[ECOLOG-L] ESA job opening: Communications Associate, part-time temporary

[Liza Lester]

Post Date:  March 28, 2016

Title:  Communications Associate

Department: Public Affairs Office

Supervisor: Public Information Manager

Classification: Part-time, Hourly, Temporary


Purpose & Responsibilities

ESA seeks an energetic ecology, biology, or environmental science student or 
recent graduate with strong communication skills to help raise awareness of 
events at ESA and the research published in our scholarly journals.

The communications associate will work with Liza Lester, ESA's public 
information manager, to track news stories about the society and its 
publications, update webpages, and share society news through ESA's social 
media channels. Though the primary duties are databasing, webpage upkeep, and 
social media messaging, there may be opportunities to write or produce other 
creative work for ESA's news page, Ecotone, pending time available and 
demonstrated ability.

Specific Activities for the Communications Associate 

* Data entry: track coverage of ESA in the news using Google search tools and 
record details in our news archive; collate information on presenters at ESA's 
annual meeting; 
* Press Releases: organize and format information about scientific 
presentations, events, and awards to help publicize the Society's August annual 
meeting.
* Web content: format graphics and text for publication on ESA webpages; locate 
and caption appropriate images to illustrate news items 
* Social media: create and schedule teasers for research articles, meeting 
presentations, news, and events
* Fact-checking: research biographical details and other background information 
for ESA news articles.



Qualifications
* Graduate student, senior undergraduate, or recent graduate of a biological or 
environmental sciences program 
* Experience and interest in ecological research and science communication
* Demonstrated writing ability
* Familiar with Microsoft Excel, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook
* Familiar with ESA scholarly journals a plus
* Basic HTML skills a plus
* Willing to perform data-entry and other basic tasks
* Willing to learn as needed and follow directions 
* Must enjoy working effectively as part of a team
* Ability to maintain confidentiality 
* Available to work in ESA's downtown Washington, DC office during business 
hours (9am-6pm; M-F)

This is a paid, part-time, temporary position in ESA's downtown Washington, DC 
office. The position is funded April through July, 2017, and pays $15 per hour. 
Applicants must be available to work a regular schedule of 20 hours per week 
during business hours (9am-6pm; M-F). Additional hours, up to 40 hours per 
week, will be available in June and July.

HOW TO APPLY:

Please email a cover letter, resume, and a writing sample to Liza Lester, 
lles...@esa.org. You may also include your LinkedIn url and any social media 
handles or pages. Please put your name and "Communications Associate" in the 
subject line. The position is open until filled. We would like to fill the 
position quickly, so we encourage you to quickly submit your application. 

ESA is an Equal Opportunity employer. 

About ESA
The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world's largest 
community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological 
knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 9,000 
member Society publishes five journals and a membership bulletin and broadly 
shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and education 
initiatives. The Society's Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features 
the most recent advances in ecological science. 


****
Liza Lester
Public Information Manager
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Finding common ground for cattle, fish, and people: special issue of ESA Frontiers on mountain systems

[Liza Lester]

land watershed management decisions and economic activity can have outsized 
consequences for communities and ecosystems downstream. The Blue Mountains are 
part of the extensive Columbia River Basin, and the survival of salmon and 
trout is of great concern to the people who make their living from recreation 
centered on popular fish.

The Columbia is one of the most heavily managed river basins in the world. Its 
668,000 square kilometers sprawl over state and international borders between 
British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada. Fifty-six 
hydroelectric dams span the Columbia, Snake, and other major tributaries in the 
basin. These barriers, combined with fishing, logging, and the effects of 
development have pushed several formerly abundant salmon and steelhead stocks 
to severe decline or disappearance. The US spends more than $1 billion annually 
on habitat restoration, primarily concentrated on fish.

Though grazing has been a focus for decades, habitat may not be the critical 
factor currently limiting recovery of these commercially valuable species. 
Release of hatchery fish, overfishing, and natural migrations stymied by dams 
may be undermining restoration efforts. The authors discuss the social and 
economic factors that complicate changes to management practices in the river 
basin. They revisit past successes, such as a controversial end to trout 
stocking in Montana in 1974 that succeeded in boosting trout abundance by 213 
percent within four years.

"You really can bring together people with polarized views if you do it 
carefully," Kliskey said. "But it takes time. You have to listen."





Liza Lester
Public Information Manager
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone<http://www.esa.org/esablog/>: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Catherine O’Riordan named executive director of the Ec ological Society of America

[Liza Lester]

Read online: https://www.esa.org/esa/catherine-oriordan-named-executive-director

Thursday, 8 February 2018
For Immediate Release

Contact: Alison Mize, 202-833-8773 ext. 205, 
ali...@esa.org


Washington D.C. -- The ESA Governing Board announced today that Dr. Catherine 
O’Riordan, interim co-CEO and chief operating officer of the American Institute 
of Physics (AIP), will join the Society’s staff as its new executive director 
on April 16. O’Riordan, an ocean scientist and highly accomplished association 
executive, will be only the third executive director in ESA’s 100+ year history.

“I am excited about this opportunity to lead ESA in furthering its important 
mission: disseminating knowledge, building strong communities of ecologists, 
and increasing the understanding among policy makers and the public of the role 
ecology plays in solving pressing global challenges,” O’Riordan said. “The 
science of ecology is becoming even more interdisciplinary, and ESA members 
connect all of the facets of the field.”

O’Riordan has deep roots in the ecological research community, as well as in 
interdisciplinary science. Originally trained as an engineer, she developed 
physical and numerical models of ecological and biological systems to better 
understand river and estuary ecosystems.

Following an extensive search, ESA’s Governing Board unanimously selected 
O’Riordan from an outstanding field of candidates because of her rare 
combination of leadership experience with scientific associations, excellent 
program management and business skills, knowledge of public policy, and 
background with research.

ESA President Richard Pouyat remarked, “I am very excited by the energy and 
leadership experience Cathy brings to ESA. Given the many societal challenges 
we face today, she is well poised to lead ESA in identifying science-based 
solutions for the environment that also provide benefits for human well-being.”

In her role as AIP’s Interim co-CEO, O’Riordan oversees AIP’s programs and 
activities including services to its ten Member Societies, Physics Today 
magazine, and other news, education, awards, advocacy, and history programs. 
She came to AIP from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C., 
where she directed ocean research and education programs including U.S. 
participation in the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, an international 
program of basic research in marine geosciences. Prior to that, she led public 
affairs and other programs at the American Geophysical Union.

