Autumn 2020

FIELDNOTES Autumn 2020

letter from the editors Last Spring we navigated the countless challenges of creating an issue remotely, creating our first 2020 issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. This Fall, we did it again by mastering Zoom and Slack.

Though we were not on campus in our usual conference room, the editorial board persevered more than ever to showcase environmental research from across the University of Washington and tell stories of incredible community efforts to ensure a healthy planet.

This edition of FieldNotes features research conducted close to home and around the world. We shed light on a number of environmental challenges facing our country. The topics are far ranging, from the social implications of wildfires to the breeding success of Magellanic penguins in Argentina.

The editorial board also hones in on the significance of whales to indigenous cultures and highlights BIPoC voices with the College of the Environment.

But you will quickly see that these articles are much more than just reporting the bad; solutions are presented from which we hope you draw hope. While we all continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope the Autumn 2020 edition of FieldNotes brings you inspiration and entertainment.

We continue to be very grateful to the College of the Environment for their support and generosity.

We would also like to show our gratitude and appreciation to Julian Olden for his guidance, patience, Twitter literacy, and energy throughout the quarter. We could not have done this without you!

COVER DYLAN VECCHIONE

Best,

2 fieldnotesjournal.org

meet the team

Alanna Greene Co-Editor-in-Chief

Madeline Brooks Co-Editor-in-Chief

Emily Seaman Co-Editor-in-Chief, Design

Ashika Capirala Lead Design, Editor

Kathleen Gonzalez Design, Editor

Beth Behnken Editor

Sophia Brooks Editor

Jane Filiault Editor

Jenna Truong Editor

Virginia Davidson Editor

Julian Olden Faculty Advisor FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 3

table of contents feature article 6

Impacts of Floating Woody Debris on Algae Communities: A Comparison Between Spirit Lake and Coldwater Lake, Mount St. Helens

by Angelica Lucchetto, Environmental Science ‘21

research communications 14

Interactive Effects of Biotic and Abiotic Stressors on Green Urchins

by Chris Mantegna, Marine Biology ‘21

17

Neotropical Primatology Research in Developing Nations

by Max Dippel, Biology ‘21

19

Chlorophyll-a Patterns Influence Magellanic Penguin Breeding Success at Punta Tombo

by Anna Sulc, Oceanography ‘21

community features The Significance of Whales to Pacific Northwest Indigenous Cultures

by Sophia Brooks, Marine Biology ‘21, and Jane Filiault, Biology (intended) ‘23

26

Through the Smoke: Clearing the Path Towards Equitable Wildfire Preparedness

by Ashika Capirala, ESS ‘22 and Virginia Davidson, ESS ‘22

29

Why Ecopoetry Matters: Accessibility, Justice, and Environmentalism

by Beth Behnken, Environmental Studies ‘21 and Kathleen Gonzalez, Oceanography ‘21

32

True False Colors: a Lack of Representation, Non-BIPoC Roles, and the Need to Stop Persisting

by Emily Seaman, Journalism ‘23 and Jenna Truong, Environmental Studies ‘21

PHOTO ELLEN NG

24

4 fieldnotesjournal.org

eature rticle

by Angelica Lucchetto

Impacts of Floating Woody Debris on Algae Communities: A Comparison Between Spirit Lake and Coldwater Lake, Mount St. Helens Introduction The May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens devastated the surrounding landscape, eliminating all vegetation in the blast zone. A series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows altered the hydrology of the blast zone by obstructing the outlet of Spirit Lake, raising the lake’s surface elevation by 64 meters (USGS, “Lakes and Drainages Around Mount St. Helens”). The debris avalanche also blocked the outlet of Coldwater Creek, forming Coldwater Lake as it is today.

Effectively, the current geologic configurations of these two lakes were formed from the eruption of Mount St. Helens, opening exciting research opportunities to compare the succession of their ecosystems over time.

Our research compares the composition of algal communities within and between Spirit and Coldwater lakes.

We specifically focused on the role of Spirit Lake’s floating log mat in creating unique conditions that shape the lake’s algal community not present in Coldwater Lake. Because primary productivity of both lakes was eliminated by the eruption, algal communities were essentially reset and then re-established over time. Larson et al. (2006) enumerated the phytoplankton species present in Spirit Lake between 1983 and 2005, demonstrating community recovery and change

Because primary productivity of both lakes was eliminated by the eruption, algal communities were essentially reset and then reestablished over time.

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over that time period. We extended that work by analyzing plankton tow and benthic periphyton samples collected from rocks and logs along the shoreline of both lakes, as well as from logs floating on Spirit Lake’s surface. We used these samples to determine the relative abundances of the phytoplankton taxa present in Spirit Lake in 2018 and 2019 and in Coldwater Lake in 2020. By comparing our data to previously reported findings, this study contributes to our current understanding of multi-decadal community change. In addition, our findings establish data specifically on periphyton (algae and other microorganisms that cling to substrate), an algal community that had not previously been investigated in either lake.

The presence of a floating log mat on Spirit Lake’s surface is the key differentiating feature between the lakes.

This floating log mat is comprised of trees blasted from surrounding hills into the lake during the 1980 eruption. The logs now float on the lake’s surface, moving in a large mass with the lake’s currents. Although logs were present on the surfaces of both lakes in the months following the eruption (Figure 1), today only Spirit Lake has a significant floating log mat (covering ~20% of the lake’s surface area). Previous research by Gawel et al. (2018) found that the area of Spirit Lake where the log mat resides most often, the East Arm, has higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus compared to other areas of the lake. They hypothesized that the log mat may be a significant contributor to these elevated nutrient levels. One explanation for high nitrogen concentrations in log mat-frequented areas is the presence of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria in the periphyton on the underside of the logs.

Because Coldwater Lake does not have a persistent log mat, we were able to compare the log mat’s relative importance to the lakes’ periphyton communities.

FIGURE 1 Images of Spirit Lake (above) and Coldwater Lake (below) in 1980 and 1981, respectively. The hills surrounding both lakes were rid of vegetation, and logs from downed trees were blasted into both lakes— although to a much lesser extent in Coldwater Lake.

These logs only remain in Spirit Lake today.

sample collection.

For comparison with the slide rack periphyton samples, we also collected periphyton samples directly from the logs by removing the periphyton with a razor blade. We rehydrated these samples in water and examined them under the microscope in the same fashion as the slide rack samples. In the summer of 2020, benthic periphyton samples from Coldwater Lake were collected by scraping the film off shoreline rocks with a razor blade and rehydrating the samples in water as previously described.

Plankton tow samples

Methods

PHOTOS USGS

Benthic periphyton samples

To investigate periphyton communities, we constructed small log mats out of free-floating logs around Spirit Lake, securing several logs together with large metal eye hooks and rope. The constructed log mats were then anchored to logs buried in the lake bottom. We chose to build the small log mats in Duck Bay (Figure 2) as the free-floating log mat spends less time in this area compared to the rest of Spirit Lake (Gawel et al.

2018). This ensured minimal chance for our constructed log mats to be damaged by other free-floating logs. Furthermore, Duck Bay is the most directly accessible part of the lake for

Plankton tow samples were collected around Duck Bay in the summers of 2018 and 2019, and in Coldwater Lake in the summer of 2020. We used a plankton net with a 20 micron diameter mesh to gather the samples from a depth of between 10 and 15 meters.

In Spirit Lake, plankton tow samples were taken next to each constructed log mat in Duck Bay as well as various open water locations around the lake. In Coldwater Lake, plankton tows were taken within the area outlined in green in Figure 3. We examined the samples under a microscope, then counted and analyzed the taxa in the same manner as the periphyton samples. Taxa were primarily identified using the databases nordicmicroalgae.org, algaebase.org, diatoms.org, and protist.i.hosei.ac.jp.

Results Spirit Lake

The relative abundances of each algal group fluctuated annually and throughout each summer (Figure 4). In July 2018, Chlorophytes (green algae) and Chrysophytes demonstrated FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 7

FIGURE 2 An aerial view of Spirit Lake, in which the log mat, outlined in red, can be seen in the east arm. The yellow pin marks Duck Bay, the location of our constructed log mats.

FIGURE 3 An aerial view of Coldwater Lake, with the approximate area of plankton tow collection outlined in green.

high relative abundances on the log mat that decreased in early August of the same year. Early August appeared to be the peak season for the Cyanophyta bloom, which dominated the sample, significantly reducing the relative abundances of all other groups with the exception of diatoms whose relative abundance remained relatively consistent. After the end of the cyanobacteria bloom in late August 2018, the abundance of Chlorophytes rebounded, while Chrysophytes abundances remained low.

