It’s hard to forget the excruciating heat that blanketed the Pacific Northwest in late June 2021. Temperatures in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia soared to well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with Seattle of 108 degrees on June 28.

During the heat wave, also called a heat dome, scientists and community members alike noticed a disturbing on some beaches in Washington and British Columbia, both in the Salish Sea and along the outer coast. The observers quickly realized they were living through an unprecedented event and they organized to document the shellfish die-offs as they happened in real time.

Now, a team led by the 91̽�� has compiled and analyzed hundreds of these field observations to produce the first comprehensive report of the impacts of the 2021 heat wave on shellfish. The researchers found that many shellfish were victims of a “perfect storm” of factors that contributed to widespread death: The lowest low tides of the year occurred during the year’s hottest days — and at the warmest times of day. The were published online June 20 in the journal Ecology.

“You really couldn’t have come up with a worse scenario for intertidal organisms,” said lead author , a research scientist at 91̽��Friday Harbor Laboratories. “This analysis has given us a really good general picture of how shellfish were impacted by the heat wave, but we know this isn’t even the full story.”

The research team leveraged existing collaborations across tribes, state and federal agencies, academia and nonprofits. They devised a simple survey and five-point rating system (1 = much worse than normal to 5 = much better than normal) and asked participants to provide ratings based on their knowledge of a species in that location. In total, they gathered 203 observations from 108 unique locations, from central British Columbia down to Willapa Bay, Washington.

“The strength of this study and what it really highlights is the value of local knowledge and also the importance of understanding natural history,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate teaching professor in environmental studies and aquatic and fishery sciences. “This is the first step and a snapshot, if you will, of what shellfish experienced on the beaches during the heat wave.”

The researchers found that each species’ ecology contributed to its general success or failure to survive the extreme heat. For example, some shellfish that naturally burrow deep beneath the surface, like butter clams, usually fared better than ones that typically ride out low tide just below the sand’s surface, such as cockles.

They also found that location mattered. Shellfish on the outer coast experienced low tide about four hours earlier than shellfish on inland beaches. For inland shellfish, low tide — or when the most shellfish were exposed — hit around solar noon, when the sun was directly overhead.

Additionally, air temperatures were much higher at inland sites compared to the outer coast, causing more stress on inland populations. For example, California mussels, found almost exclusively on the outer coast, mostly survived the heat while bay mussels, found in more inner coastal sites, were more likely to die from heat exposure. More water movement and wave action on the outer coast also likely helped lessen the impacts of the heat on shellfish along those beaches.

“The timing of low tide helps determine when and where organisms may be exposed to heat stress and can structure behavior and distribution. In this case, organisms at locations that are already exposed to air at the hottest time of day were very unlucky that temperatures soared so high,” said co-author Hilary Hayford, habitat research director at Puget Sound Restoration Fund.

Many shellfish don’t tend to move much on any given beach, so where they naturally live in the intertidal zone also contributed to their success or failure, the researchers found. For example, acorn barnacles that live higher on the shore generally were more impacted than clams and oysters that are lower on the beach and more likely to remain under water.

“Although this event had negative effects on marine life, there is hope that can be found in this work. Not all locations and species were affected equally, offering clues to pathways to resiliency in the future,” said co-author Annie Raymond, a shellfish biologist with Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the researchers noticed interesting patterns in survival rates among shellfish on the same beach. In some locations, shellfish in the path of freshwater runoff on one section of beach survived, while others just a few miles away perished. If a tree hung over part of a beach and shaded the sand, those shellfish generally made it while others didn’t. Co-author , senior shellfish biologist with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, remembers seeing those patterns while walking the beaches of Skagit Bay and, in some locations, being surrounded by dead cockles in every direction.

“It was pretty unsettling, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Barber said. She remembers exchanging emails with colleagues from around the region as they noticed similar mass die-offs on their local beaches, then realizing that they urgently needed to coordinate and document what was happening.

“This effort was a beautiful demonstration of how collaborators can come together with one common cause — which in our case was trying to understand what happened to these shellfish,” Barber said.

Because the heat wave occurred during the time frame when many shellfish are reproducing, the mass die-offs could impact those populations for at least several years, highlighting the need for long-term monitoring, the researchers said. And as climate change continues to produce more frequent extreme heat events, shellfish deaths like those of last summer may become more of a common reality.

