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2019-20 ENSP News

Heather Kenny places a band on a bluebird
In a quiet world, research on noise and nesting bluebirds

Heather Kenny, a biology master’s student at William & Mary, has spent the past two years studying the parenting behavior of bluebirds. Specifically, she is working to understand how human-made noise influences nesting and productivity.

Earth week illustration with hand holding a plant
W&M, other universities collaborate on virtual Earth Week

The William & Mary community celebrated Earth Week virtually this spring, working with other Virginia universities to offer events accessible to the public through multiple online platforms.

Photo of the Trisuli River
Study shows wetter climate is likely to intensify global warming

Greater tropical rainfall may increase microbes’ release of CO2 from soils into air, according to a study conducted by an international team led by Dr. Christopher Hein of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Barrels with trash
Study calculates true cost of food waste in America

A new study by Zach Conrad, assistant professor in William & Mary’s Department of Kinesiology & Health Sciences, finds that the average American consumer spends roughly $1,300 per year on food that ends up being wasted.

Cellular image of circles and swirls
Immune-system cells of fish are ingesting plastic…and then dying

The research lab of Patty Zwollo, an immunologist and professor of biology at William & Mary, has discovered that just as whales swallow plastic thinking it’s food, some cellular components of the immune system in fish “swallow” bits of microplastic that they mistake for invading pathogens.

Plastic debris on a remote Gulf of Alaska beach
'Grand Challenge' review stresses global impact of microplastics

Professor Rob Hale of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science is lead author of a new “Grand Challenges” paper commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest association of Earth and space scientists with more than 60,000 members in 137 countries.

A truck drives through flooding on a roadway
Sea-level report cards: 2019 data adds to trend in acceleration

The annual update of their sea level “report cards” by researchers at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science adds evidence of an accelerating rate of sea-level rise at nearly all tidal stations along the U.S. coastline.

geologist Jim Kaste works with a couple of William & Mary undergraduates from a coring platform assembled from a couple of lashed-together canoes on Lake Matoaka.
Decoding Lake Matoaka’s sedimental history of the anthropocene

A team of William & Mary geologists led by Jim Kaste and Nick Balascio has mined the time-capsule sediment of Lake Matoaka to find evidence that traces the development of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of the Automobile.