“O’Riordan is uniquely qualified to bring scientists and policy makers 
together. She also prioritizes expanding inclusivity and diversity within the 
science of ecology,” Pouyat commented.

For O’Riordan, the opportunity to lead at ESA continues a lifetime commitment 
to scientific achievement, advancing scientific policy, and broadening 
opportunities for participation.

“I look forward to working with the ecological community to raise ecology’s 
profile and cultivate a diverse group of students to become the next generation 
of ecologists,” O’Riordan said.

Following her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, O'Riordan 
collaborated with ecologists and biologists to study the impact of pollution on 
water quality and the ecosystem in Massachusetts before attending graduate 
school in water resources and civil engineering. She studied the concentration 
boundary layers that form above benthic bivalves, in the turbulent flow regimes 
found in estuaries. While conducting research in France for six years, she 
investigated the transport of organic material and sediments in the Seine River 
and estuary. She also has experience in numerical modeling of geochemical 
cycles in Mediterranean coastal waters as part of a multi-nation collaboration 
in the European Union.

O'Riordan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve 
University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, Water Resources, and 
Environmental Fluid Mechanics from Stanford University.

She succeeds Katherine S. McCarter, who served with distinction as ESA’s 
executive director from 1997 until the beginning of this year. Upon her 
retirement in January, ESA’s Board bestowed McCarter with the title of 
executive director emeritus.

[ECOLOG-L] Assist Ecologists Affected by Hurricanes and Earthquake

[Liza Lester]

Many members of the ESA community want to know how they can help fellow 
ecologists hit by the recent natural disasters get their research back up and 
running. ESA is facilitating member-to-member sharing by collecting offers of 
assistance and resources to share with those affected. If you have equipment 
you can lend, or space to share in your facility, consider submitting to the 
database:



View offers of assistance:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PMVkI3zSOJy_q6Ddw81XbsVhYmcKM1aXkn27MGd9ZbU/edit?usp=sharing

Submit offers of assistance:
https://goo.gl/forms/vfTBJlBBfcPxSqmh2

[ECOLOG-L] Want to see your science on film? #ESA2017

[Liza Lester]

**please reply to: 
michaeljameswer...@gmail.com

My name is Michael Werner and I'm an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning and AAAS 
Award-winning science, nature and environment filmmaker. I'm attending the ESA 
annual meeting this week and am looking to connect with researchers who have 
projects or ideas that might make for interesting documentaries, TV programs or 
digital shorts.

If you're working on something that you think the public might be interested in 
learning about, or if you're just curious about how documentaries get made, 
please get in touch with me at 
michaeljameswer...@gmail.com. I'd love to 
find a time to meet up and chat at the ESA annual meeting.

Looking forward to talking with you,
Michael Werner

[ECOLOG-L] ESA News: Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds by spitting

[Liza Lester]

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."

Ecologists from the Estación Biológica de Doñana  have observed an unusual way 
in which the goats may be benefiting the trees: the goats spit the trees' 
seeds. Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, and José M Fedriani reported their 
discovery in the latest Natural History Note in the May issue of the Ecological 
Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The 
paper is open access.

Read more: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/tree-climbing-goats-disperse-seeds-by-spitting/

Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, José M Fedriani. (2017) Tree-climbing goats 
disperse seeds during rumination. Front Ecol Environ 15(4): 222-223, 
doi:10.1002/fee.1488


****
Liza Lester
Public Information Manager
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Announcing the 2016 Murray F. Buell and E. Lucy Braun Student Award winners

[Liza Lester]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, 22 May 2017
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org

Awards recognize students for outstanding research presented at the 
2016 Annual Meeting

Read a photo enriched version of this release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/2017-buell-braun-student-awards/

The Ecological Society of America recognizes Michael J.M. McTavish and Julienne 
E. NeSmith for outstanding student research presentations 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 Convention Center.

Murray F. Buell had a long and distinguished record of service and 
accomplishment in the Ecological Society of America. Among other things, he 
ascribed great importance to the participation of students in meetings and to 
excellence in the presentation of papers. To honor his selfless dedication to 
the younger generation of ecologists, the Murray F. Buell Award for Excellence 
in Ecology is given to a student for the outstanding oral paper presented at 
the ESA Annual Meeting. 
Lucy Braun, an eminent plant ecologist and one of the charter members of the 
Society, studied and mapped the deciduous forest regions of eastern North 
America and described them in her classic book, The Deciduous Forests of 
Eastern North America. To honor her, the E. Lucy Braun Award for Excellence in 
Ecology is given to a student for the outstanding poster presentation at the 
ESA Annual Meeting. Papers and posters are judged on the significance of ideas, 
creativity, quality of methodology, validity of conclusions drawn from results, 
and clarity of presentation. 

Award panel members honored Michael J.M. McTavish with the Buell Award for his 
presentation "Selective granivory of exotic earthworms within commercial grass 
seed mixes: Implications for seeding-based restoration in invaded ecosystems." 
McTavish is a doctoral candidate working with Professor Stephen D. Murphy in 
the School of Environment, Resources & Sustainability at the University of 
Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

The invasion of earthworms into previously earthworm-free soils is instigating 
sweeping change in the ecosystems of eastern North America. This has brought 
interest in the earthworms' appetite for seeds and how they may impact 
ecological restoration projects that add seeds to soil. McTavish investigated 
the characteristics of commercial grass seeds favored by the exotic earthworm 
Lumbricus terrestris. He observed how earthworm activity affected the biomass 
of different types of grass in outdoor, enclosed experiments called mesocosms, 
which simulate natural environments under controlled conditions.  He found that 
earthworms preferred smaller seeds that had been coated to increase water 
uptake, resulting in decreased grass biomass in mesocosms planted with coated 
seeds. The judges felt that McTavish showed excellence in presenting and 
answering his experimental questions, particularly praising his distribution of 
text and pictures. His experimental results formed a comprehensive and 
important story.

Panel members honored Julienne E. NeSmith with the Braun Award for her poster 
"Interactive effects of soil moisture and plant invasion on pine tree 
survival." NeSmith is a graduate student working with Associate Professor of 
Agronomy S. Luke Flory in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at 
the University of Florida in Gainesville.

