Autumn 2019

FIELDNOTES Autumn 2019

Letter from the Editors Autumn is a time of transition - students are strolling through the fallen leaves on their way to new classes, and field seasons wind down in preparation for the long lab sessions ahead. FieldNotes is not alone in this either.

We said goodbye to many graduating editorial board members at the end of the last issue, but have since welcomed new faces on the board. While this is our fourth issue, it still feels like the journal has the potential to grow in many different ways.

FieldNotes has turned over a new leaf with this issue. We have an emphasis on plant research this quarter, from experiments on sunflowers and eelgrass to bushwhacking through old-growth forests. Our new members have brought fresh voices, perspectives, and energy to this journal. A few have even taken the lead on contributing key pieces on the Seattle youth climate strike, indigenous archaeology, and the not-so-natural history of the UW’s own Union Bay Natural Area. As FieldNotes continues to grow and evolve, these diverse new perspectives bring life and nuance to our journal.

We’re excited to bring this new issue to you with generous financial support from the UW College of the Environment. We hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look into the projects of these up-and-coming leaders and that this issue will inspire you to follow in their footsteps.

Sincerely,

FieldNotes will be soliciting new article submissions for its Spring 2020 issue in March/August 2020. If you are an undergraduate student interested in contributing to the journal as either a member of the editorial board or article author, please check out our website, fieldnotesjournal.org and contact the team at fieldnotesjourn@gmail.com.

2

fieldnotesjournal.org

Alanna Greene Senior Editor

Ellen Ng Layout Designer

Madeline Brooks Social Media & Editing

Ashley I. Lobao Editor

Katie Hearther Editor

August Mikkelsen Editor

Florence Olivia McCabe Editor

Ashika Capirala Editor

Rebecca Johnson Contributor

Owan Boram Contributor

Emily Seaman Contributor

meet the team

Andrew Chin Editor-in-Chief

With additional contributions from Annabel Weyhrich and Victoria S. Fleck FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

3

TABLE of CONTENTS feature article 6

Effects of Increased Temperatures and CO2 on Powdery Mildew Virulence and Plant Susceptibility

by Sabrina Gilmour

research communications 12

A Summer of Soil

by Allison Phillips

14

Zoned Out: Assessing The Similarity of Restoration and Reference Sites in Port Susan Bay

by Madison Hoiland

17

Through the Aquarium Glass: Investigating Invasive Species Risk from the Online Informal Aquarium Trade

by Ethen Whattam

19

You See That Grass? Bro, it's SICK!

by Megan Swanger

4

24

Union Bay Natural Area

by Owen Boram and Annabel Weyhrich

27

Artifacts that Belong

by Rebecca Johnson and Victoria S. Fleck

30

How to Save the World at 17

by Emily Seaman

fieldnotesjournal.org

COVER PHOTO AUGUST MIKKELSEN

community features

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

5

eature rticle

PHOTO JESSIE HEARTHER

Effects of Increased Temperatures and CO2 on Powdery Mildew Virulence and Plant Susceptibility

by Sabrina Gilmour Abstract This project studied the effect of increased temperature and CO2 on powdery mildew virulence (the amount of disease caused by an organism). Changes in climate could alter virulence in natural habitats and agricultural land, so understanding how these abiotic factors and their interactions affect virulence has important implications for food security and land management.

Treatments simulated ambient temperature and CO2 conditions and those conditions predicted by the A1B climate change model for 2100. The effect on powdery mildew virulence on sunflower was measured. Results suggested that increased temperature, increased CO2 , and the interaction between the two factors did not significantly affect powdery mildew virulence. More research is needed to better understand the effects of powdery mildew on plant health and the interaction between host plant and pathogen under climate change.

Introduction The Pacific Northwest (PNW), as well as the rest of the world, has seen a rapid increase in temperature since the start of the industrial era (Mote and Salathe, 2010, Solomon et al. 2007).

These temperatures are predicted to continue to increase due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2 (Solomon et al. 2007). Monthly CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 405.51 ppm as of September 2018 and is predicted to increase to 703.00-717.00 ppm by year 2100 in the PNW (Keeling 2018, Houghton et al. 2014, Mote and Salathe 2010). The A1B climate change model, which assumes the least anthropogenic mitigation, predicts an increase of 3.4 °C worldwide by 2090-2099 (Solomon et al. 2007, Houghton et al.

2014).

6

fieldnotesjournal.org

Increases in temperature and CO2 associated with climate change is predicted to affect the interaction between organisms, including the relationship between plants and pathogens (Elad and Pertot 2014). Changes in abiotic conditions could affect the ability of pathogens to survive and grow in their new environment. However, climate change can affect the plant host’s physiology, specifically nutrient content and susceptible openings such as stomata, resulting in higher risk of infection.

One pathogen that could be affected by these changing abiotic factors is powdery mildew.

Powdery mildew (Figure 1, 2, 3) are pathogenic plant fungi of the Erysiphales order that are not harmful to humans but affect agriculturally and horticulturally important plants.

Powdery mildew inhibits photosynthesis, weakening the host plant and lowering crop yield (Percival & Fraser 2002).

Powdery mildew is generally genus-specific; very few species of powdery mildew infect the same genus of host plants.

Because it cannot survive without its plant host, the interaction between powdery mildew and individual hosts must be examined on a case-by-case basis.

The effects of elevated temperature and CO2 on powdery mildew-plant interactions have varied. In one study, colony establishment of powdery mildew on the common model organism, Arabidopsis thaliana, increased with elevated CO2 of 800 ppm (Lake and Wade 2009). Authors of the same study also saw a reduction in stomatal density on host species, which appeared to be associated with susceptibility of plant species.

However, other studies saw declines in virulence. In another study, high concentrations of CO2 resulted in a decline of pathogen severity of powdery mildew (Erysiphe graminis) on wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Cerco). The authors suggested that higher CO2 concentrations caused low nitrogen content in the plant host (Thompson et al. 1993). Other experiments have

PHOTOS AND FIGURES SABRINA GILMOUR

also shown that increased temperatures resulted in reduced virulence. Infection of powdery mildew (Uncinula necator), on grape (Vitis spp.) was stopped at a high temperature 31.5 °C (Delp 1954). On tomato plants, the virulence of powdery mildew (Leveillula taurica) was lowered in conditions above 30 °C (Guzman-Plazola, Davis, & Marois 2003). Powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. Tritici), on wheat was observed as temperature and CO2 were increased, and at higher temperatures of 26-30 °C, regardless of CO2 concentration, pathogen growth was impeded (Matić et al. 2018).

To further this research, the virulence of powdery mildew (Golovinomyces spadecious) on sunflower (Helianthus annuus) was studied. The powdery mildew on sunflower was chosen because of the host plants’ model organism characteristics. Sunflowers are fast growing and hardy as well as a crop species. Treatments simulated ambient conditions of temperature and CO2, and conditions under the A1B scenario at year 2100. The overarching goal was to measure the effect of interacting abiotic conditions on a plant pathogen to better understand the potential consequences of increased temperature and CO2 concentrations. It was hypothesized that as temperature and CO2 increase, so would powdery mildew virulence and that CO2 would be more of a driving factor in increased powdery mildew growth.

