Environment

Philosopher Arthur Obst, a UW doctoral student, thinks that wild places can thrive — if we adjust our definition of wilderness and embrace the idea of letting go. 

Briana Abrahms, Assistant Professor and Boersma Endowed Chair in Natural History and Conservation, UW Department of Biology, uses data to help people and animals coexist with climate change in Botswana.

Climate change will reshape ecosystems through two types of events: short-term, extreme events — or “pulses” — and long-term changes, or “presses.” Understanding the effects of presses and pulses is essential as conservationists and policymakers try to preserve ecosystems and safeguard biodiversity. Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how different presses and pulses impacted Magellanic penguins — a migratory marine predator — over nearly four decades and found that, though individual presses and pulses impacted penguins in a variety of ways, both were equally important for the future survival of the penguin population. They also found that these types of climate changes, taken together, are leading to an overall population decline at their historically largest breeding site.

In the summer of 2018, 3,300 acres of the Olympic National Forest were set ablaze by poachers aiming to cut down maple trees. UW professors Daniel Hoffman and Lynn Thomas created a documentary, titled “The Maple Cutter,” about the incident — read writer Curran Nielsen’s interview with the filmmakers.

Nina Chanel Abney explores inequity and identity through vibrant prints at the Henry Art Gallery.

Wolf management in Washington has been controversial. Rob Anderson, who obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, explains the dynamic of managing a species through fear.

Half the world could soon face dangerous heat. We measured the daily toll it is already taking. While the future is uncertain, climate scientists widely agree that even in the best-case scenarios — in which humans take dramatic action to lower carbon emissions — days with dangerous levels of heat and humidity are very likely to become more common in much of the world. The forecasts of heat stress shown in this article include Adrian E. Raftery and David S. Battisti at the University of Washington. 

A study led by Thure Cerling, a professor at the University of Utah, and co-authored by Sam Wasser, a University of Washington professor of biology, used carbon isotope science to show that tusks from a guarded government stockpile in Burundi have somehow made their way into the hands of illegal ivory traders.

A new study by researchers at the University of Washington shows that losing a particular group of endangered animals — those that eat fruit and help disperse the seeds of trees and other plants — could severely disrupt seed-dispersal networks in the Atlantic Forest, a shrinking stretch of tropical forest and critical biodiversity hotspot on the coast of Brazil.

1 in 5 adult female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds look like males. New research from the University of Washington shows that this is a rare case of "deceptive mimicry" within a species: Females with male-like plumage are trying to pass themselves off as males, and as a result receive a benefit in the form of reduced aggression from males.

Norie Sato (MFA,, 1974) has been commissioned by the city to install one of seven new large-scale art pieces for the waterfront project.

A new study projects the number of days with "dangerous" and "extremely dangerous" mixtures of heat and humidity by the end of this century. Even if global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, results show that deadly heat waves will become much more common in the mid-latitudes, and many tropical regions will experience "dangerous" heat for about half the year.

Rod Crawford has discovered nearly 200 species that hadn’t been described before, many of which proved to be new to science. Of the nearly 190,000 Washington specimens in the Burke’s spider collection, Crawford contributed about half.

Which group of mammals has the more "primitive" reproductive strategy — marsupials, with their short gestation periods, or humans and other placental mammals, which have long gestation periods? For decades, biologists viewed marsupial reproduction as "more primitive." But University of Washington scientists have discovered that a third group of mammals, the long-extinct multituberculates, had a long gestation period like placental mammals. Since multituberculates split off from the rest of the mammalian lineage before placentals and marsupials had even evolved, these findings question the view that marsupials were “less advanced” than their placental cousins.

During her time at the UW, Ava Kloss-Schmidt (BS, Biology, 2022) has surrounded herself with plants — in a lab, in a greenhouse, and on mountaintops.