Sailing into the Spotlight Webinar Recording

Each spring, brilliant blue “by-the-wind sailors” (Velella velella) wash up on Oregon beaches.

Where do they come from, and why are they here? In this webinar, Oregon Shores welcomes Assistant Professor Rebecca Helm and Dr. Tom Iwanicki to leads us in an exploration of the mystery of these jelly-like drifters.

Additionally, Dr. Hannah Epstein, Oregon Shores’ Marine Conservation Manager, will share the geographic prevalence and annual and seasonal distribution of Velella velella as sighted in CoastWatch reports. These decades of Oregon Shores’ CoastWatch observations are helping scientists track the movements of Velella velella!

Watch this webinar to find a new appreciation for these tiny but mighty sailors of the sea!

About Our Guest Experts:

Dr. Iwanicki is a postdoctoral fellow and sensory ecologist studying the neustonic zone, the crucial and often overlooked layer of the ocean’s surface. His research not only unravels the mysteries of this unique habitat, but also sheds light on the impact of human activities, such as plastic and light pollution, to marine ecosystems. Using underwater photography and spectral measurements, Dr. Iwanicki characterizes light conditions and catalogs the diversity of animal coloration within this habitat. He models how and what animals see, particularly key and threatened species like sea turtles and seabirds, to better understand marine ecology and human impacts. By understanding the light environment and visual ecology at the ocean’s surface, Dr. Iwanicki seeks to emphasize the neustonic region as a unique habitat that requires distinct conservation policies. His work will support the development of effective regulations to mitigate the impacts of plastic pollution and light pollution, safeguarding the delicate balance of our oceans and biodiversity.

Assistant Professor Rebecca R. Helm is a marine ecologist who studies life in the open ocean. Her research focuses on the ecology of the high seas, and how biodiversity on this ‘other half’ of Earth is impacted by human activity. She has authored publications in scientific journals like Science, PLOS Biology, and Marine Biodiversity. She is also active in science outreach, is a Templeton Foundation Beyond the Ivory Tower fellow, and her reporting has appeared in outlets including The Atlantic, Slate, and BioGraphic. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University and was a postdoctoral researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Before joining Georgetown, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Earth Commons Institute at Georgetown.