TOP, Figure 1 Powdery mildew, Golovinomyces spadecious, on sunflower, Helianthus annuus. BOTTOM, Figure 2: Figure 2: Powdery Mildew on Plant

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

7

Methods The experiment was conducted in four insulated growth chambers at the University of Washington Douglas Research Center at the Center of Urban Horticulture (Fig. 4). The growth chambers were maintained under different treatment conditions: a control (ambient temperature, ambient CO2 concentrations), increased temperature (ambient temperature increased by 3.4 °C, ambient CO2), increased CO2 (ambient temperature, CO2 concentration of 700 ppm), and both increased temperature and CO2 (ambient temperature increased by 3.4 °C, CO2 concentration of 700 ppm). To increase the temperature, oil-filled radiators were placed in two of the chambers. To increase CO2, CO2 gas was piped into treatment chambers.

The four treatments were used to measure disease severity of powdery mildew, Golovinomyces spadecious, on 234 sunflowers. All plants were inoculated with a spray made from recently-harvested powdery mildew. The inoculation spray consisted of distilled water, 0.001% tween 20, and a concentration of approximately 10,000 conidia (spores) per mL of water using a hemocytometer. These plants were then randomly divided into the different treatment chambers and

Figure 3: Golovinomyces sordidus, a similar powdery mildew to the one studied, Golovinomyces spadecious, on Plantago major (Meeboon et al. 2017). A: conidiophore. B: conidia. C: germinating conidia. D: appressoria

Climate change can affect the plant host’s physiology, specifically nutrient content and susceptible openings such as stomata, resulting in higher risk of infection.

Figure 4: Growth chambers at the Douglas Research Center

8

fieldnotesjournal.org

grown for 26 days. One photo of the closest leaf to the base of the plant was taken on the first day of sighted infection, the 17th day of infection, and the 26th day of infection.

Disease severity from the photos was measured by calculating the proportion of leaf infected using Assess 2.0 (Lamari 2008). Some plants were only infected by powdery mildew on their stems; all plants infected only on their stems were not used in data analysis because it was not possible to quantify severity using Assess 2.0. The proportions of leaf infected were transformed using a logit transformation, and ANOVA was used to test the main effects of temperature and CO2, and their interaction.

Results The first day powdery mildew was detected on any of the plants was Day 9. At Day 9, 117 of the 234 plants (50%) were infected.

By Day 17, 219 plants (94%) were infected. All but one of the plants were infected by the last day of data collection (Day 26); this lone uninfected plant was in the increased temperature, ambient CO2 treatment. The median proportion infected leaf for ambient temperature and increased temperature treatments for all days were 0.17 and 0.18, respectively. The median proportion infected for ambient and increased CO2 treatments were 0.20 and 0.16, respectively.

Discussion Results from the ANOVA suggested that the main effects, and their interaction, did not significantly affect powdery mildew severity (Table 1). Specifically, the proportion of leaf infected by powdery mildew was not significantly affected by the temperature treatment, CO2 treatment, or the interaction between the two treatments. However, there was a possible trend in the data; powdery mildew growth rate increased when exposed to increased temperature treatments, regardless of CO2 concentration between Day 9 and Day 17 (Fig. 5). However, after Day 17, a decreased growth rate from increased

temperature treatments was observed, again regardless of CO2 concentration (Fig. 5, 6). Temperature, not CO2, looks to be a driving factor of virulence, supporting other research that concluded that powdery mildew growth was impeded by increased temperature (Matić et al. 2018).

High variability in the data may have accounted for the lack of significant differences among the treatments (Fig. 6). The standard deviation of the proportion of disease severity for all treatments on Day 26 was ≥ 0.2091. Variation in plant phenotype and the resulting interactions with powdery mildew may have contributed to this variation as plant phenotype can lead to variable reactions to stimuli.

Improvements on this research include increasing replications and observing the plants for longer durations. Also, temperature was recorded every half hour, while CO2 was monitored every two days when plants were watered. CO2 data taken more frequently would help to assure that treatments were accurately simulating A1B climate predictions. Future research could also examine the effects of different species of powdery mildew on other host plants that are of horticultural, enthobotanical, and/or agricultural importance. Humidity and other abiotic factors, as well as biotic factors, should be researched as well. To further understand how plant hosts are affected by powdery mildew, plant health measurements such as biomass, chlorophyll content, and stomata count could also be studied. This would give insight into not only plant health, but the interaction of host and pathogen in the predicted changes of climate.

Acknowledgements Special thanks to my advisor, Dr. Patrick Tobin, and mentor, Michael Bradshaw, for the answered questions and readily available support. I would also like to thank Dr. Soo-Hyung Kim for use of his growth chambers for this study, the Director’s Office ESRM Senior Capstone Award for funding the project, the Tobin Disturbance Ecology Lab, and Godwin Vincent.

Table 1: ANOVA Test Results: P-values are presented for day and treatment.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

9

Figure 5: Proportion of Leaf Infected over Time.

Figure 6: Infection by Treatment over Time. Graph emphasizes high variability.

10

fieldnotesjournal.org

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

11

esearch ommunications

PHOTO AUGUST MIKKELSEN

by Allison Phillips

As Robert Moore describes in his book On Trails, “it is impossible to fully appreciate the value of a trail until you have been forced to walk through the wilderness without one”. Any sense of direction is dismantled, your line of sight is interrupted by colossal shrubs, and an impending feeling of doom is as thick and heavy as the fog that blankets you. I experienced this for the first time this past summer. At some point everyday I found myself lost in the Siuslaw National Forest in Hebo, Oregon; most days in the rain, with forty pounds of soil in my pack. My lifeline was my compass and the distant “Marco!” from the two other members of my field crew. I was often the designated navigator of my crew so it was my job to find the next spot where we were to sample soil. These “spots” were grid posts: one foot tall white PVC pipes stuck in the ground with pink and black striped flagging tied to the top. They were only twenty-five meters apart from each other; that’s the equivalent of the length of swimming pool. Theoretically, it should have been a stroll. And sometimes it was, through cushions of sword ferns (Polystichum munitum) that brushed against my legs and Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) branches that rained soft needles down on my head.

Sometimes, though, when the salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) thickets were extra thick, the Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) branches were extra low, or there were huge downed logs in my way, five minutes would go by and I would 12

fieldnotesjournal.org

find myself only having gone ten meters.

Branches and thorns bit at my shoelaces, pants, sleeves, backpack, face, hair, -essentially any part of me. Some days the forest was inviting me to meander and some days it was trying to eat me.

Anyone who has done fieldwork knows that experiences vary from day to day. It’s testing, both physically and mentally, and the results of the data you collect can be inconclusive, only partially-used, or looked at by just a handful of people. The incentive seems low when you think about it. So what drives people to get out there and dig holes for a summer? First, I was grateful to be working outside everyday. There aren’t many jobs that allow for that.

