Visualizing Long-term Data /  by Michael Johns

Point Blue Conservation Science has amassed an impressive long-term dataset on the breeding histories of known-age Cassin's auklets on Southeast Farallon Island. These data are visualized in the figure above. The dedication to maintaining and checking 400+ artificial nest boxes every 5-days for the past 34 years has allowed researchers to reveal some unique patterns in the life history of this small seabird. For example, Cassin's auklets are the only member of the taxonomic Alcid family to attempt two complete broods in a single breeding season, known as double brooding. In a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, my colleagues and I used these data to examine how double brooding impacts future reproductive potential and survival for birds that attempt such a behavior multiple times over the course of their lives. It turns out that so called "repeat double brooders" represent a subset of high quality individuals that can offset the short-term costs of increased reproductive effort, living well into old age and producing more offspring than birds that never double brood. Visit the publisher’s website by clicking HERE. 

Orange is the New Fairbanks /  by Michael Johns

For a brief moment in time, vegetative colors in the far north shift from the middle of the visible spectrum (green, where photosynthesis occurs), to the " far right" shades of amber and red. September in interior Alaska offers a narrow window for fall foliage, with reduced day-lengths and colder nightly temperatures signaling to the trees and shrubs a change in the season. The tundra is particularly breathtaking this time of year, as the grasses become fiery orange and the ground cover of blue and bear berries develops a rich red hue. Contrasting this warm color palette are patches of mint green lichen, wind swept grey granite, and the occasional stunted dark green spruce. The golden hour of sunset, still prolonged given the sun's path at such a high latitude, only serves to enhance the overwhelming golden look of the landscape. 

To take advantage of this narrow window of fall colors, we packed up the truck for a quick overnight camping trip with our friend Kyle, at his "secret" berry picking spot just over an hour's drive outside of town. Clear skies offered sweeping views of Minto Flats, a 500,000 acre wetland and state game refuge. As darkness fell, a complete absence of the moon allowed the Milky Way an it's billions of other worlds to shine. Later in the night, material flowing from our own star triggered a decent display of northern lights over our tents, with subtle pinks and purples not visible to the naked eye revealed with a long-exposure of the camera. Waking up to a frosty morning tundra and sundogs were a sobering reminder that winter is just around the corner. 

Winter Movements /  by Michael Johns

After several years of geolocator tagging work (see image below), we finally have enough information to begin to paint a better picture of the non-breeding winter distribution of Cassin's auklets from Southeast Farallon Island. At the start of any research project, the most important first step in the analysis process is to visualize the data. The idea behind this visualization was to depict three key environmental characteristics of the auklet's winter habitat in a single plot; sea surface temperature (SST), depth, and distance from island. SST will be used as a proxy for productivity, as colder water in this region is generally associated with nutrient rich upwelling processes, depth to characterize the preferred ocean zone (shallow shelf, steep slope, or deep abyssal plain), and distance from island to explore the possible limits of their dispersal. 

Glancing at this plot, you can see by October birds are fairly spread out between 45°N (dark purple colors - Northern California area) and roughly 33°N (orange colors - Southern California). They are also exposed to quite a range of SST, from 14°C up to nearly 22°C. By late January, all of the birds are relatively close to the island (small bubble size) and experiencing roughly the same SST, before spreading out again in late February, with most birds staying at around 35°N. The 2015-16 season was a particularly warm year for SST, which my explain why only birds in the northern reaches were finding water colder than 14°C. The next step in this exploratory process is to look at auklet movements during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, which were moderate to average years for SST in the eastern north Pacific. Ultimately, these and possibly additional environmental covariates will be used to model the winter habitat use of Cassin's auklets off the California Coast. 

Note the geolocator tag on the left leg of this Cassin's auklet. Geolocators are devices which record ambient light levels that are later used to estimate latitude and longitude. 

Tagging data courtesy of a partnership between Point Blue Conservation Science and the USFWS. Remotely sensed environmental data were downloaded from the NOAA repository https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap. This plot was created in R with the ggplot2 package. 

New Aurora Season /  by Michael Johns

The Kp index, a measure of the strength of geomagnetic storms from the sun, spiked last night; jumping from a mild 3 to a strong 7. It turns out the Earth had passed through the wake of a coronal mass ejection, where the sun essentially burps out a giant plasma cloud that travels outward from the source as solar wind. This wake weakened the magnetosphere of our planet, allowing solar wind to spill into the upper atmosphere and take on the form of bright green aurora. Space weather forecasters were not predicting this event, a surprise display of northern lights that kicked off the 2018-19 aurora season. 

Ken's Pond in Late Summer /  by Michael Johns

A brief visit from our good friend Laura prompted a much needed cabin retreat, this time a return trip to Ken's Pond. This public use cabin offers sweeping views of the snow-capped Alaska Range towering over a small beaver pond. Accessible by "highway vehicle" in the summer, we traversed the 5 mile rutted dirt road in my Tacoma to a pullout at the top of a ridge line, where we walked the remaining 800 yards down to the cabin. Highway vehicle is a bit generous for this road, as 4 wheel drive and a high clearance was necessary for navigating the deep mud puddles and trenches.   

As is typical for Ken's Pond, the wind was fierce. The high altitude wind shear, however, created some awesome lenticular clouds; stationary UFO-shaped features formed when a steady stream of moist air encounters an obstacle, in this case a mountain range.  

Highlights from our quick overnighter included circumnavigating the pond, a rousing game of scattergories categories, admiring Noosa, pond-chilled beer, finding coal, wind, and sightings of a beaver (Ken), caribou, and a bull moose. Another memorable visit to Ken's Pond.