Background Articles

As earthworms silently devour leaf litter across the country, they are changing soils, restructuring ecosystems and depleting our forests' carbon stocks.

Low stocks have prompted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) to cancel the red king crab fishery in Alaska’s Bering Sea.

Experts say a wasting disease epidemic has decimated about 95% of the sunflower sea star population from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. Without sea stars to keep them in check, sea urchins are causing a troubling decline in kelp forests that provide food and shelter.

Landmark report says invasive species are major threat to biodiversity and dealing with them requires global cooperation

“This is unprecedented in the United States for a mature, rationalized fishery to suffer a stock collapse, in part due to climate change,” the executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers said.

After hitching a ride with humans, the species has colonised entire areas – and may be making the soil too fertile

There were no bugs buzzing around the lights in the parking lot.

Alaska fishermen face challenges as the Bering Sea crab harvest resumes, with environmental and economic upheaval threatening the future of the industry. Scientists are questioning whether full recovery is possible in a warming world for these ailing crab populations that have supported some of the world’s most lucrative fisheries.

Rising temperatures and dwindling oxygen levels are decimating marine species. But humanity can avert mass die-offs by curbing fossil fuel use and other planet-warming activities.

Most of the 17 species of worms in Alaska seem to be exotic types that have recently settled the last Frontier with the help of humans, who gave them a lift.

Researchers say warmer waters themselves aren’t killing crabs, but they may be allowing predators to move in and disease to spread more easily.

Researchers at Oregon State University are studying the relationship between sunflower sea stars and sea urchins to determine if the reintroduction of the sea stars can help protect declining kelp forests from overgrazing by sea urchins.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced it was closing the 2023-24 Bering Sea snow crab season for the second season in a row.

The clam population crashed on the east side of Cook Inlet about a decade ago and has been slow to bounce back.

A Fairbanks high school student has discovered five species of earthworms in Interior Alaska, including one possibly native to North America.

There is danger lurking on the floor of the Bering and Chukchi seas for mussels, snails, clams, worms and other cold-water invertebrates, according to a new study led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported larva of Japanese broad tapeworm has been detected in wild pink salmon from Alaska, the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game says the discovery is nothing new.

A year after the closure of the Bering Sea crab harvests in Alaska, surveys show that crab populations are still low, raising doubts about future harvest prospects and suggesting that continued closures may be necessary.

A deadly wildfire burned more than 2,000 buildings in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina on Maui in August and left behind piles of toxic debris.