The author and a colleague in the field, Hebo, OR.

IMAGES AND FIGURES ALLISON PHILLIPS

a Summer of Soil

Second, it was important to keep in mind the bigger picture of what we were doing.

We were collecting data that was going to be analyzed and used to provide new ideas to the field of forest management.

In my opinion, that’s incentive enough.

This 200-year-long study is known as the Long-Term Ecosystem Productivity study (LTEP). Started in the mid 1990s, this project asks the question: What factors, influenced directly or indirectly by management, most affect the long-term productivity of the land?

Long-term productivity is a holistic view that includes forest commodities, soil systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem productivity. The study quantifies productivity through analysis of soil composition (what I worked on), understory composition, tree composition and growth, climate, wildlife, and sometimes even fungal sporocarp abundance and diversity; all dispersed at four different sites throughout Oregon and Washington. All of the plots are permanent and revisited on different yearly intervals to contribute to the huge amount of data that is being collected.

This summer, I was stationed in the Siuslaw National Forest site in Hebo, Oregon (Hebo site). The other site in Oregon is in the Willamette National Forest (Isolation Block site). One of two sites in Washington is located near Sappho (Sappho site) and the other is in the Siskiyous National Forest (Siskiyous site) (Figure 1). Each of these sites had treatments applied at the start of the project in the mid 1990s. For example, some plots were harvested and replanted with red alder (Alnus rubra) with the intention of studying its effects on tree growth rate and soil composition. Other plots were harvested and replanted with a mix of conifers. Other plots had trees that were only selectively harvested (called thinning), and the remainder of the plots were left to regrow without any treatment (control plots).

For two weeks we bushwhacked through the forest to each gridpost and dug up 35 cm of soil. We collected separate bags for the O, A, B1, and B2 soil horizons. The repetitive, tedious, 10hour days of digging holes at each of the plots got old very fast. The rain soaked our hands and made recording basic plot

information an impossible task - even our Rite-In-The-Rain paper was soggy.

After sampling from all of our assigned units, we had 2,000 pounds of soil to bring back to the Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks, WA. The remaining eight weeks of our time was spent there drying, sorting, weighing, and packaging the soil to prepare it for the final step: chemical analysis. The point of all of this soil collection is to measure nitrogen, carbon, phosphorous, sulfur, cations, and pH levels and then compare to pre-treatment levels. This gives us an idea of the effects that treatment strategies have had on the soil in the 10 years after implementation. Long term studies provide information on how forests respond to different management activities, i.e. the factors that may affect the productivity of the land, which is the focal question of this study. Current analyses of the tree data from the Hebo site show some interesting trends. Trees that were present before planting of red alder (called residual trees) are growing twice as fast as the residual trees on control plots (without alders) (Figure 2).

To explain this relationship, scientists

Figure 2: Residual trees in the alder treatment are growing (by basal area increment) twice as fast as the controls within the last 5 years. P-value = 0.008 at alpha level 0.05

Figure 1: Map of the four experimental sites. OESF stands for Olympic Experimental State Forest, NF stands for National Forest.

working on this project hypothesize that red alder’s qualities, an example being nitrogen-fixing abilities, have altered the composition of soil enough to cause a change in the rate of residual tree growth.

The soil from the Hebo site that we collected is under study this year and the data extracted from chemical analyses will contribute to those hypotheses!

So, that was my summer. I’m now back in the comfort of a warm lab where I’m digitizing the data that we recorded and organizing all of the soil so that it can be chemically processed. As I reflect on this whirlwind of a summer, I realize how my first field experience will definitely not be my last. Even though my experience had its inevitable downs, most of the time I was grateful to be twenty minutes from the coast, grateful for the hot showers that came at the end of each day, and grateful for the opportunity and experience to contribute to an amazing collection of data that could very well be a key player in how forest management changes in the near future.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

13

ZONED OUT Assessing The Similarity of Restoration and Reference Sites in Port Susan Bay

by Madison Hoiland

Introduction Puget Sound estuaries are an important habitat for many species of birds, salmon, forage fish, and vegetation, and are vital to many of the region’s indigenous cultures, including the Stillaguamish Tribe. Unfortunately, estuaries have been severely reduced in size by human activities. Waterfronts of estuaries are a desirable place to live because of the proximity to the ocean and productive flat land, leading to significant human alterations over time. Diking, a common practice in marsh areas for agricultural and industrial use, prevents the tide from reaching landward marsh, degrading the quality of the soil and impacting vegetation growth.

Climate change is further squeezing estuaries. Puget Sound temperatures are expected to rise 4-6 °F by mid-century and 5-9 °F by the end of the century (Mauger et al. 2015), likely resulting in increased flooding, more frequent summer droughts resulting in higher marsh salinity, and sea level rise that increases erosion. As a result, a cumulative 77% loss of brackish marshes and 91% loss of estuarine beaches is estimated in Padilla, Skagit, and Port Susan Bay by 2100 (Glick et al, 2007), on top of the 85% of the maximum extent of estuaries that has historically been lost from the west coast (Brophy et. al). This is a substantial amount of habitat and land loss which requires action to prevent further loss .

Restoration efforts to reduce the impacts of humans and climate change have become widespread in the past few years.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is an example of an organization using restoration to improve marsh resilience. In 2012 they removed a dike at Port Susan Bay (PSB) and carved two channel connections to restore 150 acres at the mouth of the Stillaguamish river (Fuller 2018). The original goals of the

14

fieldnotesjournal.org

restoration project were to restore self-sustaining native tidal wetlands that support estuarine-dependent animals and improve connectivity between the river and northern tidal habitats, juvenile salmon access to restored rearing habitats, and flood attenuation for residents in the lower river valley. When TNC began their restoration they established zones (see Map 1) to ease the expansion of their knowledge on the functioning of the marsh. My work expands on the post-restoration monitoring effort of TNC to better understand the relationship between

Map 1: 2012 lidar map base with restoration site (zone 2) and reference sites (1 & 3-5) transects (dots) depicted. Numbers were assigned based on freshwater influence. Zones 6 and 7 were included in the project for additional learning (Fuller

zones. This project focused only on the middle marsh because of the past dike raising levels, so the tidal, low, and high marsh elevations of zones 1-5 were excluded.

Methods

PHOTO MADISON HOILAND

I analyzed the data we collected during my vegetation monitoring internship with The Nature Conservancy of Washington in Port Susan Bay. After a week of training, I worked with three other interns, a project manager, and five Nature Conservancy staff members to gather data on marsh- and site-scale changes following the dike removal restoration in 2012. In the field we determined species presence, bulrush growth through stem count, height, width, and the structure of the plot (density, height, percent cover, percent bare, and presence of large woody debris). The numbers showed our hard work - over 11 days in the field we surveyed 398 plots across 7 transects, placed 1,900 quadrants in the randomized subplots, and counted almost 53000 individual stems of 3-square bulrush.

