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">environmental contamination\u003c/a> or human exploitation. Future climatic changes might bring negative as well as positive impacts on the biogeography of sea snakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From my own experience watching sea snakes swim with graceful undulations over coral reefs, losing them (or any other marine organism) would be tragic and could threaten the health of coral reefs where sea snakes are top predators and considered to be harbingers of ecosystem change.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91452/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Harvey Lillywhite is Professor of Biology and the Director of Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory at the University of Florida. This article was originally published on \u003ca href=\"http://theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Conversation\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1920952/why-do-sea-snake-species-flourish-in-the-indian-and-pacific-oceans-but-not-in-the-atlantic-or-caribbean","authors":["byline_science_1920952"],"categories":["science_2874","science_31","science_35","science_40","science_2873"],"tags":["science_314","science_248","science_324","science_1155"],"featImg":"science_1920961","label":"source_science_1920952"},"science_99572":{"type":"posts","id":"science_99572","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"99572","score":null,"sort":[1437490812000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"monkey-viruses-predicting-pandemics-with-strawberry-jam","title":"Monkey Viruses: Predicting Pandemics With Strawberry Jam","publishDate":1437490812,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Monkey Viruses: Predicting Pandemics With Strawberry Jam | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>In Africa or Asia, monkeys thrive in urban settings. They roam freely in villages and temples. They raid the local food sources, rummage through garbage, and scrounge for any goodies tourists may be keeping in their bags. And in all this activity, they can pass their germs to humans, raising serious health concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tierra Smiley Evans, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, is implementing a new technique to address viral sharing between humans and primates. She works for a project called \u003ca href=\"http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ohi/predict/\">PREDICT\u003c/a> that aims to prevent diseases that travel from animals to people. Using only nylon rope and strawberry jam, she has figured out a way to get monkeys to happily offer their spit to be screened for contagious viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first time that saliva has been able to be collected non-invasively from wild primates for virus detection,” Smiley says. “This opens up a lot of doors for sampling primate populations that it has not been feasible to sample in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_99788\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 367px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/journal.pntd_.0003813.g003.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-99788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/journal.pntd_.0003813.g003.png\" alt=\"Red-tailed guenon in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"367\" height=\"550\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red-tailed guenon in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smiley tried a similar technique for the first time in 2007, with captive mountain gorillas in Rwanda. But she couldn’t test the technique with wild gorillas because of strict laws against distributing man-made devices (like ropes) to endangered primate species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I could see then, however, that it could have very useful applications with other types of primates,” she says, “in particular those that are living in close proximity to humans and are already behaviorally accustomed to foraging among garbage and other human materials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Older methods of collecting samples from monkeys are not very efficient and require anesthetization. Techniques such as drawing blood or using oral swabs put both the monkeys and the handlers at bodily risk. To complicate matters, the monkeys’ innate intelligence enables them to evade capture when threatened. For a long time now, there has been a need for a better way to safely screen these animals for the harmful pathogens they may carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Do Viruses Get From Monkeys to Humans?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1940 and 2004, \u003ca href=\"http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ohi/local_resources/pdfs/chapters/3_predict_introduction.pdf\">greater than 70 percent\u003c/a> of emerging zoonotic diseases in humans originated in wild animals. And, over time, the incidence of emerging infectious diseases caused by wildlife pathogens has increased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_103186\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 364px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-103186\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png\" alt=\"Rhesus macaque in Kathmandu Nepal's Thapatali temple complex. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"364\" height=\"518\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-400x569.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-800x1138.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-960x1365.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rhesus macaques in Kathmandu, Nepal’s Thapathali temple complex. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some pathogens, such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/herpesbvirus/\">herpes B\u003c/a>, are ubiquitous among certain species of primates and can be contracted by humans through direct contact with saliva–most commonly, through a monkey bite. But a virus can only be passed to humans if the monkey is actively shedding a contagion in their oral cavity. To put it simply, someone bit by a monkey infected with herpes B would not contract the virus if it wasn’t present in the monkey’s mouth during the transgression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other viruses, like \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/yellowfever/transmission/\">yellow fever\u003c/a>, can be passed indirectly among human and non-human primates through mosquito bites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new, non-invasive technique for screening wild primates is now being established as part of a global plan to keep pandemic diseases at bay. Last year, \u003ca href=\"http://www.usaid.gov/\">The United States Agency for International Development\u003c/a> awarded \u003ca href=\"http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=11096\">100 million dollars\u003c/a> to initiate this next stage of the PREDICT project, led by the U.C. Davis \u003ca href=\"http://globalhealth.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/one_health.html\">One Health Institute\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It All Starts in the Lab\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnprc.ucdavis.edu\">California National Primate Research Center\u003c/a>, captive-bred rhesus macaques were given various lengths of jam-covered rope. Many of the ropes were equipped with retrieval strings to make them easier to collect after the monkeys were done chewing on them. After recovering the ropes, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/probe/docs/techpcr/\">saliva could be tested\u003c/a> for primate DNA and RNA viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102571\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 409px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-102571\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png\" alt=\"Researchers tried three different rope materials. Left: nylon oral swab rope, middle: cotton rope, right: nylon rope. Nylon rope works best because RNA viruses degrade very quickly in the environment and cotton does not hold on to them long enough to be sampled. (N. Walker/UC Davis)\" width=\"409\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-400x268.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-800x536.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-960x644.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 409px) 100vw, 409px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers tried three different rope materials. Left: nylon oral swab rope, middle: cotton rope, right: nylon rope. Nylon rope works best because RNA viruses degrade very quickly in the environment and cotton does not hold on to them long enough to be sampled. \u003ccite>(N. Walker/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We tried different kinds of ropes for a couple reasons,” Smiley says. “One was to see if, at first, monkeys had a preference, like for some reason the texture was different, or there was something about it that they didn’t like. Just to see if one was logistically easier to use versus another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out monkeys do have some preferences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The length of the rope made a huge difference in captivity,” Smiley says, “which was really interesting because these monkeys at the primate center, they were born there, they’ve never been in the wild, they’ve never encountered anything looking like a snake. But all of the really long ropes, they were really scared of and they didn’t want anything to do with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The theory is that monkeys have an ingrained, evolutionary fear of anything resembling a snake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104484\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 363px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104484\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png\" alt=\"Nylon rope disguised inside a banana for the baboons in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (O.R. Okello/UC Davis)\" width=\"363\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-400x267.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-800x535.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-960x642.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 363px) 100vw, 363px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nylon rope disguised inside a banana for the baboons in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (O.R. Okello/UC Davis) \u003ccite>(O.R. Okello/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And why strawberry jam?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is simple. Because it is affordable, easy to get anywhere in the world, and the monkeys can’t seem to get enough of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bringing the Rope to the Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With successful results at the primate center, the PREDICT team can now use the same techniques on the free-ranging olive baboons, red-tailed guenons, rhesus macaques, and l’hoest monkeys that populate the villages of Uganda and sacred temples of Nepal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104486\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 385px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104486\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png\" alt=\"Olive baboon in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda chewing on nylon rope disguised inside a banana. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"385\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-400x599.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-800x1198.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-960x1438.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 385px) 100vw, 385px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olive baboon in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda chewing on nylon rope disguised inside a banana. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“All species accepted the ropes with fruit jam applied as an attractant except baboons,” Smiley says in her \u003ca href=\"http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003813\">recent study\u003c/a>. “The rope had to be completely disguised inside a banana in order for them to chew on it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baboons are also wary of the retrieval strings. Team members have to collect the actual chewed rope, which presents a whole new obstacle in making this method commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is important to be able to sample more groups of primates that may be challenging to collect samples from. But on the other hand,” Smiley says, “we want to make sure it’s done very discreetly and that there is no way you attract more human-primate interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smiley’s methods keep evolving. She is currently working on a non-invasive sampling technique which involves gathering chewed plants to test for primate viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an even more non-invasive method,” she says, “because it can be used with endangered species in which ropes can’t be used.”\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A sweet new technique used on primates shows promise in predicting viral outbreaks. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704931539,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":28,"wordCount":1173},"headData":{"title":"Monkey Viruses: Predicting Pandemics With Strawberry Jam | KQED","description":"A sweet new technique used on primates shows promise in predicting viral outbreaks. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Monkey Viruses: Predicting Pandemics With Strawberry Jam","datePublished":"2015-07-21T15:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T00:05:39.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"path":"/science/99572/monkey-viruses-predicting-pandemics-with-strawberry-jam","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In Africa or Asia, monkeys thrive in urban settings. They roam freely in villages and temples. They raid the local food sources, rummage through garbage, and scrounge for any goodies tourists may be keeping in their bags. And in all this activity, they can pass their germs to humans, raising serious health concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tierra Smiley Evans, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, is implementing a new technique to address viral sharing between humans and primates. She works for a project called \u003ca href=\"http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ohi/predict/\">PREDICT\u003c/a> that aims to prevent diseases that travel from animals to people. Using only nylon rope and strawberry jam, she has figured out a way to get monkeys to happily offer their spit to be screened for contagious viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first time that saliva has been able to be collected non-invasively from wild primates for virus detection,” Smiley says. “This opens up a lot of doors for sampling primate populations that it has not been feasible to sample in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_99788\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 367px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/journal.pntd_.0003813.g003.