Q: Please explain the suburban birds you describe as “adapters” and “exploiters.”
A: Adapters are birds that take advantage of the new foods and nesting opportunities that exist in suburban settings. They include familiar birds like chickadees, goldfinches, Canada geese and red-tailed hawks. The abundance of adapters increases with development because they utilize edges that exist between the many distinct built and natural landscapes in our neighborhoods.

Exploiters are even more in tune with humanity than are the adapters. They often have “house” or “barn” in their name, such as barn swallow, barn owl and house finch. My favorite, the American crow, and the denizen of Costco parking lots, the Brewer’s blackbird, are exploiters. Exploiters may attain dense populations, but some are declining as the last scruffy parts of today’s cities are tidied up and the cracks and crevices in older homes are sealed. The house sparrow and jackdaw of Europe are two exploiters on the decline.

In many cases, adapters and exploiters can show us how natural selection fashions the birds that live among us. Blackcap warblers in Europe, for instance, are in the throes of speciation as some in the population are evolving new migratory routes and morphologies that enable them to exploit bird feeders in England.

Evolution of birds in our backyards tells me that humans, while often destructive, also have a creative hand in shaping biological diversity.

Q: What about the “avoiders”?

A: In contrast, avoiders decline in the face of human action. To these species, our activities are as deadly as the meteors of the past. Avoiders require extensive natural habitat situated far from cities. A familiar local avoider is the northern spotted owl, but even the small Pacific wren is an avoider. Many birds that annually migrate from the neotropics to breed in and around Seattle, such as western tanagers, black-throated grey warbler, and Wilson’s warblers, are avoiders.

In the Northwest, there are many fewer avoiders than adapters, so bird diversity is highest in suburban settings and declines as we move either closer to the city or farther from it. This pattern is common across the northern Europe, Asia and Australia.

However, avoiders dominate tropical forest communities, so in those hyper-diverse settings development is likely to steadily decrease diversity.

Understanding that local diversity is a careful balance of animals that seek and avoid people teaches us that urbanization is not the answer to our conservation prayers. Rather, learning to appreciate the animals that co-exist where we live, work and play can motivate us to make the sacrifices – setting aside distant lands – that avoiders require.

Q: You’re tweeting on about wildlife in your suburban backyard in Snohomish County. What’s the most fun thing this fall?
A: What’s not to enjoy about a mature bald eagle or rough-skinned newt in the yard? But I’ve certainly had the most fun with the newest addition to my yard – a male mountain beaver that was unwanted in his former abode and now has been successfully transplanted to my sword fern-encrusted hillside. I’ll be following his progress throughout the winter.

How do you know Jack DeLap, the artist who illustrated the book?
A: is not only a talented artist, but also a scientist in my lab. Jack started at the 91̽»¨the year I was hired. As part of an expansion of his fine arts degree, Jack was working on a second bachelor’s degree in wildlife science. Since then he completed a master’s at Colorado State University and then returned here to do doctoral work on the urban bird community that he elegantly illustrated for Subirdia.

Q: What are examples from your “Nature’s 10 commandments”– the things animals would ask for if they could get our attention?
A: All animals would appreciate it if we lessened our fascination for large, manicured, turf lawns. Reducing lawn size and replacing lawns with native (or even nonnative) shrubs would increase the ability of suburbs to support ground-nesting birds, small mammals, salamanders and garter snakes.

Our birds would ask that we do two simple things: keep our cats inside – outdoor cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds per year in the U.S. alone – and make our large-paned glass windows more visible. This can be accomplished by adding UV-reflective stickers to windows.

The 91̽»¨could make a great contribution to bird safety by making our windows visible and by turning off Husky Stadium lights when the field is not in use. Birds and other animals living by the lake are negatively affected by excessive night lighting.

By stocking bird feeders and providing bird houses we can help build large populations of adapters and exploiters, which is a key feature in their ability to continually adapt and evolve in response to the challenges we present to them.

Finally, we live and work in such a wonderful and natural place that I hope we can all take a bit of time each day to celebrate the nature around us. Share that passion for life with colleagues, students and family members so that they, too, develop an ethic that, as Aldo Leopold wrote 60 years ago, values our land as a community, not simply a commodity.

