Sea Otters

Our guest, Dr. Mayumi Arimitsu of Ocean Bight LLC, is leading research on the pelagic (offshore) components of the food web, and also monitors forage fish that are the key link in the marine food web. She was formerly a Research Ecologist with the United States Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center. In this interview she takes us into the world of forage fish, what they are, why they matter, what is affecting them, and how that affects almost everything else in the marine environment. Much of her research involves marine heat waves and their effects on the food web. With the return of “The Blob” and a “super El Niño” we are concerned about another potentially catastrophic heat wave along the eastern Pacific.

Interview with Dr.  Christina Pasparakis, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the University of California Davis, Bodega Marine Laboratory. She conducts field and laboratory research on marine toxicology - how toxics enter and affect marine organisms. Much of her work involves microplastics, an emerging concern, and her work is advancing our understanding of their effects.

Re-run of an interview in 2022 with Dr. John Marzluff, who studies how humans affect birds through habitat fragmentation and increased urbanization, as well as the challenges of conserving birds on islands. Conversely, he is also interested in all the ways that birds affect people—how, for instance, birds influence art, or language. He focuses primarily on corvids—that is, ravens, crows, and jays. These familiar and nearly ubiquitous birds are endlessly fascinating to observe, and as it turns out, to study scientifically.Dr. Marzluff’s research has revealed many insights into the myriad and complex ways corvids function in the changing world. Perhaps most famously, his work demonstrated how American Crows can recognize individual humans, form opinions about them, and communicate those ideas to the rest of the flock.

Our guest, Dr. Peter Weiss-Penzias is a Faculty Researcher and Continuing Lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz and runs an Environmental Chemistry Laboratory there. He has discovered that fog is carrying minute but detectable quantities of mercury, which is moving inland and appearing in the food chain. 

Dr. Konrad Meister, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Boise State University, tells us about his research discovering that fungal spores and other tiny particles cause rain by condensing water vapor into droplets. Given the importance of rainfall to most terrestrial ecosystems - not to mention the existence of agriculture - this is a big deal!

Fantastic interview with Dr. Emily Taylor, Professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University and Director of the Physiological Ecology of Reptiles Laboratory. She is a herpetologist conducting research on lizards and rattlesnakes, with particular interest in the ways they manage heat and moisture. 

Interview with Dr. Víctor M. Ortega Jiménez, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He conducts research into the ways in which animals interact with their immediate environment – applying physical principles of fluid dynamics and electrostatics to understand how they move and capture prey. His work is innovative and fascinating, and we had a great time hearing about it!

Interview with Dr. Mark Davis, emeritus Professor of Biology at Macalester University and author of the textbook on "Invasion Biology."

Sea Otters were once abundant from the Aleutian Islands to central California, before being hunted nearly to extinction. Dr. James Bodkin of the US Fish & Wildlife Service devoted much of his career to studying these charismatic marine mammals, particularly in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster. On The Ecology Hour he reunites with his old colleague Dr. Robert Spies and brings us up to date on what has been learned about sea otter ecology, populations, and some of the fascinating ways they influence ecosystems. 

We talk with Dr. Marc Epstein, Senior Insect Biosystematist at the California Department of Food and Agriculture for Lepidoptera, about moths and their taxonomy. Dr. Epstein has worked for the last twenty two years at the Plant Pest Diagnostics Center in South Sacramento and is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. While identifying Lepidoptera of potential threat to agriculture, he researches their evolution and classification with an emphasis on the moth family Limacodidae, and the history of entomologists who were his predecessors. He is author of “Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr.”, published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.