I calculated the mean of Bolboschoenus Species (River and Maritime Bulrush, Bosp) and Schoenoplectus Pungens

(3-square bulrush, Scpu) biomass by zone. I also calculated the percent cover and sum of the biomass of all bulrush species (Scpu, Bosp, and Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani (Scta)) per zone . Finally, I used a t-test to determine the probability that the restoration site and reference zone are the same area statistically.

Results Similar to what TNC noticed in early years of post-restoration monitoring, the restoration site (zone 2) was dominated by River and Maritime Bulrush, with very little 3-Square Bulrush growth. This appeared to be unusual compared to the other zones. For the sites to be considered statistically similar, the t value had to be within a 95% confidence range. Therefore, a t value over .05 means that the means of the reference sites are statistically similar to the restoration zone (ie from the same population). Several factors could have impacted the trends seen in the charts above, both within and between zones. These include salinity, sediment type, and time of the summer that sampling occurred. Limiting the averages to the middle marsh

Field work being done in Hebo, Oregon.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

15

attempted to manage for variation in tidal influence and salinity.

The t-test revealed that the restoration site was statistically similar to reference site 1 in terms of River and Maritime Bulrush (.080), while reference zone 4 was very statistically similar to the restoration site in terms of 3-Square Bulrush (.906).

Conclusions Utilizing both monitoring and statistics is important in management of restoration zones. As evidenced by the unusual River and Maritime Bulrush dominance, numbers can show that it is not in fact unusual compared to other sites. Before analyzing the data I expected the restoration site to be most similar to zone 1 or 3 because of their geographical proximity and similar influence of freshwater. Surprisingly, zone 3 was not statistically similar to the restoration site in any of the four variables.

16

fieldnotesjournal.org

Regardless of statistical significance it is important to observe all five reference zones to have a variety of conditions upon which to compare trends. The similarity of the zones shows that marsh vegetation has been restored to conditions similar to the natural state. This research is the first step in quantifying what is occuring in the Port Susan Bay estuary. Next steps would include assessing the change over time based on the zone similarities discovered in my project and additional statistical research on which variables are responsible for the surprising pattern of River and Maritime Bulrush dominance. Monitoring the restoration zones aids managers in making informed decisions to improve Port Susan Bay’s resilience to climate change and human impacts. The predicted temperature conditions and estimation of marsh degradation calls for steps to be taken now to slow the effects of climate change.

FIGURES MADISON HOILAND

Figure 1: These charts show the vegetation growth characteristics in the restoration site (zone 2) and reference sites (Zone 1 and 3-5), with standard error bars to depict variation from the mean for each variable. The restoration zone was only statistically similar to zone 1 in terms of Bosp (T=.080) and combined bulrush biomass (T=.737), zone 4 in terms of Scpu (.906), and both zone 4 and 5 in percent cover (.426 and .946 respectively).

THROUGH THE AQUARIUM GLASS

Investigating Invasive Species Risk from the Online Informal Aquarium Trade

by Ethen Whattam They are the perfect pet. A dash of food in the morning, a change of water every few weeks, silent. For approximately 10% of Americans, aquarium fish or invertebrates provide the perfect combination of responsibility and fascination (Marchio, 2018). But often when the owners of these organisms can no longer take care of them, they are released into local water bodies where most die, but a few survive and thrive. In the United States, over 150 invasive aquatic species have become established primarily due to unwanted pet release (Padilla and Williams 2004). Is there a way to identify how these aquatic species enter foreign countries and can we identify which species might become invasive? With these overarching questions in hand, we set off on a mission that led us to the fringes of the aquarium trade.

Mirroring the trend of other industries, the aquarium industry has an increasing presence online, advertising an assortment of fish from around the world. This industry exists in the informal marketplaces of chat rooms, forums, and auction sites that are hosted

for aquarium hobbyists. In some of these informal marketplaces over 95% of the species offered are alien to the country (Mazza et al). After navigating an assortment of sites, we discovered the epicenter of informal aquarium sales: Aquabid.com.

AquaBid was founded in 2002 as an online auction site for the sale of aquatic species and was ripe for study due to its popularity among aquaria enthusiasts, the diversity of species auctioned, and the fact that it had not yet been analyzed by the scientific community. The huge amount of data available on the site presented a unique challenge and required us to develop a web-crawler that systematically went through each completed auction from 2011-2017 and extracted data. We compiled data such as auction IDs, taxonomic IDs of the listed species, buyer and seller usernames, the seller’s locations, date of the completed auctions, and the number of bids for each auction.

After scouring the website, our database contained 192,939 completed auctions worth over $5 million. This initial collection told us which species

were being bought and sold on the site, but to find out where these aquaria organisms were going required further data manipulation.

Armed with only the seller’s location, we filtered the data to include only auctions by sellers who had also bought an item on the site. From this set of users and auctions, we were able to assign locations to both the sellers and buyers, thus allowing us to analyze the path these organisms take. Our buyerseller database represented our full database with 20% of the total completed auctions and users. With the data manipulation and cleaning complete, the patterns of trade between users began to emerge, providing us with our first glimpse into this global network of informal trade.

This network connected users in 43 countries across six continents in a community to buy, sell, and ship aquatic organisms. Delving into the data revealed a strong relationship between users in Asia selling fish directly to users in the United States, followed by intraEuropean trade (Figure 1). The distances covered by these auctions were immense, FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

17

with the average shipment of live organisms traveling over 4,000 kilometers. To ensure organisms are kept alive for the buyer, users on the site rely upon traditional mailing and logistics services to ship animals. This affords sellers the opportunity to reach their buyers as quickly as possible but also increases the risk to the recipient country.

Previous investigations by United Kingdom Law Enforcement into AquaBid users in the United Kingdom discovered that sellers were shipping packages that were either mislabeled or unlabeled in order to circumvent customs control. The intentional mislabeling of packages by sellers actively dealing in illegal organisms, coupled with the accidental mislabeling by aquaria enthusiasts presents considerable biosecurity risks to nations attempting to minimize the risks of invasive species by identifying the species crossing the borders. The lack of regulations 18

fieldnotesjournal.org

surrounding these informal marketplaces allows the illicit market to fester and provides a way for novel aquatic species to enter countries, increasing challenges to invasive species control at borders.

Figure 2: This map showcases where domestic users of Aquabid, who both buy and sell on the website, live in America.

Users were present in every state with large concentrations in California, Florida, and New York.

FIGURES ETHEN WHATTAM

Figure 1: Diagram illustrating the trade of species sold on AquaBid. Major trade pathways existed between Asia and the United States and within Europe.

While the informal marketplace presents considerable risk at the international level, our analysis revealed that the majority of trade took place within the United States. In our subset of data, we identified over 2,800 unique users on the site who lived in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and each of the fifty states (Figure 2). This expansive network of individuals fostered a dynamic trade with over 1,867 unique trade routes between the 52 states and territories of the United States. The connectivity of this network highlights the demand for aquaria organisms in the United States, while also emphasizing the growth of the informal retail sector in the country.