The approach could avoid the regulatory hurdles imposed on transgenic plants – plants with genes inserted from or exchanged with other plant or animal species – that have shown promise in phytoremediation, the process of using plants to remove toxins from contaminated sites, according to , associate professor of and corresponding author on a about the new work in Environmental Science & Technology.

“Our approach is much like when humans take probiotic pills or eat yogurt with probiotics to supplement the ‘good’ microbes in their guts,” she said.

The microbe from the cottonwood was encouraged to colonize the roots of willows simply by dipping rooted and trimmed cuttings in solutions with the microbe. Grasses were treated with microbes in solution as seeds sprouted in soil. Once integrated into the plants, the microbe supplemented their own microbial defenses.

Microbes that take up residence in the inner tissue of plants and don’t cause negative symptoms are called endophytes. In nature, endophytes have a welcomed, symbiotic relationship with plants. In polluted soil, for instance, if the right endophytes are present they consume toxins coming up through plant roots. The endophytes get fed and the plant gets help neutralizing pollutants that could kill it.

That’s been one challenge of phytoremediation: plants removing pollutants can, all too quickly, succumb to the toxins.

“When the endophyte in these experiments was given to willow and grasses, it reduced the phytotoxic effects of phenanthrene compared to the control plants that did not receive the endophyte and died,” said lead author , a 91̽»¨research scientist in environmental and forest sciences.

Phenanthrene is carcinogenic, on the Environmental Protection Agency’s priority pollutants list and belongs to a class of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that get deposited into the environment via fossil fuel combustion, waste incineration or as byproducts of industrial processes. Soils that become contaminated can be capped with layers of uncontaminated soil or dug up and removed for cleaning at soil remediation facilities or storage at waste disposal facilities.

In their search, 91̽»¨researchers tested six different endophytes from cottonwood and willow varieties and found one – lab name PD1 – from the eastern cottonwood to be superior at breaking down phenanthrene.

They introduced this endophyte into willow cuttings and lawn grass. Willows were chosen because some varieties have already proven adept at removing toxins and the shrubs have extensive root systems, take up a lot of water and grow rapidly. Lawn grass was included because it also grows fast and could be useful in parks and open-space areas.

In lab experiments, the willow cuttings with added endophyte protection continued to grow, kept their leaves and had denser root systems. Untreated plants wilted, lost leaves and their roots turned brown. When soils were analyzed, the treated willows took up 65 percent of the phenanthrene compared with untreated plants that removed 40 percent, an improvement of 25 percent.

Grass seed planted in contaminated soils and watered with solutions containing the PD1 endophyte germinated five days quicker, grew taller and had 100 more tillers, or new offshoots, after 13 days. Treated grass removed 50 percent of the phenanthrene from the soil, compared with untreated grass that removed 10 percent, an improvement of 40 percent.

In phytoremediation, plants that take up pollutants but don’t degrade them have to be removed and treated as hazardous waste or otherwise disposed of safely. The willows treated in the 91̽»¨experiment appear to have degraded some 90 percent of the phenanthrene to harmless components. The researchers said they’d like to determine if that promising finding holds up in mass-balance studies and want to examine the possible effects on bugs or animals that might bite the plants processing the toxins and other environmental considerations. Interestingly, other studies have shown that bugs can smell similar semi-volatile pollutants and avoid eating the plants containing them, Doty said.

The work was funded by a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that came through the company , and by funds provided through the Byron and Alice Lockwood Endowed Professorship that Doty holds. The other four co-authors on the paper were undergraduate volunteers: David Roman and Trent Kintz have since graduated while May delas Alas and Raymond Yap are still working on their bachelor’s degrees.

Just down the road from 91̽»¨is Seattle’s , a site Doty thinks is a prime candidate for the approach her lab reported. Contaminants in the soil, including phenanthrene, are from a now-dismantled gasification plant. Soils have been covered with uncontaminated soil.

“The idea of leaving a known carcinogen in a public place is not right,” she said. “What about problems of erosion? We should do what we can to remove it. We spend so much money treating cancer, I’d like us to take steps to prevent it instead.”

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For more information;
Doty, 206-616-6255, sldoty@uw.edu (NOTE: Doty will be traveling Nov. 19-21 and best reached via email those days)
Khan, 206-543-5774, zareen@uw.edu

NIH/NIEHS-SBIR Grant No. 2R44ES020099-02

The findings – the published Aug. 28 in Science and the in the Nov. 6 issue of Nature Communications – give new understanding about genes and cell behaviors that underlie pigment patterns in zebrafish that, in turn, could help unravel the workings of pigment cells in humans and other animals, skin disorders such as melanoma and cell regeneration.

