Over the past couple of decades an increasing number of reports have warned of dramatic declines in insect populations worldwide. Faced with data sufficient to cause grave concern, WSU scientists embrace a mixture of trust in insect resilience and a determination that despair is not an option. Referring to her efforts to restore pollinator habitat […]
Brenden Campbell, a master’s student in the School of the Environment, won recognition from the Comparative Nutrition Society for virtually presenting research on a recently discovered ability in mealworms. In his WSU undergraduate honors research project, Campbell found that the larvae can safely eat polystyrene waste, discarded polymers better known by their trade name of […]
A team of international scientists led by a WSU graduate student are trekking the high peaks of the greater Glacier National Park ecosystem this summer to better understand a tiny but important food source for grizzly bears—the army cutworm moth. Erik Peterson, a master’s student in the School of the Environment, partnered with WSU professor […]
In the days after Mount St. Helens first erupted—sending some 540 million tons of ash over an area of 22,000 square miles—WSU ecology professor Richard “Dick” Mack was already thinking of its potential research value. “It wasn’t research that I intended to do,” Mack says, “but there was a unique opportunity and it would be […]
When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, it leveled more than 230 square miles of forest, but it also opened a rare scientific opportunity to study how an ecosystem responds after an extreme disturbance. WSU ecologists John Bishop and Mark Swanson have been involved in Mount St. Helens long-term research for decades and […]
When Amelia VanMeter graduates this spring, she will have completed three majors in the time it takes most students to finish just one. “The only way I was able to do this was because I really and truly care about what I am doing,” said VanMeter, who made it clear she didn’t let anyone hold […]
Canada lynx are losing ground in Washington state, even as federal officials are taking steps to remove the species’ threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. A massive monitoring study led by WSU researchers has found lynx on only about 20% of its potential habitat in the state. The results paint an alarming picture not […]
Wildlife need to move to survive: to find food, reproduce and escape wildfires and other hazards. Yet as soon as they leave protected areas like national forests or parks, they often wind up on a landscape that is very fragmented in terms of natural boundaries and human ones. To help create more corridors for wildlife […]
White-lipped peccaries of Central America have declined by as much as 90% from their historical range, signaling a population collapse of a key species in the region, according to a study by WSU researchers and colleagues published recently in the journal Biological Conservation. “White-lipped peccary populations are in more of a critical condition than previously […]
Resembling an overgrown house cat with black-tipped ears and a stubby tail, the Canada lynx, a native of North America, teeters on the brink of extinction in the U.S. The few lynx that now roam parts of Washington and the mountainous Northwest survive largely because of a network of protected landscapes that crosses the U.S.–Canada […]