In the summer of 2019, the taxonomic composition of the benthic periphyton community shifted—the relative abundances observed in early August 2019 were more similar to July 2018 than those found in early August 2018. The 2019 Cyanophyta bloom occurred in late August instead of early August, as it had the previous year. However, the relative abundances observed in late August 2019 do not fully reflect those seen in early August 2018. Instead of being significantly reduced as in the previous year, the relative abundance of Chlorophyta remained consistent before and

during the Cyanophyta bloom in late August 2019. The Diatom population decreased in relative abundance over the summer, departing from the pattern of steady Diatom relative abundance observed in 2018.

To track algae community change over the years since the 1980 eruption, we compiled a list of the taxa we observed and compared it to taxa observed in early post-eruption research. With the exception of Pseudanabaena sp., many of the taxa observed by Ward et al. (1983) remain in Spirit Lake today. Some of the most common taxa observed then and now include Cyclotella sp., Cocconeis sp., and Nitzschia sp. The presence of these genera has continued to fluctuate in Spirit Lake to the present, with some taxa disappearing and many new taxa appearing since the original post-eruption sampling. Using data from Larson et al. (2006) as a reference, we compiled a list of taxa that have appeared in Spirit Lake since 2004 (Table 1).

Taxa new since 2004

Amphora perpusilla Aulacoseira sp.

Bulbochaete sp.

Epithemia sp. (excluding Epithemia sorex) Gomphosinica sp.

Sellaphora sp.

Staurosira sp.

Chromulina sp.

Ulothrix sp.

Aphanizomenon sp.

Ceratium sp.

Peridinium sp.

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When comparing the benthic periphyton samples from Spirit Lake with those from Coldwater Lake, we found that periphyton scraped from shoreline rocks contained far less taxonomic diversity than the log mat periphyton from Spirit Lake. Only two groups—Diatoms (relative abundance 76%) and Chlorophyta (relative abundance 24%) —were present on the shore rocks, whereas four to five groups appeared in the log mat periphyton. In addition, Cyanophyta were absent from the Coldwater Lake periphyton, whereas they made up a significant proportion of Spirit Lake’s log mat periphyton throughout the summer season.

The July 2020 plankton tow samples from Coldwater Lake displayed relative abundance values that closely resembled plankton tow relative abundances from Spirit Lake in July 2019 (Figure 5). Chlorophyta were more relatively abundant in Coldwater Lake, and again lacked cyanobacteria.

FIGURES ANGELICA LUCCHETTO

TABLE 1 New taxa identified between 2004 and 2019 in Spirit Lake. Based on data from Larson et al. plankton tows, our plankton tows, and our log mat periphyton samples.

Coldwater Lake

Chlorophyta continued to have high relative abundance in September 2020, exceeding the abundance of Diatoms, which was reduced to 0.47%. The taxonomic profiles of Spirit Lake plankton tows differed greatly between July 2018 and July 2019 (Figure 5). In July 2018, the plankton tow samples were dominated by Chrysophyta (excluding diatoms), which made up 97% of the sample. In July 2019, however, Chrysophyta made up only 13% of the sample, with Chlorophyta and

FIGURE 4 Relative abundances of different algal groups in Spirit Lake’s log mat periphyton for the summers of 2018 and 2019.

FIGURE 5 Plankton tow relative abundance data for different algal groups. July 2018 and July 2019 represent data from Spirit Lake, while July 2020 and September 2020 represent data from Coldwater Lake.

Diatoms dominating the samples.

Discussion By identifying and comparing the open-water and benthic periphyton algal communities in Spirit Lake and Coldwater Lake, we were able to establish which taxa have recolonized the lakes post-eruption, as well as how the new algal communities differ between the lakes and between habitats.

Our data support the findings of previous research into post-eruption algal communities in Spirit Lake. Many of the taxa observed in the summers immediately following the 1980 eruption continue to proliferate in the lake today.

Various species of algae had begun to colonize lakes around Mount St. Helens within 3-4 months post-eruption, with the large lakes closest to the crater, such as Spirit Lake, were the slowest to be colonized (Ward et al. 1983). By August 1980, colonial Cyanophyta, Cyclotella sp., Melosira sp., Cocconeis sp., and Nitzschia sp. had appeared in Spirit Lake. By June 1981, these genera had been replaced by unicellular green clusters, Pseudanabaena sp., and Navicula sp. (Ward et al.

1983). By 1983, phytoplankton taxa abundance and diversity had increased greatly (Larson et al. 2006).

Comparing our results to previous studies by Ward et al. (1983) and Larson et al. (2006), we found that between roughly 1989 and 2004, many taxa that had previously appeared in Spirit Lake did not occur in the Larson et al.

(2006) samples, only to occur again in 2005 and onward. The reason for these gaps is unclear; they could be due to nonrepresentative sampling or counting practices, or perhaps chemical or climatic changes that occurred in the lake during those years, preventing the proliferation of those taxa.

Additionally, rainbow trout were reintroduced to Spirit Lake sometime in the early 1990s, as detected by the U.S. Forest Service. This new trout presence potentially explains gaps in taxa growth, as well as the introduction of new algal groups if the trout were stocked from other lakes. The New Zealand mud snail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) was also recently detected in Spirit Lake’s input streams (USDA 2018). New Zealand mud snails are known to prefer a diet of periphyton over their more typical diet of detritus, so their presence may also impact the composition of periphyton communities in Spirit Lake (Bilka and Levri 2013). Until a greater database of annual samples from all aspects of the lake ecosystem is established, the factors influencing taxa fluctuations will be difficult to understand.

Aside from our sampling and the early sampling by Ward et al. (1983) in the two summers after the eruption, little research has been performed on Coldwater Lake’s postFIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 9

eruption algal community. According to Ward et al. (1983), algae began returning to blast-zone lakes 3-4 months posteruption. However, the gap in data between 1981 and today makes it impossible to discern what happened in the interim.

Our study suggests that as many as four different algal groups have returned to Coldwater Lake since it’s ecosystem was devastated in 1980. This implies that the algal community is recovering, although quite differently than what we observed in Spirit Lake. Diatoms make up a significantly smaller proportion of Coldwater Lake’s open-water algal community than was expected based on observations at Spirit Lake. Between July and September 2020, the Diatom population was reduced to almost nothing, being overtaken

by Chlorophyta. Diatoms have specific nutrient requirements, and subtle changes in nutrient concentrations can change algal community structure (Michel et al. 2006). Coldwater Lake may not have high enough concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, or silica to sustain an abundant and diverse openwater Diatom population throughout the summer. In contrast, Diatoms were the more relatively abundant of the two algal groups found in Coldwater Lake’s benthic periphyton. These findings suggest that the periphyton habitat provides services for certain algae taxa (namely Diatoms) that cannot be found in open water.

Despite the similarities in plankton communities between Spirit and Coldwater lakes, our study demonstrates that the benthic periphyton communities are quite different. A comparison of periphyton communities shows that the Spirit Lake’s log mat periphyton hosts a greater diversity of algal groups than the shore rock periphyton from Coldwater Lake.

The log mat periphyton samples consistently contained four taxonomic groups (Diatoms, Cyanophyta, Chlorophyta, and

Our comparison of the two lakes reveals that the log mat environment enables greater taxa richness and diversity of benthic algae than shoreline rocks.

Chrysophyta), while the shoreline rock periphyton samples only contained Diatoms and Chlorophyta. Additionally, the log mat periphyton supports a greater number of taxa than the shoreline rock periphyton. Between 2018 and 2019, we observed an average of 27.3 taxa present in log mat samples, but only 11 taxa present in the 2020 shore rock samples. This 10 fieldnotesjournal.org

difference in taxa richness implies that the log mat is a better host for algal communities than other benthic materials found in alpine lakes. This conclusion is supported by Schneck et. al (2011), who found greater species richness of benthic algae on rough substrates than on smooth substrates. The woody debris that makes up Spirit Lake’s floating log mat is a more rough and porous substrate than the smoother shoreline rocks from Coldwater Lake, and could therefore support a greater number of algae taxa.

Our comparison of the two lakes reveals that the log mat environment enables greater taxa richness and diversity of benthic algae than shoreline rocks. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that the greater algal diversity on the log mat benefits the rest of Spirit Lake’s ecosystem by magnifying that diversity up the food chain. Unpublished data from Jeremy Davis of the University of Washington Tacoma show that in the summer of 2019, adult Trichoptera (an order of insects that include caddisflies, which are very prevalent at Spirit Lake) were about 20 times as prolific on the Spirit Lake log mat compared to over open water and on the shore. In contrast, Diptera (true flies) and Odanata (dragonflies and damselflies) were about equally abundant in all three environments. For Trichoptera at least, the log mat seems to provide some ecosystem service that is unavailable from other parts of the lake. Benthic algae can also be an important source of primary production in aquatic ecosystems, so greater algal diversity and production could lead to greater fish production (Cantonati and Lowe 2014). However, further research is needed to quantify the effects of this greater diversity in Spirit Lake specifically. There are many potential research opportunities to study how the log mat affects other parts of the lake ecosystem—for example, trout and amphibian distribution, and abiotic factors such as nutrient loading.