“The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community is proud to be a leader in this important scientific research that assessed in real-time the devastating impacts to our shellfish resources from the unprecedented heat dome last summer. Shellfish are a priority first food that our tribal community relies on for spiritual and subsistence nourishment. Last summer’s extreme weather event reinforced to us that we must act faster to ensure climate resiliency for our community’s long-term health and well-being,” said Swinomish Tribal Chairman Steve Edwards.

“Once the effects of the heat wave started to become apparent, the collaboration that emerged was amazing as managers and scientists worked quickly to put together a rapid response to capture information,” said co-author Camille Speck, Puget Sound intertidal bivalve manager for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We still have so much to learn about the effects of the heat wave on Salish Sea marine ecosystems, and more work to do as managers to prepare for the next one and develop informed responses. These conversations are happening now, and it is our hope that we will be better prepared for whatever comes next.”

Other co-authors are Megan Dethier of the UW; Teri King of UW-based Washington Sea Grant; Christopher Harley of University of British Columbia; Blair Paul of Skokomish Indian Tribe; and Elizabeth Tobin of Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. More than two dozen individuals contributed data to this project.

This analysis was funded by Washington Sea Grant with data contributions from tribes, state and federal agencies, academic institutions and nonprofits.

For more information, contact:

• Wendel Raymond, 91̽�� and lead author: wraymond@uw.edu
• Sean McDonald, 91̽��: psean@uw.edu
• Julie Barber, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community: jbarber@swinomish.nsn.us
• Camille Speck, WDFW (contact Ben Anderson, communications manager): Benjamin.Anderson@dfw.wa.gov
• Teri King, Washington Sea Grant: guatemal@uw.edu

European green crabs feast on shellfish, destroy marsh habitats by burrowing in the mud and obliterate valuable seagrass beds. The invasive species also reproduces quickly, making it a nightmare for wildlife managers seeking to control its spread in Washington’s marine waters.

Last month, Gov. Jay Inslee issued an in response to more than as well as dramatic increases in crab populations on Washington’s outer coast and other locations in Puget Sound in recent years.

As the green crab invasion in the state worsens, a new analysis method developed by 91̽�� and Washington Sea Grant scientists could help contain future invasions and prevent new outbreaks using water testing and genetic analysis. The , published online Feb. 6 in the journal Ecological Applications, show that the DNA-based technique works as well in detecting the presence of green crabs as setting traps to catch the live animals, which is a more laborious process. Results suggest these two methods could complement each other as approaches to learn where the species’ range is expanding.

The new method relies on genetic material in the environment, known as eDNA, that is found in the water after organisms move through. Scientists can collect a bottle of water from a location, extract DNA from the water and discern which species were present recently in that area.

“We have limited resources to be able to combat this problem, and it’s important to think about how to allocate those resources efficiently and effectively,” said lead author , who completed the work as a master’s student in the 91̽��School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “Knowing the best situations for using eDNA to detect invasive green crabs is important, and that’s what our study tried to tackle.”

The research team relied on data collected over three months in 2020 from green crab traps in 20 locations throughout Puget Sound and the outer coast. Trapping at these locations was done by a large number of partners participating in statewide efforts to monitor and control European green crab, including multiple tribes, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife — the state lead for green crab management — Washington Sea Grant’s , and other state and federal agencies.

For this study, the researchers visited each location and collected water samples, then ran genetic analyses to detect both the presence and quantity of European green crab in each location. In this way they could validate the eDNA data with the actual presence and numbers of crabs. They found that using eDNA to detect the presence and abundance of the species was as sensitive as trapping and counting live crabs.

This is significant, the researchers said, because eDNA as a detection method is new, and it hasn’t always been clear how to interpret eDNA detections in past scenarios. This study shows how conventional monitoring methods — in this case, trapping and counting crabs — can be combined with eDNA techniques to more effectively find and control invasive species outbreaks.

“Here’s a really well-validated example of how to use eDNA in the real world. To me that’s really exciting,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “There are lots of invasive species, and many imperiled and endangered species that are hard to monitor, so this is one significant way forward on all of those fronts.”

