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…

March 6, 2017 Dear ESA Members: Like many of you, I have found it hard to know how to react to the style, tone, and substance of the new administration in Washington. I have followed a common admonition: wait and see. I have been hesitant to speak out because so much remains uncertain about what policies the administration will pursue. I…

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…

ESA and six other scientific societies sent a letter to President Trump expressing support for the Waters of the United States Clean Water Rule and endorsing an amici curiae brief filed by wetland and aquatic scientists in support of the rule. A version of the letter was also sent to Congress urging members to defend the Clean Water Rule. March 1, 2017 President Donald…

Our Society is only as strong as our members. Have you renewed for 2017? We are keeping you up-to-date with a Federal Agency Transition Tracker. In This Issue: Transition Update Pruitt Begins at Environmental Protection Agency Newly confirmed and sworn in, Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt met with agency staff, broad changes hinted Zinke Cloture Vote Set for February…

By Kenneth M. Klemow, Ph.D., professor of biology and environmental science and associate director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. Klemow is an ESA Fellow and a Certified Senior Ecologist. This essay was originally published in The Huffington Post on February 8, 2017.   During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly proclaimed that he would “drain…

Our Society is only as strong as our members. Have you renewed for 2017? We are keeping you up-to-date with a Federal Agency Transition Tracker. In This Issue: Scientists and doctors unite against Trump immigration order  International transit of people and ideas essential to scientific progress and competitiveness Senate votes on nominations Confirmation votes advance Remaining nominees may face unified…

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is pleased to announce its 2017 Fellows. The Society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy. Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted…

Ariana Sutton-Grier, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Maryland, helps lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Blue Carbon Team. She shares this Frontiers Focus on the long-term carbon storage capacity of coastal wetlands. Recent scientific advances have demonstrated that coastal wetlands — mangrove forests, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows — pull carbon out of our atmosphere and store…