We recognize a number of limitations to our study that require additional consideration. First, choosing to locate our constructed log mats in Duck Bay inherently introduces potential for error. As Gawel et al. (2018) found, the log mat spends the least amount of time in Duck Bay compared to the other arms of Spirit Lake. The most ideal and accurate sampling method would have been to suspend microscope slides directly underneath the main, free-floating log mat.

However, strong winds cause the logs to bash violently into each other, which would disturb our samples. The freefloating logs also get shuffled around within the main mass.

If we were to suspend our samples from a log on the outside of the mat, it could move to the inside, and we would not be able to retrieve our samples. By constructing our log mats in Duck Bay, we were able to avoid these hazards and increase our ease of sampling. But as a consequence, our samples may

not be wholly representative of the periphyton on the freefloating log mat. There could be aspects unique to Duck Bay that impacted our constructed log mats but not the freefloating log mat, or vice versa. These factors could include a variance in wind speeds, water chemistry, and lake depth, among others. Since we do not currently have a way to extract consistent samples from the free-floating log mat, the Duck Bay constructed log mats are still our best option, but this potential for error should be kept in mind when discussing the implications of our results.

Second, timing of sampling trips was dictated mainly by weather conditions and access to Spirit Lake, so sampling was not regularly distributed throughout the summers. Between 2018 and 2019, we were able to collect samples within the same months, but not to a more precise date measurement. More drastically, we were not able to collect samples from Spirit Lake at all in 2020 due to camping and park access restrictions by virtue of the Coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, our analysis of annual changes in Spirit Lake was limited to comparing two subsequent years instead of three.

Third, our collection of plankton tow samples was limited by which areas of each lake we could access by boat, as well as time constraints. Due to these limitations, our plankton tow samples may not be representative of the algal communities from different areas around each lake or the algal community as a whole. This fact should be kept in mind when interpreting our results, particularly the results from Coldwater Lake, for which our collection area was severely restricted (Figure 3).

We hypothesize that the greater algal diversity on the log mat benefits the rest of Spirit Lake’s ecosystem by magnifying that diversity up the food chain. deeper understanding of the log mat’s impacts on the lake as a whole, as well as continue to document the fascinating posteruption regeneration of the lake ecosystem.

Acknowledgments This research could not have been possible without the work and mentorship of James Gawel, Avery Cook Shinneman, Kena Fox-Dobbs, and Jeremy Davis. Thank you also to the many undergraduate researchers I had the privilege of working alongside over the course of this project.

Conclusion Spirit Lake’s log mat represents a unique habitat feature with implications for further research into the impacts of woody debris on lake ecosystems. Our findings show that the log mat provides habitat niches for benthic periphyton that are not found elsewhere in Spirit Lake or in Coldwater Lake, a comparable lake nearby. Our results build upon previous findings from Ward et al. (1983) and Larson et al. (2006) to establish an encyclopedia of Spirit Lake’s post-eruption algae taxa, in both open water and benthic periphyton habitats, demonstrating continued community development. We were not able to establish long-term patterns in algae relative abundance using only three summers of data, but our research is a jumping-off point for further data collection at both Spirit Lake and Coldwater Lake. Additional research should be done on both biotic and abiotic elements of the lakes to determine the role of floating woody debris in an alpine lake ecosystem.

Future years of sample collection will help establish long-term patterns in Spirit Lake’s algal communities that will beget a FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 11

PHOTO JUSTIN HARSHMAN

esearch ommunications

Interactive Effects of Biotic and Abiotic Stressors on Green Urchins Field research opportunities in mid- pandemic 2020 are as elusive as the ghost shark. As a part of a small cohort of Marine Biology seniors, I was able to capture my ghost shark: a chance to do experimental research at Friday Harbor Labs (FHL), a University of Washington research facility on San Juan Island, WA. FHL is the crowning jewel of many of the programs offered by UW, and it’s almost mythical when you hear the experiences of fellow classmates and scientists from around the world. It feels surreal when you are there, an idyllic world of researchers and artists almost as soon as you step off of the ferry—that’s when you know the “myth” is fact.

Under the direction of Dr. José Guzmán, Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Aquatic & Fishery Science, and Mo Turner, Ph.D. candidate, and FHL expert, ten of us engaged in an intensive three weeks of research. Our group created experiments that clarified trophic relationships, intertidal ecology, and oceanography while learning how to properly conduct research in the field and in the lab.

From front to back: Mo Turner, Ph.D. candidate, Chris Mantegna, Jacki O’Maley, Dr. Rebecca Guenther

Opportunities for undergraduates at FHL span from a few weeks to an entire quarter and the rugged intertidal of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) is an attractive research resource for ecologists. PNW intertidal zones (the shore area that spends as much time above water as below) serve as nurseries for ecologically and commercially valuable vertebrate and invertebrate species. These organisms have adapted to withstand fluctuating abiotic factors (i.e., temperature, light, 14 fieldnotesjournal.org

salinity), one of the defining characteristics of this ecosystem.

While these organisms are resilient, climate change is creating a persistent multi-stressor environment that could permanently decrease their survivability (Détrée et al. 2020).

Survivability is key to maintaining species biodiversity—the key indicator of a healthy intertidal zone. Building upon the initial guided experiments of our FHL program, I decided to pursue my independent research on how these multi-stressor environments alter trophic relationships in the intertidal.

Green urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) are ideal organisms to examine concurrent abiotic and biotic stressors on intertidal trophic relationships (Dorey 2019).

Green urchins are physiologically successful in various conditions, are long-lived, and have the ability to reproduce over the majority of their lifespan, making them excellent indicators of intertidal ecosystem health. In hospitable environments, green urchins maintain kelp beds through grazing, thereby increasing ecosystem-leveled biodiversity (Rogers-Bennett and Catton 2019). However, persistent abiotic stressors have a negative impact on urchin spine length, density, and motility (Dorey 2019, Rogers-Bennett and Catton 2019). This is alarming because their stress response is to change their morphology and begin overgrazing to compensate for the energetic expenditure (Scheibling and Hatcher 2013, Rogers-Bennett and Catton 2019). When urchins overgraze they create barrens, areas of decimated kelp forests, which negatively impact biodiversity. Fascinated by a concept I understand, stress eating, I worked with Jacki O’Maley, classmate and fellow marine biology senior, to execute an experiment that explores urchin response to stressors and the trophic implications of those responses.

What are the independent and interacting effects of predator presence (biotic) and environmental stressors (abiotic) on urchin survival and stress response?

We designed a two-part experiment that used kelp consumption as a proxy for stress response. We used green urchins and their trophic relationship with bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana), their preferred food source, and the sunflower seastar (Pycnopodia helianthoides), their natural predator.

The experiment consisted of three stressors: (1) elevated

PHOTO CHRIS MANTEGNA

by Chris Mantegna

TABLE 1 The treatment identification and correlating type.

ID

TREATMENT

N=

A

elevated/no predator

8

B

elevated/predator

8

C

ambient/predator

8

D

ambient/no predator

8

E

elevated/24hr dark

4

F

elevated/24hr light

4

G

ambient/24hr light

4

H

ambient/24hr light

4

PHOTO AND FIGURES CHRIS MANTEGNA

water temperatures (+6°C), (2) altered light/dark cycles (representative of drastic habitat changes due to excess or absence of bull kelp), and (3) a predator chemical signal (via an isolated sunflower star). To address our hypothesis, urchins were exposed to a combination of three stressors in a fully factorial design and fed every eight hours for five days. Urchins were fed a slight excess of bull kelp three times a day to ensure that food is not a limiting factor. At each feeding, urchin location in the tank, current shape, and spine behaviors were recorded to be reviewed alongside the cumulative amount of food eaten and fecal matter coverage at the bottom of each individual tank. We expected to see the predator presence as the top stressor so we split our experiment into two parts to clearly examine the impact of each of these factors. The first part focused on the effects of abiotic and biotic stressors together, and the other focused on two abiotic stressors together. In the first experiment, we examined the collective effect of elevated water temperature and the persistent presence of the predator, and in the second we measured the compounding effect of elevated water temperature and persistent light or persistent dark.