NeSmith investigated the separate and combined effects of drought and exotic 
grass invasion on the survival of native loblolly (Pinus tied) and slash (Pinus 
elliottii) pine in central Florida by manipulating environmental conditions in 
experimental garden plots. Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) is an aggressively 
invasive, highly flammable perennial grass which arrived in the southeastern 
United States in the early twentieth century. Drought and cogongrass invasion 
each separately decreased survival of both pine species, but invasion only 
exacerbated the effects of drought on the survival of loblolly pine. The 
presence of cogongrass offset the effects of drought on slash pine survival in 
the experimental garden plots. NeSmith attributed the greater survival of slash 
pine under drought conditions to higher soil moisture and humidity in invaded 
plots than non-invaded plots. Judges recognized NeSmith's ability to explain 
the experimental details and the management implications of her results and 
enjoyed her enthusiasm for the project.

2017 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon

Environmental scientists from 50 U.S. states, U. S. territories, and countries 
around the world will converge on Portland, Oregon this August for the 102nd 
Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Five thousand attendees 
are expected to gather 

[ECOLOG-L] SciComm Intern in ESA's Washington, DC office

[Liza Lester]

ESA seeks an energetic ecology, biology, or environmental science student or 
recent graduate with strong communication skills to help raise awareness of 
events at ESA and the research published in our scholarly journals.

The communications intern will work with Liza Lester, ESA's public information 
manager, to track news stories about the society and its publications, update 
webpages, and share society news through ESA's social media channels. Though 
the primary duties are databasing, webpage upkeep, and social media messaging, 
there may be opportunities to write or produce other creative work for ESA's 
news page, Ecotone, pending time available and demonstrated ability.

Specific Activities:

* Data entry: track coverage of ESA in the news using Google search tools and 
record details in our news archive; collate information on presenters at ESA's 
annual meeting
* Web content: format graphics and text for publication on ESA webpages; locate 
and caption appropriate images to illustrate news items 
* Social media: create and schedule teasers for research articles, 
presentations, news, and events
* Fact-checking: research biographical details and other background information 
for ESA news articles.



Qualifications:

* Graduate student, senior undergraduate, or recent graduate of a biological or 
environmental sciences program 
* Experience and interest in ecological research and science communication
* Demonstrated writing ability
* Familiar with Microsoft Excel, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook
* Familiar with ESA scholarly journals a plus
* Basic HTML skills a plus
* Willing to perform data-entry and other basic tasks
* Willing to learn as needed and follow directions 
* Must enjoy working effectively as part of a team
* Ability to maintain confidentiality 
* Hours are flexible, but you must be available to work 10-20 hours per week in 
ESA's downtown Washington, DC office during business hours (9am-6pm; M-F)

This is a paid, part-time internship based in ESA's downtown Washington, DC 
office. The position is funded through June 30, 2017 and pays $15 per hour. 
Applicants must be available to work a regular schedule, 10-20 hours per week 
during business hours (9am-6pm; M-F).  

How to apply:

Please email a cover letter, resume, and a writing sample to Liza Lester, 
lles...@esa.org. Please put "Communications Intern" in the subject line. The 
position is open until filled.


ESA is an Equal Opportunity employer. 


****
Liza Lester
Public Information Manager
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA MidAtlantic Conference - last chance to register

[Liza Lester]

2017 Mid-Atlantic Annual Conference
Stockton University, Galloway NJ
April 21-23, 2017

***Abstract submission and registration close Monday April 3***

Conference Theme: Biodiversity in the Mid-Atlantic: Present and Future


Join us for an exciting conference, hosted by Stockton University in the New 
Jersey Pine Barrens and Coastal Zone. The plenary programs will focus on the 
North American Coastal Plain, recently designated as the world's 36th 
biodiversity hotspot. Our speakers and panel will discuss the current threats 
and future prospects for biodiversity, especially in the Mid-Atlantic portion 
of the hotspot, including the critical interactions between terrestrial and 
estuarine/marine environments. The conference will include a full program of 
submitted oral and poster sessions of interest to ecologists from the entire 
region. 
Submit an abstract: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5wYVhNm99IeBImROtiA6QEA0AbjXAmaVoJNxk-VdphFEZNw/viewform
To register for the conference: 
https://www.esa.org/esa/2017-mid-atlantic-meeting-registration/

Questions:
 
Jamie Cromartie, Chair of the MA-ESA, Stockton University
jamie.cromar...@stockton.edu
 
Astrid Caldas, Secretary of the MA-ESA    astridcal...@gmail.com
Campus map and directions to Stockton University: 
https://stockton.edu/maps/index.html

[ECOLOG-L] Editorial Assistant for Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

[Liza Lester]

The Ecological Society of America seeks an Editorial Assistant to help produce 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a high ranking monthly journal 
focusing on ecological and environmental science. 

Manage the online peer review system, copyedit manuscripts, check page proofs, 
run the twitter account, and do a little bit of design and occasional writing. 
The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, focused, able to work cheerfully 
and accurately under pressure, and will have experience of Microsoft Office, 
Twitter, Photoshop, and Wordpress.  A relevant Bachelor's degree is a must (eg 
Ecology, Environmental Science or Conservation) plus one to two years' 
editorial experience. Downtown Washington DC location; competitive salary 
(commensurate with experience) and benefits.  

Email cover letter, CV, and contact information for three references to Dr Sue 
Silver, at suesil...@esa.org - Put "Editorial Assistant Search" in the subject 
line. 
Closing date December 4, 2016.

[ECOLOG-L] Job opening: Editorial Assistant for Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

[Liza Lester]

CONTACT: Sue Silver suesil...@esa.org
CLOSING DATE: December 4, 2016

The Ecological Society of America seeks an Editorial Assistant to help produce 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a high ranking monthly journal 
focusing on ecological and environmental science. The Editorial Assistant will 
manage the online peer review system, copyedit manuscripts, check page proofs, 
run the twitter account, plus do a little bit of design and occasional writing. 
The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, focused, able to work cheerfully 
and accurately under pressure, and will have experience of Microsoft Office, 
Twitter, Photoshop, and Wordpress.  A relevant Bachelor's degree is a must (eg 
Ecology, Environmental Science or Conservation) plus one to two years' 
editorial experience. Downtown Washington DC location; competitive salary 
(commensurate with experience) and benefits.  

Email cover letter, CV, and contact information for three references to Dr Sue 
Silver, at suesil...@esa.org - Put "Editorial Assistant Search" in the subject 
line. 
Closing date December 4, 2016.


