Characterizing off-channel habitats in the Willamette River: Fish need to cool off too!

During the summer, when the mercury clears triple digits on the Fahrenheit scale, people seek out cooler spaces. Shaded parks, air conditioned ice cream parlors, and community pools are often top places to beat the heat. If you’re a resident of Corvallis, Oregon, you may head downtown to dip your toes in the Willamette River. Yet while the river offers a break from the hot temperatures for us, it is much too warm for the cold water fishes that call it home.

Where do fish go to cool off?

As a master’s student in the Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University, Carolyn Gombert is working to understand where cold water habitat is located along the Willamette River. More importantly, she is seeking to understand the riverine and geomorphic processes responsible for creating the fishes’ version of our air conditioned ice cream parlors. By placing waterproof temperature loggers along sites in the upper Willamette, she hopes to shed light both on the temporal and spatial distribution of cold water patches, as well as the creation mechanisms behind such habitats.

 

The cart before the horse: seeking to reconcile science and policy

Because the Willamette Basin is home to Cutthroat trout and Chinook salmon, the river is subject to the temperature standard adopted by the state of Oregon in 2003. Between May through October, Cutthroat and Chinook require water cooler than 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Currently, the main channel of the Willamette regularly exceeds this threshold. The coolest water during this time is found in side channels or alcoves off the main stem. While Oregon law recognizes the benefits these “cold water refuges” can provide, our scientific understanding of how these features change over time is still in its early stages.

Emerging stories

Data collection for Carolyn’s project is slated to wrap up during September of 2017. However, preliminary results from temperature monitoring efforts suggest the subsurface flow of river water through gravel and sediment plays a critical role in determining water temperature. By pairing results from summer field work with historical data such as air photos and laser-based mapping techniques (LiDAR) like in the image below, it will be possible to link geomorphic change on the Willamette to its current temperature distributions.

Between 1994 and 2000, the Willamette River near Harrisburg, Oregon shifted from a path along the left bank to one along the right bank. This avulsion would have happened during a high flow event, likely the 1996 flood.

No stranger to narratives

Prior to beginning her work in hydrology at OSU, Carolyn earned a bachelor’s in English and taught reading at the middle school level. Her undergraduate work in creative writing neither taught her how to convert temperature units from Fahrenheit to Celsius nor how to maneuver in a canoe. But the time she spent crafting stories did show her that characters are not to be forced into a plot, much like data is not to be forced into a pre-meditated conclusion. Being fortunate enough to work with Stephen Lancaster as a primary advisor, Carolyn looks forward to exploring the subtleties that surface from the summer’s data.

If you’d like to hear more about the results from Carolyn’s work, she will be at the OSU Hydrophiles’ Pacific Northwest Water Research Symposium, April 23-24, 2018. Feel free to check out past Symposiums here. Additionally, to hear more about Carolyn’s journey through graduate school, you can listen to her interview on the Happie Heads podcast.

Carolyn conducting field work on the Willamette.

Carolyn Gombert wrote the bulk of this post, with a few edits contributed by ID hosts.

Unearthing the Unseen: Identifying drivers of fungal diversity in Panamanian rainforests

When our roommates or family members get sick, we try to keep our distance and avoid catching their illness. Plants get ‘sick’ too, and in the natural world, this may actually explain the coexistence and diversity of plant species that we see.

Coexistence

Species coexistence relies on competition between individuals of the same species being larger than competition between individuals of different species. Competition between individuals of the same species must be large enough to keep any species from taking over and outcompeting all other species in the community. However, more recent work has highlighted the role of natural pathogens. Stable coexistence of many species may be favored if individuals of one species cannot live in close proximity to each other due to disease.

Plant Pathogens and Biodiversity

View looking south from the canopy tower at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort over the confluence of the Panama Canal and the Chagres River near Gamboa, Panama.

For example, picture a crowded forest with many adult trees of the same species releasing wind-dispersed seeds (like the helicoptering seeds of a maple). Very few, if any, of the seeds that fall near to the adult trees will germinate and reach maturity. As you walk away from the clump of adult trees, you will begin to find more germinated seeds that reach maturity (Augspurger 1983). These seeds are farther from tough competitors of the same species (adult trees) and are away from the plant pathogens that may be living in the adult root system. In our hypothetical forest, the plant pathogens that feed on young maples are keeping maple from dominating the forest, allowing other species that aren’t affected by the pathogen to thrive; in this way, plant pathogens play a role in the maintenance of biodiversity.