“Using zebrafish as a model, we’re at the point where we have a lot of the basic mechanisms, the basic phenomenology of what’s going on, so we can start to look at some of these other species that have really different patterns and start to understand them,” said , a 91̽»¨professor of and corresponding author on both papers.

Zebrafish, a tropical freshwater fish about 1.5 inches long, belongs to the minnow family and is a popular addition to home aquariums. Adults have long horizontal blue stripes on their sides, hence the reference to “zebra.” These patterns have roles in schooling, mate selection and avoiding predators. Given their importance, scientists have long wanted to know where these pigment cells come from and how they make stripes and other arrangements.

— In the video clip, a 10-day-old zebrafish gets its stripes in this series of images taken one a day for 30 days. Credit required: D Parichy Lab/U of Washington

Unlike humans with a single pigment cell type – the amount of melanin that produces color being determined by everyone’s individual genetics – there are three pigment cells that make the zebrafish pattern.

Researchers at 91̽»¨and elsewhere have previously shown that all three types of pigment cells communicate with one another to organize zebrafish stripes and that two of the pigment cells – one that creates black and another silver – come from stem cells.

In the Aug. 28 issue of Science, two papers report that the cells called xanthophores that produce the color orange don’t come from stem cells as had long been assumed. Instead, they come from pre-existing cells in the embryo. The 91̽»¨researchers also determined the surprising process by which this occurs: cells in the embryo first mature into xanthophores and then, when it’s time to make stripes, these same cells lose their color, increase in number and then turn back into xanthophores with color.

“This is remarkable because cells do not normally lose their mature properties, let alone regain them later,” Parichy said. “Knowing how xanthophores achieve this feat could provide clues to regeneration of tissues and organs without the need for stem cells.”

Even more remarkably, the 91̽»¨authors found that the re-development of orange-producing xanthophores requires thyroid hormone, the same hormone that turns tadpoles into frogs, suggesting that xanthophores undergo their own metamorphosis. At the same time thyroid hormone blocks development of the black cells, setting the proper shade overall.

“In the last 10 to 15 years people trying to understand these patterns have concentrated on how the three pigment cell types interact with each other. We showed the tremendous dependence on thyroid hormone for the pattern that develops,” Parichy said.

Lead author is , a postdoctoral fellow in Parichy’s lab. Funding for the work was provided by the National Institutes of Health, which just awarded Parichy a new $1.25 million grant to study thyroid hormone signaling in pigmentation and melanoma.

Next in the Nature Communications paper, Parichy’s group reports on a gene that drives the unusually early appearance of xanthophores – independent of thyroid hormone – in another species, the pearl danio. Unlike zebrafish this species lacks stripes: its pigment cells are intermingled and arranged uniformly on the body, giving it a pearly orange color.

By expressing this gene the same way in zebrafish, the researchers caused the fish to make extra-early xanthophores and the fish produced a uniform pattern like the pearl danio instead of their usual stripes.

“Really simple changes in timing make totally different patterns,” Parichy said.

This unexpected result shows that a core network of interacting cells can generate very different patterns in response to changes in timing, a discovery that could explain color pattern evolution across a variety of species. Lead author on the Nature Communications paper is postdoctoral scholar and the work was funded by the NIH.

“If you’d asked me five years ago if we’re in a position to have some useful hypotheses about where patterns come from in other species, I’d have said, ‘No,'” Parichy said. “But I think now we’re really at the point where we understand a lot of the basics and we can start to frame testable hypotheses. We can see how much of this is just a simple difference in timing, a difference in thyroid hormone responsiveness or a difference in cellular communication itself.”

Patterson and UW’s Emily Bain are co-authors on both papers. Other co-authors on the Science paper are UW’s Anna McCann, Dae Seok Eom, and undergraduates Zachary Waller and James Hamill, as well as Julie Kuhlman from Iowa State University and Judith Eisen of the University of Oregon.