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-99788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/journal.pntd_.0003813.g003.png\" alt=\"Red-tailed guenon in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"367\" height=\"550\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red-tailed guenon in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smiley tried a similar technique for the first time in 2007, with captive mountain gorillas in Rwanda. But she couldn’t test the technique with wild gorillas because of strict laws against distributing man-made devices (like ropes) to endangered primate species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I could see then, however, that it could have very useful applications with other types of primates,” she says, “in particular those that are living in close proximity to humans and are already behaviorally accustomed to foraging among garbage and other human materials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Older methods of collecting samples from monkeys are not very efficient and require anesthetization. Techniques such as drawing blood or using oral swabs put both the monkeys and the handlers at bodily risk. To complicate matters, the monkeys’ innate intelligence enables them to evade capture when threatened. For a long time now, there has been a need for a better way to safely screen these animals for the harmful pathogens they may carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Do Viruses Get From Monkeys to Humans?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1940 and 2004, \u003ca href=\"http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ohi/local_resources/pdfs/chapters/3_predict_introduction.pdf\">greater than 70 percent\u003c/a> of emerging zoonotic diseases in humans originated in wild animals. And, over time, the incidence of emerging infectious diseases caused by wildlife pathogens has increased.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_103186\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 364px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-103186\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png\" alt=\"Rhesus macaque in Kathmandu Nepal's Thapatali temple complex. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"364\" height=\"518\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-400x569.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-800x1138.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Rhesus-macaque-960x1365.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rhesus macaques in Kathmandu, Nepal’s Thapathali temple complex. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some pathogens, such as \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/herpesbvirus/\">herpes B\u003c/a>, are ubiquitous among certain species of primates and can be contracted by humans through direct contact with saliva–most commonly, through a monkey bite. But a virus can only be passed to humans if the monkey is actively shedding a contagion in their oral cavity. To put it simply, someone bit by a monkey infected with herpes B would not contract the virus if it wasn’t present in the monkey’s mouth during the transgression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other viruses, like \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/yellowfever/transmission/\">yellow fever\u003c/a>, can be passed indirectly among human and non-human primates through mosquito bites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new, non-invasive technique for screening wild primates is now being established as part of a global plan to keep pandemic diseases at bay. Last year, \u003ca href=\"http://www.usaid.gov/\">The United States Agency for International Development\u003c/a> awarded \u003ca href=\"http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=11096\">100 million dollars\u003c/a> to initiate this next stage of the PREDICT project, led by the U.C. Davis \u003ca href=\"http://globalhealth.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/one_health.html\">One Health Institute\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It All Starts in the Lab\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnprc.ucdavis.edu\">California National Primate Research Center\u003c/a>, captive-bred rhesus macaques were given various lengths of jam-covered rope. Many of the ropes were equipped with retrieval strings to make them easier to collect after the monkeys were done chewing on them. After recovering the ropes, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/probe/docs/techpcr/\">saliva could be tested\u003c/a> for primate DNA and RNA viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_102571\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 409px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-102571\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png\" alt=\"Researchers tried three different rope materials. Left: nylon oral swab rope, middle: cotton rope, right: nylon rope. Nylon rope works best because RNA viruses degrade very quickly in the environment and cotton does not hold on to them long enough to be sampled. (N. Walker/UC Davis)\" width=\"409\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-400x268.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-800x536.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/Chewing-rope-960x644.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 409px) 100vw, 409px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers tried three different rope materials. Left: nylon oral swab rope, middle: cotton rope, right: nylon rope. Nylon rope works best because RNA viruses degrade very quickly in the environment and cotton does not hold on to them long enough to be sampled. \u003ccite>(N. Walker/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We tried different kinds of ropes for a couple reasons,” Smiley says. “One was to see if, at first, monkeys had a preference, like for some reason the texture was different, or there was something about it that they didn’t like. Just to see if one was logistically easier to use versus another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out monkeys do have some preferences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The length of the rope made a huge difference in captivity,” Smiley says, “which was really interesting because these monkeys at the primate center, they were born there, they’ve never been in the wild, they’ve never encountered anything looking like a snake. But all of the really long ropes, they were really scared of and they didn’t want anything to do with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The theory is that monkeys have an ingrained, evolutionary fear of anything resembling a snake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104484\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 363px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104484\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png\" alt=\"Nylon rope disguised inside a banana for the baboons in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (O.R. Okello/UC Davis)\" width=\"363\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope.png 983w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-400x267.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-800x535.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/bananarope-960x642.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 363px) 100vw, 363px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nylon rope disguised inside a banana for the baboons in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (O.R. Okello/UC Davis) \u003ccite>(O.R. Okello/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And why strawberry jam?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is simple. Because it is affordable, easy to get anywhere in the world, and the monkeys can’t seem to get enough of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bringing the Rope to the Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With successful results at the primate center, the PREDICT team can now use the same techniques on the free-ranging olive baboons, red-tailed guenons, rhesus macaques, and l’hoest monkeys that populate the villages of Uganda and sacred temples of Nepal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_104486\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 385px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104486\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png\" alt=\"Olive baboon in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda chewing on nylon rope disguised inside a banana. (T. Smiley Evans/UC Davis)\" width=\"385\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-400x599.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-800x1198.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/07/baboon-960x1438.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 385px) 100vw, 385px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olive baboon in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda chewing on nylon rope disguised inside a banana. \u003ccite>( T. Smiley Evans/U.C. Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“All species accepted the ropes with fruit jam applied as an attractant except baboons,” Smiley says in her \u003ca href=\"http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003813\">recent study\u003c/a>. “The rope had to be completely disguised inside a banana in order for them to chew on it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baboons are also wary of the retrieval strings. Team members have to collect the actual chewed rope, which presents a whole new obstacle in making this method commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is important to be able to sample more groups of primates that may be challenging to collect samples from. But on the other hand,” Smiley says, “we want to make sure it’s done very discreetly and that there is no way you attract more human-primate interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smiley’s methods keep evolving. She is currently working on a non-invasive sampling technique which involves gathering chewed plants to test for primate viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an even more non-invasive method,” she says, “because it can be used with endangered species in which ropes can’t be used.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/99572/monkey-viruses-predicting-pandemics-with-strawberry-jam","authors":["8640"],"categories":["science_30","science_35","science_39"],"tags":["science_664","science_314"],"featImg":"science_102459","label":"science"},"science_24004":{"type":"posts","id":"science_24004","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"24004","score":null,"sort":[1416405633000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"efforts-to-restore-monarch-butterflies-milkweed-habitats-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good","title":"Efforts to Restore Monarch Butterflies' Milkweed Habitats May Be Doing More Harm Than Good","publishDate":1416405633,"format":"aside","headTitle":"Efforts to Restore Monarch Butterflies’ Milkweed Habitats May Be Doing More Harm Than Good | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchsfeatured1-e1416367400609.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchsfeatured1-e1416367400609.jpg\" alt='Monarchs gather on a \"daisy tree\" for nectar in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Barry Bergman)' width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24021\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarchs gather on a “daisy tree” for nectar in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Barry Bergman)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Humans have not been kind to animal migrations. Relentless hunting over a century ago ensured that we will never watch billions of passenger pigeons turn day to night as they pass overhead or hundreds of thousands of bison disappear in clouds of dust as they thunder across the prairie. Today, we risk losing what some consider the most spectacular journey of all – the mutigenerational migration of the monarch butterfly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So many eastern monarchs once congregated in the Mexican forests where they spend the winter that observers likened the sound of their fluttering wings to a rippling stream. Even the much smaller western monarch population once clustered in masses dense enough to break branches on California’s coastal trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past 20 years, both populations have declined by over 90 percent. And in a classic case of good intentions gone awry, efforts to help the beleaguered butterflies may be inadvertently making matters worse by changing their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Growing threats\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deforestation in Mexico and development along California’s coast have destroyed much of the monarch’s winter habitat. But the widespread loss of breeding habitat — which for monarchs means milkweed, the only thing their caterpillars eat — poses a much bigger threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Midwest, where half of Mexico’s overwintering monarchs are born, nearly 60 percent of native milkweeds disappeared, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2012.00196.x/abstract\">a 2012 study in Insect Conservation and Diversity\u003c/a> found, coinciding with increased use of glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup, on expanded plantings of crops genetically altered to tolerate the weed killer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLItUuuMGiY\u003cbr>\n \u003cbr>\nGlyphosate is also widely used in the West. In California, it ranked among the top 10 most used pesticides in 2012 (the last year reported). Its use will likely increase as growers plant more Roundup-ready cotton and alfalfa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When conservation groups launched campaigns to plant milkweed in gardens, along roadsides and anywhere monarchs might find it, butterfly lovers responded in droves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s amazing how many people have milkweed gardens,” says Francis X. Villablanca, a professor of biology at California Polytechnic University who studies overwintering monarchs. “Whole networks of people will go by the nursery and let all the people in the network know when the milkweed comes in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24011\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 658px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchgraph2-1024x566.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-24011\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchgraph2-1024x566.png\" alt=\"Overwintering monarchs populations along California's coasts declined by 90 percent since a high of 1.2 million in 1997. (Graph courtesy Xerces Society)\" width=\"658\" height=\"351\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Overwintering monarch populations along California’s coasts have collapsed since 1997. Estimates for fall 2013 represent 50 percent of the 17-year average. (Graph courtesy Xerces Society)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But scientists fear that some of these good-hearted efforts may be doing more harm than good. That’s because not all milkweed is created equal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Law of unintended consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarchs that migrate are the\u003ca href=\"http://www.monarchbutterflyfund.org/node/148\"> final generation\u003c/a> of summer breeders. Those born before them have one job: reproduce. They lay about 400 eggs within a month, then die. The last generation has a job too: travel thousands of miles to overwintering sites. They’re born in a nonreproductive state to conserve energy for the flight and the five-month wait until spring returns to their breeding grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarchs coevolved with perennial natives that emerge in spring when monarchs are ready to breed and die back in fall when it’s time to migrate. Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is not native to California and doesn’t act like its native counterpart: it’s still going strong when the natives disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24012\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Asclepias_curassavica13-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24012\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Asclepias_curassavica13-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is a favorite in butterfly gardens because it's pretty and easy to grow. (Photo: Kurt Stüber via Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is a favorite in butterfly gardens because it’s pretty and easy to grow. (Photo: Kurt Stüber via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because it’s pretty, easy to grow and the most widely available milkweed species in commercial nurseries, it’s become the go-to plant in butterfly gardens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if butterflies find it out of season and start breeding, recent research shows, they’re giving an old foe – a debilitating protozoan parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) – the chance to flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults infected with OE can drop millions of spores on milkweed, which caterpillars ingest along with leaves. Mildly infected monarchs may look fine but can’t fly or reproduce well and die early. Infested larvae may fail to emerge from their chrysalis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Work by Sonia Altizer, a disease ecologist at the University of Georgia, has shown that when generation after generation of monarchs breed on the same plants along the Gulf Coast, parasite levels can skyrocket. Continuous breeding risks losing what Altizer calls a key benefit of migration: limiting parasite numbers by allowing monarchs to escape contaminated plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t help that monarchs tend to lay far more eggs on tropical milkweed — typically grown in dense clusters — thereby exposing more caterpillars. Beyond falling prey to parasites, caterpillars born in winter could freeze during a cold snap. And with females laying so many eggs, caterpillars may starve to death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villablanca first saw winter-breeding butterflies in California last December. “It’s very surprising to see them breeding when they should be overwintering,” he says. “They’ve done the migration, so that part has clicked in. But why they’re reproductive is not really clear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24023\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Lone-Monarch1-1024x819.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Lone-Monarch1-1024x819.jpg\" alt='A monarch draws nectar from a \"daisy tree\" in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Liza Gross)' width=\"1024\" height=\"819\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24023\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A monarch draws nectar from a “daisy tree” in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Liza Gross)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than 90 percent of the unseasonal breeding is happening on tropical milkweed in backyard gardens, Villablanca says. He’s trying to figure out if the breeders belong to a previously undetected non-migratory population or if they’re overwintering migrants that cluster in colonies to stay warm at night and then breed during the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re breeding year-round, disease could pose a dangerous threat to the West’s monarchs, already in serious decline. In preliminary work, Villablanca found higher OE levels in butterflies collected from tropical milkweed gardens than from those sampled at overwintering sites. He worries that monarchs could emerge from these gardens infested and then fly to overwintering sites and spread disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the drastic declines in milkweed remain the monarch’s biggest threat and scientists are grateful that so many people want to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you have tropical milkweed in your garden, help it behave like a native: cut it back during the fall and winter. Better yet, ask your local native plant society which species are native to your area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last thing scientists want to do is discourage monarch enthusiasts from helping the imperiled butterflies. “We have concerns but we don’t want to spook people,” Villablanca says. “We’re really trying to help them figure out what’s the right thing to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What you can do to help monarchs:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Plant native milkweed\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Contact the\u003ca href=\"http://www.cnps.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> California Native Plant Society\u003c/a> to find milkweeds native to your area.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Provide nectar plants\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe \u003ca href=\"http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pollinator Partnership\u003c/a> locates native plants by zip code.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Avoid pesticides\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nPesticides kill monarchs throughout the life cycle.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Become a citizen scientist \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nScientists need data to understand all stages of the monarch’s annual cycle. Contact \u003ca href=\"http://monarchjointventure.org/get-involved/study-monarchs-citizen-science-opportunities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monarch Joint Venture\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.monarchparasites.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monarch Health\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.xerces.org/western-monarchs/\">The Xerces Society\u003c/a> to find out how you can contribute.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>You can view overwintering monarchs at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=251\">Monarch Grove Sanctuary\u003c/a> in Pacific Grove. For more information, see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/science/monarchs-may-be-loved-to-death.html\">For the Monarch Butterfly, a Long Road Back\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Migratory monarch butterfly populations have fallen into a tailspin in recent years. Scientists fear that in a classic case of good intentions gone awry, efforts to help the beleaguered butterflies may be inadvertently making matters worse by changing their behavior.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704932596,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":27,"wordCount":1255},"headData":{"title":"Efforts to Restore Monarch Butterflies' Milkweed Habitats May Be Doing More Harm Than Good | KQED","description":"Migratory monarch butterfly populations have fallen into a tailspin in recent years. Scientists fear that in a classic case of good intentions gone awry, efforts to help the beleaguered butterflies may be inadvertently making matters worse by changing their behavior.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Efforts to Restore Monarch Butterflies' Milkweed Habitats May Be Doing More Harm Than Good","datePublished":"2014-11-19T14:00:33.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T00:23:16.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"path":"/science/24004/efforts-to-restore-monarch-butterflies-milkweed-habitats-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchsfeatured1-e1416367400609.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchsfeatured1-e1416367400609.jpg\" alt='Monarchs gather on a \"daisy tree\" for nectar in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Barry Bergman)' width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24021\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarchs gather on a “daisy tree” for nectar in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Barry Bergman)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Humans have not been kind to animal migrations. Relentless hunting over a century ago ensured that we will never watch billions of passenger pigeons turn day to night as they pass overhead or hundreds of thousands of bison disappear in clouds of dust as they thunder across the prairie. Today, we risk losing what some consider the most spectacular journey of all – the mutigenerational migration of the monarch butterfly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So many eastern monarchs once congregated in the Mexican forests where they spend the winter that observers likened the sound of their fluttering wings to a rippling stream. Even the much smaller western monarch population once clustered in masses dense enough to break branches on California’s coastal trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past 20 years, both populations have declined by over 90 percent. And in a classic case of good intentions gone awry, efforts to help the beleaguered butterflies may be inadvertently making matters worse by changing their behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Growing threats\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deforestation in Mexico and development along California’s coast have destroyed much of the monarch’s winter habitat. But the widespread loss of breeding habitat — which for monarchs means milkweed, the only thing their caterpillars eat — poses a much bigger threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Midwest, where half of Mexico’s overwintering monarchs are born, nearly 60 percent of native milkweeds disappeared, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2012.00196.x/abstract\">a 2012 study in Insect Conservation and Diversity\u003c/a> found, coinciding with increased use of glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup, on expanded plantings of crops genetically altered to tolerate the weed killer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLItUuuMGiY\u003cbr>\n \u003cbr>\nGlyphosate is also widely used in the West. In California, it ranked among the top 10 most used pesticides in 2012 (the last year reported). Its use will likely increase as growers plant more Roundup-ready cotton and alfalfa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When conservation groups launched campaigns to plant milkweed in gardens, along roadsides and anywhere monarchs might find it, butterfly lovers responded in droves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s amazing how many people have milkweed gardens,” says Francis X. Villablanca, a professor of biology at California Polytechnic University who studies overwintering monarchs. “Whole networks of people will go by the nursery and let all the people in the network know when the milkweed comes in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24011\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 658px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchgraph2-1024x566.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-24011\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/monarchgraph2-1024x566.png\" alt=\"Overwintering monarchs populations along California's coasts declined by 90 percent since a high of 1.2 million in 1997. (Graph courtesy Xerces Society)\" width=\"658\" height=\"351\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Overwintering monarch populations along California’s coasts have collapsed since 1997. Estimates for fall 2013 represent 50 percent of the 17-year average. (Graph courtesy Xerces Society)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But scientists fear that some of these good-hearted efforts may be doing more harm than good. That’s because not all milkweed is created equal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Law of unintended consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarchs that migrate are the\u003ca href=\"http://www.monarchbutterflyfund.org/node/148\"> final generation\u003c/a> of summer breeders. Those born before them have one job: reproduce. They lay about 400 eggs within a month, then die. The last generation has a job too: travel thousands of miles to overwintering sites. They’re born in a nonreproductive state to conserve energy for the flight and the five-month wait until spring returns to their breeding grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monarchs coevolved with perennial natives that emerge in spring when monarchs are ready to breed and die back in fall when it’s time to migrate. Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is not native to California and doesn’t act like its native counterpart: it’s still going strong when the natives disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24012\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Asclepias_curassavica13-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24012\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Asclepias_curassavica13-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is a favorite in butterfly gardens because it's pretty and easy to grow. (Photo: Kurt Stüber via Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is a favorite in butterfly gardens because it’s pretty and easy to grow. (Photo: Kurt Stüber via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because it’s pretty, easy to grow and the most widely available milkweed species in commercial nurseries, it’s become the go-to plant in butterfly gardens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if butterflies find it out of season and start breeding, recent research shows, they’re giving an old foe – a debilitating protozoan parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) – the chance to flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults infected with OE can drop millions of spores on milkweed, which caterpillars ingest along with leaves. Mildly infected monarchs may look fine but can’t fly or reproduce well and die early. Infested larvae may fail to emerge from their chrysalis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Work by Sonia Altizer, a disease ecologist at the University of Georgia, has shown that when generation after generation of monarchs breed on the same plants along the Gulf Coast, parasite levels can skyrocket. Continuous breeding risks losing what Altizer calls a key benefit of migration: limiting parasite numbers by allowing monarchs to escape contaminated plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t help that monarchs tend to lay far more eggs on tropical milkweed — typically grown in dense clusters — thereby exposing more caterpillars. Beyond falling prey to parasites, caterpillars born in winter could freeze during a cold snap. And with females laying so many eggs, caterpillars may starve to death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villablanca first saw winter-breeding butterflies in California last December. “It’s very surprising to see them breeding when they should be overwintering,” he says. “They’ve done the migration, so that part has clicked in. But why they’re reproductive is not really clear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24023\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Lone-Monarch1-1024x819.