Academy scientist Brian Fisher looks at life on a different scale than most people. And his unique perspective has had a profound influence on his approach to species conservation in some of the world’s most critically endangered biodiversity hotspots.

Fisher, an entomologist who specializes in the study of ants, was recently appointed the Academy’s first Patterson Scholar in Science and Sustainability. The honor comes in recognition of his tireless work in Madagascar and other remote regions of the world, as well as the innovative methods he uses to find and study the creatures he calls “the glue that holds ecosystems together.”

“Ants are one of the most important members of ecosystems,” says Fisher. “They turn over more soil than earthworms.” But they’re also some of the most overlooked, he says. “If they were bigger, they would be the most studied type of organism, but people don’t see them.”

Fisher does see ants of course, lots of them. He and his team have identified more than 900 new species of ants in Madagascar alone. So obviously, he spends a lot of time looking closely at patches of ground where ants might live. Some of his other methods, however, are decidedly higher-tech and provide a much more detailed view of these organisms, their habitats, and what their presence or absence might indicate about ecosystem health.

Surprisingly, one of these detailed views comes from space. Fisher has teamed up with satellite companies and engineers from Google to deliver high-resolution satellite images of some of the least explored areas of Madagascar. Fisher can reference these images in the field, even when no network access is available.

The amount of information this places at his fingertips is not unlike what we’ve come to expect from our smartphones while we’re navigating city streets. But Fisher uses these technologies as he explores some of the world’s most remote regions. It’s an unprecedented view and it’s invaluable to his research. Equipped with a GPS-enabled tablet with customized software and high-res satellite images taken only weeks prior, he can not only see where to camp and find water, but he can also tell which patches of forest are most likely to contain new species of ants.

Fisher has learned from years of field experience in Madagascar to focus his search for ants on forests that are wet, situated at 800 meters (2,600 feet) of elevation or below, and isolated from other such patches. Those are the forests that tend to have the greatest species richness—of ants and many other arthropods. They’re also the types of forest that Fisher thinks should be our highest priority in terms of habitat conservation for these species.

Some habitat conservation analyses suggest that deforestation has stabilized in Madagascar, but the percentage of deforestation is not the important measure, Fisher says. “The important question is: Where are we losing the most species due to deforestation?” he says. “What patch of forest is under threat that should be our highest conservation priority right now?”

Of course, ants shouldn’t be our only focus, according to Fisher, but the perspective that research on these types of animals provides is helping to correct a bias in habitat conservation. “If you base conservation on vertebrates alone,” he says, “it leads you to conclude that only the largest forests are important. Ants and other insects provide a better map of true biodiversity.” It’s a more holistic approach.

Based on this approach, Fisher is developing new models that are helping him provide effective conservation recommendations as well as plan future research efforts. He’s currently working with conservation organizations like the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) to identify patches of forest that should be highest priority for protection. So far, he’s identified five areas that CEPF has under review, and he’s always in search of more. “Most of the forests in the lowlands are already gone, so we’re really focused on trying to find the remaining lowland patches of great conservation value,” Fisher says.

Of course, protecting biodiversity requires a solid understanding of the species that are actually out there. This is a huge job in places as species-rich as Madagascar—even if you’re focused only on ants. Fisher and his team of 20 Malagasy scientists and students, as well as five postdocs here in San Francisco, are busy trying to identify and describe the hundreds of new species of ants they’ve discovered in Madagascar. The thinking is that the more species they document, the stronger the efforts will be to save the habitats where these organisms live.

Gathering and sharing information about ants—not to mention generating an appreciation for these creatures—was the primary motivation behind AntWeb, the online database that Fisher created. The site contains records of more than 10,000 ant species collected from around the world, and the perspective it provides on these tiny creatures is unlike most scientific databases. In addition to the tremendous amount of data that AntWeb contains about each species, Fisher says the site’s high-resolution composite images are helping to put a face on these tiny creatures and getting people to appreciate ants and their significance to the health of our planet.

And yet there are so many more ants to find and document—and Fisher and his team feel like they’re in a race against time. Their methods, he says, are “too, too slow. We’re struggling to speed it up.”

Staring at a satellite image of rugged, roadless Malagasy terrain, Fisher says there’s one piece of technology he and his team need more than any other. “We could really use a helicopter,” he says, only half joking.