Since its inception in 2002, AquaBid has become the leading website for the informal sale of aquarium fish; however other communities on Facebook, Twitter, and eBay have exponentially grown in recent years, with some groups containing over 10,000 users. The expansion of this market will be a boon for buyers spoiled with choice, but will also continually present considerable risk to invasive species management both in the United States and globally.

You see that grass?

Bro, it's SICK!

by Megan Swanger

PHOTOS MEGAN SWANGER; BACKGROUND THOMAS PEHAM

Heading into the last push before graduation, despite maximum senoritis, I decided it would be beneficial to gain more research experience. I had never really worked on a big research project and needed a few remaining credits. I went to the wonderful Marine Biology advisor, Joe Kobayashi, in hopes of finding a way to return to the San Juan Islands. Friday Harbor Labs is by far the best bang for your buck; you gain tons of credits while studying in one of the most amazing locations for marine biology. Unfortunately, just before summer courses were to begin, I was told the larval ecology course I was hoping to take was canceled. Little did I know, this was the first of many setbacks.

I was encouraged to take the disease ecology course as an alternative. Initially, I was extremely worried; this was an area I had no previous experience in! I also thought to myself, “How gross, who wants to study diseases?� I see where it could sound rather boring without much context; however, those nasty killers were about to pique my interest.

During the course, we were exposed to several pathogens and the diseases they inflict, but I chose to work with Zostera marina (also known as eelgrass). To most, including myself, eelgrass sounds uninteresting, and frankly just disgusting.

Initially, my only concern was the thought of it touching my feet, but I soon discovered eelgrass beds are like the forests of the sea.

An incredible variety of organisms call these luscious, electric green blades their home; however, these forests receive a lot less attention than more visible places, say, the Amazon. Z. marina is dying, and quickly, but no one fully understands why. Climate change? Rising sea temperatures? Overgrazing? Turns out, one of the culprits is a tiny protist pathogen.

Our cold-blooded killer is Labyrinthula zosterae, a pathogen that rapidly destroys eelgrass blade tissue. Eelgrass wasting disease is identified by dark black or white lesions with an outer black ring that develops on the blade. These nasty marks can range in size from a pinprick to compromising nearly the entire length of the blade. Identifying the pathogen becomes

The author cleaning and preparing eelgrass blades

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

19

difficult because the plant tissues change to a similar color when they are stressed, making my job super easy...if only.

After many nights of contemplating my life choices, I ended up focusing on how temperature affects eelgrass wasting disease. I soon discovered my work consisted of crawling around in smelly mud while collecting a modest 300 blades of eelgrass - at varying depths! After collection, I scraped the blades clean and placed them in individual bags, half of which were infected with a calculated concentration of the pathogen while the others were left as controls. I incubated the bags at two different temperatures: 20°C and 11°C. Calculating disease prevalence was less than glamorous and required scanning an image of each blade every other day. The blades in the warmer incubator developed more lesions noticeably faster. This creates a large concern for the future of eelgrass beds as a whole as global temperatures continue to rise.

Having knowledge of oyster filtration, my classmates and

20

fieldnotesjournal.org

I thought, why not spice things up and throw them into the mix (as eelgrass by itself really was not enough of a challenge)? The goal was to see if oysters can filter out any of the pathogen as the wasting process begins. At a site off of Orcas Island, we placed eight large cages (with oysters) in the water and attached eelgrass blades on location. Each cage was placed at different depths, and we left them untouched for one month. No, there is no fancy machine for placing these contraptions in the water. In fact, I swam to put each cage in 40°F water (no wetsuit included). Have no fear, the elements did not stop us!

Washington decided to spew slanted freezing rain into our faces while we attempted to get the cages in the water as fast as possible. I cannot name a moment happier than jumping into a steaming hot shower post set-up.

While awaiting results from the field experiment, we also set up a similar experiment in the lab where we could control the temperature. The temperature was maintained using various

pumps and coolers. This was one of those experiments where you truly realize science is a hot mess; sometimes everything goes perfectly, there are new discoveries, who knows. Other times, or in our case, everything possible goes completely and utterly wrong. The pumps caught on fire, and several coolers broke (incredible, right?) I came into work and stood at the door watching smoke shoot into the eelgrass tanks. To say the least, we ended up having to take down the experiment a few days early; nonetheless, we made the best of it and ended up with some interesting results. Sadly, I am still deep into analyzing data to look at the outcome of the experiment, which hopefully will result in an interesting paper in spite of the minor obstacles.

Despite my initial reluctance toward the project, numerous setbacks, and all the power of the elements working against me, I am now obsessed with these ordinary ocean plants. Minus their simple appearance, a world without eelgrass would be a very sad one, and a bleak future for us all. The future of eelgrass looks

quite dim, as their populations will likely continue to decrease as ocean temperatures rise. Working with this unassuming plant has developed me as a scientist more than I ever thought possible. I was able to meet and work with other passionate individuals while gaining a wide variety of new skills both in the lab and field. Going into this project, I just needed some credits and wanted to gain some experience. Despite thinking I had a plan, I wasn’t really able to follow it, but in the midst of things going horribly wrong, I came out with a realistic idea of the ups and (sometimes severe) downs of working in the field. The most important advice I could provide to any young scientist would be to get out there, pursue your own projects, and simply be flexible during any setbacks. It will all work out, though maybe not exactly as you expect!

FAR LEFT: The temperature controlled lab experiment looking at the effects of oysters. Pictured are individual tanks containing eelgrass and oysters. The tanks are sitting in a water bath with controlled temperature.

SECOND FROM LEFT: An example of a scan performed after the experiment. Left most are healthy green blades. Toward the middle we start to see lesions - the big white and dark colored patches covering the majority of the blade.

LEFT: This figure depicts the experimental design: having two different temperatures, some eelgrass exposed to the pathogen, and the rest were left alone and used as controls.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

21

PHOTO KATIE HEARTHER

22

fieldnotesjournal.org

ommunity eatures FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

23

Union Bay Natural Area How a landfill formed the foundation for learning and restoration The Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA) serves the University of Washington community and the surrounding areas as a place to learn about and appreciate nature. Located on the shore of Lake Washington, the wetlands of UBNA function as an important buffer between the lake and the surrounding developed areas, filtering runoff and providing habitat for shoreline creatures. The natural beauty of the UBNA stands out within an otherwise urban setting of parking lots, stadiums and shopping complexes. On the surface, the UBNA appears to be a rare example of nature being valued over urban expansion.

However, what lies beneath the surface tells a more complicated story of mistakes, circumstance, and second chances.

