Infectious diseases reduce human health both through death and disability, with the total disease burden being lower in wealthy and more urban countries, but higher in countries with more biodiversity. Contrary to expectations, increases in biodiversity over time did not result in better human health, and in fact higher disease burdens resulted when forest cover increased over time. Thus the key reason why infectious disease burdens have declined in recent decades is a shift towards urbanization and greater wealth, immediately suggesting levers for improving global human health. 

New research on Alaskan fishing communities shows the crucial importance of fishing portfolios and turnover. In 1989, when there were both major ocean and market regime shifts, most communities lost fishing revenue. But those with the greatest diversity of fished species, and those that were most able to switch from one group of species to another, had little lost revenue, or even experienced increased revenue. 

The U.S. is weighing changes to the main act that governs U.S. federal fisheries in the planned reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Fisheries science was the focus of the fourth meeting by the Senate subcommittee on this action, and SAFS Prof. Ray Hilborn was invited to testify, pointing out that U.S. fisheries are largely successful, with most overfished stocks now rebuilding, and overall fish biomass increasing in the U.S.  

Animal populations are endangered when they face multiple human-caused pressures at the same time, especially if those pressures interact to worsen depletion. A new study shows that whether pressures interact to worsen overall pressure, or interact to reduce overall pressure, depends on how animal populations behave at low versus high densities. If the number of offspring that survive for each adult drops off slowly as populations increase, this can unexpectedly lead to trouble, since it is more likely that individual pressures will interact to make things worse. 

To celebrate International Open Access Week, the University of Washington Libraries posted profiles and interviews with two SAFS faculty, Julia Parrish and Steven Roberts, about how they conduct their research openly. The interview with Julia Parrish focuses on her citizen science work, which involves trained members of the public identifying and pinpointing the locations of more than 10,000 dead birds on the Pacific coast each year, and making the data available openly as well as in scientific publications. 

A major component of fisheries management is using highly complex computer models to figure out the highest catch that can be taken from a fish population—the so-called Maximum Sustainable Yield, or MSY. A critical assumption underlying MSY estimates is how to model the relation between total amount of spawning fish and the resulting offspring that they produce. A new paper by SAFS director André Punt and NOAA researcher Jason Cope examines a wide range of these models to find the best three-parameter version that can independently estimate both the amount of spawning fish and the fishing harvest rate that will produce MSY, concluding that the Ricker-Power model is the best. 

A new review of the contribution of genomics to seafood management reveals how new questions may be addressed by genetics. Genomics involves sequencing the complete DNA of organisms, which has a great variety of applications, including greatly enhancing our ability to define management units, tracing whether seafood is being labelled correctly when sold, identifying how often salmon stray from their streams of origin, detecting seafood diseases, and measuring the extent of fisheries-induced evolution. 

Marine Biology (FISH250) is the core class for the College of the Environment Marine Biology Minor, where students learn principles of oceanography, biology, physiology and reproduction of marine taxa. The course focuses on the adaptations organisms need to thrive in their marine environments. The class includes active student discussion, class polls, and the opportunity to experience and experiment with key concepts in the laboratory section and fun field trips to Friday Harbor, Alki Beach (night low tide), Ocean Shores and others. 

There is potential to increase ocean catches by 14% and ocean profits from fishing by 79%, by rebuilding overfished stocks, fishing more on under-fished populations, and improving fisheries with little effective management. The new research was published in Marine Policy by SAFS professor Ray Hilborn and UCSB professor Christopher Costello. 

A new study looks at clams and mussels in five estuaries in Puget Sound, and finds that alterations to river flow, landscape connectivity among adjacent habitat types, or the type and supply of suspended organic matter (detritus), can disrupt food webs at the scale of entire landscapes. Clams and mussels, which cannot move to track food sources, are particularly affected by climate variability, levee systems, water diversion from estuaries, and dwindling availability of detritus due to loss of tidal marsh wetlands.