He’ll continue his exploration of the unexplored when he returns to Madagascar in January 2014—by helicopter or on foot… probably on foot.

Steven Bedard is editor of the Academy website. A recent Bay Area transplant, he now understands what all the fuss is about.

Two years ago, we produced a video about the remarkable work that scientists at Mote Marine Laboratory and the Academy are doing on spotted eagle rays. Little is known about these stunning elasmobranchs, but Kim Bassos-Hull of Mote and Anna Sellas from the Academy are continuing their studies to discover more about the rays and perhaps protect them along the way.

Bassos-Hull recently came to the Academy, and she and Sellas took the time to give Science Today an update on their long-term project.

Satellite Tagging & Genetics
They were excited about a satellite tag (a location-only SPOT tag) they deployed on a ray in April. Unlike sharks and marine mammals, rays are hard to tag because they have no prominent fins. The scientists’ colleague, Matt Ajemian of the Harte Research Institute, has had some luck with tagging rays, and he visited Mote to work with Bob Hueter, Mote’s expert on tagging sharks, to give the team some tips and best practices.

Generally, Ajemian has had satellite tags stay on animals for up to a few months, though the batteries last up to six months. Ajemian recently presented these findings at a special symposium on stingrays hosted by the American Elasmobrach Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bassos-Hull says that the tag isn’t too invasive to the ray and that “many of the rays carry remoras larger than these tags.”

The first tag from April was unsuccessful, but in late May, Hueter and the team put a six-month pop-up archival satellite tag on a large female eagle ray.  If all goes well, this tag will pop off as programmed in about six months and give scientists more data on these mysterious rays.

Sellas is hoping the tag reveals information on the spotted eagle rays’ movements. The rays are generally found near Mote, off the coast of Sarasota in the Gulf of Mexico, from March through November. Few of the rays are seen in the summer months, and hardly any in the winter. Spotted eagle rays are also found on the Atlantic side of Florida, as well as off the coasts of Mexico and Cuba, but these rays could come from the same or different populations.

Sellas’ genetic work has revealed little genetic difference between rays found off Mexico and those found off Cuba, suggesting they are likely from the same population. Greater genetic differences seem to exist between rays sampled off Sarasota and those sampled off Mexico, suggesting limited movement across the Gulf. The satellite tagging data could confirm this “weak, but significant, genetic structure,” as Sellas calls it.

Sellas also hopes these tags can reveal how deep the rays are swimming and which habitats they frequent. Bassos-Hull says that habitat usage is particularly important off Sarasota, where there is proposed sand dredging in the Big Sarasota Pass Inlet for beach renourishment. But the Mote team knows the rays use this area to feed and that additional data could help protect this habitat for the rays.

Gulf Oil Spill
Since the Gulf Oil Spill, the Mote team has observed the number of spotted eagle rays off their coast decreased by about half. They began measuring and documenting the rays in 2009 and 2010, but in 2011 and 2012 the numbers per unit of measure had decreased. And, while the season isn’t finished this year, the lower population trend seems to have continued into 2013.

In addition, the Mote team has observed species rarely seen in the area—devil rays and whale sharks have started appearing in higher numbers than previously recorded. “It might be that these fish moved away from where the oil contaminated water was,” says Sellas.

Overseas collaborations
Bassos-Hull and Sellas have been working with Mexican scientists to collect tissues of spotted eagle rays for genetic sampling. Unlike the Florida samples, these tissues don’t come from live animals, but rather dead rays sold at local fish markets for consumption. One of their Mexican colleagues, Juan Carlos Perez-Jimenez, visited Mote in May to update them on the catch rates of spotted eagle rays in their fisheries.

Sellas and Bassos-Hull are also excited that this type of collaboration has expanded to Cuba.  A colleague there has similarly collected market samples for Sellas to conduct genetic work on here at the Academy.

Citizen Scientists on the Job
In the meantime, Bassos-Hull has received funding to utilize citizen scientists to learn more about these rays off the Florida Keys. She’s distributed small cards to dive shops there that, like the back of a milk carton, show a picture of one of these beautiful rays and ask, “Have you seen me?” Citizens can then refer to the back of the card which directs them to a website where they can report their sightings.