Sue Silver PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
1990 M Street, NW,  Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202 833 8773, ext 233
Fax: 202 833 8775
Email: suesil...@esa.org
Follow us on Twitter -   @ESAFrontiers
www.frontiersinecology.org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA Frontiers Focus: Envisioning a good Anthropocene

[Liza Lester]

--By Elena Bennett, associate professor at the McGill School of Environment and 
Department of Natural Resource Sciences in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Canada. 
Bennett and colleagues' Concepts and Questions article "Bright Spots: Seeds of 
a Good Anthropocene" appeared in the October 2016 issue of ESA Frontiers.

We are constantly being bombarded with negative visions of the future, which 
may inhibit our ability to move towards a positive future for the Earth and 
humanity.

My coauthors and I are soliciting, exploring, and developing positive visions 
of futures that are plausible, socially and ecologically desirable, just, and 
sustainable. We develop these visions of "Good Anthropocenes" starting with 
'bright spots' - real places that demonstrate one or more elements that might 
serve as seeds of a better Anthropocene.

One example of a bright spot is the Health in Harmony project, which partners 
with local communities in Indonesian Borneo to provide low-cost health care in 
exchange for a commitment to reduce deforestation. Over the past 5 years, 
they've seen a 68 percent decrease in illegal logging along with improvements 
in health indicators in local communities. Through our project, we aim to 
initiate wider global discussions about the kinds of futures people desire.

***
Bennett, E.M., M. Solan, R. Biggs, T. McPhearson, A. Norstrom, P. Olsson, L. 
Pereira, G. D. Peterson, C. Raudsepp-Hearne, F. Beirmann, S. R. Carpenter, E. 
Ellis, T. Hichert, V. Galaz, M. Lahsen, B. Martin-Lopez, K. A. Nicholas, R. 
Preisser, G. Vince, J. Vervoort, and J. Xu. 2016. Bright Spots: Seeds of a Good 
Anthropocene. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 14(8): 441-448. 
doi:10.1002/fee.1309
**

To learn more, you can
- watch a talk about the project, or 
- participate in a webinar on the 19th of October at 17h00 CEST. 
- check out Bennett and colleagues' ESA Frontiers article 

http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/envisioning-good-anthropocene/

[ECOLOG-L] NSF seeks online panelists for 2017 Graduate Research Fellowship Program

[Liza Lester]

Reply to: paneli...@nsfgrfp.org
***

On behalf of the National Science Foundation (NSF), we invite you to register 
as a potential 2017 Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) panelist. NSF 
seeks GRFP panels composed of researchers and educators from a wide range of 
institutions, geographic locations, and disciplinary and interdisciplinary 
backgrounds.

Serving as a GRFP panelist is an excellent opportunity to apply your research 
and career expertise to help identify future science and engineering leaders, 
and to gain valuable perspective to share with faculty and students at your 
institution.

Below are details of the 2017 panels:
* All reviews and panels will be conducted online and do not require 
any travel.
* In November, panelists must attend an orientation session webinar, 
selecting one from several available sessions.
* Panelists review graduate school-like applications consisting of one 
3-page statement, one 2-page statement, transcripts, and three reference 
letters.
* Each panelist will review approximately 30 assigned applications in 
early December, over the course of about 4 weeks.
* Panelists will enter their reviews and scores online.
* In January 2017, panels will convene online using WebEx for two 
virtual panel sessions scheduled on two different days (either Monday and 
Thursday or Tuesday and Friday) to discuss the applicant pool and make 
selection recommendations to NSF.
If you would like to be considered as a 2017 GRFP panelist, please visit 
https://panelists.nsfgrfp.org to register in the panelist system.

GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students pursuing 
research-based masters and doctoral degrees in science or engineering at 
accredited US institutions (for GRFP details see the new solicitation, NSF 
16-588).
 For more information, see our webpage at https://nsfgrfp.org/.

We thank you in advance for your interest. If you have any questions, please 
contact us at paneli...@nsfgrfp.org or the GRFP 
Operations Center at (866) 673-4737.

Sincerely,

Joerg Schlatterer, Susan Brennan, Erick Jones, Jodie Jawor, and Gisele 
Muller-Parker, Program Directors

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program

[ECOLOG-L] Mosquito ecology and disease at ESA2016 annual mtg in Florida

[Liza Lester]

Ecological dimensions of mosquito-borne disease are on the minds of ecologists 
as they head to southern Florida for the 101st Annual Meeting of the Ecological 
Society of America
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, 8 July 2016
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org

For photos and links, read online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/mosquito-ecology-and-disease-at-esa2016/ 
 
The resurgence of Zika virus has raised anxieties about the spread of 
infectious disease by mosquitoes as theEcological Society of America heads to 
southern Florida for its 101st Annual Meeting. Research on mosquito biology and 
disease transmission will have a strong showing at the meeting Fort Lauderdale, 
this 7-12 August 2016. Climate change and species invasions are strong themes 
among this year's research presentations on infectious disease.

Geologists have proposed a new epoch, the Anthropocene, to describe our present 
time, in which the pervasive presence of humans and the products of human 
invention are shaping the atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystems of the world. The 
meeting theme "Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene" invites a focus on the new 
relationships between species arising under the influence of global change.
ESA invites press and institutional public information officers to attend for 
free. To apply, please contact ESA Communications Officer Liza Lester directly 
at lles...@esa.org. Walk-in registration will be available during the meeting.

Research presentations: 
. Is mosquito-borne disease risk heating up with a warming climate?
. Organizing defense forces to hit mosquitoes where they breed
. Luring mosquitoes into honeysuckle traps
. Stressed birds get more mosquito bites-and transmit disease
. An invasive mosquito helps break the spread of a parasite
. The Asian tiger mosquito thrives in New York
. Side effects of mosquito defense: broad spectrum insecticides kill the 
pollinators of rare native flowers
. Mosquitoes change their temperature preferences when in competition with 
other mosquito species
. Life cycles, competition, and management
. Battle at the bloodmeal lek
 
Is mosquito-borne disease risk heating up with a warming climate?
. COS 6-3 -Intermediate optimal temperature for dengue, chikungunya, and Zika 
transmission by Aedes spp. mosquitoes
. Monday, August 8, 2016: 2:10 PM, room 124/125, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center
. Erin Mordecai, Stanford University
Mosquito life cycles, and those of the pathogens they host, are intimately 
connected to the temperature and humidity of the cities and landscapes they 
inhabit. Epidemiologists worry that climate change is fostering emergence and 
resurgence of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, 
Zika, and malaria. But warmer is not necessarily always better for the 
pathogen. Modeling transmission of viruses with attention to the physiological 
responses to mosquitoes to temperature, Erin Mordecai of Stanford University 
and colleagues in Florida concluded that warming temperatures may accelerate 
transmission in North America's cooler states, but are not likely to intensify 
the problem in tropical and subtropical regions that already bear the heaviest 
burden from mosquito-borne illnesses. Her talk is part of a session on Disease 
Ecology (I), which will also feature hantavirus, snails, and vampire bats.
 
