The Biology Data Revolution in the Classroom By Teresa Mourad, Director of Education and Diversity Programs, ESA The volume of biology data is exploding in many different forms: numeric, geospatial, specimen, genomic, visual, and audio. What is even more exciting is that the technological innovations in computing power make it possible for nearly anyone, with a little help, to explore…
In dry southern Morocco, domesticated goats climb to the precarious tippy tops of native argan trees to find fresh forage. Local herders occasionally prune the bushy, thorny trees for easier climbing and even help goat kids learn to climb. During the bare autumn season, goats spend three quarters of their foraging time “treetop grazing.” Spanish ecologists from the Estación Biológica…
The Ecological Society of America recognizes Julienne E. NeSmith for an outstanding student research presentation at the 101st Annual Meeting of the Society in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in August 2016. ESA will present the awards during the 2017 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. The awards ceremony will take place on Monday, August 7, at 8 AM in the Oregon Ballroom at the Oregon…
The Ecological Society of America recognizes Michael J.M. McTavish for an outstanding student research presentation at the 101st Annual Meeting of the Society in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in August 2016. ESA will present the awards during the 2017 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. The awards ceremony will take place on Monday, August 7, at 8 AM in the Oregon Ballroom at the…
The George Mercer Award recognizes an outstanding and recently-published ecological research paper by young scientists. ESA recognizes Jennifer Williams, Bruce Kendall, and Jonathan Levine with the 2017 Mercer award for their paper “Rapid evolution accelerates plant population spread in fragmented experimental landscapes,” published in Science. Biological invasions, and migrations of native species in response to climate change, are pressing areas…
The Sustainability Science Award recognizes the authors of the scholarly work that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological and social sciences. ESA recognizes Jianguo Liu, Harold Mooney, Vanessa Hull, Steven J. Davis, Joanne Gaskell, Thomas Hertel, Jane Lubchenco, Karen C. Seto, Peter Gleick, Claire Kremen, and Shuxin Li with…
The Ecological Society of America’s Commitment to Human Diversity in Ecology Award recognizes long-standing contributions of an individual towards increasing the diversity of future ecologists through mentoring, teaching, or outreach. Gillian Bowser, a research scientist in the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) and affiliated faculty with The Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and Department of Ethnic Studies at Colorado…
The Cooper Award honors the authors of an outstanding publication in the field of geobotany, physiographic ecology, plant succession or the distribution of plants along environmental gradients. William S. Cooper was a pioneer of physiographic ecology and geobotany, with a particular interest in the influence of historical factors, such as glaciations and climate history, on the pattern of contemporary plant…
The Distinguished Service Citation recognizes long and distinguished volunteer service to ESA, the scientific community, and the larger purpose of ecology in the public welfare. Debra Peters is the founding editor-in-chief of ESA’s newest journal, Ecosphere, created in 2010 to offer a rapid path to publication for research reports from across the spectrum of ecological science, including interdisciplinary studies that…
Odum Award recipients demonstrate their ability to relate basic ecological principles to human affairs through teaching, outreach, and mentoring activities. Kathleen Weathers is a senior scientist and the G.Evelyn Hutchinson Chair of Ecology at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., where she focuses on freshwater ecosystems. For more than a decade, she has been dedicated to advancing bottom-up…
The Eminent Ecologist Award honors a senior ecologist for an outstanding body of ecological work or sustained ecological contributions of extraordinary merit. Soil ecologist Diana Wall, the founding director of the Colorado State University’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability, is world-renowned for uncovering the importance of below-ground processes. Best known for her outstanding quarter century of research in the McMurdo…
A new paper in Ecological Monographs presents a 700-year dendrochronological record of fire in Trillemarka-Rollagsfjell nature preserve in southern Norway. Burn scars on old tree stumps chronicle social change, from the population crash at the time of the bubonic plague, through a spike in slash-and-burn agriculture, to the rise of the timber economy. Until the modern era, the human mark…