Removing invading plants can harm native ecology

Posted on April 15, 2011 by kightp

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The removal of invasive beach grasses on the Oregon coast to improve nesting habitat for the western snowy plover, a threatened shorebird, can harm non-target, native plant species and dune ecosystems, an Oregon Sea Grant-supported study shows.

The findings, published by researchers from Oregon State University in Ecosphere, a professional journal, suggest that restoration projects to aid a threatened species should also consider the broader ecosystem in which it lives.

“By just targeting one species, you’re not reestablishing the ecosystem function and allowing the other native species that are also in decline to recover,” said Sally Hacker, an OSU associate professor of zoology. “We looked at the whole process to see if there were ways to help restore things to benefit the plover as well as other species.”

The western snowy plover, a small, open-ground nesting shorebird that prefers bare or sparsely-vegetated, low, sandy dunes, was listed as a threatened species in the early 1990s after populations in Oregon declined to only about 28 surviving individuals.

The listing triggered protection and monitoring, including restoration sites on public land along the Pacific coast. Bulldozers and other mechanical and hand methods were used to remove two invasive beach grass species, Ammophila arenaria and Ammophila breviligulata. These grasses make it difficult for the plover to nest, see predators, and access the open beaches to feed.

The non-native grasses had been introduced in Oregon in the late 1800s and early 1900s to stabilize beach sand that was inundating coastal roadways and homes, and create foredunes to protect properties from winter storm surges.

But the introduced grasses transformed vast stretches of what was once dynamic beach dunes populated by low-growing native plants into dense, static monocultures of the bristly beach grass. The invasive grasses shade out low-growing native plants and have caused continuous foredunes to form at heights of as much as 45 feet.

With support from Oregon Sea Grant, Hacker and Eric Seabloom, a former OSU professor, and doctoral candidate Phoebe Zarnetske, studied 10 of the plover restoration sites.

Wave energy impractical? OSU researcher says “not at all.”

Posted on April 8, 2011 by kightp

Check out this National Science Foundation video of Oregon State University researcher Annette Von Jouanne explaining how the power of the ocean waves could be harnessed to provide clean electricity.

Wave energy is a hot topic on the Oregon coast, where several companies have proposed pilot projects to determine whether the technology is practical, as well as possible. Coastal communities, meanwhile, want some say in where and how wave energy “farms” are located, fearing disruption of fishing, whale migration and other ocean uses. Oregon Sea Grant’s coastal Extension faculty are helping to bridge those divergent views through community meetings and education programs.

Sea Grant provided early grant support for Von Jouanne and her lab as they investigated the engineering solutions for harnessing the power of the waves. Read more here.

More on wave energy from the NSF’s Science Nation.

Space Station images provide insights into coastal regions

Posted on April 4, 2011 by kightp

CORVALLIS – A prototype scanner aboard the International Space Station is providing scientists with a new set of imaging tools that will help them monitor Earth’s coastal regions for events from oil spills to plankton blooms.

The images and other data are now available to scientists from around the world through an online clearinghouse coordinated by Oregon State University.

Additional details of the project will be announced in a forthcoming issue of the American Geophysical Union journal, EOS, and can be found on the project’s website.

The Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean, or HICO, is the first space-borne sensor created specifically for observing the coastal ocean and will allow scientists to better analyze human impacts and climate change effects on the world’s coastal regions, according to Curtiss O. Davis, an OSU oceanographer and the project scientist.

Visit the HICO website

(Image: Mouth of the Columbia River, from HICO image gallery)

Tsunami-proof building plans raise questions, stir debate

Posted on March 31, 2011 by kightp

CANNON BEACH, Ore. – It would cost twice as much and there’s no precedent anywhere in the United States for how to fund such a structure. Everyone agrees it would save lives. There’s not much doubt about that. And in light of the tragedy unfolding in Japan, it seems to make perfect sense.

It would be a new city hall, a very rugged building on concrete stilts. But it still hasn’t been built.

This debate and quandary raises awkward questions, such as how many people would die in a tsunami, how much it would cost to prevent that, what approaches would work best and who should pay for them. The debate centers on what would be the nation’s first structure designed to survive a tsunami and serve as a refuge people could run to on short notice, to get above the deadly waves.

Some would be local residents in Cannon Beach, Ore. Many others saved might be tourists from all over the nation who flock to its scenic beauty – in the recent Chilean earthquake and tsunami many of those who died were tourists.

And researchers at Oregon State University say they hope the events now taking place across the Pacific Ocean will raise new awareness about these issues and help point the way to a solution.

“We’ve been struggling with this for several years now,” said Harry Yeh, a professor of coastal engineering at OSU, international expert on tsunamis and one of the people helping community leaders in Cannon Beach to make progress toward this new building. It’s a concept that, once created, might form a model for many more such structures from Northern California to British Columbia.

Harry Yeh’s current Sea Grant-supported tsunami research

Woods Hole fact-checks ocean radiation

Posted on March 28, 2011 by kightp

The ongoing Japanese struggle to repair nuclear reactors damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has people across the Pacific concerned about the potential damage to the ocean from leaking radiation.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the nation’s top ocean research labs, has put together an online fact sheet about ocean radiation issues related to the Japanese disaster.