24

fieldnotesjournal.org

The early history of the Union Bay Natural Area reflects the needs of a city in the midst of rapid economic development and a population explosion. In the early 20th century, as Seattle established itself as an industrial and trading hub, business leaders pushed for the creation of a passage between the city’s major bodies of water to increase the ease of transportation of people and goods. In 1916, the construction of the Montlake Cut connected Lake Washington and Lake Union, and the following year, the addition of the Ballard Locks connected these lakes and Seattle commerce to Puget Sound. Due to Lake Union’s historically lower water level, the depth of Lake Washington was reduced by nine feet, exposing a new shoreline and untouched land. The area that is now the

UBNA was part of this exposed land and was named the Union Bay Marsh. In 1926, this new marsh, owned by the University of Washington, was converted by the city of Seattle to a landfill as infrastructure struggled to keep up with the waste produced from the cities growing population. From 1926 to 1966 city contractors, local residents, and private industries dumped garbage into the Union Bay Marsh with little regulation. It wasn’t until 1956 that modern landfill techniques like covering garbage with soil were enforced at this site. By 1966, the University of Washington had prohibited all dumping.

Years of uncovered trash, waste incineration, and the increasing weight of the Montlake Dump had led to polluted water and unstable ground.

PHOTO OWEN BORAM

by Owen Boram and Annabel Weyhrich

From 1926 to 1966 city contractors, local residents, and private industries dumped garbage into the Union Bay Marsh with little regulation. It wasn’t until 1956 that modern landfill techniques like covering garbage with soil were enforced at this site.

Years of uncovered trash, waste incineration, and the increasing weight of the Montlake Dump had led to polluted water and unstable ground.

TOP: The landfill (center-right) post-WWII, from University of Washington Collections. ABOVE: Montlake dump in the 1950s with the old Husky Stadium in the background, from Seattle Municipal Archives.

The University of Washington tried to find other uses for the Union Bay area, including a parking lot, an athletic field and a golf driving range built over the northwest portion of the landfill.

However, the area began to exhibit the consequences of its previous use. The decades of refuse within the landfill began settling at different rates, creating a sloped topography that was constantly changing. It was clear that the land could not support the foundation of structures, providing a second chance to recognize

the value of these 74 acres hugging the shores of Lake Washington.

In 1967, the UBNA’s potential as a natural laboratory was considered when the University Arboretum Committee proposed to convert the site into a research arboretum. Reclamation efforts took off in 1971 as the University of Washington’s health sciences complex was expanded, leading to an excess of dirt and rubble to be spread over and cap the landfill. In 1974, a grant of $35,000 from the Northwest Ornamental Horticultural

Society was awarded to rehabilitate the site. With this project, the purpose of the site would be to serve the community by providing a place for teaching, research, public service, and stewardship. The University of Washington worked to meet these goals and continues that mission to this day.

As the current UBNA ranger, a research assistant position appointed by the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, Tori Fox is responsible for meeting those goals by facilitating FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

25

developer must mitigate for their damages within the same watershed that they developed, through preserving, restoring, or enhancing a wetland, or even creating a new one. To comply with this mitigation policy, WSDOT partnered with the University of Washington to create and enhance UNBA wetlands. The enhancement initiative was successfully applied to over 20 acres and focused on the removal of invasive species, like Himalayan blackberry and purple loosestrife and planting native shrubs and trees. The wetland creation initiative included the conversion of a parking lot into wetland habitat. This mitigation project was completed in 2018, and Fox has been working with WSDOT on a three-year monitoring plan for the restored areas.

This program includes assessing each site to determine if it satisfies predetermined performance standards and identifying and implementing the restoration work required to maintain

those standards. Eventually, WSDOT will hand over complete responsibility of the restored areas back into the care of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.

Fox is fortunate to be the UBNA ranger during this period of transition.

Her responsibility is to understand the conditions of the present to inform the actions of the future. As Fox reflects on the unfortunate early history of the UBNA, it is clear to her that the value of the area was not recognized, leading to actions that significantly disrupted the environment. However, she wonders if this initial failure was actually a blessing in disguise. The history of the UBNA has prevented us from doing what we do best: build, and, as Fox puts it, “has allowed us to do something that we are not so good at but are learning to do better: preserve and heal.�

Thanks to Tori Fox and David Zuckerman for contributing to this story.

PHOTO OWEN BORAM

maintenance efforts and volunteer opportunities. She leads work parties that are open to the public, encouraging her volunteers to ask questions and learn about the surrounding wildlife. Working with University of Washington faculty, Fox helps bring hands-on activities into class curriculums. She is also tasked with sampling and assessing the conditions of the UBNA, forming datasets that can serve as the backbone of ecological research. In addition to these responsibilities, Fox is involved in a major collaborative effort to restore UBNA wetland areas.

In 2015, the Washington State Department of Transportation began its replacement of the 520 Bridge connecting Seattle to the eastern region of King County. Constructing this project would include significant disruption of the wetland ecosystems on the shore of Lake Washington. Whenever large shoreline projects that disrupt wetlands take place, the state requires that the

26

fieldnotesjournal.org

Artifacts that Belong UW archaeologists that are decolonizing their practices and helping the Grand Ronde tribe reclaim their past.

By Becca Johnson and Victoria S. Fleck

We commonly associate the field of archaeology with digging up old bones and finding buried treasures of the past.

People travel far and wide to visit places like the British Museum in London where they can look at the carefully displayed mementos that archaeologists have dug up from exotic locales. Scientists look to the findings of archaeologists as valuable pieces in solving the puzzles of humanity’s past. However, there are those in the field that have a deeper and more present mission: to recollect and connect modern cultures with their ancestors on a deeply personal level.

Sophie Muro is one such archaeologist. A senior at the University of Washington double majoring in anthropology and art history, Sophie has been working on archaeological dig sites since she was thirteen years old. She has gotten to uncover and analyze pieces of fine china, dated construction materials, and centuries-old British transfer prints dug up in Vancouver, Washington when she served there as a National Park Ranger. While working with the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Sophie took part in another project that focused on digging up old farming tools and animal remains to provide insight into the life of early European settlers. All of this field experience has surely lead to personal and academic growth in the subject area of archaeology, but there is another, ongoing project that Sophie is extremely passionately about.

She has spent the last two summers camping and working on a dig site, located in Oregon, on reservation land owned by the Grande Ronde Confederate Tribes. Here, Sophie had a vastly different experience from areas she’d previously done archeological work in.

While field archeologists are thought of as spending much of their time at work, physically digging or uncovering, Sophie worked in conjunction with indigenous archaeologists and focused on other FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

27

facets of the science. “We spent so much of our time at the field school conducting surveys and having conversations with the community to make sure that we were using the least invasive methods possible and not digging anywhere the tribes wanted untouched. Digging was the absolute last step,” Sophie explained.

“Normally, when doing this kind of work all you need is to obtain a permit and then you can start digging. You wouldn’t consult anyone unless you did find something unusual.”

Working in the community, she helped to find things like construction materials, but also items of significant cultural importance such as powwow beads. What was most interesting to me was how she told me that anything they discovered while working there wasn’t actually labeled as an artifact but instead

28

fieldnotesjournal.org

referred to as a “belonging.” To members of the Grande Ronde Confederate Tribes, artifacts are cherished as more than simple curiosities in the science of heritage. They maintain significant spiritual and cultural importance.

