climate change

SeaDoc Funds New Science on Eelgrass, Dungeness Crab, Clam Gardens and Endangered Orcas

SeaDoc Funds New Science on Eelgrass, Dungeness Crab, Clam Gardens and Endangered Orcas

We're excited to share that SeaDoc will fund four new research projects this year–all carefully reviewed and selected by our Scientific Advisory Committee and made possible thanks to SeaDoc Society donors.

In a moment when science funding is tenuous, we feel privileged to help make this important work possible. We hope you do, too. 

SeaDoc strives to fund projects that meet the criteria most often associated with having a positive conservation impact, meaning this work won't simply produce papers, but ultimately change the way we understand and manage the Salish Sea. Two of the funded projects were part of our dedicated Tribal and First Nations grant program. 

The projects range from a novel process for planting eelgrass, clam gardens as a tool to combat climate change, biological monitoring of Dungeness crab, and the relationship between acoustics and behavior in Southern Resident Killer Whales. 

Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease (Book Review)

Ask any ocean lover to name the biggest threats to ocean conservation and you’ll get a list so long it will make you uncomfortable: derelict fishing gear, increasing underwater noise, invasive species, ocean acidification, overharvest, plastics, toxins, warming water, and so on.

What you probably won’t hear is the word disease—not because the agents of disease are microscopic and out of sight, but because we know so little about how they affect the marine environment. Most people have never thought of parasites and pathogens as agents of change or important ocean stressors.

Falling Stars: Once-Abundant Sea Stars Imperiled by Disease Along West Coast

Falling Stars: Once-Abundant Sea Stars Imperiled by Disease Along West Coast

The combination of ocean warming and an infectious wasting disease has devastated populations of large sunflower sea stars once abundant along the West Coast of North America in just a few years, according to a study co-led by the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University published Jan. 30 in the journal Science Advances.

“In California, Washington and parts of British Columbia, sunflower sea stars keep urchins under control,” said Joseph Gaydos, senior author on the paper and director of UC Davis’ SeaDoc Society program. “Without sunflower stars, urchin populations expand and threaten kelp forests and biodiversity. This cascading effect has a really big impact.”