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Lone-Monarch1-1024x819.jpg\" alt='A monarch draws nectar from a \"daisy tree\" in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Liza Gross)' width=\"1024\" height=\"819\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24023\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A monarch draws nectar from a “daisy tree” in the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove. (Photo: Liza Gross)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than 90 percent of the unseasonal breeding is happening on tropical milkweed in backyard gardens, Villablanca says. He’s trying to figure out if the breeders belong to a previously undetected non-migratory population or if they’re overwintering migrants that cluster in colonies to stay warm at night and then breed during the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re breeding year-round, disease could pose a dangerous threat to the West’s monarchs, already in serious decline. In preliminary work, Villablanca found higher OE levels in butterflies collected from tropical milkweed gardens than from those sampled at overwintering sites. He worries that monarchs could emerge from these gardens infested and then fly to overwintering sites and spread disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the drastic declines in milkweed remain the monarch’s biggest threat and scientists are grateful that so many people want to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you have tropical milkweed in your garden, help it behave like a native: cut it back during the fall and winter. Better yet, ask your local native plant society which species are native to your area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last thing scientists want to do is discourage monarch enthusiasts from helping the imperiled butterflies. “We have concerns but we don’t want to spook people,” Villablanca says. “We’re really trying to help them figure out what’s the right thing to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What you can do to help monarchs:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Plant native milkweed\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Contact the\u003ca href=\"http://www.cnps.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> California Native Plant Society\u003c/a> to find milkweeds native to your area.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Provide nectar plants\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe \u003ca href=\"http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pollinator Partnership\u003c/a> locates native plants by zip code.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Avoid pesticides\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nPesticides kill monarchs throughout the life cycle.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul style=\"color: #000000\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Become a citizen scientist \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nScientists need data to understand all stages of the monarch’s annual cycle. Contact \u003ca href=\"http://monarchjointventure.org/get-involved/study-monarchs-citizen-science-opportunities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monarch Joint Venture\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.monarchparasites.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monarch Health\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.xerces.org/western-monarchs/\">The Xerces Society\u003c/a> to find out how you can contribute.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>You can view overwintering monarchs at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=251\">Monarch Grove Sanctuary\u003c/a> in Pacific Grove. For more information, see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/science/monarchs-may-be-loved-to-death.html\">For the Monarch Butterfly, a Long Road Back\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/24004/efforts-to-restore-monarch-butterflies-milkweed-habitats-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good","authors":["6322"],"categories":["science_30","science_35"],"tags":["science_205","science_314","science_2053","science_311"],"featImg":"science_24021","label":"science"},"science_13629":{"type":"posts","id":"science_13629","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"13629","score":null,"sort":[1391448398000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"helping-to-heal-the-san-francisco-bay-delta-watershed-through-art","title":"Using Art to Imagine a Restored Bay Delta Watershed","publishDate":1391448398,"format":"aside","headTitle":"Using Art to Imagine a Restored Bay Delta Watershed | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13659\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/LowerYuba_640x360.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13659\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13659 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/LowerYuba_640x360.jpg\" alt=\"A restored view of the Lower Yuba river in the Sacramento Valley by Mona Carron.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An imagined restoration of the Lower Yuba river in the Sacramento Valley by artist Mona Caron\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Karl Cronin\" href=\"http://karlcronin.com/\">Karl Cronin\u003c/a>, an angular young man with hair like marsh grass, walked onto the stage, pushed up his sleeves, and began sculpting the air to a soundtrack of birds, wind, and water. Then, joined by \u003ca title=\"Americana Orchestra\" href=\"http://americanaorchestra.com/\">three violins and a cello\u003c/a>, he transformed us all into water molecules. We kept company in a reservoir, evaporated into rain, and became groundwater:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>how we sank\u003cbr>\nhow we fell\u003cbr>\nhow we learned of the mineral\u003cbr>\nhow we learned of the root\u003cbr>\nthe Willow, the Poplar, the Dogwood\u003cbr>\nthe fecund beauty of this boundless decay\u003cbr>\nthe great yield of soil\u003cbr>\ngiven life by our motion\u003cbr>\nthrough the pores of breathing stones\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13663\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 269px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/watershedmap-4sections-callouts.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13663\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13663 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/watershedmap-4sections-callouts.jpg\" alt=\"The San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed, from epa.gov\" width=\"269\" height=\"297\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed, which contains numerous sub-watersheds. Credit: epa.gov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This striking performance opened the fourth Bay Area Art and Science Interdisciplinary Collaborative Session (\u003ca title=\"BAASICS.4 Watershed\" href=\"http://www.baasics.com/category/events/\">BAASICS.4\u003c/a>) at ODC Theater in San Francisco on January 18th. It was an evening of presentations by artists and scientists—many of whom blur the distinction—about the San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watersheds are a type of geographic organization—but that makes them sound so (if you’ll forgive the expression) \u003cem>dry\u003c/em>. They are tapestries of interwoven lives—that’s better. All life depends on water, and all water flows to the sea. A watershed contains all the land whose rainfall eventually joins the ocean at a single outlet: for example, under the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed (so named because the waters of the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River pool in an inland delta before flowing out to the Bay) is \u003cem>enormous\u003c/em>. It stretches from Oregon to Bakersfield. It has also been \u003cem>enormously\u003c/em> altered, from the days of industrial gold mining to the re-engineering of the Central Valley for large-scale agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many other Bay Area residents, I enjoy reservoir water, Central Valley crops, and hydroelectric power. But we also all suffer from \u003ca title=\"EPA Challenges to SF Bay Delta Watershed\" href=\"http://www2.epa.gov/sfbay-delta/what-are-challenges\">unintended consequences\u003c/a>: groundwater pollution, loss of waterbirds and salmon, increased susceptibility to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13699\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 614px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/englebright_composite-1024x384.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13699\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-13699 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/englebright_composite-1024x384.jpg\" alt=\"A view of Englebright Dam, on the left, and a drawing what the area could look like without it, by Mona Carron\" width=\"614\" height=\"230\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Englebright Dam, on the left, and what the area could look like without it by Mona Caron.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Volunteer, non-profit and government efforts have done a great deal to restore the watershed, and they aim to do more. But according to Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist with \u003ca title=\"The Watershed Project\" href=\"http://www.thewatershedproject.org/home.php\">The Watershed Project\u003c/a>, “Cultural healing is needed before watershed healing.” Having worked extensively with indigenous tribes, whose very language “evolved out of the place itself,” Hitchcock sees a need for the non-indigenous people of the Bay Area to plant their roots more deeply, to really inhabit the land and engage in “genuine long-term stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13664\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 261px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/GaryHedden-water-image_2-13-12-261x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13664\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13664 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/GaryHedden-water-image_2-13-12-261x162.jpg\" alt=\"Thicket by Daniel McCormick and Mary O'Brien, photo by Gary Hedden\" width=\"261\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thicket by Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien, photo by Gary Hedden\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Art can fuel such a cultural shift. Cronin’s work, for example, turns intellectual concepts into intimate connections, awakening in us a love and a reverence for the water we all share. And the work of \u003ca title=\"Watershed Sculpture\" href=\"http://watershedsculpture.com/\">watershed sculptors\u003c/a> Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien actively restores the environment. Their installation “\u003ca title=\"Thicket Video\" href=\"http://vimeo.com/85013719\">Thicket\u003c/a>,” an elaborate weaving of live native willow, is currently healing Adobe Creek in Los Altos’ \u003ca title=\"Redwood Grove Nature Preserve\" href=\"http://www.losaltosca.gov/recreation/page/redwood-grove-nature-preserve\">Redwood Grove Nature Preserve\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The creek bed is dry right now, so you can walk over the gravel-strewn floodplain and touch the green branches that whip out enthusiastically, bearing the first buds of spring. Over the years, Thicket will accumulate silt and organic debris, composting it to feed the native plants as they grow and anchor the stream bank. Eventually, the shape itself will disappear–but its ecological impact will remain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a century and a half of environmental damage, projects like Thicket are restorative to our spirits as well as to the watershed. “Humans are an inseparable part of the ecology,” says Hitchcock. “Our psychological and spiritual well-being are a piece of watershed health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>For more work by artist Mona Caron, visit http://www.monacaron.com/\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed is enormous. It has also been enormously altered. Volunteer, non-profit and government efforts have all done a great deal to restore the watershed. But according to Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist with The Watershed Project, “Cultural healing is needed before watershed healing.”","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704934264,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":13,"wordCount":692},"headData":{"title":"Using Art to Imagine a Restored Bay Delta Watershed | KQED","description":"The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed is enormous. It has also been enormously altered. Volunteer, non-profit and government efforts have all done a great deal to restore the watershed. But according to Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist with The Watershed Project, “Cultural healing is needed before watershed healing.”","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Using Art to Imagine a Restored Bay Delta Watershed","datePublished":"2014-02-03T17:26:38.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T00:51:04.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"path":"/science/13629/helping-to-heal-the-san-francisco-bay-delta-watershed-through-art","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13659\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/LowerYuba_640x360.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13659\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13659 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/LowerYuba_640x360.jpg\" alt=\"A restored view of the Lower Yuba river in the Sacramento Valley by Mona Carron.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An imagined restoration of the Lower Yuba river in the Sacramento Valley by artist Mona Caron\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Karl Cronin\" href=\"http://karlcronin.com/\">Karl Cronin\u003c/a>, an angular young man with hair like marsh grass, walked onto the stage, pushed up his sleeves, and began sculpting the air to a soundtrack of birds, wind, and water. Then, joined by \u003ca title=\"Americana Orchestra\" href=\"http://americanaorchestra.com/\">three violins and a cello\u003c/a>, he transformed us all into water molecules. We kept company in a reservoir, evaporated into rain, and became groundwater:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>how we sank\u003cbr>\nhow we fell\u003cbr>\nhow we learned of the mineral\u003cbr>\nhow we learned of the root\u003cbr>\nthe Willow, the Poplar, the Dogwood\u003cbr>\nthe fecund beauty of this boundless decay\u003cbr>\nthe great yield of soil\u003cbr>\ngiven life by our motion\u003cbr>\nthrough the pores of breathing stones\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13663\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 269px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/watershedmap-4sections-callouts.