Despite having personal ties to various tribal artifacts, the Grande Ronde do not have legal ownership of pieces that have previously been unearthed on their land. Unfortunately, this holds true for many other indigenous groups across North America. For 30 years, members of the Grande Ronde lobbied over rights to repatriate 16 artifacts under the ownership of the British Museum of London. Repatriation of these artifacts would signify the revitalization of a culture historically faded by acts of government assimilation and erasure.

Yet, after their long-endured fight, the

Grande Ronde was granted only a 1-year lease to showcase the artifacts at the Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center in Grand Ronde in May of 2018.

Showcased behind glass cases, the

To members of the Grande Ronde Confederate Tribes, artifacts are cherished as more than simple curiosities in the science of heritage.

Being able to touch and physically hold their dug up belongings is a really important cultural aspect of indigenous archeology. artifacts were open for a short period of public viewing allowed by the British Museum. This form of display, while ensuring a form of security and protection, withheld an important value from tribal members: the value of touch.

As Sophie explained, “The tribe members being able to touch and physically hold their dug up belongings is a really important cultural aspect of indigenous archeology.”

Beyond witnessing the relics of their past, members of the Grande Ronde aim to find a way to reconnect with them tangibly, to feel the materials from which they were made and the ancestral knowledge behind their making. There is a deep spiritual aspect in this reconnection, both to their ancestors and to the landscape around them.

Equally as important as this recovery of the past is the reclamation of their culture for the future. Sophie is currently contributing to a proposal that will allow certain artifacts to be replicated with 3D printing technology. Her goal is for people in the tribe to be able to feel the objects for themselves even though they aren’t able to obtain the original, ancestral pieces from their legal owners.

As an outsider to the tribe, there were times Sophie was not included in events like dances or feasts. However, this isn’t to say she wasn’t welcomed by

the people of Grand Ronde. “When myself and the other students first arrived, they threw a welcome feast for us! Later that night they actually invited us to join them in dance as well. I was terrified and intimidated at first but it ended up being fun.” But Sophie was grateful that the community reached out.

“I am so thankful for the relationships I have made with not just professionals in the field but with all the families in the tribe, they became like a second home to me. Being apart of a project like this where archaeology is done in direct communication with the native people has been incredibly rewarding.”

There is a deep spiritual aspect in this reconnection, both to their ancestors and to the landscape around them.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

29

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD AT 17 30

fieldnotesjournal.org

PHOTOS FROM GRACE LAMBERT

I begin to ask her if it at least felt rewarding, if it seemed like their efforts paid off in the end, but before I even finish my sentence she responds with a delighted “Yes.” “For the first event in March I was the one who introduced the event, telling everyone what we were there for, who the team members were, and all of that. We had a stage in the park that day and it was amazing to just look at the people there, because honestly I didn’t expect anyone to show up. I said to myself, ‘If 50 people show up, I’ll be happy.’ And then suddenly I was standing in front of a crowd of almost 2,000. I took a minute to just scan the crowd and be.”

I recall that no one guided her through this process.

What would it feel like to know that this is your only way to make your voice heard? How heavy is that pressure to be successful under the eyes of your seniors, the ones who held your hand through most of the struggles of being a teenager and are now taking a step back for this? I am unable to imagine it, so I ask her. “ I definitely struggle with it, and I think it’s a pretty common thing in our generation, this climate anxiety.

Especially in our movement where being successful is based entirely on our own efforts, and then on top of that we still have to figure out how to keep going to school. So it not only takes a toll on me emotionally, but it affects my grades and my relationships as well. Like, when i’m working on organizing these marches I don’t have the time to go to football games or other social events like that, which is...it’s hard.”

Lambert is in her senior year of high school and instead of experiencing the excitement of final spirit weeks, games, and dances, she is trying to save the world. I cannot help but think of how unfair it is. How unfair that our current political climate is so tied up on whose hand is in whose pocket that these highschoolers are throwing away parts of their childhood to do a job that should not even be theirs to begin with. They create political posters in their bedrooms and balance biology homework with googling city permits. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry, solely responsible for over 60% of the industrial carbon emissions released into the atmosphere since the 1900’s (Heede, 2014), continues to reap financial gain without any reprimand. It is upsetting, they are being robbed, and no one is doing anything about it.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful to be doing this and I love doing it, but part of me wishes I didn't have to, or that I could go back to when I wasn’t as educated on this topic...ignorance really is bliss.”

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

What it takes to create a protest movement and how Seattle’s youth are successfully rising to the challenge

By Emily Seaman Grace Lambert, a bright eyed 17 year old-girl, sits on my screen in front of me. She lets me know she has just started her Senior Year at Jackson High School and is currently in the chaotic throes of the college application process. If you were passing by our Facetime call it would have seemed rather normal, perhaps two friends checking in after a long weekend, but Grace Lambert is anything but normal.

Lambert is the State Co-Director of the Washington Climate Strike movement and an activist through in through, leading marches 20,000 people strong, and redefining what teenage normality means in this political and social climate.

“Well if no one’s doing anything...I guess it kind of has to be me?” She answers to my inquisition of what inspired her. “...and that’s kind of how I got involved from the start.”

That answer makes us both laugh because of how casual it is. Lambert’s activism did not spawn from years of coaching and training, or from a movement handed down to her. It began with the simple fact that no one had done it yet; she started on her own accord, just like thousands of other leaders around the globe. Leah Namugerwa, 15, from Kampala, Uganda, Freya Brown, 16, from Melbourne, Australia, Ruby Sampson, 18, and Ayakha Melithafa from Cape Town, South Africa, and Elijah Mckenzie-Jackson, both 15, from London. All of these names, all of these people still in the throes of their adolescence are organizing marches that pull upwards of 5,000 people, and the most impressive part is that they are doing it on their own. Starting this movement on her own accord was no easy task for Lambert, who sighs deeply and laughs as she begins to elaborate. “ I had never been involved in organizing anything before, so it was zero to one hundred, and all of a sudden I’m in charge of leading this strike for Seattle in March,” she explains. “The night before I wrote this long to-do list and it was not good, I was freaking out about how much needed to be done. Our WA Climate Strike team, which consisted of me, my cousin Ashley, and friend Chelsea Li, ended up figuring out everything the hard way. Our permits were completely wrong and we had to spend all this time re-doing them, and we didn’t have anyone to really guide us through it… it was an interesting experience.”

I sit with that for a minute, the magnitude of their workload and ethic is almost unfathomable; it was eyeopening to hear how many hoops and logistics Lambert and her friends had to go through for making their first march successful.

31

I ask her if she has any words for her peers that may feel the same way. She ponders for a minute and then says something that truly underscores her capabilities of a leader.