The study also evaluates when eDNA would add value in monitoring for invasive crabs, and when conventional trapping and counting still make the most sense. For example, taking water samples and testing for green crab DNA in remote locations — or in areas where outbreaks haven’t yet been identified — could save time and resources instead of deploying traps. Alternatively, eDNA probably wouldn’t be helpful in locations where large numbers of green crabs are already living and where community scientists and managers are already trapping and controlling those populations, the researchers explained.

“From a management perspective, the value of this tool just really comes to life in places that are more remote or have a lot of shoreline to cover, like Alaska, where green crabs haven’t yet been detected,” said co-author , a marine ecologist who leads the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team. “I see eDNA as another tool in the toolkit, and we can imagine scenarios where it can be used alongside trapping, especially as an early detection method.”

Finding these crabs soon after they have occupied a new location is important for controlling the population and protecting native habitats. Managers could get ahead of new invasions by testing water from multiple locations, and then follow up with more water testing, on-the-ground monitoring and trapping if green crab DNA is detected.

The paper identified green crab DNA in one location where the species hasn’t yet been captured, near Vashon Island. The research team followed up a year later with intensive trapping and retested the water; no green crabs or additional green crab DNA were found. The researchers think the earlier positive sample likely was picking up green crab larvae, which weren’t present in that location a year later. Notably, the effort represented an important test case for how eDNA and traditional trapping can be implemented together for green crab management.

“The reason we pursued this project in the beginning is that early detection of green crabs is difficult — it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” said co-author , a 91̽��associate teaching professor in environmental studies and aquatic and fishery sciences and the 91̽��principal investigator for Crab Team research. “So if adding eDNA to our toolkit helps us detect those needles, then that’s great to have at our disposal.”

of the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies is an additional co-author. This research was funded by Washington Sea Grant.

Contact the co-authors for more information. Contact info and expertise listed below:

• Abigail Keller (lead author, eDNA, European green crab): g.keller1@gmail.com
• Ryan Kelly (eDNA): rpkelly@uw.edu
• Emily Grason (European green crab; Crab Team efforts): egrason@uw.edu
• Sean McDonald (European green crab; Crab Team efforts): psean@uw.edu
• Chase Gunnell, WDFW communications (policy and state funding questions related to green crabs): gunnell@dfw.wa.gov or 360-704-0258 (cell)

Grant number: NOAA Award No. NA18OAR4170095

Headed into her final year of law school, Mary Ruffin had planned to spend the summer at a private law firm, where she had secured an internship – a near rite of passage, among law students, to future employment.

But the internship, for college students in so many industries, was put on hold, the victim of the COVID-19 economy that has left millions out of work nationwide.

Yet Ruffin was undeterred, and she started reaching out to fellow students, faculty, alumni and attorneys to see what might be available – any kind of legal research or project to keep her skills sharp and her resume competitive.

In the meantime, faculty and administrators with the 91̽�� School of Law were working with local law firms to find solutions for the dozens of students in need of the professional development experience that defines the summers between years of law school and often leads to a full-time job. Together, they came up with the COVID-19 Clearinghouse, a collection of short-term, remote, pro bono projects for private firms and nonprofits that mainly address legal questions specific to life during the pandemic. And through the Clearinghouse, Ruffin received her first assignment for a client: researching employment laws for essential workers and their families.

“A lot of students go into law school because law can have a profound impact on people’s lives,” Ruffin said. “This seemed like a really good use of our time, when things are constantly changing, and it’s good for students to get involved and feel like we’re part of a community.”

The COVID-19 Clearinghouse is just one of the ways that faculty and staff across the 91̽��have revamped summer research internships and worked with outside partners and employers to involve students in a remote working environment, even for jobs that would normally be out in the field.

Bringing the outside in

Transforming what are usually outdoor or in-the-lab tasks has required creativity. Just ask almost anyone in the College of the Environment.

The Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean’s nine-week research internship program accepts about a dozen undergraduates from around the country. Students are paired with a project that’s meant to match their interests, either on the 91̽��campus with a faculty member, or at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offices in Seattle. The cohort is housed in 91̽��residence halls, participates in regular activities and goes on the occasional field trip.

Not this year. All 10 interns will work remotely, some on projects that were reconfigured to be online, and a few who agreed to take a remote project that was completely different from what program administrator Jed Thompson would have offered, pre-pandemic.