Results from the experiment were in line with expectations—predators create stress for their prey—but

FIGURE 1 Average number of spines dropped per treatment: Spine dropping is a stress response in urchins. The graph shows the average number dropped per treatment type.

there were surprises. The urchins that consumed the least amount of kelp (per gram of urchin) were in the elevated water temperature and 24-hour darkness (abiotic/abiotic) treatment. The next lowest consumers were in the elevated water temperature and sunflower star signal (abiotic/biotic) treatment. Comparing kelp consumption to observed behaviors helped us get a full picture of urchin stress response and the only objective metric we could use was counting the number of spines each urchin dropped. Spine dropping is an immediately identifiable and documentable stress response in urchins. Urchin spines are utilized for sensory and locomotive functions, and when stressed, they drop their spines—hypothesized to conserve energy as each spine moves independently. Quantifying this behavior yielded a similar result to the kelp consumption result, the same treatments dropped the highest and second-highest number of spines. We noticed that urchins exposed to the predator signal showed signs of stress immediately whereas urchins exposed to multiple abiotic stressors showed signs of sustained stress throughout the experiment.

Our results indicate that exposure to either predator presence or an environmental stressor inhibited survival and increased stress, with the combination of multiple environmental stressors being the most inhibitive. This implies that green urchins would be unable to fully cope with additional predation pressure in stressful temperature conditions. It is unclear how climate change will modify their capacity to change their morphology, but I expect to see the loss of this ability. This can lead to habitat destabilization (heavy kelp canopy or urchin barrens) and loss of biodiversity in the intertidal.

Urchins are considered sentinels for the health of the intertidal ecosystem by quickly responding to unobservable (to the eye) ecosystem changes like elevation in water temperature. Significant addition or removal will irreparably FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 15

reduce biodiversity. Like many other marine invertebrates, urchins are broadcast spawners. Alterations to habitat can have detrimental effects on gamete quantity and quality and mask critical spawning cues—this can cause a drastic loss of abundance of urchins. Anecdotally, urchins in the elevated water temperature treatments showed signs of distress through color change in their test from the normal browns, greens, and purples, to light pinks and balding areas.

While balding and color change can often indicate bacterial infection (from uneaten kelp or heavy fecal coverage in our experiment), there is no consensus on the cause in the wild.

What is clear is that warming oceans are the largest prohibitor

Our intertidal zones are in trouble, and urchins may be how we recruit new community scientists to help solve the problem of anthropogenic climate change.

FIGURE 2 The average urchin mass change per treatment type. Each urchin was weighed at the start and finish of the experiment.

FIGURE 3 Average Mass of kelp consumed (in grams) per gram of urchin per treatment type. Urchins were placed randomly, there was no standardization of mass in treatment type.

16 fieldnotesjournal.org

of survival. Urchins may not have the capacity to withstand multiple abiotic stressors.

Easily accessible during a low tide event and possessing a charismatic reaction to touch, green urchins are an excellent teaching species. Our intertidal zones are in trouble and urchins may be how we recruit new community scientists to help solve the problem of anthropogenic climate change.

As more and more intertidal organisms are forced to choose between immediate need fulfillment and long-term survivability we will see an inevitable loss of biodiversity, the key to healthy ecosystems. Urchins are habitat maintainers and excellent indicators of environmental change. If we lose them we lose the whole host of intertidal organisms that are the foundation of aquatic and terrestrial food webs— including our own.

PHOTO AND FIGURES CHRIS MANTEGNA

Urchin in early experiment stage (~32hrs) with uneaten kelp, feces, and dropped spines.

BY MAX DIPPEL

NEOTROPICAL PRIMATOLOGY RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING NATIONS observed the troops as long as I could, often running to keep up. Despite my valiant effort to document their population, the tamarins didn’t seem to like me very much. I was peed on from the canopy multiple times. Out of 251 observations of individuals’ behavior, 108 (43%) were moving, 64 (26%) were resting, 64 (26%) were vocalizations, 22 (9%) were foraging, and 2 (<1%) were social interactions (Figure 1).

Some observations were marked as moving/vocalizations and resting/vocalizations if both activities were occurring concurrently. My observations at Cerro Ancón indicated more time spent moving and less time resting and foraging than similar studies done in other nearby larger forests. A possible reason for this may be that the area surveyed at Cerro Ancón has less canopy cover than these other study sites, especially around the trail, and studies have shown that in fragmented habitat tamarins modify their behavior to spend more time in forested habitat.

The data taken at Cerro Ancón showed relatively the same frequency of troop sightings per day but a lower average troop size than similar studies at Parque Metropolitano, a larger urban forest fragment. Smaller group sizes have decreased predator surveillance which could lead to increased predation. There is evidence that living in a forest fragment or an urban forest influences primate demographics, distribution and behavior.

To the point, the Cerro Ancón forest fragment is only large enough to support Tamarin monkeys, but there are many other non-human primate species in Panama. Howler and spider monkeys require larger and less disturbed habitats to sustain viable populations and cannot be found within Panama City. Tamarins and other small primates are noted as being seed dispersers which is an important ecosystem service.

PHOTO MAX DIPPEL

PANAMA IS ONE OF THE MOST BIODIVERSE PLACES on the planet, having been ideally situated as a land bridge between North and South America for the last four million years. Two years ago, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to see that biodiversity up close when I studied abroad in Panama. During my study abroad program, my classmates and I traveled to rainforest, tropical mountains, mangroves and coral reefs, to learn from scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution and local people. At every site, we learned research methods and went into the field to collect data using the methods we had just learned. I chose to study abroad in Panama because I had a family connection in the country, but studying there was so much more than that. It was an amazing experience and also a deeply personal one.

My capstone research project in Panama was located at Cerro Ancón (Ancon Hill), a fragment of greenery surrounded by the bustling metropolis of Panama City. It’s an urban forest which hosts animals such as sloths, toucans and most importantly for me, monkeys. My study organism, Saguinus geoffroyi, Geoffroy’s tamarin, is a small neotropical primate which lives in Panama and Colombia. It’s very cute but very fast. I observed them moving 43% of the time, which meant I was keeping up with them, notepad and GPS in hand, for almost half my observation time. Tamarin monkeys are diurnal, meaning they are active around sunrise and sunset, so I arrived at Cerro Ancón everyday before the sun rose. I ran transects on the trail system, and when I spotted a troop of tamarins, I got my notebook to start recording.

Physical conditions, troop demographics, location and individual behavior were used to create a picture of the Tamarin population at Cerro Ancón. I

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 17

FIGURE 1 Tamarin activities performed at Cerro Ancón (some behaviors recorded concurrently) presented in percent of time recorded.

Through digesting and dispersing seeds, these animals help seeds germinate and aid in forest regeneration. Given many seed dispersal species are found at less frequency in urban areas, the importance of Geoffroy’s tamarin at Cerro Ancón is outsized. Further research should continue to investigate primates in urban forest fragments as the amount of urban forest in central Panama will continue to increase in the future based on Panama City’s continued expansion.

My experience in Panama was more than just biological research. It was also the experience of living in a developing, post-colonial country, enhanced by my own strange personal connection to the country. When they were my age, my paternal grandparents lived in Panama when my grandfather served in the US Army. He was stationed at the Panama canal

poverty. I lived with multiple host families there, some of whom lived below the poverty line, and living with people whose situation was so different from my own had a great impact on me. Moreover, poverty in developing nations exacerbates threats to endangered neotropical primates and other species threatened with extinction. The developing tropics are the place where conservation faces its most pressing challenges. As a biology student concerned with wildlife and biodiversity loss, it was incredibly formative to have this experience in the developing world centered around studying biodiversity conservation.

Future environmental researchers should be aware of the realities on the ground in these biodiversity hotspots still beset with poverty as they conduct research and consider its broader implications. As the Anthropocene progresses and globalization accelerates, environmental research in the tropics is transforming into a human focused science and one often deeply personal for the researchers.

which, up until 1999, was owned by the US. Many Americans might be surprised to know that the currency used in Panama is the American dollar and the US invaded Panama in 1989.

The pervasive American influence was often uncomfortable for my peers and I. Even Cerro Ancón, my research site, is a part of the United States colonial legacy in Panama. It was part of the United States territory around the canal and the site of the American military hospital.

Despite America’s large influence in the country, we have not done our part to help Panama throughout the years.

Panama is a developing country where many people live in 18 fieldnotesjournal.org

PHOTO AND FIGURE MAX DIPPEL

My experience in Panama was more than just biological research. It was also the experience of living in a developing, post-colonial country, enhanced by my own strange personal connection.

Chlorophyll-a Patterns Influence Magellanic Penguin Breeding Success at Punta Tombo

PHOTO ANNA SULC

by Anna Sulc

Oceans cover 70% of our planet and make up 97% of all water on Earth.

