Hidden Ecologies

 It's been a while since I wrote a science communication article. In September, I was lucky enough to visit Alaska and Canada on a final year university field trip. I became fascinated by the coastal ecosystems and fisheries there, and how climate change is impacting them, and have since decided to translate some of my own reading of papers into a more digestible article... It sounds like a scene from a horror movie. Dozens of tanks lining a laboratory, each filled with seawater bubbling away with a lone crab inside. But this was no sci-fi experiment. This was the Alaska Fisheries Science Centre’s Kodiak Laboratory when a team of marine biologists decided to investigate how climate change might affect one particular species: the Red King Crab. But why this species? Red King Crabs (RKCs) are central to the Alaskan fishing industry thanks to their high market value. For context, whilst shipping vessels earn around 5 USD/lb for King salmon (considered a delicacy), RKCs go for double

Written 7th July, 2022 As I sit sheltering from yet another incredible Alpine thunderstorm, I am given a chance to reflect on my time in Slovenia. To say this country is amazing would be an understatement; if you look on a map, you see the country is speckled with jagged mountain peaks and criss-crossed with meandering, emerald rivers.   The latter is the reason I am here. I am an ecology undergraduate, researching how hydropower dams affect pollinator abundance along the river banks. Whilst dams may appear to be a source of green energy, many in fact do not harness a justifiable amount of hydroelectricity for the environmental destruction they cause.   They also divide rivers, and consequently both the ecosystems and people who depend on them. Recently, the Albanian government committed to designating the Vjosa, one of Europe's last major undammed, wild rivers, a national park - a historic step which will see the creation of the continent's first river national park. In many c