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In the field

Coral reefs provide protection for fish, and researchers are interested in how the health of the reef affects the ability of fish to communicate with each other. This fall, Jj Milan, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ doctoral student in the biology department, and Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ research scientist Bob Oxborrow are traveling to the Maldives to study how humbug damselfish communicate with each other.

Every summer, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ researchers head to northern Botswana to study how large predators, such as lions and African wild dogs, are affected by climate change and other shifts in their environment. Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ News asked a few team members to describe their plans for this summer.

Kendall Valentine, an assistant professor of oceanography at Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, along with collaborators from the University of Rhode Island and the Desert Research Institute are traveling to Anchorage and the Copper River Delta to study marshes that formed in the years following the 1964 earthquake.

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ oceanographer Robert Morris and a collaborator at UCLA are going out with students to collect the most abundant bacteria in the oceans to understand how its relationship with marine viruses changes depending on the place or the season. They leave Dec. 16 aboard Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ School of Oceanography’s small research vessel, the RV Rachel Carson.

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ doctoral student Joel Eklof has been investigating which environmental factors contribute to permafrost thaw and the release of methane into the atmosphere. For years, Eklof has traveled to a field site southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Baptiste Journaux, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ faculty member in Earth and space sciences, and four graduate students will travel to Arkansas on Monday to view the total solar eclipse. They will use a special telescope to capture images of solar features that can be viewed most clearly during an eclipse. 

Twenty-five undergraduates are among the participants on a 41-day cruise off the Oregon coast aboard the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ’s large research vessel, the R/V Thomas G. Thompson. Principal investigator Deborah Kelley, professor of oceanography, answers questions about the expedition to visit and maintain the cabled ocean observatory.