They regulate our global climate, provide us with food and shape our economies. Our survival is linked to a healthy ocean. Oceanography focuses on the physical processes in the oceans and microscopic organisms that are transported by large-scale movements of water. However, understanding these changes in ocean conditions can often be complex and the results unclear.

An alternative way to monitor ocean health is to use sentinel species. Much like canaries in a coal mine served as an early warning system to hazardous air quality for miners, ecosystem sentinels are species that can alert us to environmental changes, whether natural or human caused (Center for Ecosystem Sentinels 2020). These sentinels give us time to listen and take action before it is too late. Professor P Dee Boersma, Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels studies the life cycle, behavior, and population dynamics of Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo. Argentina, one of the largest breeding colonies of the species.

Their survival is dependent on their food in the ocean, and since they nest on land, we can get reliable colonywide survival and breeding success measurements.

The Spheniscus magellanicus, or Magellanic penguin is considered near threatened by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Over the past 35 years, Punta Tombo has declined by 40% (Rebstock and Boersma 2018). I wanted to know how penguin behavior and survival at Punta Tombo is impacted by the local oceanography. While I found many studies in this region investigating either marine bird behavior or ocean conditions, few studies have examined their relationship (Boersma et al. 2009).

Magellanic penguins breed along FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 19

the coasts of Argentina, Chile and the Falkland/Malvinas Islands (Boersma and García-Borboroglu 2013). As a migratory species, they spend half of each year at sea at low latitude wintering grounds (Boersma and García-Borboroglu 2013). While not much is known about their behavior at sea during winter months, they spend the other 6 months of the year on land at breeding colonies and foraging in nearby waters. Parents share incubation and chick-rearing responsibilities, taking turns at the nest and going to sea to forage. Females lay two eggs in early October and both parents incubate the 20 fieldnotesjournal.org

eggs until they hatch in mid-November (Boersma and García-Borboroglu 2013).

As the chicks age, foraging trips increase in length (Stokes and Boersma 1999). During these trips, adults travel between a few kilometers and a few hundred kilometers and dive up to 100 m to search for small fish, squid and crustaceans (Frere et al. 1998). Timely return of the parents is essential for the chicks’ survival, especially in the first 10 days of their lives when chicks must be fed every one to two days to avoid starvation (Boersma and Stokes 1995).

Starvation is responsible for an average of 39% of chick deaths (Rebstock and Boersma 2014). Most of these deaths occur in the first 30 days after hatching (Boersma and García-Borboroglu 2013). It is crucial that food is abundant and close to the colony when chicks are small. Magellanic penguins meander out from the colony, swimming slowly to find food and swiftly return to the colony once they find sufficient prey (Boersma and Rebstock 2009).

If penguins must search for prey distributed across a large area, they will expend more energy and spend more time at sea satisfying their own needs than just those of their chicks. If parents are in poor condition or struggle to find food, they may not return to the colony for extended periods of time, reducing the chance of the survival of their chicks (Boersma and Rebstock 2009). If their body condition continues to deteriorate parents may even abandon their chicks and stay at sea (Frere et al. 1998).

Although removed by several food web levels from penguins, the small, photosynthetic, drifting organisms called phytoplankton are essential to sustaining life in our oceans. While they are small, with the right conditions phytoplankton can multiply rapidly and produce “blooms” so large they are visible from space. Changes in ocean currents, temperature, and nutrients in the water cause these large-scale fluctuations in the abundance of these organisms impacting every species in

PHOTO ANNA SULC

These sentinels give us time to listen and take action before it is too late.

FIGURE 1 Chlorophyll-a concentrations (in mgm-3) in a 400km-by-400km square that breeding Magellanic penguins forage off the coast of Punta Tombo, Argentina (location represented by the blue star). Concentration was measured using data from NASA satellite MODIS. Data were visualized using NASA’s online tool GIOVANNI. Each satellite image represents an 8-day average. Images were taken starting on November 26 and ending on January 24 in each year.

Panel A shows data from 2008, a “good” year, when 6% of chicks died of starvation. The blue circle highlights a large patch of high chlorophyll-a levels. This pattern is consistent for the full 8-week period. Panel B shows data from 2013, a “bad” year, when 31% of chicks died of starvation. The blue circle highlights the expected location of high chlorophyll-a; however, it is inconsistently observed. In addition, chlorophyll-a levels remain moderate across the study area.

FIGURE ANNA SULC

the marine food web. Phytoplankton photosynthesize using chlorophyll-a, a green pigment. It is possible to determine chlorophyll-a abundance in the oceans using satellite imagery to measure the amount of green pigment in the water. Knowing that phytoplankton influence the abundance of organisms that penguins prey on, I investigated if and how chlorophyll-a might influence the starvation of Magellanic penguin chicks at Punta Tombo. I compared chlorophyll-a near Punta Tombo and Magellanic penguin chick starvation.

Using Professor Boersma’s 35-year data set, I determined the percentage of chicks that starved every breeding season from 2002 to 2018. From these years I selected 10 “extreme” years where starvation in chicks was either very high or very low. I also analyzed chlorophyll-a concentration measured by the MODIS satellite in a 400 km by 400 km square where breeding Magellanic penguins forage.

I did not find a strong relationship between chick starvation and chlorophyll-a abundance, but instead found that the overall distribution of chlorophyll-a appeared to influence chick starvation. Fewer chicks starved when the study area had large phytoplankton blooms in a consistent location, surrounded by less productive regions. In years where moderate concentrations of chlorophyll-a were dispersed across the study area, more chicks starved. This pattern suggests that foraging parents depend on fronts,

As a near threatened species, it is important we continue to study and protect both the colony and the Magellanic penguin.

where there is a strong gradient in chlorophyll-a, that tends to concentrate prey species. When fronts are weak, prey is more dispersed. With the time dependent needs of their chicks, foraging must be both time and energy efficient to ensure chick survival.

Higher chick survival in years where chlorophyll-a is concentrated suggests not only that penguins prefer patches of concentrated prey, but that they rely on a consistent location of their food source.

My research shows that penguins at Punta Tombo are influenced by, if not dependent, on large scale ocean patterns off the coast of Argentina. In 2015, a study showed that a Marine Protected Area (MPA) was important for the preservation of the penguin breeding colony (Boersma et al. 2015).

This study argued that competition from local fisheries was deteriorating the reproductive success of the colony.

The results of this study and others like it helped put an MPA in place. The Punta Tombo breeding colony has declined significantly in size over the past 35 years. As a near threatened species, it is important we continue to study and protect both the colony and the Magellanic penguin. Interdisciplinary research like my own on the relationship between penguins and large-scale oceanographic conditions that extend outside of the current MPA could be a reason to expand this area to ensure Punta Tombo remains a prominent Magellanic penguin breeding colony.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Ginger Rebstock and Dee Boersma for their advice, guidance and instruction both in the field and in the lab. I would also like to thank the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels for their support.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 21

PHOTO DYLAN VECCHIONE

community features

The Significance of Whales to Pacific Northwest Indigenous Cultures Whales are significant to the culture of many indigenous groups around the Pacific Northwest. These creatures are integral to tribal heritage in the region, and are represented in a variety of mediums. Two specific groups in Washington state, the Makah Tribe and the Lummi Nation, are fighting for their rights to maintain historical interactions with whales in their culture in dramatically different ways. While the Lummi Nation is fighting to return a stolen whale to her homeland, the Makah Tribe is working to reinstate their sacred whale hunt. Although these two actions may be at opposite ends of a spectrum, they both demonstrate the immense respect that many native cultures of the Pacific Northwest hold for whales, and how protecting these practices and protecting indigenous culture are directly related.

The Lummi Nation fight for orca rights The Lummi Nation, of Bellingham Bay in Northwestern Washington, are currently fighting for a whale native to the area to be returned to her home waters. In the 1960s and 70s, large whale capture expeditions decimated the resident whale populations that were native to the Salish Sea, where the Lummi Nation call home. Many of these whales were put in aquariums, or died in the process. Today, the only surviving whale who was stolen from the Salish Sea during these hunts resides in the Miami Seaquarium, in Florida.

Tokitae, or Lolita, as she is known at the aquarium, is now 52 years old, and 24 fieldnotesjournal.org

has been captive in a small, barren tank since 1970.

The importance of orcas to Lummi culture cannot be understated, and this is why the tribe has been fighting so hard for years to return Tokitae to her home in the Salish Sea. Jay Julius, fisherman and former chairman of the Lummi Nation, described the Lummi connection to the natural world as being more than just a connection, but an inextricable link. “It’s hard to even begin to fathom our connection, our relationship, our love, our empathy for the current situation of the orcas, the salmon, the water, the environment.”

