Posts Tagged «biologyshow»

The Arctic is currently undergoing rapid and extraordinary large-scale changes related to natural resource development, marine shipping, transportation, infrastructure, and sea ice loss, and as a consequence there will be an imminent and uniform increase in anthropogenic sound. Narwhals are an important representative species for understanding both increasing noise in the Arctic and loss of sea ice, and the joint effects of these impacts on their behavior and ecology.

Born, E.W., A. Heilmann, L. Kielsen Holm, and K.L. Laidre,’ Polar bears in Northwest Greenland: an interview survey about the catch and the climate’, Monographs on Greenland, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 351, 250, 2010.

This project aims to understand and quantify the effects of sea ice loss on polar bears in East and West Greenland (Baffin Bay).  Longitudinal (cross-time) comparisons of movement behavior and habitat selection will be driven by an analysis of a multi-decadal satellite telemetry dataset on polar bear movements in Baffin Bay and East Greenland, beginning when sea ice concentration and break up date started to decline (1991-1997) and encompassing present day conditions (2007-2013).

Francis, J.A., D.M. White, J.J. Cassano, W.J. Gutowski Jr., L.D. Hinzman, M.M. Holland, M.A. Steele, and C.J. Vörösmarty, An arctic hydrologic system in transition: Feedbacks and impacts on terrestrial, marine, and human life, J. Geophys. Res., 114, G04019, doi:10.1029/2008JG000902, 2009.

Gurarie, E., R. Andrews, and K.L. Laidre,’ A novel method for identifying behavioral changes in animal movement data’, Ecol. Lett., 12, 395-408, 2009.

Hale, J. R., Laidre, K. L., Tinker, M. T., Jameson, R. J., Jeffries, S. J., Larson, S. E. and Bodkin, J. L. (2019), Influence of occupation history and habitat on Washington sea otter diet. Mar Mam Sci. doi:10.1111/mms.12598

Junge, K., B.C. Christner, and J.T. Staley, “Diversity of Psychrophilic Bacteria from Sea Ice – and Glacial Ice Communities“. In K. Horikoshi, G. Antranikian, A. Bull, F. Robb, and K. Stetter (eds), Extremophiles Handbook. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany. 1247 pp, 2011.

Junge, K., Cameron, K. and Nunn, B., 2019. Diversity of Psychrophilic Bacteria in Sea and Glacier Ice Environments—Insights Through Genomics, Metagenomics, and Proteomics Approaches. In Microbial Diversity in the Genomic Era (pp. 197-216). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814849-5.00012-5

Laidre K. L., E. W. Born, S. N. Atkinson, Ø. Wiig, L. W. Andersen, N. J. Lunn, M. Dyck, E. V. Regehr, R. McGovern and P. Heagerty. 2018.  Range contraction and increasing isolation of a polar bear subpopulation in an era of sea ice loss. Ecology and Evolution DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3809

Laidre, K. L., Stirling, I. , Estes, J. A., Kochnev, A. and Roberts, J. (2018), Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears. Front Ecol Environ. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1963

Light, B., S. Dickinson, D. K. Perovich, and M. M. Holland (2015), Evolution of summer Arctic sea ice albedo in CCSM4 simulations: Episodic summer snowfall and frozen summers, J. Geophys. Res., 120, 284–303, doi:10.1002/2014JC010149

This project will explore the relationship between deep-freeze bacterial activity, proteomics, polymers and the physical state of the ice and will provide important keys to questions regarding life under extreme conditions, be it in the various ice formations here on Earth, the atmosphere or elsewhere in the universe.

Polar Science Center investigator Kristin Laidre was recently featured in an online article on the Pacific Science Center’s website.  This article about her work with narwhals was based on her recent “Science Cafe” presentation in Kirkland.  The whole presentation entitled “Uncovering the Mysteries of the Narwhal” is on-line here.

Regehr, E.V., Hostetter, N.J., Wilson, R.R., Rode, K.D., St. Martin, M., Converse, S.J. (2018), Integrated Population Modeling Provides the First Empirical Estimates of Vital Rates and Abundance for Polar Bears in the Chukchi Sea. Scientific Reports. 8: 16780, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34824-7

The focus of this project is to work collaboratively with Dr. Donald Perovich (CRREL) in support of a NASA sponsored program, ICESCAPES. Bonnie Light will support this project by helping to characterize the morphological and optical properties of the sea ice cover through field measurements, radiative transfer modeling, and synthesis.

This part of the larger NASA ICESCAPE project examines the long-term, seasonal variability in phytoplankton abundance as a function of changes in sea ice cover, stratification, and temperature regimes measured in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas throughout the growing season.

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