Santa Cruz Harbor’s Stinky Situation

The anchovies’ reputation as Monterey area’s #1 food supply went belly-up over the weekend when these fish found themselves trapped in the Santa Cruz harbor. 

Abrupt and unexpected, the massive anchovy movement quickly depleted the oxygen level in the harbor, sparking a huge anchovy die-off. Though uncommon, it’s happened on four previous occasions, each time resulting in 1,000 to 2,000 tons of dead fish tying up the harbor.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports that the Port District, in search of a solution, has installed 30 aerators to circulate and replenish oxygen levels, but the aerators aren't fish revivers. For now, it’s up to volunteers, organizations like Save Our Shores, and hungry scavengers to dispel the stinky bulk of floating anchovies.

Plastic to Art - A Colorful Transition

Ziploc bags, bottle tops, yogurt lids, juice box straws, Lunchables boxes…the kinds of plastic half-buried in the sand vary widely and the supply is never ending. While it’s disheartening, there may be a flip-side to plucking cheese spreaders from the sand. Bright, colorful and durable, plastic is intrinsically attractive, and for some, inspirational. The combination of the plastic’s aesthetic potential and the growing awareness of beach pollution sparked Judith and Richard Lang’s transformative art movement: “Plastic Forever.” For over two decades the Langs have been picking up pieces of plastic from Kehoe Beach, a part of Point Reyes National Seashores.

“We got tired of hearing the facts and statistics about what’s going on over the whole planet. It’s numbing to the mind. So we thought, if we clean up 1,000 yards of one beach, we could make a real difference,” says Richard.

These past years have brought countless pieces of art including sculptures, bottle cap mosaics, and even jewelry. “We’re artists first and we come to it from that sensibility,” says Judith.

Both Langs were artists decades before Plastics Forever even surfaced. In 1999, on their first date at Kehoe Beach, they discovered each was independently collecting plastic and transforming it into art (aww). This fateful coincidence grew into the forces that drive Plastic Forever—love for Kehoe Beach, love for art, and love for each other.

Collecting and molding over two tons of plastic into whimsical art has encouraged the Langs to support companies that rethink their products and packaging systems to eliminate unnecessary plastic. “We just discovered a yogurt that comes in a returnable, re-useable glass container and we’re really keen on supporting these kinds of companies. It’s one way that we can change ourselves and hopefully change everyone along the way,” says Judith.

Though plastic pollution is a worldwide problem, the Langs concentrate their efforts solely on Kehoe Beach. Better to focus on a single cause, they figure, and make a tangible difference than spread efforts too thin.

With all their energy pin-pointed on Kehoe Beach, they’ve become deeply invested in its history, geography and oceanography, connecting them further with issues like overfishing and marine pollution. Finding anti-depressants, among other things, in local salmon is a huge red flag and sheds light on the harm our throw-away culture has on the ecosystem, says Richard. “We hate plastic, totally.”

They subscribe to the idea that local efforts are what comprise a global effort, and endorse this sentiment when individuals ask how to help the cause. For those who are fortunate enough to live close to the beach, follow their lead. Those inland can still make a difference.

“We invite you to look at the gutter, look at the sidewalk and along the freeway to see the vast amounts of plastic debris and kinds of garbage. If we don’t pick it up here, we’re going to be picking it up on the beach,” says Judith.

Whale Soup

With the unbelievable number of whales congregating in Monterey Bay these days, calling it “whale soup” isn’t far off the mark. But while they’re the main attraction, whales are really just a fraction of this magnificent marine showcase. On a recent trip I took with Monterey Bay Whale Watch, we were floored by sightings of more than 100 dolphins (Risso’s and Pacific White-sided), at least 30 humpback whales and a rare but exquisite look at the ocean’s top predator: the orca.

Why the party in Monterey Bay? Last month, the anchovy population exploded, drawing in marine life in unheard-of numbers. It’s a feeding frenzy for the masses.

Even in the shelter of the harbor, marine life teems. Otters, harbor seals and sea lions lounge and play along the docks and buoys. Sea lions tend to amass along the breakwater of local harbors, a noisy, not to mention smelly, send-off. I’ll admit that in that part of the harbor, I’m a mouth-breather.

As we left the Monterey harbor and ventured closer to the whale hot-spots, pods of Risso’s and Pacific White-sided dolphins began to appear, and after a few minutes we were surrounded by a herd of more than 100 dolphins. Even more incredibly, 50-foot humpback whales started to surface.

But then we got the call. A neighboring whale watching boat had spotted Fat Fin, a favored killer whale. Because this black-and-white beauty is only seen every 2-3 weeks, we seized the opportunity and adjusted our boat, killer whale-bound. Each one has a huge dorsal fin, up to six feet tall, and that’s exactly what first caught our eye. After an hour of trailing His Majesty, we set back to find our humpback friends and were not disappointed.

We happened upon a cow and calf cruising to dinner. Full of energy, this calf showed off for us with three spectacular breaches while its mother casually swam alongside the boat. There’s not a whole lot to fear when you weigh up to 45 tons, so the whales don’t mind getting pretty close—some boats even get bumped. It was quite a spectacle, especially as the sun dipped below the mountains, coloring the residual clouds brilliant shades of pink and orange.

About to dock, we found an unexpected welcome-back party. Well, less of a welcome-back party than a snoozing blob of sea lion, smack in the middle of our disembark area. Needless to say, both parties were surprised upon arrival.

At the end of the day, it's an ocean wide game of follow-the-leader, and the anchovies are #1.