Organizing defense forces to hit mosquitoes where they breed
. COS 41-7 -Control of emerging infectious diseases: How synchronicity of 
vector reduction efforts affect the size of Zika virus outbreaks
. Wednesday, August 10, 2016: 10:10 AM, Floridian Blrm BC, Ft Lauderdale 
Convention Center
. Samantha R. Schwab, Rutgers University
Are efforts to control mosquito breeding sites more effective when synchronized 
across urban areas or staggered? A mathematical model has suggestions for 
municipalities. Schwab will present in the Disease Ecology (III) session, 
featuring talks on transmission of infection, from polio to the catastrophic 
epidemic of the cryptid fungus Bd in amphibians.
 

Graduate student Noor Malik sets up a leaf detritus experiment, designed to 
explore mosquito egg laying behavoir and larval survival, in a storm drain in 
Paxton, Illinois. Malik graduated from the University of Illinois in 2015. 
Credit, Allison Gardner.
Luring mosquitoes into honeysuckle traps
. COS 17-1 -Direct and indirect effects of native and invasive plants on 
mosquito ecology
. Tuesday, August 9, 2016: 8:00 AM, room Palm B, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center
. Allison M. Gardner, School of Biology and Ecology, University of Maine, 
Orono, ME
Beyond the blood meal, mosquitoes need sugar and safe and nurturing pools to 
cradle their eggs and emerging larva. Fallen leaves floating in still water 
(like residential stormwater drainage ditches) make appealing hatcheries for 
the common house mosquito (Culex pipiens), a carrier of West Nile virus. 
Gardner and colleagues found that the leaves of native common 

[ECOLOG-L] ESA News Release: Ecological collapse circumscribes traditional women's work in Iraq's Mesopotamian Marshes

[Liza Lester]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, 24 March 2016
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, LLester@esa.orgNews 

ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE CIRCUMSCRIBES TRADITIONAL WOMEN'S WORK IN THE MOSPOTAMIAN 
MARSHES OF IRAQ
-As the land at the heart of the cradle of civilization dries out, an ancient 
culture is being lost with the unique ecosystem that sustains it.

Nadia Al-Mudaffar Fawzi, Kelly P. Goodwin , Bayan Mehdi, Michelle L. Stevens 
(2016) 
Effects of Mesopotamian Marsh (Iraq) desiccation on the cultural knowledge and 
livelihood of Marsh Arab women. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 
2(3):e01207. doi: 10.1002/ehs2.1207 Full text open access


Read a photo-enriched version of this release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/mesopotamian-marsh-women/ 




For thousands of years, the marshes at the confluence of the Tigris and 
Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq were an oasis of green in a dry landscape, 
hosting a wealth of wildlife. The culture of the Marsh Arab, or Ma'dan, people 
who live there is tightly interwoven with the ecosystem of the marshes. The 
once dense and ubiquitous common reed (Phragmites australis) served as raw 
material for homes, handicrafts, tools, and animal fodder for thousands of 
years. Distinctive mudhif communal houses, built entirely of bundled reeds, 
appear in Sumerian artwork from 5,000 years ago. Now that culture is drying up 
with the marshes.  

Recent decades have brought extreme change to the fertile lands famous for the 
birth of agriculture and the rise of some of the world's earliest cities. The 
sphere of daily life for Marsh Arab women has shrunk as the natural resources 
they traditionally cultivated have vanished, reports an international team of 
researchers in "Effects of Mesopotamian Marsh (Iraq) desiccation on the 
cultural knowledge and livelihood of Marsh Arab women," published today in the 
March 2016 issue of Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, a joint journal of the 
Ecological Society of America and Ecological Society of China.

The study is the first effort to specifically document Marsh Arab women's 
cultural relationship to marsh ecological services.

"Imagine the Everglades. The Marsh Arabs used to live in the middle of the 
water, surrounded by everything green. The fields, the reeds, and the water 
buffalo were around them. Now they have to walk five, ten kilometers to reach 
resources. The land is dry and brown," said study author Nadia Al-Mudaffar 
Fawzi, an Iraqi marine ecologist who returned from New Zealand to the city of 
her birth in 2009 to teach and conduct research at the University of Basrah. 
Al-Mudaffar Fawzi studies the impact of climate change on biodiversity in the 
marshes, the Persi
an Gulf, and the Shatt al-Arab river which connects them. Rising temperatures, 
falling water volume in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and groundwater 
pumping is causing the salt water in the Gulf to extend up the Shatt al-Arab, 
which is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. Basrah, now the 
second largest city in Iraq, is on the Shatt al Arab about 70 kilometers 
downstream of the confluence.

"When I came back in 2009, I knew there were lots of problems with drying of 
the system. We knew there was big impact on fish production, on water quality 
in the Shatt al-Arab, and in the north of the Gulf," said Al-Mudaffar Fawzi. 

In her investigations of the water systems, she also grew interested in the 
social impact of environmental change, and in people's understandings of the 
effects of the environment on their lives. Iraq did not have environmental laws 
until the change of government in 2003, and they remain a low priority in the 
current chaotic conditions in the country.

"The whole situation in the marshes is completely different from what I saw 
before, in the '70s and early '80s," she said. "Women used to play a role in 
the ecological system. They used to work with men in gathering reeds and in 
fishing, and we would see them in the market when they come and sell their 
produce, like the fish, and the milk from the buffalo, the cheese and the 
yogurt that they make."

Al-Mudaffar Fawzi and her colleagues designed a survey to more formally ask 
Marsh Arab women about their lives and activities. With the exception of women 
living on the edge of the Mesopotamia Marshland National Park, created in 2013, 
where restoration efforts have seen some success, Marsh Arab women reported 
that their daily lives had narrowed to domestic tasks in the home. Very few 
women today go out to gather reeds or care for buffalo.

