Past Webcasts

Participatory Science at the Leading Edge of a Biological Invasion: European green crab in Washington State

(11am CT, 10am MT, 9am PT)

Over the last decade, the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team has collaborated with community members to monitor for and manage a globally damaging invasive species – European green crabs. From successful early detection to current technical capacity building programs, this group has put scientific knowledge to work for tribes, agencies, and communities seeking to protect their shorelines. Join us for this episode to learn about how Crab Team combines close, sustained partnerships with participatory science to support management goals beyond being “boots in the mud” and harnesses the energy of people connected to place for impactful stewardship.

Guest

Emily Grason

University of Washington

Marine Ecologist

Emily Grason is a marine ecologist at Washington Sea Grant, in Seattle, WA. Since 2014, she has led Crab Team, a comprehensive program focused on supporting statewide efforts to manage the invasion of European green crab, one of the world’s most damaging invasive species. She helped launch Crab Team as a participatory science monitoring network for early detection of green crab, striking out into the mud with a few hundred volunteers and partner staff, and the program made the first detections of green crabs in Washington’s Salish Sea in 2016. Since that time, Crab Team has grown into a program that serves the broad needs of management, collaborating with hundreds of volunteers, scientists, staff at partner agencies and tribes, and shellfish growers to build technical capacity in the state and protect marine shorelines. Emily holds a master’s degree in Biology from Western Washington University and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Washington.