A Genetic Makeover: From Polar Bear to Brown Bear

Despite their blatant physical differences in fur color and size, polar bears and brown bears have a closely knit genetic makeup, so close that the two produce fertile offspring. Naturally, hybrids are expected to look half and half. But ecologist Beth Shapiro, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a team of researchers have new evidence that suggests hybridizing these bears is washing the “polar” right out of them.

Shapiro and her team’s conclusions and new species-evolution hypothesis were published on March 14 in PLOS Genetics.

Until recently, scientists believed all polar bears may have arisen from a smaller population of brown bears. But this new research shows polar bears are clean of brown bear genes, and over generations, can transform a polar bear population to brown bears.

“What our data suggested was a gradual addition of these male brown bears into the polar bear population,” says graduate student James Cahill, of UC Santa Cruz, the study’s first author.

During the last ice age a group of islands called Alaska’s Admiralty, Baranof and Chicagof Islands, or ABC Islands, was covered in glaciers – ideal for polar bears. But when the ice age ended about 10,000 years ago and glaciers receded, the polar bears were stranded there.

Results stemmed from a DNA analysis of 10 bears: seven polar bears, two brown bears and one black bear. Scientists compared different combinations of polar bear, brown bear and black bear DNA against each other, and took note of differing genes.  

Physically, mainland brown bears and ABC brown bears are identical. But genetically, the ABC brown bears harbor a peculiar secret. A larger portion, 6.5 percent, of their maternally inherited X chromosome is polar bear DNA, whereas the rest of the genome is only 1 percent polar bear DNA. This suggests ABC bears have a greater genetic overlap with female polar bears than male polar bears.

Male brown bears from the mainland swam to the islands in an instinctual pursuit of new territory. These wandering brown bears mated with female polar bears. Over time, the polar bear population steadily dwindled. They transformed into brown bears without so much as a shred of visible evidence to their polar bear past.

“Toward the end of the population conversion, these are basically brown bears that just have echoes of what was once a polar bear population,” says Cahill.

Since the initially sequenced 10 bears, Cahill and other researchers have sequenced five more brown bear genomes – including two from the ABC islands with even more evidence of a polar bear lineage. Cahill will be presenting the research on the new brown bears at The Biology of Genomes conference later this month at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The team mainly examined the genetic relationships among polar bears and the ABC brown bears – but not the bigger questions of when and how polar bears first arose. The bottom line of explaining the population conversion is clear, Cahill said: “To show the tenuousness of what it is to be a polar bear.”

As temperatures rise, so too does our anxiety about this keystone Arctic predator’s resilience as a species. Shrinking Artic ice pushes polar bear habitats and brown bear habitats uncomfortably close, sharply increasing the likelihood of a new wave of population conversion.

Bats Kindle New Ideas About Wildfire

For most wildlife, forest fires mean destruction and death. But a new study finds that bats are unscathed by fire, and some may even benefit after a blaze.

Ecologists examined bat livelihood in burned and unburned areas of the Sierra Nevada one year after a colossal, human-caused wildfire. Surprisingly, deadlier fires made for livelier bats.

Bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a team of scientists discovered bats prosper in burned habitats. Charred trees mean new homes and more food, they believe.

The results show that not all wildfire-wildlife interactions all detrimental, the team maintains an insight that may lead to more effective wildfire policies. The journal PLOS ONE published the team’s findings on March 6^th.

Frick and her team of ecologists observed bat activity in the aftermath of the 2002 McNally Fire, which burned 150,000 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada. Previously, scientists had studied the effect of wildfire on only a narrow range of animals – mostly birds and small mammals.

The researchers set up equipment in the forest one year after the McNally Fire. They took advantage of the fire’s mosaic patterns to compare bat activity across a spectrum of landscapes: unburned, moderately burned, and severely burned. In each targeted area, high-frequency microphones captured the silent shrieks of six groups of bats in their nightly scour for dinner.

All six groups showed equal or higher activity in burned areas when compared to unburned areas. “Bats could be resilient to this kind of disturbance,” says Frick. “We go out there and see a charred landscape and we think it’s totally destroyed, but the bats may find it a productive habitat for their needs.”

Bats took advantage of several of the wildfire’s effects, scientists believe. “Fire may provide a pulse of insects immediately after the fire and create roosting habitat later on as snags decay and their bark peels back,” says coauthor Michael Buchalski, a doctoral student at Western Michigan University. The cut-down in “clutter” opens up new areas for insect raids, he adds.

Animals that happily recover after a raging wildfire suggest that benefits of forest fire are more widely spread than scientists previously believed. At least among bat populations, wildfire plays a role in keeping forest communities balanced. The result may encourage land managers to rethink techniques in post-fire care and public land-burning policies, the team states.

How do geckos stick to der Waals?

You gape as a little lizard skitters across the ceiling, nervous it might drop right onto your head. But this lizard won’t fall, so just enjoy this wonder of nature’s engineering. The sticky-footed critter above you, better known as a gecko, can adhere to just about any dry surface.

Does this acrobat use suction-cupped feet? Not even close. Geckos have millions of specialized hairs on the bottom of their toes called setae. Each setae splits into hundreds of even tinier hairs called spatulae. On a molecular level, the spatulae and any surface are drawn to one another, like weak magnets. This molecule-to-molecule attraction is known as the Van der Waals force. But since this force is relatively weak, the gecko’s phenomenal grip depends on sheer numbers. Countless rows of spatulae increase the surface area for Van der Waals interactions – a collective attraction that makes the binding force so secure.

In fact, the gecko is more than secure. A single toe, with its millions of ultra-tiny grippers, could support its entire body weight. Scientists are exploring ways to make an artificial gecko-grip inspired by the Van der Waals force. Who knows, maybe we’ll all have sticky feet someday.