This past summer, Professor Aaron Wirsing of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) helped initiate a pilot research program to study the biology of reef sharks on a tiny atoll in the South Pacific.
Read moreLast weekend, I woke up early and pored over newspapers and websites looking for a place to ski with my sons. I was extremely disappointed to see rain again forecasted for Snoqualmie Pass, with more rain predicted in the next two days, all the way up to 6,000 feet.
Read moreThis past October, Professor Emeritus Dave Manuwal had a new paper published in Northwest Science, “Progressive Territory Establishment of Four Species of Neotropical Migrants in Linear Riparian Areas in Western Montana.”
The scope of the research alone should grab your attention, as it spanned 40 years from 1968 to 2008, starting from his time as a graduate student at the University of Montana.
Though soil has often been considered a reliable long-term carbon sink, new research suggests that the effects of human land-use choices—from urbanization to agricultural intensification and deforestation—are reducing how much carbon is actually stored in the ground, says Professor David Butman, lead author on a paper just published in Nature Geoscience, “Increased mobilization of aged carbon to rivers by human disturbance.”
Professor Butman is a new faculty member with the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) who holds a joint appointment with Civil and Environmental Engineering.
For the 125th anniversary of Washington’s statehood, the UW Botanic Gardens has donated the seeds of five rare plant species—all native to Washington—from the Miller Seed Vault to be buried in the Washington Centennial Time Capsule.
Read moreA few weeks ago, we reported about a new publication in Environmental Science and Technology that involves several authors in Professor Sharon Doty’s Plant Microbiology Lab. In the paper, “Degradation, Phytoprotection and Phytoremediation of Phenanthrene by Endophyte Pseudomonas putida, PD1,” Research Scientist Zareen Khan and her co-authors—David Roman, Trent Kintz, May delas Alas, Raymond Yap and Professor Doty—demonstrate the ability of willow trees and grasses, inoculated with a specific bacteria, to remove a serious pollutant from the environment.
Read moreAaron Johnston, who earned his Ph.D. from SEFS in spring 2013, was recently awarded a prestigious, two-year postdoctoral research position with the U.S Geological Survey’s Mendenhall Research Fellowship Program! Johnston studied competition between eastern and western gray squirrels in the Puget Sound lowlands for his dissertation (working with Professor Emeritus Steve West), and he will be moving to Bozeman, Mont., after the winter holidays to begin the fellowship.
Read moreUnlike our two other new faculty members, Professor Peter Kahn joins us from just up the road on campus in Guthrie Hall, where he continues to hold a joint appointment with the Department of Psychology—and where he is director of the Human Interaction With Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Lab.
Read moreLast month, we marked the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law on September 3, 1964. In defining wilderness and ultimately protecting more than 109 million acres of federal land, the act was a brilliant and far-reaching piece of legislation.
Read moreProfessor David Butman, one of three new faculty members with the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), has been on campus a few weeks now, and he and his family are settling into their new city and neighborhood in Maple Leaf.
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