In 2018, Lummi advocates petitioned to return Tokitae to the Salish Sea, and have since engaged in many legal actions to free Tokitae. One of the most meaningful actions from the Lummi Nation has been the journey of a group of tribal members over 7,000 miles to deliver a totem pole to Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium. In an article by the Whale Sanctuary Project, one of the totem pole’s artists Jewell Praying

Wolf James expressed the significance of delivering the totem pole, saying “We are on a journey to free a fellow being.” For the Lummi people, all life is sacred, and as Julius put it, “What we feel is a deep pain that is hard to put into words… Where we come from, we are one with them. They [whales] are our relatives under the sea.”

The Orca Network has compiled a detailed plan to retrieve Tokitae from the Miami Seaquarium, transport her back to the Pacific Northwest, and release her slowly into the wild. Julius fully emphasized the importance of bringing Tokitae home because of the importance of belonging. “She belongs to that family. She belongs to the Salish Sea. This is her home.” The Lummi Nation will not rest until Tokitae is able to return to her ancestral homelands.

Tokitae, also known as Lolita, at the Miami Seaquarium in Florida.

She belongs to that family. She belongs to the Salish Sea. This is her home.

PHOTO LEONARDO DASILVA / FLICKR

by Sophia Brooks and Jane Filiault

The Makah Tribe during a hunt for a gray whale.

PHOTO ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 1999

The Makah gray whale hunt Elsewhere in Washington, the Makah Tribe of Neah Bay are fighting for very different rights than the Lummi Nation.

Janine Ledford, executive director of the Makah Cultural and Research Center, provided insight into the Makah Tribe’s historic practice of hunting gray whales. Ledford explained that for the Makah Tribe, “whale hunting has been a central cultural practice for thousands of years,” and whale hunting “was also traditionally important to both subsistence and economy.”

The whale hunt is a sacred and central component of the Makah Tribe’s culture, demanding great dedication to the hunt. The whale hunt has long been seen as a community event that brings all members of the tribe together with a shared spiritual and subsistence goal.

Ledford also mentioned that “respect for and appreciation of whales is a traditional component of Makah values related to whaling,” and great care is taken within the Makah Tribe to ensure that the hunt is respectful to the sacred gray whales.

The hunt is so critical to Makah culture that they had the right to hunt whales explicitly written into the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. In the 1920s,

the Makah Tribe volunteered to halt whaling because whale populations were over-hunted commercially and began to dangerously diminish.

According to Ledford, after this halt in whaling, “the association with whales, and Makahs identifying as whalers did not diminish.” Though they weren’t able to hunt whales, the Makah people continued to hold whales in a central regard in their culture.

In 1999, the Makah Tribe was finally able to have a successful gray whale hunt again, however in 2000, the decision that allowed the Makah Tribe to conduct whale hunts was reversed.

The Tribe submitted a request to waive the Marine Mammal Protection Act that blocked their hunts in 2005. As of November 2020, the Makah Tribe is still awaiting a final decision from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on whether or not they will be allowed to conduct whale hunts again. The Tribe has received a large amount of criticism from outside forces who do not believe that the Makah should be allowed to hunt whales which Ledford said “has come from animal rights activists, and from those unfamiliar with tribal treaty rights.”

Through all of the bureaucratic delay and outside backlash, the Makah

people remain hopeful that they will soon regain the right to practice the gray whale hunt that is sacred to their culture, and that they will be able to carry on the legacy of the hunt for future generations.

The great diversity of indigenous cultures in the Pacific Northwest is awe-inspiring and is a large part of what makes the region so unique. The cultures of indigenous tribes and nations around the Pacific Northwest are deeply intertwined with nature, and the respect that tribes demonstrate for the natural world is difficult to articulate. Both the Makah Tribe and the Lummi Nation show a deep reverence for whales, but express this in different ways. Both groups have faced great adversity recently in the fight to preserve the rights of whales in connection to their cultures. However, both groups are also not giving up their battles anytime soon, and will continue to work to preserve their culture and its ties to nature.

Respect for and appreciation of whales is a traditional component of Makah values related to whaling.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 25

BY ASHIKA CAPIRALA AND VIRGINIA DAVIDSON

T

he wildfires that ravaged the west coast this past fire season left nine million acres of devastation from Southern California all the way to the Canadian border. Central Washington is no stranger to the annual wildfire season, and past years have seen multiple other fires pass through, but never with such disastrous effects. The 2020 wildfires hit with unprecedented intensity: the cumulative product of poor preparation and the looming threat of climate change.

Brewster and Bridgeport are a pair of small towns near Wenatchee, home to a combined population that is roughly 75% immigrant/Latinx. When

the Pearl Hill fire first hit Bridgeport on the morning of September 7, residents were evacuated immediately to nearby Brewster. There, the immediate problem was the lack of shelter. Evacuees, mostly farmworkers, had no option but to sleep at a city park that first night before the Red Cross was able to open a shelter at the Brewster High School.

“On the first night, there was no one to take the families when they evacuated,” says Alma Chacón, co-founder of Community for the Advancement of Family Education (CAFÉ), a nonprofit organization operating in Wenatchee.

“Many of them ended up staying at a park, just out in the open.” Back in Bridgeport, the destruction was

unimaginable for many of these families: around 20 houses and multiple trailer homes were left unrecognizable.

The residents lost everything they owned to the fire in a matter of hours.

This loss extends still to the impacts preventing communities from recovering from these disasters. Often, air quality is impacted first, and wildfire smoke and heat is a severe hazard to public health. Evacuations jeopardize a family’s livelihood, separating them from both their home and their workplace. They might lose that home permanently, leaving many without the basic necessities for survival. For lowincome communities like Bridgeport and Brewster, it is a heartbreaking loss.

THROUGH THE SMOKE:

clearing the path towards equitable wildfire preparedness “People are afraid to ask for help” Wildfires are indiscriminate: the social differences between communities determines the severity with which communities are impacted—and how easily they recover. Dr. Matt Carroll, Professor of Resource Sociology at the WSU School of the Environment, describes patterns in the way that communities are set up to deal with wildfire risk. “Their levels of knowledge

26 fieldnotesjournal.org

are not the same and their capabilities are different, but they face the common problem of uncontrolled fire.”

Wealthier communities—termed ‘professional’ communities—are more cooperative with government agencies and scientific information, but are less likely to do their own fire adaptation work. They have the resources, but lack generational knowledge. On the other end of the spectrum are ‘working landscape’ communities, who tend to be lower income and residents of the

community for generations. Though they may lack material resources, they have first-hand knowledge of dealing with wildfires.

How do these patterns translate to immigrant farmworker communities, who often have neither the resources nor the generational knowledge?

Community vulnerability is increased, and many systemic issues detriment not only wildfire preparedness, but also recovery. Latinx farmworker communities faced several serious

FIGURE NATIONAL WILDFIRE COORDINATING GROUP

FIGURE 1 Map showing the approximate extent of the Pearl Hill fire (red area) relative to the locations of the towns of Bridgeport and Brewster.

barriers during and since the 2020 wildfire season.

The most obvious barrier, according to Marichuy Alvizar with Wenatchee for Immigrant Justice, “is the very language.” Disaster mitigation information is almost always in English, with Spanish-language resources being few and difficult to distribute. In addition, emergency relief workers are often solely English-speaking. There are efforts within wildfire mitigation groups to expand the reach of their resources, but as Dr. Ryan Haugo with the Nature Conservancy tells us, “they need to think through how to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of individual communities.” When Chacón spoke about her experience helping affected families in Bridgeport and Brewster, she described the lack of communication evident in relief efforts.

CAFÉ quickly responded to reports of displaced community members, and their Facebook Live stream was “probably the only public Spanish media that went out to people in the area that day.”

Barriers to communication don’t stop at language. Unequal power dynamics are at play in every interaction—including asking for aid.

There is an established distrust in the government and other organizations as a result of their precarious citizenship and employment status. In many cases, landowners and growers’ unions hold almost absolute power over the living conditions of their employees. Irene Morrow with Wenatchee for Immigrant Justice explains that the H-2A workers making up some of these communities have no unions, while their employers have the support of the Washington Grower’s League. While offering aid, some organizations found that they needed to make it clear that their help was not associated with the government before it was accepted. “People are

afraid to ask for help,” says Alvizar, “we told them it had nothing to do with immigration, nothing to do with any program, it was us fundraising for them.” Only then was help accepted.

Lower-income communities, especially communities of color, also face public health disadvantages. Dr. Anjum Hajat, a research assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, spoke to us about the impact that social stress can have on health, and the unfair burden that is placed on farmworker communities during wildfire events.

Often given no choice but to work during wildfire season, they are exposed to acute air pollution while dealing with disproportionate stress due to socioeconomic situations, discrimination, and wildfire impacts.