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For more information:
Parichy, dparichy@uw.edu, 206-734-7331

Funding
NIH R01 GM096906, NIH R03 HD074787, NIH P01 HD22486, NIH F32 GM090362, NIH K99 GM105874, NIH R01 GM062182

“An age-old conflict around a seemingly simple question has resurfaced: Why do we conserve nature?” the piece in Nature begins. “Contention around this issue has come and gone many times, but in the past several years we believe that it has reappeared as an increasingly acrimonious debate between, in essence, those who argue that nature should be protected for its own sake – intrinsic value – and those who argue that we must also save nature to help ourselves – instrumental value.”

In the Pacific Northwest, for example, there are those who advocate that salmon and forests have value all by themselves – nature for nature’s sake, according to , associate dean of academic affairs and diversity for the 91̽»¨. Others believe salmon and forests should be protected because they provide commodities, such as food and wood products, and because well-managed streams and forest lands provide ecosystem services such as clean water, clean air, carbon sequestration and temperature regulation.

“What began as a healthy debate has, in our opinion, descended into vitriolic, personal battles in universities, academic conferences, research stations, conservation organizations and even the media,” wrote the co-authors who include lead authors Nature Conservancy’s Heather Tallis and former NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. “We believe that this situation is stifling productive discourse, inhibiting funding and halting progress.”

To help better capture the joint interests of intrinsic and instrumental values, the signatories call for more inclusiveness, particularly of the many different values people hold for nature, and of the viewpoints of women and diverse ethnicities and cultures.

“The big change that’s needed is diversifying the voices in the room,” said Parrish, who is also a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

At the UW, steps in that direction include a that the College of the Environment inaugurated last summer to attract, train and employ individuals from communities that are largely absent from the conservation workforce. Twenty-six freshman and sophomore college students from across the nation participated in an intensive and will return each of the next two summers for additional conservation training.

“Approaching conservation problems with representative perspectives and a broad base of respect, trust, pragmatism and shared understanding will more quickly and effectively advance our shared vision of a thriving planet.” the Nature commentary co-authors wrote.

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For more information:
Parrish, 206-221-5787, jparrish@uw.edu
Lisa Graumlich, dean, College of the Environment, 206-221-0908, graumlic@uw.edu

In some years, probably when shrew populations boom, the small mouse-like land animals end up in the stomachs of a quarter of rainbow trout and Arctic grayling larger than a foot, according to 91̽»¨-led research in the coastal lakes and streams of Southwest Alaska.

“Not all the fish could eat shrews even if they were abundant. A fish must be larger than 12 inches to have a mouth big enough to swallow these prey whole,” said , lead author of a in the October issue of Ecology of Freshwater Fish.

“However, in pools where almost every fish was large enough to eat a shrew, it was only the largest fish that had shrews – often six to eight in their stomachs – many more than the next largest fish,” he said.

“Big fish don’t share their treats.”

The work, which Lisi did while earning his doctorate at the UW, is a part of a larger ongoing project monitoring salmon and other fish and learning their life histories, including what they eat by examining stomach contents.

“The last part of the shrew to remain is usually the tail. It seems the least digestible part and the easiest way to count the number of shrews that the fish had consumed,” Lisi said. Fish were anesthetized and their stomach contents washed out through their mouths to be tallied, then the fish were released as they revived.

“Our data suggest a few of the fish are really good at getting shrews,” Lisi said. “Like the one trout that had 19 shrews in its gut – found in a neighboring river basin by fish and wildlife researchers. It wouldn’t surprise me if some fish were ‘shrew specialists,’ able to attack animals at the water’s edge or even knock shrews into the deeper water by attacking the banks, but I have not observed anything like this myself.

“I remember fly fishing for these fish in an area where shrews were abundant and the fish literally leaped completely out of the water after lures, rather than slowly rising at the fly at the surface,” he said. “A number of anglers have reported seeing fish leaping onto banks to get frogs, birds and small mammals, but it still remains fish lore to me. I’m still waiting for the video of a trout pulling shrews off a bank.”

The co-authors said that, more typically, shews hunting for insects along stream sides may slip into the water, or maybe they will wade in after insects to eat but once in the streams they themselves are scarfed down.

The rainbow trout and Arctic graylings studied are not known to go to sea as salmon do. The two species gorge on eggs and carcasses from salmon returning to spawn, and eat insects and other small fish at other times. Shrews show up in greater numbers in the fish during certain years, most likely when the shrew population booms and shrews are plentiful, the researchers think.