Mote is hoping that divers might spot these rays and input their sightings into the database, including pictures and location information. The small cards also give divers clues about where on the rays they might find small “spaghetti tags.” These tags indicate whether the ray has been caught before by Mote.

Bassos-Hull says that these citizen scientist sightings can help researchers understand where the hot spots for spotted eagle rays are in the Keys and where researchers should direct their attention for future studies.

Recognition and Recaptures
If you remember the video we produced in 2011, one of the most astonishing aspects of Mote’s work with these rays is the spot recognition software they use to identify the rays. The program, called I³S, is based on star recognition software and allows the researchers to recognize rays they’ve previously captured and released. Like fingerprints, no two rays’ spot patterns are the same.

Based on the data Mote has collected over the past few years, approximately 5% of the rays sampled are recaptures. This suggests that a certain number of rays are either remaining in the same area or returning to that area over time.

Busy Summer
Bassos-Hull and Sellas still have a lot of work ahead of them to understand these charismatic creatures and to share that knowledge with the world. In the meantime, this summer has kept them busy with a recent presentation at a professional conference on stingrays and forthcoming publications on their findings. And with more seasonal captures, they’ll undoubtedly learn more about the rays and their habitats. “We’re documenting the flux of nature,” Bassos-Hull says.

That could take a while.

Bob Hueter of Mote is also a principal investigator on this project. The researchers receive support and funding from the National Aquarium, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Foundation, the PADI Foundation, the Save Our Seas Foundation, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Image: Kim Bassos-Hull, Mote Marine Laboratory

From New Scientist:

“The loss in 2011 was twice that in the two previous record-setting Arctic winters, 1996 and 2005,” says Nathaniel Livesey of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The study, published this week in the journal Nature, finds the amount of ozone destroyed in the Arctic in 2011 was comparable to that seen in some years in the Antarctic, where an ozone hole has formed each spring since the mid-1980s. The stratospheric ozone layer protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.

The Antarctic ozone hole forms when extremely cold conditions, common in the winter Antarctic stratosphere, trigger reactions that convert atmospheric chlorine from human-produced chemicals into forms that destroy ozone. The same ozone-loss processes occur each winter in the Arctic. However, the generally warmer stratospheric conditions there limit the area affected, resulting in far less ozone loss in most years in the Arctic than in the Antarctic.

To investigate the 2011 Arctic ozone loss, scientists from 19 institutions in nine countries (United States, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Spain) analyzed a comprehensive set of measurements. These included daily global observations of trace gases and clouds from NASA’s Aura and CALIPSO spacecraft; ozone measured by instrumented balloons; meteorological data and atmospheric models. The scientists found that at some altitudes, the cold period in the Arctic lasted more than 30 days longer in 2011 than in any previously studied Arctic winter, leading to the unprecedented ozone loss. Further studies are needed to determine what factors caused the cold period to last so long.

“Day-to-day temperatures in the 2010-11 Arctic winter did not reach lower values than in previous cold Arctic winters,” said lead author Gloria Manney of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The difference from previous winters is that temperatures were low enough to produce ozone-destroying forms of chlorine for a much longer time. This implies that if winter Arctic stratospheric temperatures drop just slightly in the future, for example as a result of climate change, then severe Arctic ozone loss may occur more frequently.”

New Scientist reports that

Climate change could be partly responsible. That may seem counter-intuitive, but global warming occurs only at the bottom of the atmosphere. “Climate change warms the surface but cools the stratosphere,” [University of Cambridge’s Neil] Harris explains.

Image: Gloria L. Manney et al./Nature

Glory was to lift-off last week, but technical issues with ground support equipment for the Taurus XL launch vehicle postponed the event. NASA says those issues have been resolved and Glory is back on track!

Glory will be an important tool in understanding the Earth’s climate. One of its missions is to detect and measure the small particles in the Earth’s atmosphere called aerosols. Aerosols, or the gases that lead to their formation, can come from vehicle tailpipes and desert winds, from sea spray and fires, volcanic eruptions and factories. Even lush forests, soils or communities of plankton in the ocean can be sources of certain types of aerosols.

The ubiquitous particles drift in Earth’s atmosphere, from the stratosphere to the surface, and range in size from a few nanometers, less than the width of the smallest viruses, to several tens of micrometers, about the diameter of human hair.