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13663\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13663 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/watershedmap-4sections-callouts.jpg\" alt=\"The San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed, from epa.gov\" width=\"269\" height=\"297\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed, which contains numerous sub-watersheds. Credit: epa.gov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This striking performance opened the fourth Bay Area Art and Science Interdisciplinary Collaborative Session (\u003ca title=\"BAASICS.4 Watershed\" href=\"http://www.baasics.com/category/events/\">BAASICS.4\u003c/a>) at ODC Theater in San Francisco on January 18th. It was an evening of presentations by artists and scientists—many of whom blur the distinction—about the San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watersheds are a type of geographic organization—but that makes them sound so (if you’ll forgive the expression) \u003cem>dry\u003c/em>. They are tapestries of interwoven lives—that’s better. All life depends on water, and all water flows to the sea. A watershed contains all the land whose rainfall eventually joins the ocean at a single outlet: for example, under the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed (so named because the waters of the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River pool in an inland delta before flowing out to the Bay) is \u003cem>enormous\u003c/em>. It stretches from Oregon to Bakersfield. It has also been \u003cem>enormously\u003c/em> altered, from the days of industrial gold mining to the re-engineering of the Central Valley for large-scale agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many other Bay Area residents, I enjoy reservoir water, Central Valley crops, and hydroelectric power. But we also all suffer from \u003ca title=\"EPA Challenges to SF Bay Delta Watershed\" href=\"http://www2.epa.gov/sfbay-delta/what-are-challenges\">unintended consequences\u003c/a>: groundwater pollution, loss of waterbirds and salmon, increased susceptibility to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13699\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 614px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/englebright_composite-1024x384.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13699\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-13699 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/englebright_composite-1024x384.jpg\" alt=\"A view of Englebright Dam, on the left, and a drawing what the area could look like without it, by Mona Carron\" width=\"614\" height=\"230\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of Englebright Dam, on the left, and what the area could look like without it by Mona Caron.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Volunteer, non-profit and government efforts have done a great deal to restore the watershed, and they aim to do more. But according to Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist with \u003ca title=\"The Watershed Project\" href=\"http://www.thewatershedproject.org/home.php\">The Watershed Project\u003c/a>, “Cultural healing is needed before watershed healing.” Having worked extensively with indigenous tribes, whose very language “evolved out of the place itself,” Hitchcock sees a need for the non-indigenous people of the Bay Area to plant their roots more deeply, to really inhabit the land and engage in “genuine long-term stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13664\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 261px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/GaryHedden-water-image_2-13-12-261x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13664\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13664 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/GaryHedden-water-image_2-13-12-261x162.jpg\" alt=\"Thicket by Daniel McCormick and Mary O'Brien, photo by Gary Hedden\" width=\"261\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thicket by Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien, photo by Gary Hedden\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Art can fuel such a cultural shift. Cronin’s work, for example, turns intellectual concepts into intimate connections, awakening in us a love and a reverence for the water we all share. And the work of \u003ca title=\"Watershed Sculpture\" href=\"http://watershedsculpture.com/\">watershed sculptors\u003c/a> Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien actively restores the environment. Their installation “\u003ca title=\"Thicket Video\" href=\"http://vimeo.com/85013719\">Thicket\u003c/a>,” an elaborate weaving of live native willow, is currently healing Adobe Creek in Los Altos’ \u003ca title=\"Redwood Grove Nature Preserve\" href=\"http://www.losaltosca.gov/recreation/page/redwood-grove-nature-preserve\">Redwood Grove Nature Preserve\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The creek bed is dry right now, so you can walk over the gravel-strewn floodplain and touch the green branches that whip out enthusiastically, bearing the first buds of spring. Over the years, Thicket will accumulate silt and organic debris, composting it to feed the native plants as they grow and anchor the stream bank. Eventually, the shape itself will disappear–but its ecological impact will remain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a century and a half of environmental damage, projects like Thicket are restorative to our spirits as well as to the watershed. “Humans are an inseparable part of the ecology,” says Hitchcock. “Our psychological and spiritual well-being are a piece of watershed health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>For more work by artist Mona Caron, visit http://www.monacaron.com/\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/13629/helping-to-heal-the-san-francisco-bay-delta-watershed-through-art","authors":["6324"],"categories":["science_35","science_98"],"tags":["science_635","science_314","science_179","science_201","science_207"],"featImg":"science_13659","label":"science"},"science_8537":{"type":"posts","id":"science_8537","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"8537","score":null,"sort":[1379102436000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"science-on-the-spot-chasing-pumas","title":"Science on the SPOT: Chasing Pumas","publishDate":1379102436,"format":"video","headTitle":"Science on the SPOT: Chasing Pumas | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":66,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>Call them pumas, mountain lions, cougars, panthers, or any other of their various monikers; the sight of one of these full-grown cats staring down at you from a nearby tree is undeniably exhilarating. As ambush predators, pumas are professional hiders, and even regular visitors to puma habitat will likely go their entire lives without ever catching sight of North America’s largest cat. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8590\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 180px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Houghtaling_7f-180x320.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Houghtaling_7f-180x320.jpg\" alt=\"GPS tracking collars shed light into the mysterious lifestyles of this apex predator. Photo by Paul Houghtailing, Santa Cruz Puma Project.\" width=\"180\" height=\"320\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8590\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">GPS tracking collars shed light into the mysterious lifestyles of this apex predator. Photo by Paul Houghtailing, Santa Cruz Puma Project. \u003cem>Click on image to see a larger size.\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a beautiful summer day, we had the opportunity to follow Field Biologist Paul Houghtaling of the \u003ca href=\"http://santacruzpumas.org/\">Santa Cruz Puma Project\u003c/a> (SCPP) as he searched the rough back roads of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.livinglandscapeinitiative.org/news/CEMEX-Redwoods.php\">CEMEX Redwoods Property\u003c/a> in Davenport, CA. Lead by Chris Wilmers, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at University of California Santa Cruz, the team has gained renown for their work tracking the big cats in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as well as some \u003ca href=\"http://santacruzpumas.org/2013/05/16/the-downtown-puma-39m/\">high profile captures\u003c/a> of pumas that ventured too close to human habitations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an apex predator in our Northern California region, mountain lions have huge home ranges. While mother pumas will remain in one area to raise their kittens, pumas generally patrol their territories without making use of any den or other home base. Paul informed us that female mountain lions tend to set their ranges depending on prey availability, which in the Santa Cruz Mountains tends to be deer. Adult males create their home ranges to include female mountain lions and exclude other males. The remaining young male pumas are forced to disperse and seek new territories, and it is often these individuals that get into trouble with humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8613\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Mark-and-paul-antennae-640x360-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Mark-and-paul-antennae-640x360-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"Paul Houghtaling and Pilot Mark Dedon secure radio antennas used to upload GPS and accelerometer data from the collared pumas. Photo by Josh Cassidy/KQED\" width=\"288\" height=\"162\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8613\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Houghtaling and Pilot Mark Dedon secure radio antennas used to upload GPS and accelerometer data from the collared pumas. Photo by Josh Cassidy/KQED. \u003cem>Click on image to see a larger size.\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we made our way through the redwoods, Paul occasionally slowed and peered out through the side window of the truck, surveying the dust that accumulates in the inside of the curves of the dirt roads. Traveling pumas rarely obey traffic rules, and tend to cut corners when walking along roads. Paul searched there for footprints and other telltale mountain lion signs. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team employs several other techniques to determine if lions are in the area. This includes laying out road-killed deer with GPS tags in areas thought to be big cat territory. If a hungry lion moves the deer, the GPS tag sends an email to the team, who then head out to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">After a few hours of searching, Dan’s voice finally crackled over the radio. His dogs had tracked and treed an adult puma.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Once pumas reach adulthood, they live solitary lives, but still need to communicate with each other. One of the main ways they do so is by making ‘scrapes.’ Pumas, particularly adult males, will dig small holes and then urinate on the pile of loose soil created by the digging. Other pumas that frequent the area can interpret the chemical signal to gather information about the cat’s identity and reproductive status based on the signature proteins left behind. Pumas tend to make scrapes in the same areas over time, making it easier for other pumas (and intrepid field biologists) to find learn about which lions are in the area. The research team sets up camera traps in these areas in order to document which cats are have taken up residence in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7icpaPB_Xbw&w=640&h=360\u003cbr>\nDan Tichenor, from California Houndsmen for Conservation and his best dog, Osage, a Plott Hound. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul had memorized the location of several scrapes in the area, and part of his normal search routine is to stop by these areas and look for fresh activity. As he searched, he would regularly make attempts to hail Dan Tichenor, a volunteer from \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiahoundsmen.com/\">California Houndsmen for Conservation\u003c/a>, by radio. Dan had been on the property since before dawn with his pack of specially-bred and -trained hunting dogs. In this mountainous terrain, the radios were unreliable at best, and cell phones were of no use. After a few hours of searching, Dan’s voice finally crackled over the radio. His dogs had tracked and treed an adult puma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8797\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Kitten-640x360-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Kitten-640x360-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"In June of 2013, puma 38F gave birth to a litter of three kittens. Photo by Paul Houghtaling/Santa Cruz Puma Project \" width=\"288\" height=\"162\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8797\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In June of 2013, puma 38F gave birth to a litter of three kittens. Photo by Paul Houghtaling/Santa Cruz Puma Project\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We hightailed it to Dan’s location, where Paul was able to capture the puma using a tranquilizer dart fired from a rifle. From the ground, the puma resembled a male lion that had been seen in the area, but when the team got the cat on the ground, it was obvious that this cat, dubbed 38F, was a female. Months later, Paul found 38F again, but this time she was not alone. She had given birth to three healthy kittens. The Santa Cruz Puma Project aims to track these kittens’ location and behavior for their entire lives to learn more about how they use their habitat and how their behavior changes when they come close to human dwellings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain lion populations had declined substantially in the California before they were protected from in the 1970’s. Before that time, hunters were offered a bounty for each puma killed. Since hunting pumas was outlawed, their population has rebounded. Today, they face a new problem. Humans have developed large areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains, building homes, farms and roads in the historical puma habitat. This has lead to an increase in conflicts between humans and the big cats, with pumas often finding themselves on the losing end. Today, the biggest threats to pumas include car strikes, and are targeted by citizens who seek depredation licenses to rid their property of pumas deemed problematic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new bill, signed into law last week by Governor Jerry Brown will have a substantial effect on California pumas. The bill, SB132 proposed by State Senator Jerry Hill (D.) requires that nonlethal procedures be used to remove any mountain lion that has not been “designated as an imminent threat to public health and safety.” It also authorizes the California Department of Fish and Game to partner with other groups, such as the Santa Cruz Puma Project, to carry out the non-lethal removal of pumas that find themselves too close to humans. With luck, this new bill will make it easier for humans and mountain lions to coexist as their territories continue to overlap.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Join a research team from University of California, Santa Cruz as they track, tranquilize and collar a wild puma. The special GPS collars collect data on the puma’s location and behavior, and they reveal how the big cats survive in their shrinking habitat in the Bay Area.