This intersection of environmental and social stressors can have chronic physiological effects: according to Hajat, air pollution’s effect on the body follows the same pathways that stress does, and both can become embodied over time.

Disasters like wildfires worsen as we fail to address the overlap between a systemic social problem and the environmental problem. “We need to lead with an equity lens,” says Hajat.

“Especially a racial equity lens.”

“Disasters like wildfires worsen as we fail to address the overlap between a systemic social problem and the environmental problem.”

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 27

“Fire is inseparable from the Pacific Northwest” This summer’s wildfire season, in addition to the millions of acres destroyed, has left one burning question: how do we integrate that equity lens into environmental wildfire management to prevent disproportionate impacts to high-risk populations like the residents of Brewster/Bridgeport?

Nature isn’t the problem: people living in wildfire-prone areas have long coexisted peacefully with fire. Native communities understood that regular fire in a forest ecosystem is beneficial: fires burn through the underbrush and discarded leaf litter, allowing new plant growth and preventing the buildup of litter that fuels fires. The centuries-old indigenous practice of controlled burning was repressed by Western settlers, who focused on total fire exclusion, pushed further since the 1900s by the U.S. Forest Service. Fire exclusion prevents the natural cycle of fire, causing litter to build up, and wildfires, when they do occur, to do so with greater intensity. “With the way we

have managed our forests, we’ve broken our natural relationship with fire,” Haugo tells us. “We’re concerned that when fire returns to those ecosystems and communities, it’s no longer playing the same role.”

Today, ecologists have begun to catch up to the necessity of those traditional practices, and the focus of wildfire management has shifted from controlling wildfires to accepting their coexistence with the ecosystem.

However, given the damaging legacy of decades of fire exclusion, and the structure of modern communities, the question of coexistence is faced with social pitfalls. Lower-income and immigrant communities still face the risk of uncontrolled fire, in addition to nearby smoke and heat, which workers out in the fields are vulnerable to.

It’s hard to separate the ecological perspective of the necessity of wildfires with the stories of lives and livelihoods

lost over decades. How do we reconcile coexistence of fire with the reality that systemically, lower-income and rural immigrant communities are still put unfairly at risk?

There is a difference between the strategies that come out of research, policy, and planning, and the strategies that are actually effective when working with individual communities, who are unique in their lifestyles, risk levels, and community needs.

“There needs to be a much greater investment at the community level to help communities adapt depending on what type of community it is,” Carroll says. Adaptation is so community- and location-specific that top-down analyses cannot adequately tell us what these communities need. “We have to spend resources working with communities.

There has to be a bottom up component to long-term improvements.”

“When fire returns to those ecosystems and communities, it’s no longer playing the same role.”

PHOTO STEVE BODNAR / INCIWEB

FIGURE 2 The aftermath of the Pearl Hill fire north of highway 173.

The fire burned a total area of 223,730 acres. (Source: InciWeb)

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Why Ecopoetry Matters: Accessibility, Justice, and Environmentalism

by Kathleen Gonzalez and Beth Behnken One of the most human experiences is portraying your surroundings through language and visualizations. As early as the first humans, many have passed their stories and art through generations. Today we continue to learn more about our environments and the planet as a whole, so the forms in which we share our experiences pertaining to nature and our surroundings are everchanging. Looking beyond descriptive accounts of nature, we are beginning to discover connections between the natural world and the sociological aspects of our human experience. One of the ways we are able to express our feelings and experiences is through ecopoetry.

Ecopoetry combines the words ‘ecology’ and ‘poetry’, to describe a genre of poetry. This genre originated in the 1970s and gained popularity in the 1980s-1990s when the subject of environmentalism became increasingly popular (Farfield 2015). Demonstrating a more holistic world view on the intersections between humans and nature is the focal point of ecopoetry today. Ecopoetry is a mode of expression which includes non-traditional viewpoints such as Ecofeminism and Queer ideas. This form of art may be a way of expressing an emotional connection or reconnection to an environmental event. It can also be a form of activism or a way to raise awareness about a particular movement.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 29

T

oday ecopoetry is prevalent across the world, and in Washington state the focus of many pieces of ecopoetry has been oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s connection to waterways and mountains. In Seattle, ecopoetry is found in different venues such as art museums, public structures like transit platforms, murals, and in community centers. Many are interested in creating new or updating old spaces to include the voices and considerations of Indigenous, POC, and LGBTQ communities.

Ecopoetics encourages movements that uplift and preserve environmental wellness. Often these movements are brought on by those who hold traditional forms of knowledge such as Indigenous peoples and immigrants.

30 fieldnotesjournal.org

Indigenous or traditional knowledge is often viewed separately from the scientific community, and ecopoetics can serve as a bridge between the two.

These traditional forms of knowledge, when used in conjunction with science, will help us improve our work on local and global ecology.

To expand our discussion on ecopoetry, we spoke with Cleo Woelfle-

Ecopoetics encourages movements that uplift and preserve environmental wellness.

Erskine, a professor of Equity and Environmental Justice at the University of Washington. Professor Erskine created a course called Ecopoetics Along the Shorelines: Science and Justice in Puget Sound Communities.

This interdisciplinary course takes students into the field to explore the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

Their goal is to observe and interact with the practices of these communities.

We looked to Professor Woelfle-Erskine for his expertise on ecopoetry and its use in the field of environmentalism.

Professor Woelfle-Erskine emphasized that science and art are not mutually exclusive and the usage of both unifies these fields to accomplish a common goal. Woelfle-Erskine speaks

PHOTO ELLEN NG / ART KATHLEEN GONZALEZ

Naturally Beautiful by Kathleen Gonzalez explores body positivity, heritage, feminism, and the environment.

on the importance of this field of work, noting that “Ecopoetics is crucial today because sciencedriven approaches have not been able to galvanize movements for world renewal and environmental health. For that we need stories, art, music, performance, and collective movements.” Science is crucial to health and ecological rehabilitation in allowing us to identify problems and develop and test strategies to improve these issues. Until very recently science has not looked into the interconnectedness of socioeconomics and the environment. It is because of this lack of study between the two that ecopoetry has been an important part of communicating topics such as injustice and political movements.

Ecopoetry can take many different forms and styles, below is an example of an ecopoem written by a local student Kayla Carrington. Carrington is a talented student recommended to

It is this expression of ideas and the human experience that forms the way we view our natural world and our relation within it. us by Professor Woelfle-Erskine. Their poem Each Step In explores a few of ecopoetry’s main topics and themes.

Ecopoetry is around you in ways you may not have noticed before. It is this expression of ideas and the human experience that forms the way we view our natural world and our relation within it. Woelfle-Erskine describes it as “feeling our relations to one and other, and communicating those feelings to other people so that we can make a shared understanding of how to manage that place’s ecosystems and social systems.” In a holistic sense, we are the Earth, we come from the Earth

and will return to the Earth, all the while playing a pivotal role in how we shape it for future generations.

Ask yourself: in what ways am I contributing to society’s view of our natural environment?

How do my experiences and knowledge change this viewpoint, and how can I preserve the lens in which I view the world? Through ecopoetics people are able to consider these systems in a comprehensive manner, in order to couple human values with ecological restoration and preservation. Many people are already engaged in movements for justice and environmental activism, but through ecopoetics you can be the one to highlight the connections between these socioeconomic and ecological systems.

Learn more about Professor Woelfle-Erskine’s course by clicking the hyperlink on our digital magazine or by visiting: https://artsci.washington. edu/news/2018-04/closer-look-shorelines

I am a wet rock and its ecosystem.

Come, flip me over, I think.

I think I want to share with you, I think I want to show you my colors my critters my brothers, transmitters of numbers of other wonders but in the summers my under’s flipped over quite often. Hi. Please let me stay rock bottom.

Why? My orientation changes, not by my own and my belly dies on my back.

My back becomes my belly and I start again from scratch.

Give me a moment.

Everything I thought I was Everything I thought had made me, Exposed. Ego. Self.

I notice; okay.

I notice I am growing in new ways.

Sunbathing. Sheltering. Simultaneously.

- Kayla Carrington

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 31

TRUE FALSE COLORS: a lack of representation, non-BIPoC roles, and the need to stop persisting

32 fieldnotesjournal.org

BY EMILY SEAMAN & JENNA TRUONG

I

n the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other injustices, FieldNotes issued a statement saying we stand with Black Lives Matter and we are here to continue our allyship. A key to allyship is listening to and amplifying BIPoC voices, whether in the environment, on campus, or elsewhere. We’re zooming in on our college, the College of the Environment, to see how we compare in terms of racial and ethnical representation and amplifying student voices. To put it simply, we’re behind (Figure 1). Not one of our departments is less Caucasian than the University in general (Figure 2). So, we must ask why we are further behind, and what makes us less accessible to these individuals?