The particles can directly influence climate by reflecting or absorbing the sun’s radiation. In broad terms, this means bright-colored or translucent aerosols, such as sulfates and sea salt aerosols, tend to reflect radiation back towards space and cause cooling. In contrast, darker aerosols, such as black carbon and other types of carbonaceous particles, can absorb significant amounts of light and contribute to atmospheric warming.

Aerosols are short-lived and their impacts are not fully understood. From Scientific American:

NASA climate expert and Glory science team member James Hansen has said the range of uncertainty associated with the climate impact of aerosols is three or four times that of greenhouse gases.

Glory hopes to remedy that uncertainty.

In addition, Glory will monitor variations in solar activity by measuring the amount of radiation that strikes the top of Earth’s atmosphere. The sun has been in a relatively quiet phase, even as we head to the solar maximum. The satellite could allow scientists to understand how this and future solar cycles influence climate here on Earth.

As Glory monitors the Earth’s climate, we’ll be monitoring news from the mission. Stay tuned!

Most of these objects are “space junk” (see our May 14^th posting “Heavy Traffic”); or as Wired Magazine puts it in a recent article:

…1,000 active satellites, 3,700 inactive satellites and rocket pieces, and another 15,300 objects the size of a fist or larger… And that’s ignoring the danger posed by the estimated half-million smaller pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger. Too small to track from the ground, each of those tiny projectiles is capable of severely damaging a satellite.

Orbiting space junk can pose a great danger – it can collide with the International Space Station and other active satellites, or even fall to the earth.

Roughly once a day, an object in the official US catalog of debris drops out of orbit and turns to ash on reentry. Once a week or so, an object that’s too big or dense will survive reentry and plunge to Earth, but it typically plops down unnoticed in an ocean or some unpopulated expanse. (There are exceptions: An upper rocket stage once landed in the desert of Saudi Arabia, to the surprise of local shepherds, and in 1997, a steel fuel tank slammed into a yard in Texas.)

The US Space Surveillance Network acts as something of a space-traffic controller, but SBSS will launch a satellite next month that will, according to Discovery:

supplement ground-based radars and telescopes that currently keep track of objects orbiting Earth. The space-based system, however, will not be subject to weather, lighting and other restrictions faced by ground systems.

Wired reports that last December there was the first-ever International Conference on Orbital Debris Removal to address space junk and how to get rid of it. They quote one participant:

“This reminds me of Boy Scouts, with their motto ‘Leave no trace,’” said Patrick Moran, an engineer with California-based Aerospace Corporation. “The same rigor must now be imposed on space.”

Some potentially feasible ideas came out of the conference, including large satellites with lightweight nets and one called the Rustler. Unfortunately, all of the programs cost in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars.

But even though NASA’s funding has been cut, Wired mentions that:

included in NASA’s proposed 2011 budget is a first-ever provision to award $400,000 research grants for orbital debris removal and other projects. The allocation would be part of a new “mission directorate” called Space Technology, funded to the tune of almost $5 billion over the next five years.

On just about any dark, clear night, skywatchers can see at least a few satellites cruising silently overhead, looking like faint stars wandering across the sky.  Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, thousands of artificial moons have been rocketed into orbit for civilian, scientific, commercial, and military purposes.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are currently about 900 operational satellites circling the planet, but if “space junk” is included – that is, rocket shrouds, booster stages, dead satellites…and even a toolbox that was accidentally released by a spacewalking astronaut – the number of objects currently being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network is approximately 19,000. And that’s only those larger than 10 centimeters in diameter, or about the size of a softball.

Most satellites operate between 100 miles and 22,300 miles.  Within this range, everything from communication to military to weather satellites circle the planet.  Lower-orbiting satellites circle the globe about every 90 minutes, while those up at 22,300 miles – the geosynchronous orbit – circle at the same rate at which Earth rotates and thus always remain above the same spot on the ground (which is why images from certain weather satellites always show the same part of the country and why satellite-TV dishes must constantly be pointed toward the same spot in the sky).

With so many objects orbiting the planet, space scientists are growing concerned about the potential for collisions between satellites, as occurred in February 2009 when an out-of-control Russian satellite ran into a U.S. communications satellite, destroying both and creating a cloud of debris that scientists were concerned could pose further collision hazards to other satellites, though not to NASA’S Space Shuttle or to the International Space Station, whose orbits are below that of the debris.