A team of scientists in collaboration with Polar Bears International* just published a paper detailing a new type of GPS tracker to be used to monitor wildlife movements!

In a paper titled, “The bear minimum: Reintroduction and the weaknesses of minimalist conservation,” authors Lee Brann, Alexander Lee, and Benjamin Hale tackle the different approaches to conservation and discuss why the “bear minimum” isn’t enough.

A laboratory mishap led to a surprising discovery: hibernating common eastern bumblebee queens can survive underwater for as long as a week, with exciting implications for species’ survival in a changing climate.

Many of my coworkers use (and develop!) tools on the Climate Toolbox for their research. Here is a brief introduction to the resources available on the Toolbox!

Wildlife reserves are undoubtedly important conservation tools for recovering species and protecting populations. However, when planning reserves, research shows that conservation of species requires both direct protection and thorough understanding of ecosystem interactions and feedbacks (Christianen et al., 2014).

The Glacier Dashboard, created by USGS and the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center (AK CASC) and the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, compiles and presents glacier information from several datasets in an interactive map.

Chemical pollution isn’t just bad for humans and other mammals - insects are at risk, too. A 2024 paper by Chan et al. shows that chemical pollutants disrupt pollinator olfaction (a.k.a., sensing through smell). Since many insects rely heavily on olfaction, the impacts of pollution have been devastating.

In the final part of this post, we’ll discuss analyzing tree cores under the microscope and on the computer.

The tree cores have been collected, stored in paper straws, and labelled. In Part II of this post, we talk about the next steps to prepare tree cores for analysis!

For this post, I’m going to go through the process of collecting tree cores for research. In my former job, I collected tree rings for about five months and analyzed them for about four! I really enjoyed the job and am excited to revisit it for this series of posts.