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704935056,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":12,"wordCount":1114},"headData":{"title":"Science on the SPOT: Chasing Pumas | KQED","description":"Join a research team from University of California, Santa Cruz as they track, tranquilize and collar a wild puma. The special GPS collars collect data on the puma’s location and behavior, and they reveal how the big cats survive in their shrinking habitat in the Bay Area.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Science on the SPOT: Chasing Pumas","datePublished":"2013-09-13T20:00:36.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T01:04:16.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"videoEmbed":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQyh13LOmnM","sticky":false,"path":"/science/8537/science-on-the-spot-chasing-pumas","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Call them pumas, mountain lions, cougars, panthers, or any other of their various monikers; the sight of one of these full-grown cats staring down at you from a nearby tree is undeniably exhilarating. As ambush predators, pumas are professional hiders, and even regular visitors to puma habitat will likely go their entire lives without ever catching sight of North America’s largest cat. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8590\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 180px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Houghtaling_7f-180x320.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Houghtaling_7f-180x320.jpg\" alt=\"GPS tracking collars shed light into the mysterious lifestyles of this apex predator. Photo by Paul Houghtailing, Santa Cruz Puma Project.\" width=\"180\" height=\"320\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8590\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">GPS tracking collars shed light into the mysterious lifestyles of this apex predator. Photo by Paul Houghtailing, Santa Cruz Puma Project. \u003cem>Click on image to see a larger size.\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a beautiful summer day, we had the opportunity to follow Field Biologist Paul Houghtaling of the \u003ca href=\"http://santacruzpumas.org/\">Santa Cruz Puma Project\u003c/a> (SCPP) as he searched the rough back roads of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.livinglandscapeinitiative.org/news/CEMEX-Redwoods.php\">CEMEX Redwoods Property\u003c/a> in Davenport, CA. Lead by Chris Wilmers, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at University of California Santa Cruz, the team has gained renown for their work tracking the big cats in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as well as some \u003ca href=\"http://santacruzpumas.org/2013/05/16/the-downtown-puma-39m/\">high profile captures\u003c/a> of pumas that ventured too close to human habitations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As an apex predator in our Northern California region, mountain lions have huge home ranges. While mother pumas will remain in one area to raise their kittens, pumas generally patrol their territories without making use of any den or other home base. Paul informed us that female mountain lions tend to set their ranges depending on prey availability, which in the Santa Cruz Mountains tends to be deer. Adult males create their home ranges to include female mountain lions and exclude other males. The remaining young male pumas are forced to disperse and seek new territories, and it is often these individuals that get into trouble with humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8613\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Mark-and-paul-antennae-640x360-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Mark-and-paul-antennae-640x360-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"Paul Houghtaling and Pilot Mark Dedon secure radio antennas used to upload GPS and accelerometer data from the collared pumas. Photo by Josh Cassidy/KQED\" width=\"288\" height=\"162\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8613\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Houghtaling and Pilot Mark Dedon secure radio antennas used to upload GPS and accelerometer data from the collared pumas. Photo by Josh Cassidy/KQED. \u003cem>Click on image to see a larger size.\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we made our way through the redwoods, Paul occasionally slowed and peered out through the side window of the truck, surveying the dust that accumulates in the inside of the curves of the dirt roads. Traveling pumas rarely obey traffic rules, and tend to cut corners when walking along roads. Paul searched there for footprints and other telltale mountain lion signs. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team employs several other techniques to determine if lions are in the area. This includes laying out road-killed deer with GPS tags in areas thought to be big cat territory. If a hungry lion moves the deer, the GPS tag sends an email to the team, who then head out to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">After a few hours of searching, Dan’s voice finally crackled over the radio. His dogs had tracked and treed an adult puma.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Once pumas reach adulthood, they live solitary lives, but still need to communicate with each other. One of the main ways they do so is by making ‘scrapes.’ Pumas, particularly adult males, will dig small holes and then urinate on the pile of loose soil created by the digging. Other pumas that frequent the area can interpret the chemical signal to gather information about the cat’s identity and reproductive status based on the signature proteins left behind. Pumas tend to make scrapes in the same areas over time, making it easier for other pumas (and intrepid field biologists) to find learn about which lions are in the area. The research team sets up camera traps in these areas in order to document which cats are have taken up residence in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7icpaPB_Xbw&w=640&h=360\u003cbr>\nDan Tichenor, from California Houndsmen for Conservation and his best dog, Osage, a Plott Hound. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul had memorized the location of several scrapes in the area, and part of his normal search routine is to stop by these areas and look for fresh activity. As he searched, he would regularly make attempts to hail Dan Tichenor, a volunteer from \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiahoundsmen.com/\">California Houndsmen for Conservation\u003c/a>, by radio. Dan had been on the property since before dawn with his pack of specially-bred and -trained hunting dogs. In this mountainous terrain, the radios were unreliable at best, and cell phones were of no use. After a few hours of searching, Dan’s voice finally crackled over the radio. His dogs had tracked and treed an adult puma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_8797\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Kitten-640x360-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/09/Kitten-640x360-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"In June of 2013, puma 38F gave birth to a litter of three kittens. Photo by Paul Houghtaling/Santa Cruz Puma Project \" width=\"288\" height=\"162\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8797\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In June of 2013, puma 38F gave birth to a litter of three kittens. Photo by Paul Houghtaling/Santa Cruz Puma Project\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We hightailed it to Dan’s location, where Paul was able to capture the puma using a tranquilizer dart fired from a rifle. From the ground, the puma resembled a male lion that had been seen in the area, but when the team got the cat on the ground, it was obvious that this cat, dubbed 38F, was a female. Months later, Paul found 38F again, but this time she was not alone. She had given birth to three healthy kittens. The Santa Cruz Puma Project aims to track these kittens’ location and behavior for their entire lives to learn more about how they use their habitat and how their behavior changes when they come close to human dwellings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain lion populations had declined substantially in the California before they were protected from in the 1970’s. Before that time, hunters were offered a bounty for each puma killed. Since hunting pumas was outlawed, their population has rebounded. Today, they face a new problem. Humans have developed large areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains, building homes, farms and roads in the historical puma habitat. This has lead to an increase in conflicts between humans and the big cats, with pumas often finding themselves on the losing end. Today, the biggest threats to pumas include car strikes, and are targeted by citizens who seek depredation licenses to rid their property of pumas deemed problematic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new bill, signed into law last week by Governor Jerry Brown will have a substantial effect on California pumas. The bill, SB132 proposed by State Senator Jerry Hill (D.) requires that nonlethal procedures be used to remove any mountain lion that has not been “designated as an imminent threat to public health and safety.” It also authorizes the California Department of Fish and Game to partner with other groups, such as the Santa Cruz Puma Project, to carry out the non-lethal removal of pumas that find themselves too close to humans. With luck, this new bill will make it easier for humans and mountain lions to coexist as their territories continue to overlap.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/8537/science-on-the-spot-chasing-pumas","authors":["6219"],"series":["science_66"],"categories":["science_30","science_35","science_86"],"tags":["science_314","science_680"],"featImg":"science_8570","label":"science_66"},"science_4209":{"type":"posts","id":"science_4209","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"4209","score":null,"sort":[1371051868000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"eucalyptus-california-icon-fire-hazard-and-invasive-species","title":"Eucalyptus: California Icon, Fire Hazard and Invasive Species","publishDate":1371051868,"format":"aside","headTitle":"Eucalyptus: California Icon, Fire Hazard and Invasive Species | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_4236\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/epicormic-bud.small_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4236\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/epicormic-bud.small_.jpg\" alt='Specialized reproductive structures caleld \"epicormic shoots\" sprout from buds on the bushfire damaged trunk of a Eucalyptus tree, about two years after the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires. (Near Anglers Rest, Victoria, Australia./jjron)' width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Specialized reproductive structures called “epicormic shoots” sprout from buds on the bushfire damaged trunk of a Eucalyptus tree, about two years after the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires. Near Anglers Rest, Victoria, Australia. (Photo: jjron)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Biologists now count invasive species as a major threat to biological diversity second only to direct habitat loss and fragmentation. Why do they worry when new species enter an ecosystem? More than 90 percent of introduced plants in California have overcome barriers to survival and reproduction in their new home without harming native species. But a fraction display invasive traits, displacing native species and reshaping the ecological landscape. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), a symbol of California for some, never knew California soil \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr069/psw_gtr069.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">until the 1850s\u003c/a>, when seeds from Australia were planted, first as ornamentals, then mostly for timber and fuel. The California Invasive Plant Council (CAL-IPC) classifies blue gum eucalyptus as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/paf/site/paf/342\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“moderate” invasive\u003c/a> because the trees need certain conditions to thrive. For the most part, they’re not a problem in the drier regions of Southern California or the Central Valley. But along the coast, where summer fog brings buckets of moisture, it’s a different story. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum invades neighboring plant communities if adequate moisture is available for propagation, state resource ecologist David Boyd \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/ipcw/pages/detailreport.cfm@usernumber=48&surveynumber=182.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">noted in a report\u003c/a> for CAL-IPC. Once established, the trees can alter local soil moisture, light availability, fire patterns, nitrogen mineralization rates and soil chemistry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Introduced species can disrupt ecological relationships among species that co-evolved over millennia, which is why \u003ca href=\"http://www.elkhornslough.org/habitat-restoration/projects/oak-woodland.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">many groups work\u003c/a> to remove eucalyptus and restore coast live oaks. California’s native oak woodlands still \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/topics/ecosystem_processes/sierra/bio_diversity/habitat_relationship_terrestrial_sub5/abundance_distribution.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sustain more biodiversity\u003c/a> than any other terrestrial landscape even though more than a century of intensive agricultural, rangeland and urban development has claimed some \u003ca href=\"http://www.placer.ca.gov/~/media/cdr/Planning/PCCP/BackgroundData/OakWoodlands/OakWoodlandMgtPlan.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5 million acres of woodlands\u003c/a>. (While settlers cleared the land of oaks, entrepreneurs planted eucalyptus trees by the millions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Historic fire risk\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThat’s why many ecologists welcome \u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Files/FAQ%204-1-13.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a plan to remove tens of thousands\u003c/a> of eucalyptus and other non-native trees from the East Bay Hills to reduce fire risk. UC Berkeley, together with the City of Oakland and the East Bay Regional Park District, applied for \u003ca href=\"http://www.fema.gov/news-release/2013/05/17/fema-reviews-bay-area-pre-disaster-funding-applications-invites-public\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">up to $5.6 million\u003c/a> in grants to remove the non-natives—primarily eucalyptus, Monterey pine and acacia—under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation and Hazard Mitigation Grant programs. The total project would cover just under 1,000 acres and includes plans to encourage regrowth of native oak and bay trees. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/Executive_Summary.