"The older women who were adults before the war would tell us, 'back then I was 
out making dung patties, collecting reeds, taking care of buffalo,'" said 
author Kelly Goodwin, who works with the international NGO Millennium Relief 
and Development Services. "They say, 'now I'm just at home'."

Goodwin interviewed 34 women, ranging in age from tee

[ECOLOG-L] National Vegetation Classification launches

[Liza Lester]

ESA News Release

Read this release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/national-vegetation-classification-press-release/ 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, 23 February 2016
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org


**Adaptable, ecology-based U.S. National Vegetation Classification for 
monitoring multi-scale change debuts today**

->Public release of a 20-year collaborative effort to devise a unified and 
consistent national reporting system for plant communities opens new avenues 
for broad-scale and long-term analyses of landscape change.



The U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC), a reporting standard 
organized around ecological principles for the study of plant communities, 
launches today. It is the first classification of its kind designed to adapt to 
new ecological knowledge and expand to absorb new vegetation types. 

The organizing framework of the classification helps independent and federal 
scientists speak the same language, whether they monitor the high elevation red 
spruce forests of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park or conduct broad scale 
analyses of forest trends across the North American continent.

"As the lead agency for the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Vegetation 
Subcommittee, the U.S. Forest Service is thrilled to see the release of the 
U.S. National Vegetation Classification.  This is the culmination of two 
decades of effort from a dedicated and highly collaborative team representing 
the academic sector, non-governmental organizations, state agencies, and 
numerous federal agencies. The USNVC fills a critical need for a standardized 
system for vegetation classification that will allow land managers to 
collaborate across ownership boundaries and manage and identify trends on a 
landscape, regional, and national scale.  In the past, the many uncoordinated 
classification systems that were used prevented us from being able to compare 
and analyze vegetation, except on a local level and within individual land 
ownerships. This great achievement allows us to have a common language. I 
really appreciate the dedication of all those who made this possible," said 
Carlos Rodriguez-Franco, acting deputy chief for R at the U.S. Forest 
Service. 

The Ecological Society of America's (ESA) Panel on Vegetation Classification 
has worked to ensure the scientific rigor of the classification and facilitate 
the classification's development, collaborating with NatureServe, the U.S. 
Forest Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey  to form a U.S. National 
Vegetation Classification partnership. These agencies, along with the National 
Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and others, continue to fund ongoing 
peer-reviewed revisions.

"We call it the eco-veg approach. The idea of the classification's hierarchy is 
to reflect the functional ecology of plant communities. The eight levels of the 
hierarchy are organized around ecological concepts at different scales and can 
be refined or expanded as new information emerges from ecological research," 
said Don Faber-Langendoen, editor-in-chief of the US National Vegetation 
Classification and a senior research ecologist at NatureServe.

The classification has two categories, which both use an 8-level organizational 
hierarchy: a "Natural" hierarchy, for plant communities primarily influenced by 
ecological factors, parallels a "Cultural" hierarchy, for plant communities 
shaped by human activity. 
The National Vegetation Classification provides a common rubric for reporting 
data about public lands, but federal agencies can preserve their own 
classification systems. The new classification is designed to "cross-walk" to 
other classification systems, identifying equivalent types when possible. 
Vegetation types are best typified by collecting quantitative field plot data 
that record plant species, vegetation structure, and site factors. People from 
a great diversity of environmental sectors collect plot data, employing diverse 
databases and protocols. Bringing these data together in a consistent and well 
documented format was and continues to be a major challenge of the project.

"Historically, vegetation classifications were built by field scientists with a 
lot of experience. The problem is that it was too subjective. Another scientist 
could not look at the classification types and replicate the methods used to 
derive them. The National Vegetation Classification is based on standardized, 
rigorous data rather than just subjective opinion. The plot data is publicly 
available so that anyone can go back and see it, and the classification can be 
revised and improved moving forward," said Robert Peet, a professor at the 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Peet was among the instigators of 
the new classification and has served on ESA's Panel on Vegetation 
Classification since its inception, in 1995.

In the Natu

[ECOLOG-L] NAS call for experts: biotechnology product regulations

[Liza Lester]

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is pleased to 
announce a new consensus study being conducted as part of a White House 
initiative aimed at Modernizing the Regulatory System for Biotechnology 
Products. This study is being sponsored by the US Environmental Protection 
Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and Department of Agriculture and will 
focus on "Future Biotechnology Products and Opportunities to Enhance 
Capabilities of the Biotechnology Regulatory System." The Academies is seeking 
nominations for members of the study committee. Additional details, including 
the charge to the committee, can be found on the nomination page.

Please submit nominations by Monday, January 25 to ensure they receive full 
consideration.


Submit nomination here:
http://nas.us8.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=18fe6f8f25ec0bc7509e65e97=0b5c4d4f11=91d068d11a


Questions or comments for the study staff should be directed to 
biot...@nas.edu. I encourage you to forward this call to any interested parties.

Sincerely,
Douglas Friedman, PhD
Study Director

[ECOLOG-L] ESA News: Science-driven strategies for more effective endangered species recovery

[Liza Lester]

Read this release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/science-driven-strategies-for-more-effective-endangered-species-recovery/
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednsday, 6 January 2016
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org

*The US Endangered Species Act can protect more species, more effectively, 
through expanded partnerships and science-driven implementation, ecologists say*


The Endangered Species Act (ESA), which quietly passed its 42nd birthday last 
week, has shielded hundreds of species in the United States from extinction and 
dramatically achieved full recovery for a celebrated few. Flexibility of 
implementation is one of the ESA's great strengths, allowing for adaptation in 
response to new knowledge and changing social and environmental conditions.

In a report released by the Ecological Society of America today, 18 
conservation researchers and practitioners propose six broad strategies to 
raise the effectiveness of the ESA for endangered species recovery, based on a 
thorough review of the scientific literature on the status and performance of 
the law.

"The ESA is one of our country's strongest environmental laws, but it has only 
partly fulfilled its conservation promise," said Daniel Evans, who led the 
report while serving as a policy fellow at the United States Forest Service. 
"Innovation will be key to implementing the ESA in the coming decades because 
the threats to at-risk species are pervasive and persistent. Many listed 
species are conservation-reliant, requiring ongoing management for the 
foreseeable future, and climate change will continue to shuffle the mix of 
species in ecosystems, increasing both extinction risk and management 
uncertainty." 