Drivers of Biodiversity

Our guest this week, Tyler Schappe, studies interactions among plants and fungi in the Neotropical forests of Panama. Tyler is broadly interested in what drives the maintenance and diversity of fungal communities, and how this, in turn, can affect tree communities. Tyler spent the summer of 2015 collecting 75 soil cores from three forest plots in Panama. Using DNA sequencing with universal genetic markers, he was then able to identify the fungi within the soil cores to species and functional group (decomposers, pathogens, plant mutualists, etc.). So far, Tyler has found that tree communities and soil nutrients affect the composition and diversity of fungal guilds differently. As expected, guilds that form mutualistic relationships with trees are more strongly correlated with plant communities. Interestingly, soil properties influence the species composition of all fungal guilds, including plant pathogens, pointing to the mediating role of soils as an abiotic filter. Overall, Tyler’s results, along with other research, show that soil fungal communities are an integral component of the plant-soil relationship since they are driven by, and can affect, both. Together, plants, soil, and fungi form a tightly connected three-way relationship, and wanting to understand one of them means having to study all three together.

Tyler’s work with fungal communities in Panama sheds light on belowground interactions and their implications for plant ecology. His research is one piece of evidence that may help us to understand why there are so many plant species, how they coexist, and why some species are common and some are rare. Are plant pathogens significant contributors to species richness and biodiversity? If so, what modulates plant pathogens, and how can that indirectly affect tree communities? To find out more about Tyler’s work check out these two sources from the Journal of Ecology and Science.

Spend sugar to make sugar

Stand of bur oak trees in a remnant oak savanna at Pheasant Branch Conservancy near Middleton, WI in early winter.

At a young age, Tyler began to realize how connected the world was and how plants and animals function in an ecosystem. The functioning of organisms and of ecosystems came into focus for him while in college at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He took a course in plant ecology from Dr. Tom Givnish who described plants in terms of economic trade-offs. For example, energy invested by plants in vertical growth cannot be invested in defense or reproduction; different allocations of resources can be more or less advantageous in different environments. Tyler decided to pursue graduate school at Oregon State while completing a fellowship with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where he met his current advisor, Andy Jones.

Tyler is defending his Master’s thesis August, 29 2017!  We are glad he can make time to talk with us on Inspiration Dissemination this Sunday August, 13 at 7 pm. Not a local listener? Stream the show live!

Ways and Means: Attitudes Toward Methods of Restoring American Chestnut Trees

“The Christmas Song” or “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé is an iconic song in American culture, but most Americans will never experience a chestnut roast (at least not with American chestnuts).

A mighty blight

The American chestnut was a widespread North American native tree that covered nearly 200,000 miles of Appalachian forest. In 1904, the American chestnut trees in the Bronx Zoo were dying from a then unknown disease, Chestnut Blight. In the next forty years, Chestnut Blight spread across the estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees. Now American Chestnut trees are seen only as giant stumps, juveniles never reaching maturity, and rarely, adult fruit-bearing trees.

Since the decline of the American chestnut, Appalachian forests have changed. Chestnuts have been replaced by oaks, and it is likely that many organisms that relied on the chestnut trees for food or shelter have had to adapt to new conditions or have been displaced. The loss of the chestnut also led to the loss of financial income for many Appalachian people. In addition to chestnuts as a food source, the American chestnut provided decay resistant timber and tannins for tanning hide. The American chestnut and its decline is remembered through oral and written history. Members of older generations from Appalachia tell stories of enormous trees and later forests of white wooden chestnut skeletons.

Restoring the chestnut

Josh skiing in the mountains of Big Sky, Montana.

The restoration of the chestnut is an active project that faces many challenges. First, few Americans have seen an American chestnut tree, and few are familiar with their decline via Chestnut Blight. Since the restoration of the American chestnut would require policy changes and action across 200,000 miles, spanning multiple state governments, it is necessary to assess the extent the public might disfavor or favor this restoration. Our guest this week,Josh Petit from Forest Ecosystems and Society, is seeking to understand the attitudes of Americans toward the chestnut restoration. In particular, Josh is surveying a sample of the US population to compare attitudes toward a controversial method of chestnut restoration,  the use of genetic engineering.

Ways and Means

You may be familiar with genetic engineering to modify the genome of an organism to achieve a specific goal. Many of the crops we eat have in some way been modified to aid harvest, growth, and/or resistance to pests and disease. The methods for restoring the American chestnut are:

  • Selective breeding with related, blight-resistant Asian chestnuts
  • Modifying the genome of American chestnuts with Asian or other related chestnut genes (cisgenics)
  • Modifying the genome of American chestnuts with foreign genes or genes from wheat (transgenics)

Josh conducting research during a study abroad program in tropical North Queensland, Australia.

