Coastal Alaska wolves exposed to high mercury concentrations from eating sea otters: research

UCalgary ecotoxicology expert Ben Barst contributes to study of marine food’s impact on predators

University of Calgary

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In late 2020, a female coastal wolf collared for a study on predation patterns unexpectedly died in southeastern Alaska. 

The wolf, No. 202006, was only four years old. 

“We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the cause of her death by doing a necropsy and different analyses of tissues,” says Gretchen Roffler, a wildlife research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“What finally came up was really unprecedented concentrations of mercury in this wolf’s liver and kidneys and other tissues.”

Roffler was put in touch with Dr. Ben Barst, PhD, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary who was working at the University of Alaska Fairbanks at the time.

They, along with a team of other scientists, have now published new research in the journal Science of The Total Environment that shows wolves eating sea otters have much higher concentrations of mercury than those eating other prey such as deer and moose.

Mercury found in high concentrations in predators

Barst, an expert in ecotoxicology, says mercury is a naturally occurring element humans release from the Earth’s crust through coal combustion and small-scale gold mining.

“It’s a really weird metal in that it’s liquid at room temperature or it can be a vapour,” he says. “When it gets into the atmosphere in its elemental form, it can travel for really long distances.”

Barst says it also gets converted into methyl mercury when it gets into aquatic environments.

“It’s an organic form of mercury that really moves quite efficiently through the food web, and so it can reach high concentrations in predators that are tapped into aquatic food webs," he says. "So, we see higher concentrations in wolves that are tapped into a marine system.”

The latest research compares wolves from Pleasant Island — located in the Alaska Panhandle region, west of Juneau — with the population on the mainland adjacent to the island, as well as wolves from interior Alaska.

“The highest concentrations are the wolves from Pleasant Island,” says Barst, noting that the mainland population mostly feeds on moose and the odd sea otter.

He says there could be a number of factors driving the higher concentrations of mercury, but they are still researching several possibilities. 

Mercury-wolf health impact examined

Researchers are also doing more work to determine mercury’s role in impacting wolf health, as it remains unclear exactly what caused the death of Wolf No. 202006.

Barst notes, however, that years of data collected by Roffler show that 70 per cent of the island wolves’ diet is sea otters.

“They're eating so many sea otters that they're just getting this higher dose of mercury and it accumulates over time,” he says.

Roffler says there are other populations of wolves in Alaska as well as in B.C. that appear to be eating sea otters.

“It turns out that this might be a more widespread phenomenon than we thought originally,” she says. “At first I was surprised it was happening at all.”

It’s not yet known whether the sea otters off the B.C. coast also contain high levels of mercury.

Potential link to climate change

Back in Alaska, Barst says there’s a potential link to climate change due to the state's shrinking glaciers.

“We know that glaciers can release a tremendous amount of mercury,” he says. “In coastal Alaska, glaciers are retreating at some of the most rapid rates in the world.

“With that melting of glaciers, you get release of the particulate bedrock and some of that bedrock contains mercury – and so we don’t really know the fate of that mercury. It may just get buried in sediments or it may actually be available for conversion to methyl mercury and get into the food web.

“That’s part of what we’re doing now.”

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Journal

Science of The Total Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179542 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Switching to marine prey leads to unprecedented mercury concentrations in a population of coastal Alaska wolves

Article Publication Date

10-Jun-2025

 

Study finds Americans do not like mass incarceration

UC criminologist says we are in a new era of penal sensibility

University of Cincinnati

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Francis Cullen, PhD, distinguished research professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati School of Criminal Justice

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Credit: University of Cincinnati

A new study, co-authored by an esteemed University of Cincinnati criminologist, has found that most Americans have an unfavorable opinion of mass incarceration.

The study — “Most Americans Do Not Like Mass Incarceration: Penal Sensibility in an Era of Declining Punitiveness” — was undertaken by criminologist Francis Cullen, a distinguished research professor emeritus in UC’s School of Criminal Justice, and a team of researchers from across the country to determine current perceptions about the American penal system.