The ESA grants the administering agencies, the National Marine Fisheries 
Service (NMFS) and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), discretion to interpret 
the requirements of the law, including the meaning of "endangered." The 
agencies determine the management actions needed for species protection and 
recovery and prioritize conservation efforts. Funding for conservation actions 
under the ESA has not kept pace with the growth of the US economy, increased 
environmental pressures due to development and encroachment of invasive 
species, and the subsequence expansion of the number of species at risk. 

"Throughout the ESA's 42-year history, government funding has been insufficient 
to recover most listed species and funding has been highly skewed among groups 
of species. For example, as we discuss in the paper, from 1998 to 2012 over 80 
percent of all government spending went to only 5 percent of all listed 
species," said Evans.

The number of officially endangered species has grown from the original 78 
species listed by the ESA's forerunner, the Endangered Species Preservation Act 
of 1966, to 1,590 listed as endangered or threatened in January 2016. Only 32 
species have recovered sufficiently to be removed from the list. It is likely 
that some species may remain indefinitely "conservation-reliant" after 
recovering to sustainable numbers.  Reliant species require consistent 
interventions to maintain historic habitat, connect small genetic populations 
isolated by development, or control predators, competing invasive species, or 
parasites. These species are more complicated to graduate from the list than 
success stories such as the bald eagle, which went from 417 nesting pairs in 
1963 to more than 11,000 in 2007.

In "Species recovery in the United States: increasing the effectiveness of the 
Endangered Species Act," the 20th report in the Ecological Society's 
peer-reviewed series Issues in Ecology, Evans and colleagues recommend that the 
administering federal agencies, state natural resource management agencies, 
Native American tribes, and their conservation partners:

*   Establish and consistently apply a system for prioritizing recovery 
funding to maximize strategic outcomes for listed species
*   Strengthen partnerships for species recovery
*   Promote more monitoring and consistently implement and refine 
approaches for adaptive management
*   Refine methods to develop recovery criteria based on the best available 
science
*   Use climate-smart conservation strategies
*   Evaluate and develop ecosystem-based approaches that can increase the 
efficiency of managing for recovery

"By adopting these strategies, conservation managers, policymakers, scientists, 
and the public can use the ESA more effectively and efficiently to save species 
at risk," said Evans.

###

Species recovery in the United States: increasing the effectiveness of the 
Endangered Species Act. Daniel M. Evans, Judy P. Che-Castaldo, Deborah Crouse, 
Frank W. Davis, Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, Curtis H. Flather, R. Kipp Frohlich, 
Dale D. Goble, Ya-Wei Li, Timothy D. Male, Lawrence L. Master, Matthew P. 
Moskwik, Maile C. Neel, Barry R. No

[ECOLOG-L] Ecological approaches to cleaner water in the Chesapeake Bay watershed at ESA's 100th Annual Meeting

[Liza Lester]

ESA Press Release

Read online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/charcoaling-manure-and-greening-neighborhoods-ecological-approaches-to-cleaner-water-in-the-chesapeake-bay-watershed/
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, July 1, 2015 
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org



Charcoaling manure and greening neighborhoods: ecological approaches to cleaner 
water in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
ESA 100thAnnual Meeting, August 9-14, 2015 in Baltimore, Md.
Ecological Science at the Frontier 


When ecologists gather in Baltimore, Md., this August for the 100th Annual 
Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, special attention will fall on 
the local Chesapeake Bay watershed, with field trips and research presentations 
exploring its rich wildlife and social history. At symposia, poster exhibits, 
and site visits, ecologists will have opportunities to discuss the latest 
research and experiences working with stakeholders in the region to improve the 
health of the nation's largest estuary.

Read more about conference session and field trips related to water quality in 
the Chesapeake Bay watershed on our website:
http://www.esa.org/esa/charcoaling-manure-and-greening-neighborhoods-ecological-approaches-to-cleaner-water-in-the-chesapeake-bay-watershed/
 

[ECOLOG-L] ESA responds to Pope Francis' Encyclical, Laudato Si: On care for our common home

[Liza Lester]

Read online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/ecological-society-of-america-responds-to-pope-francis-encyclical-laudato-si-on-care-for-our-common-home/
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, June 29, 2015 
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org



WASHINGTON, DC - The following statement is attributable to the Ecological 
Society of America (ESA), President-elect Monica G. Turner, PhD, President 
David W. Inouye, PhD and Immediate Past-president Jill S. Baron, PhD. ESA 
represents nearly 10,000 professional ecologists in the US.

 The Ecological Society of America commends Pope Francis for his insightful 
encyclical on the environment. Addressed to everyone on this planet, the letter 
issued on 18 June 2015 is an eloquent plea for responsible Earth stewardship. 
The pope is clearly informed by the science underpinning today's environmental 
challenges. The encyclical deals directly with climate change, its potential 
effects on humanity and disproportionate consequences for the poor, and the 
need for intergenerational equity. The document is remarkable for its breadth, 
as it also addresses pollution, overuse of natural resources, landscape change, 
sense of place, and the loss of biodiversity. The pope recognizes that slow 
rates of change can mask the seriousness of environmental problems and the 
urgency to act. Pope Francis also acknowledges the importance of all taxa and 
all levels of biodiversity in sustaining our global commons. 

In addition to drawing attention to global change, we are very pleased to see 
a world leader of his stature advocate strongly for ecological research and 
education. Pope Francis writes, 'Greater investment needs to be made in 
research aimed at understanding more fully the functioning of ecosystems and 
adequately analyzing the different variables associated with any significant 
modification of the environment.' At a time when science is woefully 
politicized, the pope stresses the importance of unfettered research, stating 
that '. it is essential to give researchers their due role, to facilitate their 
interactions, and to ensure broad academic freedom.' Noting that education is 
fundamental to change, the pope - an experienced teacher himself - advocates 
passionately for ecological education at all levels. We firmly agree with these 
sentiments, which align well with the mission of the Ecological Society of 
America.

Today's environmental dilemmas require bold responses, and the pope suggests 
actions to sustain ecosystems at local to global scales. He sees the need for 
comprehensive solutions solidly grounded in understanding of nature and 
society. Because there is no single path to sustainability, he sees generating 
viable future scenarios as necessary to stimulate dialogue toward finding 
solutions. We concur.