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fifteen major fires\u003c/a> roared through 9,000 acres of the East Bay Hills between 1923 and 1992, incinerating some 4,000 homes and killing 26 people. The Oakland “Tunnel” fire, considered the worst in California history, caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and killed 25 people. Following the Oakland fire, disaster experts urged large landowners in the East Bay Hills to work together to manage vegetation to prevent another catastrophic wildfire, says Tom Klatt, who manages environmental projects for UC Berkeley and serves on the UC Fire Mitigation Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Blue gum eucalyptus is one of the most fire-intensive plants,” says Klatt. Trees not only put a lot of fuel on the ground as they shed bark, leaves and twigs, but in intense fires, volatile compounds in foliage cause explosive burning. “Once bark catches fire, it gets blown ahead of the flame front and drops burning embers by the tens of thousands per acre in the urban community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 1923 fire started at Inspiration Point ran through the eucalyptus trees until it hit the ridgeline at Grizzly Peak, then came down to University and Shattuck before the wind finally changed direction, Klatt says. “It took out 568 homes on the north side of the Berkeley campus in two hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the fire risk, the plan remains contentious. Some residents worry about the use of \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/fema-plans-clear-cutting-85000-berkeley-and-oakland-trees\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pesticides\u003c/a>, some feel eucalyptus’ \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/06/storm-of-controversy-rages-over-fire-hazard-reduction-plans-for-oakland-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flammability is overstated \u003c/a>and others who consider the trees cultural icons view the plans as \u003ca href=\"http://rockridge.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/proposal-to-reduce-fire-risk-in-east-bay-hills-by-cutting-85000-trees-draws-a-crowd\">an attack on a species\u003c/a> that’s been here so long we should consider it native. (For the record, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnps.org/cnps/archive/exotics.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California Native Plant Society\u003c/a> defines “native” as any species that predated European contact.) Predicting how an introduced species will behave is complicated by the fact that ecological effects are difficult to observe—and may only appear when it’s too late to control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ecological impacts of eucalyptus \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nEvidence of the trees’ impacts on East Bay ecosystems is relatively scarce. A \u003ca href=\"http://elkhornsloughctp.org/uploads/files/1109813068Sax2002.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2002 study\u003c/a> of the Berkeley hills found similar numbers and diversity of species in eucalyptus and native woodlands, but the species themselves were different. Monarchs use groves in Point Pinole as resting spots and several bird species, including \u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/1_2_3.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">herons and egrets,\u003c/a> nest in eucalyptus in and near the tree-removal project areas, though how their use affects their reproductive success isn’t clear. (Klatt says that though he hasn’t seen nests in the UCB project areas, the law requires that they take steps to protect nesting birds and any species under state and federal protection.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More evidence comes from the Central Coast. At \u003ca href=\"http://www.elkhornsloughctp.org/training/show_train_detail.php?TRAIN_ID=EcoGYZ22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a 2004 workshop\u003c/a> on the blue gum’s impact on the ecology of coastal ecosystems, researchers reported conflicting effects. Eucalyptus stands can provide habitat for birds near cities and water bodies, and for overwintering monarch butterflies. But the trees change the composition of insect and bird communities as they invade: the loss of native trees that grow along rivers could spell trouble for \u003ca href=\"http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/fact_sheets/default.cfm?fxsht=9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">neotropical migratory songbirds\u003c/a> and for species that nest in tree cavities. And when eucalyptus leaves enter streams, aquatic macroinvertebrate communities change, altering the food chain, likely because the chemical content of eucalyptus leaves differs from native foliage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_4243\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/coast-live-oak.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4243\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/coast-live-oak.jpg\" alt=\"Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) — off Highway 101 in California. Though oak woodlands sustain more wildlife species than any other landscape, only 4 percent of the state’s woodland habitats are protected. The vast majority remain in private hands. (Photo: Peter O'Malley)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4243\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue oak (Quercus douglasii) — off Highway 101 in California. Though oak woodlands sustain more wildlife species than any other landscape, only 4 percent of the state’s woodland habitats are protected. The vast majority remain in private hands. (Photo: Peter O’Malley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time the eucalyptus trees were planted in the East Bay, typically in 12 foot by 12 foot plots, most native woodlands and perennial native grasslands had already been converted to annual European grasslands, says forest ecologist Joe McBride, professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California at Berkeley. “And certainly by now a number of species are using those trees but they were here before the eucalyptus was planted, using oak woodlands, riparian woodlands and redwood forests in the East Bay. They just spread to eucalyptus and Monterey pines when the trees grew big enough. These populations aren’t going to disappear if eucalyptus is removed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But removal has proven difficult. “After two previous removal efforts in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, the trees have grown back,” Klatt says. Successful eradication requires at least 10 years of maintenance and drizzling about 2 ounces of diluted herbicide directly to the cut stump immediately after felling a tree, he explains. “If you do it within the first three minutes, we see 95 percent to 98 percent success with a single treatment.” But if the trees resprout, more applications will be needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan aims to selectively cut eucalyptus while leaving bay, oaks and other native trees in the understory. “The more understory we preserve, the faster it recovers,” says Klatt. The plan also calls for retaining all the cut wood as chips for erosion control and moisture retention, and to encourage native regrowth, aided by birds and squirrels that plant acorns in chip beds. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McBride hasn’t seen evidence of eucalyptus’ invasive tendencies in the East Bay Hills but worries about its combustible nature. “We imported this plant from Australia but we didn’t import the normal fungus that decays the litter in Australia,” he says. Accumulations of bark and leaf litter under eucalyptus stands have measured up to 100 tons per acre, compared to about 3 tons per acre for coast live oaks. “It’s an enormous increase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selected for flammability?\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nSo how does the blue gum act in its native environment? For David Bowman, a forest ecologist at the University of Tasmania in Australia, the question isn’t whether the trees are native or non-native—it’s whether they’re dangerous. “Looking at the eucalyptus forest outside my window in Tasmania, I see a gigantic fire hazard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At very high temperatures, eucalypt species release a flammable gas that mixes with air to send fireballs exploding out in front of the fire. With eucalyptus, you see these ember attacks, with huge bursts of sparks shooting out of the forests, Bowman says. “It’s just an extraordinary idea for a plant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though it’s difficult to prove, Bowman suspects the trees evolved to be “uber flammable.” Sixty million years ago eucalyptus species hit on a way to recover from intense fire, he explains, using specialized structures hidden deep within their bark that allow rapid recovery through new branches, instead of re-sprouting from the roots like other trees. “They have this adaptive advantage of not having to rebuild their trunk. Whether their oil-rich foliage is also an adaptation, we don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you aren’t familiar with the idea of a plant designed to burn in its life cycle, you can get fooled by its beauty and nice smell, Bowman says. “But on a really hot day, those things are going to burn like torches and shower our suburbs with sparks. And on an extremely hot day, they’re going to shoot out gas balls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With tiny pinhead seeds that germinate only in disturbed soils, the trees really aren’t good invaders, Bowman says–with one exception. “Fire opens up the woody capsules that hold the seeds, which love growing on freshly burned soil. Give a hillside a really good torching and the eucalyptus will absolutely dominate. They’ll grow intensively in the first few years of life and outcompete everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evolutionary dimensions of fire ecology are controversial, Bowman allows. “But if eucalyptus are these evolutionary freak plants that massively increase fire risk,” he says, it raises a troubling question: Are these intense fires a consequence of climate change or the interaction of climate and biology? “If it’s the latter, then what the hell have humans done? We’ve spread a dangerous plant all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*****\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more information:\u003cbr>\nYou can still submit written comments to FEMA until midnight, June 17, 2013: via email at EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov, via fax at FAX: (510) 627-7147, or via mail to P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/Executive_Summary.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Executive summary of the project.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Firestorm: \u003c/a>the story of a catastrophic fire that struck the Tasmanian township of Dunalley January 4, 2013.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"After more than 150 years on the California landscape, eucalyptus trees have iconic status for some Californians. But the stately trees may not only disrupt the native ecology, but seem to have evolved special adaptations that allow them to thrive after intense fires. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704935640,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":27,"wordCount":1875},"headData":{"title":"Eucalyptus: California Icon, Fire Hazard and Invasive Species | KQED","description":"After more than 150 years on the California landscape, eucalyptus trees have iconic status for some Californians. But the stately trees may not only disrupt the native ecology, but seem to have evolved special adaptations that allow them to thrive after intense fires. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Eucalyptus: California Icon, Fire Hazard and Invasive Species","datePublished":"2013-06-12T15:44:28.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-11T01:14:00.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"path":"/science/4209/eucalyptus-california-icon-fire-hazard-and-invasive-species","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_4236\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/epicormic-bud.small_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4236\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/epicormic-bud.small_.jpg\" alt='Specialized reproductive structures caleld \"epicormic shoots\" sprout from buds on the bushfire damaged trunk of a Eucalyptus tree, about two years after the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires. (Near Anglers Rest, Victoria, Australia./jjron)' width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Specialized reproductive structures called “epicormic shoots” sprout from buds on the bushfire damaged trunk of a Eucalyptus tree, about two years after the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires. Near Anglers Rest, Victoria, Australia. (Photo: jjron)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Biologists now count invasive species as a major threat to biological diversity second only to direct habitat loss and fragmentation. Why do they worry when new species enter an ecosystem? More than 90 percent of introduced plants in California have overcome barriers to survival and reproduction in their new home without harming native species. But a fraction display invasive traits, displacing native species and reshaping the ecological landscape. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), a symbol of California for some, never knew California soil \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr069/psw_gtr069.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">until the 1850s\u003c/a>, when seeds from Australia were planted, first as ornamentals, then mostly for timber and fuel. The California Invasive Plant Council (CAL-IPC) classifies blue gum eucalyptus as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/paf/site/paf/342\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“moderate” invasive\u003c/a> because the trees need certain conditions to thrive. For the most part, they’re not a problem in the drier regions of Southern California or the Central Valley. But along the coast, where summer fog brings buckets of moisture, it’s a different story. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum invades neighboring plant communities if adequate moisture is available for propagation, state resource ecologist David Boyd \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/ipcw/pages/detailreport.cfm@usernumber=48&surveynumber=182.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">noted in a report\u003c/a> for CAL-IPC. Once established, the trees can alter local soil moisture, light availability, fire patterns, nitrogen mineralization rates and soil chemistry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Introduced species can disrupt ecological relationships among species that co-evolved over millennia, which is why \u003ca href=\"http://www.elkhornslough.org/habitat-restoration/projects/oak-woodland.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">many groups work\u003c/a> to remove eucalyptus and restore coast live oaks. California’s native oak woodlands still \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/topics/ecosystem_processes/sierra/bio_diversity/habitat_relationship_terrestrial_sub5/abundance_distribution.