It has been a busy couple of weeks for the Johnston Lab, with the ‘publication’ of two products that have arisen from student projects in the Nicholas School’s Masters of Environmental Management Program. These two products (described in greater detail below) are at nearly opposite ends of the publication spectrum – one is a scientific…
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[su_nt_image source=”http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2013/02/2013-01-16-LTERBLOGDWJ-2013-01-17-DWJ-IMG_0415.jpg” width=”one_third”] Zach Swaim and I have just returned from a 6-week excursion to the deep south, to further incorporate and expand marine mammals studies into the epic Palmer Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) Program during its annual cruise along the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Through a combination of visual surveys, biopsy sampling and opportunistic acoustic…
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We’ve just got a new paper published in Endangered Species Research that provides the first estimates of humpback whale density in the late fall/early winter in the waters of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). This work was conducted as part of the NSF-funded MISHAP project (PIs Nowacek and Friedlaender). The paper is available here:http://www.int-res.com/articles/esr_oa/n018p063.pdf [photo…
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[photo size=’small’ align=’right’ link=’http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/DEimage_preview.jpg’ icon=’zoom’ lightbox=’image’ ]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/04/DEimage_preview.jpg[/photo]The Spring 2012 issue of Duke Environment Magazine is out, and there are two articles that cover work done in the Johnston Lab. The first is the lead story in the research section portion of the magazine (called the Log), and is a recap of the work we published…
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Another brief update as I recover from my last trip. While traveling I was contacted by Dr. Julienne Stroeve from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO. Julienne had picked up on our recent paper on sea ice, climate change and harp seals in PLoS ONE and was interested in including…
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[photo size=’medium’ align=’right’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2012/01/Seal-26th007.jpg[/photo]It’s been 13 days since our paper about changing sea ice conditions in breeding regions of harp seals was published in PLoS ONE. It has been incredibly interesting to watch the story propagate through the worlds media channels, both traditional and online. As a scientist, I’m increasingly interested in how science is portrayed to…
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Today we published a paper on the effects of climate change on pagophilic seals in the North Atlantic in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The paper is available to everyone, free of charge here: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029158 This paper is the third in a series of studies published by my lab that examine the effects of climate…
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I did an interview a couple of weeks ago for a journalist that was covering a new paper on changing sea ice in the Northwest Atlantic and it’s potential effects on harp seals. The ScienceNOW piece, written by student journalist Erin Loury was released on 30 November 2011. The story can be found here: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/baby-seals-need-the-nicest-ice.html It was…
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Spring break at Duke is pretty much over, and it has been a busy time. Without classes to teach and with most of our research group at the Bio-logging conference in Hobart, Tasmania, it has been a great time to get some writing done. This week we polished off two papers on sea ice and…
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We’ve just started working with Dr. Kevin Wood from the University of Washington’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) and his colleagues on an interesting historical climate/ecology project. In partcular, the HMS Plover project seeks to recalibrate temperature observations made by Dr. John Simpson and others aboard the HMS Plover at…
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Our lab just got word that two abstracts have been accepted for oral presentations at the upcoming International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) this May in Victoria, BC. I will be giving a talk that summarizes our work on harp seals and sea ice in the North Atlantic and T.J. Young will be speaking about his…
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On our latest trip to the Western Antarctic Peninsula we spent a sunny morning watching a glacier calve icebergs repeatedly into Neko Harbour, on the shore of Andvord Bay. The video below shows one set of waves from a calving event that washed the shores and caught some gentoos ‘on the inside.’ Penguins are so funny…
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I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). I’m tired, a little sick, but extremely happy after leading a group of Duke Alumni on a cruise-ship expedition of the WAP with Ari Friedlaender. During the first half of this month we spent about 10 days aboard the Clelia II, poking…
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[dropcap4 color=”green”]O[/dropcap4]ver the past 26 hours my 8-core monster Mac Pro has been crunching numbers like never before. I’ve had it running a public domain climate modeling software package called EdGCM. This package, created by scientists at Columbia University, is based on a research-grade global circulation model produced by NASA called GISS II and has…
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[dropcap4 color=”green”]W[/dropcap4]e got great news this week as our predator synthesis paper for the Southern Ocean GLOBEC project was fully accepted for publication in the journal Deep Sea Research. This paper compiles location data for 4 key krill predators (humpbacks, minkes, Adelie penguins and crabeater seals) in Marguerite Bay and develops ecological niche models (ENMs)…
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[Excerpted from Duke Antarctic Project Blog] [dropcap4 color=”green”]E[/dropcap4]xperiencing the Antarctic during the late autumn is a privilege, and something I wish I could share with many. When it is clear, the short daylight hours are perfused by sunlight that has traveled through miles and miles of the earth’s atmosphere – giving it that ethereal quality…
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[dropcap4 color=”green”]H[/dropcap4]ello from the city of Kaliningrad, located within the small part of Russia that sits on the Baltic Sea. I’m here for the Marine Mammals of the Holarctic meeting, presenting a paper on the long term trends in sea ice in the breeding regions of harp seals. The talk went well, and it was a great…
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