The young woman and the sea
Marine biologist Sarah Henkel on aquatic bioinvasions, wave energy, seaweed and more
Some big issues dovetail to Undaria pinnatifi da
playing havoc in Australia and New Zealand.
Her fundamental question is how can
certain invasive species establish niches in
very diff erent waters from where they evolved.
Looking at temperature and salinity tolerances
as well as desiccation limits of species
helps cities, states and countries manage
opportunistic invasives that not only thrive in
new places, but push out endemic species.
‘It’s about being really committed. I tell
students who are not any smarter than their
peers that this takes hard work . . . to work on
one question for fi ve to seven years.” — Sarah
Henkel
O
ne never knows the waters a science-
based article will dip into when
a writer features one of OSU-
Hatfi eld’s multidisciplinary researchers.
Scientists look at very focused questions
while naturalists and generalist ecologists
look at systems
from a broader
range, but that
interplay is less
friction than
analysis. As a
journalist, my
GO BENEATH THE
job is to dig deep
SURFACE WITH
and fi nd those
PAUL HAEDER
connections.
For Sarah
Henkel, looking at how human-made
structures aff ect what happens at the bottom
of the sea is both fascinating and important
to all human-activities in and around marine
systems.
However, one scientist’s invasive is another
scientist’s opportunistic species. She’s got
cred in the study of the benthic zone (what’s
happening on the ocean’s bottom) and wave
energy.
In her offi ce at Hatfi eld, Sarah and I
recognize that the world of ecology is evolving
due to innovative research and new questions
scientists and policy makers are no longer
afraid to ask.
She’s not atypical – a smart scientist who is
open to fi elding a wide-range of inquiries.
Because of the heavy footprint humans
have put upon the environment in the form of
cutting down entire forests and jungles, as well
as geo-engineering the planet through fossil
fuel burning and all the chemicals released in
industrial processes, newer challenges to both
our species’ and other species’ survival end up
in the brains and labs of scientists.
To say science is changing rapidly is an
understatement.
East Coast-West Coast —
transplantation
DEEP
DIVE
One fl oating piece of debris
can change an entire coast
Henkel wonders what the eff ects of one
pilon, one mooring anchor and one attached
buoy have on ecologies from the sea fl oor,
CHRIS BECERRA
upward.
Th e ocean, once considered immune
to humanity’s despoilments, is as far as its
chemical composition and ecological processes
fragile with just the right forcers. HMSC is
lucky to have dedicated thinkers like Sarah
Henkel working on questions regarding not
only this part of the world, but globally.
Students working with Sarah gain from the
knowledge she’s accumulated in her transition
from inland girl growing up in Roanoke,
Virginia, where creeks, deciduous forest and
terrestrial animals enchanted her and her
sibling, to marine scientist in Oregon.
“Ever since I was around three, I knew I
was going to be a marine biologist,” she says
while we talk in her offi ce at Hatfi eld. When
a child, she visited a “touch tank” at a museum
near her home and was completely fascinated
with the horseshoe crabs.
Posters of benthic megafl ora – seaweed
6 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • November 1, 2019
and eel grass – adorn her offi ce walls at
HMSC. We’re talking about kelps like bull
whip, feather boa, deadman’s fi nger, witch’s
hair, studded sea balloons and Turkish towel
displayed on posters.
Symbiosis, cooperation,
opportunism, invasiveness?
That is the question.
While we talk about kelp/seaweed,
she shifts to invasive species like Undaria
pinnatifi da which hitched onto debris from
the 2011 tsunami in Japan. More than a dozen
species on a worldwide list of invasive species
were on broken dock moorings that washed
up near Newport. Th ree—Undaria pinnatifi da,
Codium fragile, and Grateloupia turuturu—
are particularly hazardous.
Some of Henkel’s work looks at one gene
expression, say, in Egregia menziesii, to uncover
how the species responds to various conditions.
Henkel’s a transplant herself, from Virginia,
with a science degree from the College of
William and Mary. She tells me that she was
lucky to have gotten into a gifted and talented
high school program where she attended half a
day every morning, then getting bused back to
her home school in the afternoon — for three
years.
“It [Virginia Governor’s School] was set up
like a college, with professors and curriculum
more like college-level courses.”
She then transplanted herself to California
State University--Fullerton in 2000 to work
on a master’s degree. Th en, further north, to
UC-Santa Barbara for a doctorate in marine
sciences.
Th e fi nal thrust northward was in 2009, to
OSU, where she has been ever since.
We laugh at the idea of humans also being
an invasive or transplanted species: She brings
up a place like San Francisco Bay which is
considered by scientists as a “global zoo” of
invasive species with as many as 500 plants
and animals from foreign shores taking hold in
Frisco’s marine waters.
“Scientists think there are more invasives
in San Francisco Bay than there are native
species.”
She, her husband Wil, and their six-year-
old live in Toledo because, as she says, “there’s
no marine layer to contend with and Toledo
has a summer up there.” Mountain biking is
what the family of three enjoy – from Alsea
Falls, to Mt. Bachelor and Mt. Hood.
•••
Read on, as Deep Dive continues at www.
oregoncoasttoday.com
Paul Haeder is a writer living and working
in Lincoln County. He has two books coming
out, one a short story collection, “Wide Open Eyes:
Surfacing from Vietnam,” and a non-fi ction book,
“No More Messing Around: Th e Good, Bad and
Ugly of America’s Education System.”