The Web site discusses different types of radiation from naturally ocurring and manmade sources, the potential for circulation by air and water, and what is known so far about the Japanese radiation releases, as well as likely effects on seafood. The page will be updated as more information becomes available.

Sneaker waves, undersea gliders and an adventurous gray whale: OSU marine science in the news

Posted on February 9, 2011 by kightp

Marine scientists from Oregon State University are all over the news this week:

The Oregonian reports on so-called “sneaker waves”: Whether or not they’re a distinct phenomenon, the fact remains that sudden high waves on the Pacific coast can be deadly. As OSU oceanographer Robert Holman explains:

“When you get into the beach, especially when you get into complicated areas like the rocks, you can get feedback – the previous wave changes the condition for the next wave. If you had a previous wave that washed down at just the right time, that would reinforce the next wave. That can produce things that truly are dangerous and not expected.”

KATU-TV reports on OSU’s plan to expand a fleet of “undersea gliders” – small, autonomously operated devices that gather data about undersea conditions. Thanks to funding from the national Ocean Observatories Initiative, the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Services plans to add 12 more gliders to its fleet over the next year, bringing the total to 21 and dramatically increasing the opportunities for scientists to gather information about Pacific Ocean conditions. Oceanographer Jack Barth explains:

“In more than half a century of work, OSU scientists have recorded about 4,000 profiles of the near-shore from ships. During the past five years, our gliders have logged more than 156,000 profiles – nearly 40 times what six decades of shipboard studies have provided.”

In British Columbia, the Vancouver Sun chronicles the travels of “Flex,” a highly endangered western Pacific grey whale. The animals summer off the Russian coast, and this one was tagged last summer by a team of US and Russian scientists trying to learn where the Pacific greys spend the winter. They thought it might be the South China Sea – but were surprised when the tagged whale, dubbed “Flex,” took off across the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska and then down the west coast of North America.

Bruce Mate, head of OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute (and a pioneer in tracking whales via small, embedded satellite transmitters), is mapping the animal’s journey on the Institute’s Web site.

Research proposals due this Friday

Posted on February 1, 2011 by kightp

Reminder: 5 pm Friday, Feb. 4 is the deadline for researchers to submit preliminary proposals for Oregon Sea Grant’s competitive two-year funding cycle.

The grant competition is open to researchers affilliated with any institution of higher education pursuing research on important marine and coastal issues. An ideal proposal would apply the best science and an innovative approach to a well-defined coastal or marine problem or opportunity that is important to Oregon, the Pacific Northwest Region, and the nation. The two primary criteria for evaluating proposals are 1) scientific excellence and 2) societal relevance.

Funding comes from the National Oceaning and Atmospheric Administration via the National Sea Grant College Program.

Complete guidelines for preparing and submitting a proposal are available at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/funding/rfpcall.html

Scientists conduct rapid assessment survey of Oregon estuaries

Posted on October 26, 2010 by kightp

D. vexillum

NEWPORT, Ore. – Scientists from the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia are conducting a “rapid assessment survey” of three Oregon estuaries, looking for invasive species such as the marine tunicate, Didemnum vexillum, found earlier this year in Coos Bay and Winchester Bay.

These scientists spent a week surveying the estuaries before for the annual conference of the International North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), meeting in Portland through Oct. 31.

Nations hosting the conference also host cooperative on-site surveys for introduced species, conducted by scientists from participating countries, according to George Boehlert, director of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and one of two United States members on the PICES governing board.

“It provides an opportunity to train scientists on surveying techniques, assess local estuaries for potential problems, and share information on common invasive species,” Boehlert said. “Many of the non-indigenous species on the West Coast originated in Asia, so the opportunity to work with scientists from Japan, Russia and elsewhere is highly beneficial.”

OSU scientist John Chapman, an aquatic invasive species specialist at the university’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC), and Thomas Therriault of Fisheries and Oceans in Nanaimo, British Columbia, coordinated the Oct. 17-21 surveys, which looked at Yaquina Bay in Newport; Winchester Bay near Reedsport; Coos Bay; and a 300,000-gallon seawater tank at the HMSC.

Funding for the project is provided by PICES through a contribution from the Japanese government, which has granted $500,000 to the organization for studies on invasive species and harmful algal blooms. Additional support is being provided by Oregon Sea Grant.

Sea Grant director to blog Gulf research cruise

Posted on August 30, 2010 by kightp

Stephen Brandt, director of Oregon Sea Grant, embarks tomorrow on a week-long research cruise attempting to map and quantify the effects of this summer’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the marine ecology of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

The cruise, supported by a National Science Foundation rapid-response grant, includes scientific collaborators from Oregon State University, the University of Maryland and Eastern Carolina University. The scientists will be building on data they’ve collected from the same region in seven years of research cruises there.

Time and shipboard Internet connections permitting, they intend to blog about the experience at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/sciencefromthespill/

Breaking Waves

Oregon Sea Grant: Coastal science serving Oregon

Category Archives: research