“To my generation in general,” she starts, “yes, I know, this is a totally unfair burden that’s placed on us, but we must continue to act and we must continue to push the adults to do something, because at the end of the day if it’s not their future on the line are they really going to care enough to do anything?”

I end the interview wishing Lambert well, encouraging her to not stress too much about her college applications and future prospects. It was very clear to me that wherever she ends up, she will continue to be something amazing.

Lambert is unique in her character but not alone in her activism. All across the world teenagers are rising up and participating in these global climate strikes. Just this last March, it was estimated that over 4 million people flocked the streets in dissent, making it the largest climate protest in history. It is amazing to think that a majority of these marchers cannot even legally vote in their government elections, yet are making more of an effort than most of the politicians on the ballot, and they are not planning on stopping.

No matter what side of the political spectrum you align with, climate change will not adhere to you. It will not be bought by lobbyists, it will not be silenced by censorship, and it will not be stopped by any army. The youth of our world are preaching a message that is not radical, or unjustifiable, they simply want to save our planet. The leaders of our current political sphere need to stop dismissing youths like Lambert just because of their age and instead must begin to listen; we need to take action on a united front if we want to save the earth, if we want to save the place we call home.

Despite the adversity and stigma facing her generation and this cause, Lambert has made it clear that the Washington Climate Strike team will not be slowing down anytime soon.

They already have a march planned before the end of the year, and two more in the works for early 2020. They are also working to expand their reach by launching a website, creating an online store, and hopefully building a stage in Seattle where protestors can routinely gather before marches. Lambert, herself, aspires to study political science and possibly environmental law next fall as she begins her college career, which is a field that she and her troop have already staked a place in.

The Washington Climate Strike team is a beacon of hope in this whirling political storm and they will not stop their movement until our government finally begins to take them seriously. They may be a group of teenagers, their leader barely 17, but they are strong, they are powerful, and they, along with the rest of the youth around the world, will continue to be the spark that ignites change.

32

fieldnotesjournal.org

"we must continue to push the adults to do something, because at the end of the day, if it’s not their future on the line, are they really going to care enough to do anything?"

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

33

References GILMOUR, Sabrina Ayres, M. P., & Lombardero, M. J. (2000) Assessing the consequences of global change for forest disturbance from herbivores and pathogens. Science of the Total Environment 262(3), 263-286 Delp, C. J. (1954) Effect of temperature and humidity on the grape powdery mildew fungus. Phytopathology 44(11), 615-626 Elad, Y., & Pertot, I. (2014) Climate Change Impacts on Plant Pathogens and Plant Diseases, Journal of Crop Improvement, 28:1, 99-139 Percival, G.C., & Fraser, G.A. (2002) The Influence of Powdery Mildew Infection on Photosynthesis, Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Leaf Chlorophyll and Carotenoid Content of Three Woody Plant Species, Arboricultural Journal, 26:4, 333-346 Guzman-Plazola, R. A., Davis, R. M., & Marois, J. J. (2003) Effects of relative humidity and high temperature on spore germination and development of tomato powdery mildew (Leveillula taurica). Crop protection 22(10), 1157-1168 Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., & Johnson, C.A. (2014) Carbon Dioxide: Projected emissions and concentrations. http://www.ipcc-data.org/observ/ddc_co2.html. 10-15-18 Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., & Johnson, C.A. (2014) The SRES A1FI Emissions Scenarios. http://www.ipccdata.org/sim/gcm_clim/SRES_TAR ddc_sres_emissions. html#b2. 10-27-18 Klironomos, J., Rillig, M., & Allen, M. (1996) Below-Ground Microbial and Microfaunal Responses to Artemisia tridentata Grown Under Elevated Atmospheric Co2.

Functional Ecology, 10(4), 527-534 Lake, J., & Wade, R. (2009) Plant–pathogen interactions and elevated CO: Morphological changes in favour of pathogens. Journal of Experimental Botany, 60(11), 3123-3131 Lamari, L. (2008) Assess 2.0 [recurso electrónico]: image analysis software for plant disease quantification (No. 632.3 L215a). APS Press Leath, S., & Heun, M. (1990) Identification of powdery mildew resistance genes in cultivars of soft red winter wheat. Plant disease, 74(10), 747-752 Matić, S., Cucu, M. A., Garibaldi, A., & Gullino, M. L. (2018)

34

fieldnotesjournal.org

Combined Effect of CO2 and Temperature on Wheat Powdery Mildew Development. The plant pathology journal, 34(4), 316 Meeboon, J., Kokaew, J., & Takamatsu, S. (2017) Notes on powdery mildews (Erysiphales) in Thailand V. Golovinomyces. Tropical Plant Pathology. 43. 10.1007/ s40858-017-0201-1.

Mote, P.W. and Salathe, E.P. (2010) Future climate in the Pacific Northwest. Climatic change 102(1-2) Rogers, Runion, & Krupa. (1994) Plant responses to atmospheric CO 2 enrichment with emphasis on roots and the rhizosphere. Environmental Pollution, 83(1), 155-189 Thompson, G. B., Brown, J. K. M., & Woodward, F. I. (1993) The effects of host carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water supply on the infection of wheat by powdery mildew and aphids. Plant, Cell & Environment, 16(6), 687-694 Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Marquis, M., Averyt, K., Tignor, M.M.B., Miller, H.L.Jr., & Chen, Z. (2007) IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. https:// www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ spmsspm-projections-of.html. 10-10-18

HOILAND, Madison

SEAMAN, Emily

Brophy LS, Greene CM, Hare VC, Holycross B, Lanier A, Heady WN, et al. (2019) Insights into estuary habitat loss in the western United States using a new method for mapping maximum extent of tidal wetlands. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0218558. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218558 Fuller, Roger N. 2018. Port Susan Bay Estuary Restoration Project: Final Monitoring Report. Report prepared for The Nature Conservancy. 100pp.

Glick, P., Clough, J., and B. Nunley. 2007. Sea level rise and coastal habitats in the Pacific Northwest. Unpublished report to National Wildlife Federation. 106pp.

Levings, C., & Jamieson, G. (2001). http://metchosinmarine.ca/ gf/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/MarineRiparianHabitats LevingsJamieson2001.pdf. Retrieved October 15, 2019, from http://metchosinmarine.ca/gf/wp-content/uploads/20 13/09/MarineRiparianHabitatsLevingsJamieson2001.pdf.

Mauger, G.S., J.H. Casola, H.A. Morgan, R.L. Strauch, B. Jones, B. Curry, T.M. Busch Isaksen, L. Whitely Binder, M.B. Krosby, and A.K. Snover, 2015. State of Knowledge: Climate Change in Puget Sound. Report prepared for the Puget Sound Partnership and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle. doi:10.7915/ CIG93777D

Sarah Kaplan, L. L. (2019, September 21). 'We will make them hear us': Millions of youths around the world strike for action.

Heede, R. Climatic Change (2014) 122: 229. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y Sengupta, S. (2019, September 20). Meet 8 Youth Protest Leaders.

FIELDNOTES / AUTUMN 2019

35

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