“Shrews are really territorial, so it’s likely that during boom years more shrews may decide to take bigger risks by crossing streams and entering water where their food is more plentiful.” Lisi said.

Lisi, who is now doing postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted the study while in the 91̽»¨research group of co-author , professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. The other co-authors are from the same group: Kale Bentley, who earned a master’s and is now with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and , who earned a doctorate and is now at the University of Wyoming.

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For more information:
Lisi, peter.j.lisi@gmail.com

The summit – Wednesday evening, Oct. 22, 4-7 p.m. at Alder Commons – starts with a panel identifying barriers to solving the largest issues regarding sustainability in various disciplines, and how to address them. On tap will be deans James Jiambalvo of the Michael G. Foster School of Business, Lisa Graumlich of the College of the Environment and Howard Frumkin of the School of Public Health and their students.

After the panel there will be a 45-minute reception and poster session featuring student-led environmental projects funded by the and . Then the summit keynote will feature Karen Baebler, assistant athletic director for sports operations, discussing sustainability initiatives of 91̽»¨Athletics.

Earlier Wednesday, the sustainable vendor fair will run 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Red Square. Those attending can sample sustainable snacks and visit with more than 40 exhibitors from on and off campus.

The , Oct. 20-25, encompasses events all week across campus. For example Thursday, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., in Odegaard Library’s active learning classroom 141, students can learn about sustainability careers with representatives from the business, non-profit and government sectors, followed by a meet-and-greet to talk with the speakers.

“The Sustainable 91̽»¨Festival is a special week focused on activities related to sustainability across the university,” said Ruth Johnston, associate vice president of environmental stewardship and sustainability.” “We are excited to see students, faculty, staff and community partners engage with one another to achieve this 91̽»¨value and goal. Collaboration is at the heart of our sustainability efforts. We want everyone to attend and promote the festival: to learn, engage and commit to doing more, both individually and collectively.”

Earlier this month the American Planning Association named the UW’s Rainer Vista to its annual Great Places in America , one of 10 public spaces on the list this year. That recognition highlights the campus landscape’s role in creating memories of place and providing a university identity.

Opportunities to take advantage of mountain and water views, possibly rethink areas of campus such as the cement wall along 15th Ave. NE, and take better advantage of underused areas of campus are among the starting points for the framework, which has been under development for two years.

The symposium is open to everyone, and those wishing to participate are asked to register by Oct. 15, however, walk-in registrants at the door are welcome.

The morning session will consider the importance of a campus investment in general. The afternoon will include a presentation about city-campus collaborations, and the discussion of the new 91̽»¨framework from 3-5 p.m. The draft is expected to be available online that afternoon on the Office of the University Architect’s website.

Landscape quality is a consideration in the campus master plan, the agreement between the city and the 91̽»¨about future campus development. The most recent master plan was finalized in 2003.

The landscape framework now being developed will be part of the next master plan and help guide landscape considerations for the next 20 years, although the effects could be even more long lasting, according to Kristine Kenney, university landscape architect. She led efforts on the framework with Rebecca Barnes, university architect and associate vice provost for campus and capital planning.

The framework identifies existing features to highlight, including formal quadrangles such as the Liberal Arts Quad, informal greens such as Denny Yard, wooded areas, views of the water and mountains and canopied areas such as Memorial Way. The consulting firm on the framework, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, determined that the mosaic and variety of open spaces is what gives the 91̽»¨its distinctive beauty, Kenney said.

It’s not a completed plan, but rather a way of looking at opportunities, Kenney said. Once the draft is finalized, it is hoped that a steering committee might develop guidelines, set priorities and find ways to fund the work.

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The latest 91̽»¨ program powered by citizen scientists aims to washed up on beaches in terms of potential harm to seabirds and other marine animals.

It’s one of thousands of research projects around the globe in which citizens collect, verify, analyze and report data about everything from what’s on the beach to what’s in the stars.

Better integration of citizen science into professional science is a growing consideration. Earlier this year , associate dean for academic affairs and diversity in the co-authored a on citizen science in the journal Science and in August there were at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting in the session “Citizen Science from Sea to Sky: Investigating Ecological Responses to Global Environmental Change.”