Cullen says their findings are in line with other opinion polls that show a decline in “public punitiveness,”  or the tendency or desire to punish.

"There is a new 'penal sensibility’ known as a new way the public thinks about corrections in America,” Cullen says.

The researchers commissioned international online research data and analytics group YouGov to conduct a nationwide survey of 1,000 respondents.

The study, which now appears in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, found:  

• Most Americans favor community programs for nonviolent and drug offenders as opposed to prison sentences.
• Most do not want to spend tax dollars building more prisons; they favor spending money on prevention programs.
• Few respondents have positive emotions about prisons.

• Forty percent of Americans agree the prison system is racist.

These results, Cullen says, suggest that the “get tough” movement — starting in the 1970s — has lost traction in the United States. For half a century, he says, “America was in a punitive era in which prison populations grew rapidly, until reaching 2.3 million people incarcerated at times.” 

About 15 years ago, however, he says prison populations suddenly and unexpectedly stopped growing and then started to decline; Americans' punitiveness also started to decline, he says.

“Our paper probes whether these developments are signs of a correctional turning point in which a new penal sensibility has taken hold, when in fact it has,” says Cullen.

While the study shows Americans are not favorable toward mass incarceration, Cullen says that this does not mean that if someone commits a serious crime study respondents would not want the person locked up.   

“But it does mean that as a core policy, Americans do not want another era of mass incarceration,” says Cullen.

The research team included criminologists Alexander Burton, PhD, lead author from the University of Texas at Dallas; Cheryl Lero Jonson, PhD, from Xavier University in Cincinnati; and Justin Pickett from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Both Burton and Jonson earned their doctorates in criminology from UC’s School of Criminal Justice, under the tutelage of Cullen.

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Journal

Journal of Experimental Criminology

Article Title

Most Americans do not like mass incarceration: penal sensibility in an era of declining punitiveness

 

New digital tool provides satellite monitoring of crop health across US

University of Kansas

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The free digital tool integrates Google Earth Engine with high-resolution imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, consisting of two identical satellites that share the same orbit. The Sentinel GreenReport Plus combines this satellite imagery with climate datasets from the PRISM group. As a public-service resource, the tool provides users with up-to-the-day insights into vegetation greenness, changes in land cover over time and climate abnormalities.

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Credit: Sentinel GreenReport Plus

LAWRENCE — Researchers from the University of Kansas, with support from the KansasView and AmericaView programs, have created a web-based app for the public that provides free satellite monitoring and analysis of vegetation and crop health across Kansas and the nation, called the Sentinel GreenReport Plus.

The free digital tool integrates Google Earth Engine with high-resolution imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, consisting of two identical satellites that share the same orbit. The Sentinel GreenReport Plus combines this satellite imagery with climate datasets from the PRISM group. As a public-service resource, the tool provides users with up-to-the-day insights into vegetation greenness, changes in land cover over time and climate abnormalities.

According to its KU creators, the Sentinel GreenReport Plus already has seen use in monitoring crops, assessing damage from drought, detecting changes in land use and tracking vegetation recovery following a disaster.

“Remote sensing and satellite imagery technology has been improving in terms of the spatial footprint that it can represent in a pixel,” said Dana Peterson, director of KansasView and senior research associate with Kansas Applied Remote Sensing, a program of the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research at KU. “This allows us to do more detailed monitoring of vegetation condition — it could be vegetation in a forest community, a cropland community or on rangeland. We could create a tool that would allow access to these data easily and create an interface where people — whether educators, researchers, ranchers or cropland producers — could access the imagery easily and look at vegetation health.”

The KU team said the public-facing digital tool could be used further to assess vegetation destruction from natural hazards or even more routine damage like hail. 

“We’ve also looked at some of the burn events and wildfires,” Peterson said. “You can look at how the vegetation has been damaged and to what extent and severity.”

The Sentinel GreenReport Plus improves detail and insight over the classic GreenReport, introduced in 1996 with support from NASA by the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program. The new Sentinel GreenReport Plus is underpinned by Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite data, a much finer 10-meter resolution than the classic version relying on 1,000-meter resolution MODIS imagery.