It is important to assess the attitudes of the public to transgenics because the introduction of  genes from wheat has been the most successful method at enhancing resistance toward chestnut blight. Recently, negative media has led to the misunderstanding that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have adverse effects on consumers (humans) and ecosystems. However, these claims are not based in sound science and have been refuted. Although GMOs are being supported as alternatives to crop and forest species extinction, ultimately chestnut restoration relies on majority vote in favor or against a specific strategy. Thus, assessing attitudes toward restoration methods is tantamount to restoration efforts.

The Guy for the Job

A native of Ohio, Josh Petit attended Xavier University and majored in Political Science. He credits a Semester at Sea for broadening his world view and exposing him to different cultures. He learned that culture is important in all aspects of daily life. In retrospect, perhaps it is no surprise that he is currently studying an iconic tree and how culture has driven attitudes toward its restoration.

Josh participating in a Fijian traditional village celebration and homestay–taking turns playing guitar.

Josh became interested in ecology, biology, and the interface of the two with humans while working for Q4 International Marketing an ecotourism company in Panama. This lead him to pursue a Master’s in Natural Resources with a marine ecology focus from Virginia Tech. However, his most recent work withOregon Parks and Recreation Department lead him to pursue a PhD at Oregon State University. With the State Parks, Josh conducted surveys in Oregon Parks and sought to connect behavior, impacts, and social science to ecology and recreation. Now at Oregon State University, Josh is working with Mark Needham andGlenn Howe to understand the drivers of attitudes toward using biotechnologies for restoring American chestnut trees.

Hear more about Josh’s research and his journey to now this week on Inspiration Dissemination. Tune in to KBVR Corvallis 88.7FM on Sunday July, 30 at 7 pm, or live stream the show.

Project CHOMPIN: Parrotfish, nutrients, and the coral microbiome

CHOMPIN comic.

Ecology is the study of the relationships among organisms and the relationships of organisms to their physical surroundings. The interactions of organisms can be described as a complex web with many junctions or relationships, and a single ecologist may focus on one or many relationships in a community or ecosystem. Our guest this week, Rebecca (Becca) Maher PhD student in the Department of Microbiology, is interested in the effect of environmental stressors on the coral microbiome. Let’s break this down by interaction:

  • Beneficial algae, bacteria, and viruses interact with coral by living in coral tissue and forming the coral microbiome
  • Corals interact with other organisms in the coral reef ecosystem, such as parrot fish
  • Corals are affected by their surrounding environment: water temperature, water nutrients, and pollution

Becca at the Newport aquarium for Scientific Diver Training through Oregon State University.

You may be familiar with coral bleaching and coral reef decline from our past episodes. Corals form a mutualistic relationship (both organisms benefit) with algae, where algae take shelter within coral tissue and provide the coral with food from photosynthesis. It is well known that high temperatures lead to coral bleaching, or a shift in the coral microbiome resulting from the loss of beneficial algae that live within the coral. Coral bleaching is often fatal.

Becca is interested in other aspects of the coral microbiome, such as differences in the symbiotic bacterial communities brought about by nutrient enrichment from agricultural run-off and overfishing. Do corals in nutrient rich water have a different microbiome than corals in nutrient poor water? Do corals in highly fished areas have a different microbiome than corals in fish-rich areas? In overfished areas, predatory fish (e.g. parrotfish) may bite coral (hence Project CHOMPIN), and so how does the coral microbiome respond after wounding by parrotfish?

Becca diving at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico for her undergraduate thesis at Rice University.

These questions are relevant for our knowledge of environmental factors that threaten coral reef ecosystems. Corals are in decline globally and with them are the high diversity of marine species that gain shelter and substrate from the coral reef. The information gained from Becca’s research may be informative for policy makers concerned with agricultural practices near marine areas and fishing regulations.  Rebecca is traveling to Morrea, French Polynesia this August to set up her field and laboratory experiments at the Gump Biological Research Station.

This upcoming trip is highly anticipated for Becca, who has been pursuing research in marine ecosystems since her time at Rice University. After working with her undergraduate mentor Adrienne Correa at Rice, Becca’s general focus on Ecology shifted to a focus on Marine Ecology. For Becca, her project at Oregon State in the Vega Thurber Lab is a harmonious mix of field work, high-level experimental design, bioinformatics, and statistics—a nice capstone for a Marine Ecologist with aspirations for future research.

Hear more about Becca’s work with corals the Sunday at 7 PM on KBVR Corvallis 88.7FM. Not a local listener? Stream our broadcast live.

Using sediment cores to model climate conditions

In the lab of Andreas Schmittner in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, recently-graduated PhD student Juan Muglia has been developing a climate model to understand ocean current circulation, carbon cycling, and ocean biogeochemistry during the last ice age, focusing on the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.

