Joern Fischer is back with blog post on Jerry Franklin’s Monday morning plenary talk, “Forests, Fish, Owls, Volcanoes . . . and People: Reflections on fifty years of accumulated ecological knowledge and its application to policy.” Jerry Franklin just gave a very inspiring keynote address, on his favourite topic, the forests of the northwest of the US. This was one…
Computational ecologist Ted Hart is in Portland (OR), blogging ESA’s annual meeting at Dynamic Ecology. Here’s an excerpt from his Sunday post–thanks for sharing, Ted! In 2007 at ESA I and two other people were using twitter. Back then I didn’t understand it and had to ask what hashtags were. I gave up on twitter until 2010 and now with…
Can women (or parents?) ever have it all? by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Erin McKittrick and her daughter Lituya at remote Malaspina glacier on the coast of Alaska. Credit, Erin McKittrick, Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking, 2011. The trials of balancing a competitive research career on top of the other demands and joys of life, most prominently family,…
Dear ecological bloggers, We know that there are many of you out there in the broader ecological community, blogging your impressions of ecology’s intellectual ecosystem. Are you planning to blog ESA’s annual meeting in Portland, Ore. this August? We would like to gather your varied commentary on the research, workshops, field trips, and symposia presented at #ESA2012. To create a…
by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer A honey bee (Apis mellifera) afflicted with Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that sucks away its vital, blood-like hemolymph, often passing along viruses in the process, and leaving open wounds. The mite spreads by bee-to-bee contact, accelerated by yearly circuits of agricultural bee broods transported to pollinate almonds and blueberries and other crops. Varroa…
AFTER co-authoring a 2005 paper imagining “Re-wilding North America” with giant Bolson tortoises, camels, horses, cheetahs, elephants and lions, Harry Greene received a lot of hate mail. Corresponding ecologists hated the idea of deliberate transcontinental introductions of any kind.
Is science the foundation of democracy? DICK Taverne is a career politician, currently a member of the British House of Lords, and champion of science in public life (married, perhaps not incidentally, to a microbiologist for over fifty years). In a lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine in London last week, he explained why he believes “science has made…
by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer WE don’t typically think of the middle of the US as earthquake country, but small earthquakes, many just on the edge of perception, send shock waves through the prairies and southlands more than twenty times a year, on average, and have done so since regular monitoring began circa 1970. They are becoming more common….
Nature Conservancy chief scientist Peter Kareiva says conservation is failing, and must adapt or die. by Liza Lester, ESA Communications Officer, and Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs Anthropogenic biomes (anthromes): a classification of land ecosystems based on prolonged and abiding communion with people. Map scale = 1:160 000 000, Plate Carrée projection (geographic), 5 arc minute resolution (5′…
Washington DC Department of Urban Forestry nips stinky seeds in the bud By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. A male Gingko biloba in Lafayette Park, flanking the White House. Credit, Liza Lester April, 2012. As an urban arboreal companion, the ginkgo has much to recommend it. Its tall branches bring welcome summer shade, the fans of its leaves turn a…
By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. “My response is primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change.” WILLIAM Nordhaus is not pulling any punches. The Yale economist and author of A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on…
By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer A dead pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) on a back road of the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeastern Wyoming. Coal, oil and gas development in the basin have brought more vehicles, and more conflicts with wildlife. Rob Mutch, 2004. FRESH water scientist (and MacArthur Fellow and member of the National Academy of Sciences) Peter Gleick…