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sustain more biodiversity\u003c/a> than any other terrestrial landscape even though more than a century of intensive agricultural, rangeland and urban development has claimed some \u003ca href=\"http://www.placer.ca.gov/~/media/cdr/Planning/PCCP/BackgroundData/OakWoodlands/OakWoodlandMgtPlan.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5 million acres of woodlands\u003c/a>. (While settlers cleared the land of oaks, entrepreneurs planted eucalyptus trees by the millions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Historic fire risk\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThat’s why many ecologists welcome \u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Files/FAQ%204-1-13.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a plan to remove tens of thousands\u003c/a> of eucalyptus and other non-native trees from the East Bay Hills to reduce fire risk. UC Berkeley, together with the City of Oakland and the East Bay Regional Park District, applied for \u003ca href=\"http://www.fema.gov/news-release/2013/05/17/fema-reviews-bay-area-pre-disaster-funding-applications-invites-public\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">up to $5.6 million\u003c/a> in grants to remove the non-natives—primarily eucalyptus, Monterey pine and acacia—under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation and Hazard Mitigation Grant programs. The total project would cover just under 1,000 acres and includes plans to encourage regrowth of native oak and bay trees. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/Executive_Summary.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fifteen major fires\u003c/a> roared through 9,000 acres of the East Bay Hills between 1923 and 1992, incinerating some 4,000 homes and killing 26 people. The Oakland “Tunnel” fire, considered the worst in California history, caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and killed 25 people. Following the Oakland fire, disaster experts urged large landowners in the East Bay Hills to work together to manage vegetation to prevent another catastrophic wildfire, says Tom Klatt, who manages environmental projects for UC Berkeley and serves on the UC Fire Mitigation Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Blue gum eucalyptus is one of the most fire-intensive plants,” says Klatt. Trees not only put a lot of fuel on the ground as they shed bark, leaves and twigs, but in intense fires, volatile compounds in foliage cause explosive burning. “Once bark catches fire, it gets blown ahead of the flame front and drops burning embers by the tens of thousands per acre in the urban community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 1923 fire started at Inspiration Point ran through the eucalyptus trees until it hit the ridgeline at Grizzly Peak, then came down to University and Shattuck before the wind finally changed direction, Klatt says. “It took out 568 homes on the north side of the Berkeley campus in two hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the fire risk, the plan remains contentious. Some residents worry about the use of \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/fema-plans-clear-cutting-85000-berkeley-and-oakland-trees\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pesticides\u003c/a>, some feel eucalyptus’ \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/06/storm-of-controversy-rages-over-fire-hazard-reduction-plans-for-oakland-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flammability is overstated \u003c/a>and others who consider the trees cultural icons view the plans as \u003ca href=\"http://rockridge.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/proposal-to-reduce-fire-risk-in-east-bay-hills-by-cutting-85000-trees-draws-a-crowd\">an attack on a species\u003c/a> that’s been here so long we should consider it native. (For the record, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnps.org/cnps/archive/exotics.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California Native Plant Society\u003c/a> defines “native” as any species that predated European contact.) Predicting how an introduced species will behave is complicated by the fact that ecological effects are difficult to observe—and may only appear when it’s too late to control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ecological impacts of eucalyptus \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nEvidence of the trees’ impacts on East Bay ecosystems is relatively scarce. A \u003ca href=\"http://elkhornsloughctp.org/uploads/files/1109813068Sax2002.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2002 study\u003c/a> of the Berkeley hills found similar numbers and diversity of species in eucalyptus and native woodlands, but the species themselves were different. Monarchs use groves in Point Pinole as resting spots and several bird species, including \u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/1_2_3.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">herons and egrets,\u003c/a> nest in eucalyptus in and near the tree-removal project areas, though how their use affects their reproductive success isn’t clear. (Klatt says that though he hasn’t seen nests in the UCB project areas, the law requires that they take steps to protect nesting birds and any species under state and federal protection.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More evidence comes from the Central Coast. At \u003ca href=\"http://www.elkhornsloughctp.org/training/show_train_detail.php?TRAIN_ID=EcoGYZ22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a 2004 workshop\u003c/a> on the blue gum’s impact on the ecology of coastal ecosystems, researchers reported conflicting effects. Eucalyptus stands can provide habitat for birds near cities and water bodies, and for overwintering monarch butterflies. But the trees change the composition of insect and bird communities as they invade: the loss of native trees that grow along rivers could spell trouble for \u003ca href=\"http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/fact_sheets/default.cfm?fxsht=9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">neotropical migratory songbirds\u003c/a> and for species that nest in tree cavities. And when eucalyptus leaves enter streams, aquatic macroinvertebrate communities change, altering the food chain, likely because the chemical content of eucalyptus leaves differs from native foliage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_4243\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/coast-live-oak.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4243\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2013/06/coast-live-oak.jpg\" alt=\"Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) — off Highway 101 in California. Though oak woodlands sustain more wildlife species than any other landscape, only 4 percent of the state’s woodland habitats are protected. The vast majority remain in private hands. (Photo: Peter O'Malley)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4243\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue oak (Quercus douglasii) — off Highway 101 in California. Though oak woodlands sustain more wildlife species than any other landscape, only 4 percent of the state’s woodland habitats are protected. The vast majority remain in private hands. (Photo: Peter O’Malley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time the eucalyptus trees were planted in the East Bay, typically in 12 foot by 12 foot plots, most native woodlands and perennial native grasslands had already been converted to annual European grasslands, says forest ecologist Joe McBride, professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California at Berkeley. “And certainly by now a number of species are using those trees but they were here before the eucalyptus was planted, using oak woodlands, riparian woodlands and redwood forests in the East Bay. They just spread to eucalyptus and Monterey pines when the trees grew big enough. These populations aren’t going to disappear if eucalyptus is removed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But removal has proven difficult. “After two previous removal efforts in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, the trees have grown back,” Klatt says. Successful eradication requires at least 10 years of maintenance and drizzling about 2 ounces of diluted herbicide directly to the cut stump immediately after felling a tree, he explains. “If you do it within the first three minutes, we see 95 percent to 98 percent success with a single treatment.” But if the trees resprout, more applications will be needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan aims to selectively cut eucalyptus while leaving bay, oaks and other native trees in the understory. “The more understory we preserve, the faster it recovers,” says Klatt. The plan also calls for retaining all the cut wood as chips for erosion control and moisture retention, and to encourage native regrowth, aided by birds and squirrels that plant acorns in chip beds. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McBride hasn’t seen evidence of eucalyptus’ invasive tendencies in the East Bay Hills but worries about its combustible nature. “We imported this plant from Australia but we didn’t import the normal fungus that decays the litter in Australia,” he says. Accumulations of bark and leaf litter under eucalyptus stands have measured up to 100 tons per acre, compared to about 3 tons per acre for coast live oaks. “It’s an enormous increase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selected for flammability?\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nSo how does the blue gum act in its native environment? For David Bowman, a forest ecologist at the University of Tasmania in Australia, the question isn’t whether the trees are native or non-native—it’s whether they’re dangerous. “Looking at the eucalyptus forest outside my window in Tasmania, I see a gigantic fire hazard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At very high temperatures, eucalypt species release a flammable gas that mixes with air to send fireballs exploding out in front of the fire. With eucalyptus, you see these ember attacks, with huge bursts of sparks shooting out of the forests, Bowman says. “It’s just an extraordinary idea for a plant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though it’s difficult to prove, Bowman suspects the trees evolved to be “uber flammable.” Sixty million years ago eucalyptus species hit on a way to recover from intense fire, he explains, using specialized structures hidden deep within their bark that allow rapid recovery through new branches, instead of re-sprouting from the roots like other trees. “They have this adaptive advantage of not having to rebuild their trunk. Whether their oil-rich foliage is also an adaptation, we don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you aren’t familiar with the idea of a plant designed to burn in its life cycle, you can get fooled by its beauty and nice smell, Bowman says. “But on a really hot day, those things are going to burn like torches and shower our suburbs with sparks. And on an extremely hot day, they’re going to shoot out gas balls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With tiny pinhead seeds that germinate only in disturbed soils, the trees really aren’t good invaders, Bowman says–with one exception. “Fire opens up the woody capsules that hold the seeds, which love growing on freshly burned soil. Give a hillside a really good torching and the eucalyptus will absolutely dominate. They’ll grow intensively in the first few years of life and outcompete everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evolutionary dimensions of fire ecology are controversial, Bowman allows. “But if eucalyptus are these evolutionary freak plants that massively increase fire risk,” he says, it raises a troubling question: Are these intense fires a consequence of climate change or the interaction of climate and biology? “If it’s the latter, then what the hell have humans done? We’ve spread a dangerous plant all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*****\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more information:\u003cbr>\nYou can still submit written comments to FEMA until midnight, June 17, 2013: via email at EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov, via fax at FAX: (510) 627-7147, or via mail to P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ebheis.cdmims.com/Libraries/Site_Documents/Executive_Summary.sflb.ashx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Executive summary of the project.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Firestorm: \u003c/a>the story of a catastrophic fire that struck the Tasmanian township of Dunalley January 4, 2013.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/4209/eucalyptus-california-icon-fire-hazard-and-invasive-species","authors":["6322"],"categories":["science_30","science_31","science_35"],"tags":["science_314","science_316","science_311","science_312"],"featImg":"science_4236","label":"science"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.","airtime":"SUN 2pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.possible.fm/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"Possible"},"link":"/radio/program/possible","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"}},"1a":{"id":"1a","title":"1A","info":"1A is home to the national conversation. 1A brings on great guests and frames the best debate in ways that make you think, share and engage.","airtime":"MON-THU 11pm-12am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/1a.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://the1a.org/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/1a","subscribe":{"npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW","apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=1188724250&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/1A-p947376/","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510316/podcast.xml"}},"all-things-considered":{"id":"all-things-considered","title":"All Things Considered","info":"Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. Michel Martin hosts on the weekends.","airtime":"MON-FRI 1pm-2pm, 4:30pm-6:30pm\u003cbr />SAT-SUN 5pm-6pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/All-Things-Considered-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/all-things-considered"},"american-suburb-podcast":{"id":"american-suburb-podcast","title":"American Suburb: The Podcast","tagline":"The flip side of gentrification, told through one town","info":"Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. 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You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn","officialWebsiteLink":"/mindshift/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"2"},"link":"/podcasts/mindshift","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"}},"morning-edition":{"id":"morning-edition","title":"Morning Edition","info":"\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. 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On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"On Our Watch from NPR and KQED","officialWebsiteLink":"/podcasts/onourwatch","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"1"},"link":"/podcasts/onourwatch","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw","npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/onourwatch","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"}},"on-the-media":{"id":"on-the-media","title":"On The Media","info":"Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. 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