Juan has developed a climate model using data gathered from sediment cores, which are samples from the ocean floor that provide researchers with a glimpse into the elemental and organic composition of the ocean at different points in time. Scientists can acquire insight into the characteristics of the Earth’s past climate by analyzing the geologic record spanning thousands of years. Modeling the conditions of the last ice age, which occurred 20,000 years ago, allows researchers to better understand how the Earth responds to glacial and interglacial cycles, prompting the transition between cold and warm phases (we are currently in a warm interglacial period).

The process of generating an accurate climate model consists of tuning parameters embedded in the physics equations and fortran code of the model, to reproduce characteristics directly observable in modern times. If researchers can validate their model by reproducing directly observable characteristics, the model can then be used to investigate the climate at points in time beyond our direct observational capacity.

Since it’s not possible to directly measure temperature or nutrient composition of the ocean during the last ice age, Juan uses an indirect signature that serves as a proxy for direct measurement. Three isotopic sediment tracers, including 15Nitrogen, 14Carbon, and 13Carbon, are incorporated into Juan’s climate model as proxies for biological productivity and current circulation in the ocean. Investigating changes in the elemental composition of the ocean, also known as biogeochemistry, is important for understanding how climate and biology have transformed over thousands of years. The ocean serves as an enormous reservoir of carbon, and much more carbon is sequestered in the ocean than in the atmosphere. The exchange of carbon dioxide at the interface of the ocean and atmosphere is important for understanding how carbon dioxide has and will continue to impact pH, ocean currents, and biological productivity of the ocean.

Even as a kid, Juan dreamed of becoming an oceanographer. He grew up near the ocean in Argentina, surrounded by scientists; his mom was a marine botanist and his dad is a geologist. During his undergraduate studies, he majored in physics with the goal of eventually becoming a physical oceanographer, and his undergraduate thesis consisted of building fortran code for a statistical physics project. After finishing his post-doctoral studies at OSU, Juan plans to return to his hometown in Argentina, where he hopes to develop a model specific to the Argentinian climate.

Seeing live animal exhibits can be a powerful experience, but do they change our behaviors?

Imagine you’re at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park cheetah run. You hear the sounds of awe and wonder as the cheetah demonstrates its amazing speed. The zookeeper tells you more about the cheetah and its ecosystem – an ecosystem that is being negatively impacted by humans. You walk away with tangible ways that you can do your part to reduce your impact – recycling, using less plastic. But when you exit the zoo gates and enter back into the hustle and bustle of life, do you actually make those changes?

Nicolette and Ebony, the raven, at Moorpark College in 2007.

Working under the advisership of Dr. Shawn Rowe in OSU’s College of Education, Nicolette Canzoneri is passionately pursing a Master of Science degree in Environmental Sciences with research centered around the idea of free-choice learning – or, the education that happens outside of a formal school environment. The menagerie of animals that zoos and aquariums have historically been known for has transitioned in recent years to conservation efforts. Instead of a spectacle, the animals – often rescued and unable to be re-entered into their natural environment – act as ambassadors for their ecosystems. This summer, Nicolette will be conducting a three-part project to get to the heart of human behavior changes based on interactions with live animal exhibits at zoos and aquariums.

First, Nicolette will be interviewing education directors and animal care supervisors to understand how the education programs are designed to target pro-environmental behavior. She will then observe the programs to determine the degree to which they align with the intended educational and behavioral goals. Despite the nuances of evaluation, Nicolette then plans to discover the if, how and why of evaluations being used to determine effectiveness of these educational programs. Ultimately, she hopes that her research can help to fill the knowledge gaps between theories and principles in applied behavioral studies and their implementation in free-choice learning.

Nicolette with her Animal Behavior students at Moorpark College in 2015.

Nicolette brings a wealth of experience in animal training and applied behavioral psychology to her research. As a teenager Nicolette knew that she wanted to work with animals, but it wasn’t until she found herself watching the Animal Planet reality TV show Moorpark 24/7 that she realized animal training was part of her calling. Nicolette went on to pursue her dream by obtaining her Exotic Animal Training & Management degree at the prestigious Moorpark College near Los Angeles, CA. Through the twists and turns of her career, Nicolette has since obtained a bachelor’s degree in Applied Behavioral Analysis at California State University, Sacramento and volunteered, interned, and worked in some interesting places along the way including as a dog trainer in Austria, an animal trainer at the Playboy Mansion, and most recently training dolphins for reconnaissance for the United States Navy.

Nicolette with her two dogs in San Diego, 2016.

Join us on Sunday, June 17 at 7 PM on KBVR Corvallis 88.7 FM or stream live to dive deeper into Nicolette’s free-choice learning research and journey to graduate school.