Abinash Silwal, KU graduate student and tech lead in the project, said any agricultural producer could use the tools to assess the success of different crops, monitor crop health or compare crop conditions over time, which may indicate yield performance. The tool integrates USDA NASS Cropland Data Layers, which allows crop-specific stress analysis.

“We can look at vegetation health at the crop-type level,” Silwal said. “For example, if I want to monitor my field of corn, I can select ‘corn’ in the app and draw a rectangle or polygon around the area. The tool instantly displays multiple charts, including a time series and comparison charts showing current vegetation health relative to historical averages. This helps determine whether the crop's current condition falls within the normal range or is showing signs of stress.”

The heart of the Sentinel Green Report PLUS is underpinned by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. The Sentinel GreenReport PLUS has several key features:

• Greenness Map: Uses the NDVI as a proxy for photosynthetically active plant biomass over a selected composite period.
• Difference Map 1: Compares NDVI to the previous composite period within the same year, illustrating recent vegetation changes.
• Difference Map 2: Compares NDVI to the same period from the previous year, highlighting year-over-year vegetation changes.
• Difference Map 3: Compares current NDVI to the average NDVI from previous years, showing changes relative to historical trends.

 

Aside from Peterson and Silwal, the team that produced the Sentinel GreenReport Plus is composed of Chen Liang, former doctoral student; Jude Kastens, research associate professor and director of KARS; and Xingong Li, professor of geography & atmospheric science.

The KU researchers know stakeholders have found many features to be valuable. For instance, Silwal said the ability to compare vegetation health with precipitation adds a powerful dimension to understanding vegetation stress.

“The addition of the precipitation curve is the coolest thing,” he said. “If I see that vegetation health is below normal and the precipitation curve is flat or shows significantly lower rainfall compared to the 30-year historical statistics, we can infer that drought may be contributing to the stress. When the vegetation line is declining and the accumulated precipitation trend remains flat or below average, it points to possible drought conditions affecting crop health.”

These breakthroughs should lead to better-informed agricultural producers, policymakers, insurers and research ecologists in Kansas and across the nation, Peterson said.

She added the Sentinel GreenReport Plus might represent “a better way to understand the interplay of climate and vegetation. Users can visualize trends, generate crop-specific charts and download outputs to support reports, presentations and further analysis.”

For more information, visit the program's website.

 

When the forest is no longer a home – forest bats seek refuge in settlements

Using high-resolution GPS data from bats, a team of scientists has analysed in greater detail than ever before how Leisler's bats use their habitats, which tree species they look for when searching a roost, and which forest types they avoid

Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW)

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Leisler's bat at a treehole in an old oak tree

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Credit: Photo by Carolin Scholz

Many bat species native to Germany, such as the Leisler's bat, are forest specialists. However, as it is becoming increasingly hard for them to find tree hollows in forest plantations, so they are moving to settlements instead. Using high-resolution GPS data from bats, a team led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) has analysed in greater detail than ever before how Leisler's bats use their habitats, which tree species they look for when searching a roost, and which forest types they avoid. They found that these bats increasingly seek refuge in old trees in urban areas and in old buildings such as churches. In an article published in the “Journal of Environmental Management”, the team calls for stronger efforts to preserve these alternative roosts in settlements, as well as for ecologically sustainable forestry that protects old trees and promotes structurally rich forests.

With more than 1,400 species worldwide, bats are an enormously species-rich group of mammals. Many native species in Germany and Central Europe, such as the Leisler's bat (Nyctalus leisleri), are classic forest dwellers that depend on tree hollows and structurally rich forests. In their study, the research team demonstrates how today’s forestry is altering the habitat of these animals and highlights the importance of targeted measures to preserve their roosts. Leisler's bats are increasingly having to switch to daytime roosts in villages, as old trees with suitable cavities for roosting are getting rarer in forest plantations. They therefore seek shelter in the walls of old village churches and in old trees in residential areas, parks, and along lanes.