Here at the UW, citizen science interests faculty members wanting to harness the power of many eyes and hands and to broaden the impact of their work. 91̽»¨graduate students initiate citizen science efforts and undergraduates work both as volunteers and coordinators of volunteers.

“We’re at a tipping point,” Parrish said. “Our need to know and be able to document environmental issues is growing far beyond the reach of academic science and resource management to keep pace.“

Despite the need for information, the practice of citizen science “is not universally accepted as a valid method of scientific investigation,” Parrish and co-authors wrote in “,” in Science. “Scientific papers presenting volunteer-collected data sometimes have trouble getting reviewed and are often placed in outreach sections of journals or education tracks of scientific meetings,” they wrote.

At the UW, the natural sciences is just one area in which citizen scientists have gathered information that has become the basis of published research and resources reports used by managers, legislators and fellow scientists.

Some examples:

• 

  Data gathered by beach walkers who tally dead seabirds that wash ashore as part of the program, known as COASST, have been published in journals such as Marine Ornithology, Marine Pollution Bulletin and Journal of Archaeological Science.

• Annual five-day collecting trips, where volunteers gather as many as 1,000 specimens, enrich the and contribute to the of choice for regional land managers and professional botanists around the world interested in Pacific Northwest plants. The “Washington Wildflower” and “Idaho Wildflower” likewise capitalize on the herbarium holdings, as do efforts now under way to revise the 1973 plant “bible” for the region, the “Flora of the Pacific Northwest.”
• Monitoring by volunteers with the UW’s about the plant Erigeron basalticus – native to Washington and commonly known as daisy fleabane – was used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine that the plant, while rare, did not need listing under the Endangered Species Act.

With the right training and oversight, volunteers can collect data of quality equal to that collected by experts, according to findings cited in the Science article. To ensure that critiques of citizen science efforts are based on merits of research, rather than unfounded assumptions about the practice, the co-authors wrote that developers must employ sound research or monitoring design, and reviewers should look for evidence of such practices.

Parrish didn’t have publications particularly in mind when she spearheaded the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team program 16 years ago. A professor of , she was after an even higher standard: data that could stand up in court if need be. Baselines of how many birds die naturally would be needed in the event of major oil spills or other human-caused events that might wind up in court.

For faculty and graduate students interested in tapping into citizen science, Parrish said she’d like there to be easier ways to take advantage of existing programs.

“Imagine all the people doing terrestrial climate work, plant work, plant science, agronomy – are they each going to each create a citizen-science program and train people to identify plants?” she asked. “One way is to create a kind of plug-and-play kind of situation. If at the end of the day, they’re all interested in phenology – when things in the natural world reoccur – couldn’t we create a single program that everyone could use?”

The 91̽»¨should capitalize on its expertise in natural sciences, education and information technology to become a center for citizen science on the West Coast, Parrish said.

“I would love to see the 91̽»¨leap into the lead on the West Coast on that,” she said.

“We’re knee-deep in environmental scientists. We also have a wonderful College of Education and a great education program at Bothell. We can learn why people join things and what they get out of it, because you want those volunteer data collectors to stay with you until they get good. The last thing you want is for them to breeze in and breeze out.”

“The 91̽»¨has a kick-butt computer science program, Information School and digital arts and graphic design programs,” Parrish said.

For example Jeff Heer, an associate professor of computer science and engineering, just received a Gordon and Betty Moore Investigator Award and he’s committed, among other things, to connect his visualization lab to “big data” produced by citizen science, and especially visualizations targeting non-scientists.

“If we’re collecting broad-scale information – big space, long time – we need different tools to bring these data together, to check them out, to visualize them – like a map or a movie – that can go out to people in near real time, not three years later in a publication. Scientists are not necessarily going to do that and neither are education people. IT people are going to do that.”

But evolutionary biology has tremendous potential to help solve many of today’s pressing problems, according to nine international scientists, including , a 91̽»¨ professor of . The scientists point to everything from food security to emerging diseases in their , “Applying evolutionary biology to address global challenges,” published online Sept. 11 by Science.

Using evolutionary biology is one way to try to outwit evolution where it is happening too quickly – as when pests and diseases adapt rapidly and defeat our attempts to control them – and to perhaps find accommodations when evolution occurs too slowly ­­– as when species can’t adapt to habitat altered by climate change.