Gone, for example, is any assignment involving the always-popular “ship time.” But time on the computer provides valuable skills, too, useful for oceanography and so many other science fields.

Both and , faculty in the School of Oceanography, have converted internships that would otherwise have been out on the water or inside in the lab. Instead of examining zooplankton for Keister or using mass spectrometers to measure metals in water for Bundy, the interns will analyze data from previously obtained samples, learning new computer programs and other means of identification and measurement.

Elsewhere in the College of the Environment, Washington Sea Grant’s science communication fellow would normally spend much of their time bringing safety and water-quality messages directly to the people – literally, surveying boaters, promoting education at festivals and sharing materials at docks and marinas. But until lockdown restrictions loosen significantly, assistant director for communications MaryAnn Wagner said, the fellowship is steering toward writing and social media: from press releases about marine debris disposal and pump-out stations, to tweets of recipes and sea-life trivia.

Adapting alongside employers

Many internships and practicum experiences rely on other partners and agencies. And as the reality of the pandemic and remote working arrangements became clear, 91̽��faculty and staff started contacting their usual job sites to determine what, if anything, could be modified.

The Program on the Environment requires its environmental studies majors to complete a year-long capstone project that includes a winter or summer field component, pairing students with outside organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency and King County, said , a senior lecturer and the program’s capstone instructor. But ahead of the summer, some of the smaller nonprofit partners tightened their budgets, leaving some job sites unavailable.

“A huge selling point is that we embed students in these organizations, and largely, all that has disappeared,” McDonald said.

About one-third of students decided to postpone to a later quarter, while the remaining 21 students are pressing on with a summer assignment, albeit a remote one. The program’s job fair proceeded via Zoom, with students “meeting” prospective employers in breakout rooms.

In the School of Public Health’s dietetic program, graduate students are training to become registered dietitians, primarily destined for hospitals, clinics and public health settings. Students complete seven rotations, including at least one stint in a health care facility, and one stint in a concentration area such as public policy, school nutrition or public health practice.

But during the pandemic, the placements in health care settings are in flux, and program director has been working on ways to provide students the experiences they need to graduate this summer. For some students, this meant completing a second public health rotation and delaying the start of clinical work. An entire cohort of dietitian students, nationwide, is in the same boat, she said.

“Our dietetic program has taken an individualized approach to meet students’ educational and career goals,” Lund said. “We’re doing everything we can but there are still gaps in their experiences due to the pandemic. It’s a system-level problem, and the system needs to recognize that and respond with post-credentialing training opportunities.”

Partnering around the pandemic

The quest to secure employment after law school begins early: The summer between the first and second years is the “resume-building” internship that leads to the more career-focused second summer, when a successful experience at a firm or organization often ensures a job there after graduation.

Establishing the COVID-19 Clearinghouse was a collective effort, led by 91̽��Law administrators and faculty, in consultation with alumni, retired attorneys, the Washington State Bar Association and several local firms, primarily Foster Garvey in Seattle. The pandemic had begun to generate many legal questions, and with the disappearance of so many paid jobs for law students, was there a way to address some of these issues, provide pro bono legal services to communities in need, and give students some of the experiences and skills practice they might get in a summer internship?

“There is a confluence of community need and student need,” said professor , 91̽��Law’s associate dean for experiential education, who collaboratively oversees the Clearinghouse with , co-chair of Foster Garvey’s pro bono committee. “We’re trying to take an otherwise challenging experience for students and turn it into a learning experience that builds their skills and enhances their future job prospects.”

The Clearinghouse matches students with supervising pro bono attorneys to tackle COVID-19 research projects that qualified legal service providers don’t have the capacity to undertake.�� The matching is coordinated through a series of Google surveys: one for legal service providers to submit questions and projects they want students to address; another for attorneys who want to volunteer their time to student teams; a third for students to indicate their areas of interest.�� To date, 66 91̽��law students have volunteered their time and skills.

The law schools at Seattle University and Gonzaga University joined the effort, and now there are 14 active projects involving dozens of students, many from the UW.