European forests have been intensively managed for a long time, which has had a detrimental effect on many specialised species, such as Leisler's bats. Professor Christian Voigt, from the Leibniz-IZW and the University of Potsdam, explains the new study in the east of Germany: 'We wanted to know how Leisler's bats, which are typical forest dwellers, respond to the intensification of forest management. This European species of bat is dependent on diverse deciduous forests with many old trees bearing woodpecker holes. This kind of habitat has become hard to find in the monotonous pine plantations of the study area.” Although Leisler's bats are relatively abundant in Germany, their exact population size is unknown.

Oak forests favoured – spruce forests avoided: first detailed insights into the habitat use of the Leisler’s bat

For the study, the team fitted 32 adult Leisler's bats in the German state of Brandenburg with miniature GPS loggers. These loggers generated detailed movement data, describing where the bats forage, where they rest during the day and which corridors they use for commuting. "Thanks to the high resolution of bat movement data, we were able to compare these with high-resolution landscape data for the first time, enabling us to carry out analyses at the level of individual forest tree species and small-scale structures such as copses, hedges or rows of trees," explains wildlife biologist Dr Carolin Scholz from the Leibniz-IZW. 'Such detailed insight into the habitat selection of the Leisler's bat was previously unavailable. However, this information is crucial to better consider the ecological requirements of the species in the future.'

The team's analysis clearly shows that Leisler's bats favour structurally rich oak forests as a habitat, while certain coniferous forests including those dominated by spruce forests were largely avoided. Old trees, especially oaks, are a key habitat for Leisler's bats. Interestingly, the data also shows that Leisler's bats regularly roost in residential areas. Bat expert Dipl.-Biol. Uwe Hoffmeister from the natura Büro für zoologische und botanische Fachgutachten (office for zoological and botanical consulting) explains: “With the help of GPS telemetry, we were able to show that, Leisler’s bats are increasingly exploring village centres and historic buildings such as churches, although they prefer forests as their natural habitat. We suspect that this is a response to the lack of suitable daytime roosts in managed forests – Leisler’s bats are probably forced to switch to alternative habitats in settlements because they have lost their original roosts in the forest.”

Sustainable forestry and preservation of old trees also necessary in residential areas

According to the authors, it is key to protect alternative roosting sites for bats and to develop an ecologically sustainable forestry practice that promotes old trees and structurally rich deciduous and mixed forests. According to the authors, this is the only way that forest bats such as the Leisler’s bat can survive in managed forests in the long term. Measures such as targeted, careful timber extraction and longer growth periods before harvesting can significantly increase structural diversity without fundamentally jeopardising the economic benefits of forestry. Furthermore, urban green spaces should be recognised as refuges for wildlife, such as bats. "Old and hollow-rich trees should be protected not only in forest plantations, but also in urban areas for species such as the Leisler’s bats", concludes Voigt.

Wind turbines in the forest as an additional threat

As Leisler's bats are frequently die at wind turbines, expanding the use of wind energy in forests could negatively impact this species' population growth. Wind turbines even appear to attract Leisler's bats. Voigt explains: ‘At dusk, the bats may mistake the turbines' silhouettes for large trees and fly towards them in search of roosts. The risk of collision could increase notably, as the bats fly at a height at which the turbines' rotor blades spin.” It is therefore urgent that we consider the habitat requirements and the movement behaviour of this highly mobile species. This study provides data that will enable foresters, landscape ecologists, and nature conservation authorities to implement effective protection measures for the bats. For example, new wind turbines should not be erected near structurally rich deciduous forests or next to bat roosts.

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Journal

Journal of Environmental Management

DOI

10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.125753 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Oak woodlands and urban green spaces: Landscape management for a forest-affiliated bat, the Leisler's bat (Nyctalus leisleri)

Article Publication Date

26-May-2025

 

Recognizing those who build a vibrant technical community

Special awards honor computing professionals for impactful service

Association for Computing Machinery

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This year’s awardees drove advancements in computer science curriculum, cyberinfrastructures, computer science education, and assistive robotics. They will be formally recognized at ACM’s annual awards banquet on June 14, 2025, in San Francisco.