FIGURE 1 Racial and ethnical composition of students in the University of Washington compared to within the College of the Environment in the Fall 2020. Data from UW.

PHOTO UW VISUAL ASSETS COLLECTION

We reached out to individuals in the College, asking for volunteers to tell us about their experiences. Through interviews with Chris Mantegna, Mandy Jackson, and others, we facilitated a discussion focused on representation and how others should be playing a role in addressing diversity in the College. Some of the responses are as follows.

WHAT HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE BEEN AS BIPOC IN THE COLLEGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT? MANTEGNA: [Being Black] means I don’t have any professors that look like me. It means the labs I’m in don’t look like me. It means the authors that we read, the textbooks that we touch, the science, the conservation, everything that is around me doesn’t include me. And when I’m there it’s an afterthought.

FIGURE 2 Racial and ethnical composition of students by department within the College of the Environment in the Fall 2020. Data from UW.

That is exhausting because monitoring how I speak and what I do, it’s a code switch1 situation all day every day. So, I can fit in in this environment that doesn’t want me to fit in, but has the audacity to say things like “we want to recognize we’re on Coast Salish peoples land” and “biodiversity is the key to the health of any environment that we’re in,” but that doesn’t include me.

JACKSON: I’m someone who identifies as half Black and half White. I moved here from Minneapolis, MN, and I saw a lot more representation there than in Seattle. I also saw a lot more diversity in community college than I have at UW. Granted I’m a new student here, so these are only my first classes, but I don’t see anyone like me. I don’t read articles by anyone like me. It makes me wonder, am I just a statistic? Am I here because it looks good because they brought in someone that identifies as Black? It just makes me question where my real place is.

I feel like a lot of people look at me and don’t see my Blackness and to get around that they ask me about my hair.

They want to know, “what mix are you?” and “why are you

I don’t see anyone like me. I don’t read articles by anyone like me. It makes me wonder, am I just a statistic? Am I here because it looks good because they brought in someone that identifies as Black? It makes me question where my real place is.

- MANDY JACKSON

different?” and I don’t like being probed like that. I feel like I benefit from colorism because my skin is lighter, but it brings

code switch: the practice of interacting in different ways depending on the social context, and it isn’t limited to race.

1

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 33

a lot of guilt in a sense of not being able to connect to my Black side as much. It’s a weird mix, being Black and White.

What would be the most influential is incorporating to work of BIPoC scientists - because my science is more important than any DEI initiative you have me speak on.

MANTEGNA: Totally, impostor syndrome2 is real. It’s frustrating because I’m on the new Marine Biology pamphlet, I’m on it. Do you know how many MarBio majors there are that are Black? In my graduating class, there is me and a gentleman – there’s two of us.

ANONYMOUS: There are no women of color in the School of Environmental and Forestry Sciences (SEFS). There are a lot of white women. I had someone in the department tell me, “I was shocked to find out you identify as a minority and face discrimination.” And I was like, “I’m sorry that you, a nonBIPoC person, didn’t see that.”

So, it kind of felt like I came to this department at UW and stepped 100 steps backward. It’s been interesting because it made me realize how privileged I was growing up in such a diverse environment and that most other places aren’t like that.

I’ve been on the College of the Environment Diversity team since 2017, so I’ve kind of just watched nothing happen really. But it has been kind of interesting to get that behindthe-scenes perspective that there’s a lot of symbolic change and a lot of symbolic commitments to diversity. These past months of seeing white people awaken to racism and get all worked up and get in a book club and do nothing has been so, so taxing. Especially to undergrads and grads who have used that time to mobilize only to be shoved into some weird box.

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR OUR READERS ON WHAT THEY CAN DO OR HOW WE CAN UPLIFT AND ASSIST OUR BIPOC PEERS? MANTEGNA: What would be the most influential is senior-level staff or professors incorporating the work of BIPoC scientists. Because my science is more important than any DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiative you have me speak on.

Our non-BIPoC counterparts are proclaimed the kings and queens of conservation, they are the ones who lead all of these initiatives and do missions to Africa and go to Camp Brad to see sharks. Right, but your lineage is also the lineage that destroyed the planet that you now have to help us fix. Conservation is an ALL HANDS onboard community science effort.

- CHRIS MANTEGNA

I’m from the inner city of Baltimore. I had all these bad things happen to me, but look at how I “persisted”, and I did, and that’s great, but I don’t want my kid to persist. She’s going to one of the best high schools in Seattle right now and there are no students of color there, none. I want that narrative to change, I want our language to change, I want our access to change, we are not here “despite” or to “persist”. We are here proactively and positively for the same reasons, as our nonBIPoC counterparts.

ANONYMOUS: Speaking to my own experience, I was raised with a community-care mindset, a giving-back mindset. However, as I’ve grown up, I’ve struggled because my non-BIPoC peers don’t have that. It’s truly focused on individualism, and science from an academia perspective is as well. The whole thing is colonizing a scientific thought and then being like “It’s mine, I did it! Now everyone has to cite me!”. However, there is evidence to show that women and people of color do most of the service work behind that academia. So, I just wish our fellow non-BIPoC peers would also take those “sacrifices”, give up your time, lift up other folks.

JACKSON: Bouncing off of “giving time”, just outreach, in general, is needed. I grew up thinking I could never be a scientist because no one talked to me about it, no one ever came to my high school or came to my community college and showed me those options. You can be a minority and a scientist? I never saw that! Take the time to go out and show younger people, younger BIPoC individuals, what a minority scientist looks like, especially a minority woman scientist.

MANTEGNA: Yes! It’s a very pervasive thought in BIPoC communities that we rise and fall together. I’m a part of a community called BWEEMS (Black Women in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Sciences) and it started because that space hadn’t existed for us yet. It’s a fact that Black Women in science aren’t cited as much, and we’re not seen as good

imposter syndrome: a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and

2

has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

34 fieldnotesjournal.org

mentors, but BWEEMS is proving that wrong. We are here, we are a community, and we’re big. We just had our general meeting and it’s always an affirming and wonderful and usually emotional experience.

AT THIS POINT, AFTER ALL OF OUR MAIN QUESTIONS HAD BEEN ANSWERED, WE OPENED UP THE FLOOR TO ALLOW MANTEGNA, JACKSON, AND ANON AN OPPORTUNITY TO SAY THEIR FINAL THOUGHTS. IN THIS TIME CHRIS TOOK A MOMENT TO ADDRESS THEIR LASTING IMPRESSIONS TOWARDS YOU, THE READER. MANTEGNA: I feel like I’ve said a lot of different things but the general takeaway that I hope the readership is able to get out of this is that we can’t do this work alone. We have been doing it and we have gotten pretty far, but we just can’t continue to carry the weight by ourselves anymore. Especially with the current socio-political climate and how impactful that is. DNA Weathering3 is very real, and stress and trauma imprint on women of color at a higher rate, it shortens our lifespans. Quite frankly, we’re so focused on saving the world around us that we forget to save ourselves as well, we need to start sharing that load.

After seeing these graphs and reading these testimonies, it’s not hard to see that we must do better. We must hold the College of the Environment accountable for their lack of representation, we must continue to amplify BIPoC voices, and in turn, listen and apply what they have been telling us all along. Mantegna said it beautifully; the need to persist should not be present in our society anymore. There should be no glass ceiling to burst through or a war to be won, the opportunities should already have been here, and they should have been accessible all along. To make that a reality is not a fight that can be taken on by one group or even one community, it will take all us of working together to abolish systematically racist ideals held in our education and seen in our day-to-day lives.

We are urging whoever reads this to allow yourself to feel angry about this. It’s okay, get angry, but do something with it. Donate your time to your community, listen, and amplify the voices of your BIPoC peers, be the change that has been long overdue.

We would like to say a final thank you to Chris Mantegna, Mandy Jackson, and all of the other participants who took the time out of their days to speak with us about these injustices and inform us on what is not only happening right on our doorstep but also what we can be doing as allies to BIPOC communities. Let their words not be said in vain and may the content of their message not be lost.

I want that narrative to change, I want our language to change, I want our access to change, we are not here “despite” or to “persist”. We are here proactively and positively for the same reasons, as our non-BIPoC counterparts.

- CHRIS MANTEGNA

It’ll never take without us all working together, there are no heroes or villains. You can be a part of the problem while also being part of the solution. For when we all come up with it together it’s going to be more effective and also feel more encompassing for everybody.

dna weathering: describes how the constant stress of racism may lead to premature biological aging and poor health

3

outcomes for black people, like disproportionately high death rates from chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and most cancers.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2020 35

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MATTERS:

ACCESSIBILITY,

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We provide undergraduates with diverse ways to share their environmental research and engage a broader community.