Mary Ruffin’s assignment with Foster Garvey is one of the projects that have concluded. Under the supervision of attorney Mikaela Louie, a 91̽��Law alum, Ruffin and students Ysabel Mullarky and Dailey Koga tackled the employment rights of essential workers who live with people at high risk of the COVID-19 infection. The final product was a memo for the client, the Northwest Justice Project, to use in counseling people in need of legal advice.

As society adjusts to the new normal of the pandemic, these opportunities for community engagement can continue, said Damon-Feng, who was key to facilitating the Clearinghouse and creating a list of project needs.

“Moving forward, when students may not be getting the employment experiences they need, we hope that we can get them experiences and skills training through the Clearinghouse,” Damon-Feng said.��“The Clearinghouse is also helping to meet increased need from the nonprofit and legal services community. And from the law firm side, we want to contribute to these efforts and get more people involved in this work.”

91̽��Law faculty have developed a summer course, too: “Lawyering in the Time of COVID-19,” designed to provide students with a substantive overview of big-picture issues, as well as skill development. The course will be taught in modules related to legal issues central to the pandemic, such as immigration and detention, unemployment, criminal justice and detention, and small-business issues. The second half of the course will pair students with local practitioners to work on a project or case in their area of expertise. Whether through opportunities with the Clearinghouse, or in the classroom, faculty say, students have a chance to learn about the law as it relates to an unprecedented event.

It’s not the summer experience that students expected, said , the law school’s interim assistant dean for student and career services. But a can-do attitude can help.

“Students gain key legal skills through a variety of experiences, and students should remember to stay focused on continuing to learn, even if their summers don’t look how they hoped. Remember — this is just one small time in your very long career,” she said.

Earlier this week in Westcott Bay, San Juan Island, a team of volunteer monitors caught an , marking the first confirmation of this global invader in Washington’s inland waters.

The volunteers are part of Washington Sea Grant’s , an early detection and monitoring program to look for European green crab (Carcinus maenas)��and collect information on��local marine life.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is responsible for controlling aquatic invasive animals and is working closely with 91̽��-based to determine next steps for limiting further spread of the crab.

European green crab have been stowaways on ships bound for U.S. ports since the 1800s, establishing populations, eating local clams and other shellfish and causing serious impacts. In Maine, for example, softshell clam harvests declined dramatically when the crab became established and eelgrass beds have been damaged by the invader’s digging habits.

Until now, green crab populations in Washington have been limited to Pacific coastal estuaries. However, the 2012 discovery of invasive crabs in Canadian waters across the Strait of Juan de Fuca prompted the state’s wildlife department to invest in Salish Sea monitoring and early detection.

This week’s sighting was confirmed by green crab experts of the UW��and of Oregon State University. A single, large, 3-inch adult male crab was captured during the Crab Team’s regular monitoring activity. The agencies are coordinating a response to the sighting, working with scientists at the UW’s .

“Although unexpected and unwelcome, this finding is a perfect example of how volunteers can spur positive environmental action, and it shows that the monitoring program is working as it was designed,” said Jeff Adams, Washington Sea Grant marine ecologist and project manager.

Crab Team volunteers were trained and began monitoring sites in April to detect the invasive threat and monitor Puget Sound pocket estuaries that provide ideal crab habitat. The monitoring program focuses on early identification of infestations so that resource managers can take action to reduce impacts and prevent further spread.

With an estimated 400 potentially suitable sites in Washington’s inland waters, experts are asking all citizens to keep their eyes open for green crab whenever on the beach.

“Anyone can go out and look for the crabs in the water or their shells washed up along the shoreline,” said program coordinator Emily Grason.

Although the crab is a prohibited species in Washington and possession is not permitted, residents can still help:

• Learn how to how to identify green crab. Check out the ��or Facebook and Twitter:��
• Take a photo and report sightings to the Crab Team:��crabteam@uw.edu
• Attend a public presentation at UW’s Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13. See the Crab Team for additional details

The work is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under an assistance agreement to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Look who we found!

— WSG Crab Team (@WAgreencrab)

Note: The video above shows an invasive green crab found last month in Willapa Bay.

###

For more information, contact McDonald at��206-616-2186 or��psean@uw.edu; Adams at��360-229-9398 or��jaws@uw.edu; and Jason Wettstein, community relations at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, at��360-902-2254 or��James.Wettstein@dfw.wa.gov.