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Credit: Association for Computing Machinery

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today recognized five individuals with awards for their exemplary service to the computing field. Representing diverse areas, the 2024 award recipients were selected by their peers for building a vibrant community that benefits both their colleagues and the broader society. This year’s awardees drove advancements in computer science curriculum, cyberinfrastructures, computer science education, and assistive robotics. They will be formally recognized at ACM’s annual awards banquet on June 14, 2025, in San Francisco.

Dan Garcia, Teaching Professor, UC Berkeley, and Brian Harvey, Teaching Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, receive the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for their advocacy of and advances in education to bring the beauty and joy of computing to all students, especially those from historically underrepresented communities.

Together Garcia and Harvey have been instrumental in expanding computer science education, most notably through the development of the Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) curriculum, which began as a national pilot for the CSforALL movement. A key part of this effort was Snap!, a blocks-based programming language on which      Harvey collaborates with principal developer Jens Mönig. Subsequently Garcia and Harvey and BJC co-PI Tiffany Barnes went on to expand BJC’s reach by training over 1,000 teachers, offering the curriculum in Spanish, and developing a middle school version, BJC Sparks. Importantly, the BJC Course at Berkeley is the only EECS course to exceed 50% female enrollment, and once exceeded 70%.

The Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award is presented annually to an outstanding educator who is appointed to a recognized educational baccalaureate institution. The recipient is recognized for advancing new teaching methodologies; effecting new curriculum development or expansion in Computer Science and Engineering; or making a significant contribution to the educational mission of ACM. Those with 10 years or less teaching experience are given special consideration. A prize of $10,000 is supplied by Pearson Education.

Manish Parashar, Professor, University of Utah, receives the ACM Distinguished Service Award for service and leadership in furthering the transformative impact of computer and computational science on science and engineering.

Parashar’s record of service includes leadership at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he developed NSF’s strategic vision for a national cyberinfrastructure, as well as at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where he developed the Future Advancement Computing Ecosystem Strategic Plan (FACE). For ACM, Parashar served two terms as editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (ACM TAAS), and has led steering, organizing and programming committees for numerous ACM conferences.

The ACM Distinguished Service Award is presented on the basis of value and degree of services to the computing community. The contribution should not be limited to service to the Association but should include activities in other computer organizations and should emphasize contributions to the computing community at large.

Judith Gal-Ezer, Professor Emerita, Open University of Israel, receives the Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award in recognition of her sustained contributions to computer science education policy and research and, more broadly, to the ACM Europe Council.

Gal-Ezer has been an internationally recognized leader in computing education. For her accomplishments, she has received the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award as well as the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education. Gal-Ezer has been very active in the ACM Europe Council and its sub-committees. She represents ACM Europe in the Informatics for All (I4All) coalition—a collaboration between ACM Europe, Informatics Europe, CEPIS and IFIP. This ambitious initiative was created to promote informatics education in primary and secondary schools across Europe. The sustained advocacy of I4All has been instrumental in the European Commission’s decision to prioritize informatics education at all stages of the curriculum.

The Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award recognizes outstanding service contributions to the Association. Candidates are selected based on the value and degree of service overall and may be given to up to three individuals each year.

Maja Matarić, Professor, University of Southern California, receives the ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics for pioneering socially assistive robotics (SAR) for improving wellness and quality of life for users with special needs.

Over the past two decades, Matarić has been the leading figure in the field of socially assistive robotics. These robots are designed to gain insights into the drivers of human behavior related to overcoming challenges. The goal of this field is to provide people with personalized assistance to enhance their abilities in areas such as convalescence, rehabilitation, training, and education. Socially assistive robotics is an interdisciplinary field which emphasizes co-design and user participation throughout the development process.  Her research is aimed at major challenges, including post-stroke rehabilitation, cognitive and social skills training for children with autism spectrum disorders, cognitive and physical exercises for Alzheimer’s patients, study support for students with ADHD, and personalized therapy interventions for students with anxiety and/or depression.

The ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics recognizes an individual or group who has made a significant contribution through the use of computing technology. It is given once every two years, assuming that there are worthy recipients. The award is accompanied by a prize of $5,000.

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.