“Evolutionary biology is often thought of as figuring out things in the past,” Bergstrom said. “Very often it’s viewed as a retrospective science. What gets less attention from the general public is how evolutionary biology can help solve practical problems now.”

That’s one reason the time was right for this review, Bergstrom said.

“One important part of making that shift is for the public to recognize that evolution is not something that always happens slowly or is imperceptible in terms of our lifetime and irrelevant to our decision making,” he said.

For example, billions of people face the effects of pests, pathogens and cancers that adapt quickly to our attempts to control them. Applying what we know about evolutionary biology can help.

In the case of agricultural lands where cotton, corn and other crops have been engineered to produce toxins that kill insect pests that chew on them, there will always be mutations leading to insects able to resist the toxins. Interspersing engineered crops with areas planted with crops that don’t contain any of the toxins means there will be non-resistant insects to breed with the resistant individuals as they emerge. The offspring are likely to inherit the susceptibility, suppressing the evolution of the resistance.

Human diseases can produce resistant strains, even within an individual patient undergoing treatment, Bergstrom said. If you use the same drug over and over again, what eventually evolves is a drug-resistant strain. Thus evolutionary biology may lead doctors to use a combination of drugs because it’s less likely that resistance can develop to multiple assaults all at the same time.

Anyone who follows the news knows about problems of bacteria rapidly evolving resistance to antibiotics. Annual estimated costs of combatting drug-resistant microbes in the U.S. alone is $35 billion.

It’s a prime example of need for applied evolutionary biology to be discussed across disciplines, the co-authors said. They urge a coming together to think about critical public benefits, in this case to discuss the use of antibiotics in medicine for humans and in agriculture to promote growth of cattle, poultry and other animals.

“A particular worry is that the unaddressed need for management of evolution that spans multiple sectors will lead to the spread of new infectious diseases and anti-microbial resistance genes between natural, human health and agricultural systems,” said Scott Carroll of the University of California Davis. and of the University of Copenhagen were lead authors of the paper.

On the flip side of evolution that’s unwanted are instances in which animals and plants don’t adapt quickly enough to changing conditions.

“Climate change is generating massive amounts of selection of all kinds on populations all around the globe,” Bergstrom said. “The responses we see to climate change will depend on evolutionary processes, but we could perhaps use our understanding of those processes to think about ways to help species.”

Evolutionary tools can improve prospects for sustainable development, the co-authors said. The health, food and environmental sectors urgently need to adopt tools that take a long-term perspective by considering species’ evolutionary histories and the risk of unwanted effects from rapid evolutionary adaptation to human management, they urge.

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For more information:
Bergstrom, 206-685-3487, cbergst@uw.edu

It’s time to figure out if your route is affected and explore options, if you haven’t already done so.

Along with King County Metro’s tools – see – the 91̽»¨in August introduced a service. 91̽»¨staff can help riders with personalized commute plans on the phone at 206-221-3701; in person at the University Transportation Center, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and via email or using a new .

Members of the concierge staff also will be available at meetings, if requested, to help faculty, staff and students.

91̽»¨Transportation Services was already contemplating adding service to help people plan their commutes, but when Proposition 1 failed last April there was a clear need to get the Commute Concierge in place prior to the Metro transit cuts.

“The cuts are so complex, there are so many changes in service that everyone can be affected differently,” said Celeste Gilman, commute options manager. “That’s why we wanted to provide individualized service.”

For buses serving the U District, examples of changes include route 30 between Sand Point/Ravenna/U District and downtown, which will operate only during peak hours and no longer offer off-peak or weekend service. Completely gone are the 205 Express between South Mercer Island/Mercer Island Park and Ride/First Hill and the U District, as well as all express service on route 48 between Loyal Heights/Greenlake and the U District and on into the Central District and Mount Baker station.

Mass transit, of which Metro is one option, is the most common way people commute to campus, Gilman said.

In advance of the Metro changes, Transportation Service has also reached out via email this summer to alert faculty, staff and students about possible changes based on the zip code where they live. Two more waves of emails will be sent this month.

The reductions taking effect Sept. 27 across the Metro ridership area are designed to help bring service levels in line with available funding. Three additional cuts in service have been planned in 2015, although those cuts may not have to be as deep as expected because the revenue picture has improved. Passage of a ballot measure in Seattle in November may further affect the scale of the cuts in 2015.