Science and religion offer different but complementary ways of engaging the 
world around us.  Ecologists produce fundamental understanding that helps to 
meet the challenges outlined so well by Pope Francis, such as planning a 
sustainable and diversified agriculture, promoting better management of marine 
and forest resources, and providing universal access to drinking water. Support 
for these goals by religion will facilitate their achievement. We thank Pope 
Francis for entering into this discussion. We hope his leadership will lead to 
serious dialogue among - and action by -the world's religious, political and 
scientific leaders on the environmental challenges facing this and future 
generations of humanity.


###

The Ecological Society of America (ESA), founded in 1915, is the world's 
largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological 
knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 
10,000 member Society publishes six journals and a membership bulletin and 
broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and 
education initiatives. The Society's Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees 
and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA 
website at http://www.esa.org.

[ECOLOG-L] ESA awarded NSF funding to retain diversity

[Liza Lester]

Contact: Teresa Mourad; 202-833-8773 ext. 234; ter...@esa.org

Read this news release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/ecological-society-of-america-awarded-national-science-foundation-funding-to-retain-diversity/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/esoa-eso060815.php 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $597,643 grant to the 
Ecological Society of America's Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and 
Sustainability (SEEDS) program, supporting a three-pronged approach to increase 
diversity within the ecological field. The grant spans four years, beginning 
this June.

The new NSF award will support activities that guide students to identify 
ecology as a viable career option, develop a sense of personal connection with 
science, and surmount cultural stereotypes that hinder participation. It will 
also fund development of a mechanism for connecting the marketplace of 
opportunities along a variety of career pathways in ecology.

While most diversity programs seek to recruit and engage underrepresented 
students, this SEEDS project expands our work with the aim of retaining 
underrepresented students in the ecological field, said Teresa Mourad, ESA 
Director of Education and Diversity Programs.

A 2011 National Academy of Science study indicates that underrepresented 
minority populations in the science and engineering workforce needs to triple 
to keep pace with the nation's changing demographics.

The NSF grant supports three new activities building on the existing SEEDS 
program: regional ecological field experiences, partnerships with field 
stations and researchers for undergraduate summer research, and a SEEDS 
Certificate program. Although the program is open to all students, it makes a 
special effort to attract minorities, first-generation college students, 
economically-disadvantaged and veteran students.

Working with over 90 SEEDS campus chapters across the US, regional field 
experiences funded by the NSF grant are designed specifically for freshmen and 
sophomore college students to gain real-world exposure by working hand-in-hand 
with ecologists. For many underrepresented students, this is usually their 
first opportunity to work at a field station or engage in a field investigation.

New ecological field station partnerships will offer more summer research 
opportunities for undergraduate students. They will present their summer 
research at SEEDS Leadership Meetings and the ESA Annual Meeting. Held 
annually, the Leadership Meeting is an opportunity for SEEDS student leaders to 
engage in a dialogue about the connections between science and society. The 
meeting provides a venue for SEEDS participants to develop 21st century skills 
and understanding in communications, policy, community outreach and education, 
rounding out their experience as young scientists.

Set for a Fall, 2015 launch, the SEEDS Certificate will function as the hub to 
provide students with a range of experiences to prepare them for an ecological 
career. An ESA member will mentor each participating student during and after 
their participation in SEEDS to advise them in their career development. This 
is the first time that ESA will implement long-term mentoring in SEEDS.

Just-in-time advising is critical for many students to succeed in ecology, 
said Mourad. All too often, underrepresented students are simply unaware of 
the skills and experiences needed to succeed. For instance, students do not 
commonly know that research experience is required for acceptance into a 
graduate ecology program.

Minority students face an additional hurdle--some of their institutions do not 
have ecology programs or cannot provide ecology research experiences. This 
means they must seek out opportunities. SEEDS is designed to facilitate 
opportunities for them. Students also need to know the range of ecology careers 
that are available in both research and applied practice.

###

SEEDing a diverse peer network: read an interview with SEEDS alumna Betsabé 
Castro, currently completing her MA at the University of Missouri, Columbia. 
She will begin a PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley in the 
fall of 2015 with support from the NSF's prestigious Graduate Research 
Fellowship.
http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-and-society/ecology-education/seeding-a-peer-network-for-all-students-an-interview-with-seeds-alumna-betsabe-castro/

[ECOLOG-L] Position Available: Book Review Editor

[Liza Lester]

The Ecological Society of America invites applications for the position of Book 
Review Editor. 

We seek an individual with a good eye for a book worth reviewing and a 
familiarity with the broad brush of ecology, as well as a keen and 
discriminating awareness of the pool of book reviewers-scientists who are 
willing to pen a good review and to sign a critical one. 

The Book Review Editor is responsible for selecting the books to be reviewed, 
commissioning the reviewers, keeping the reviewers on schedule, editing the 
reviews, checking all the galleys, and working in conjunction with the 
Publications Office to publish an average of 3-4 Book Reviews in each issue of 
Ecology, published monthly. 

If you are interested in applying for this position, please describe your 
interest, vision, background, and skills in a letter to Joshua Schimel, Chair, 
ESA Publications Committee at schi...@lifesci.ucsb.edu and a copy to Katherine 
McCarter, ESA Executive Director at k...@esa.org.

[ECOLOG-L] ESA launches interdisciplinary OA journal with the Ecological Society of China

[Liza Lester]

New international, interdisciplinary, open access journal launched by the 
Ecological Societies of America and China

Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, the first ecological journal published 
cooperatively by scientific societies from two countries, fosters communication 
of applied ecological research across national and disciplinary boundaries. The 
open access journal encourages submissions from scientists in working in parts 
of the world experiencing rapid economic development, who are underrepresented 
in scholarly literature. The first issue launched on March 17th with articles 
on global greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem health indicators, and 
sustainable urban growth in fast-growing 21st century megacities.

Learn more: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-the-news/news-events/esa-launches-new-oa-journal-with-the-ecological-society-of-china/
 

Ecosystem Health and Sustainability current issue: 
http://www.esajournals.org/toc/ehas/1/1 

Journal information: http://esa.org/ehs/




Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Position Available: ESA Book Review Editor

[Liza Lester]

Position Available: Book Review Editor

The Ecological Society of America invites applications for the position of Book 
Review Editor. We seek an individual with a good eye for a book worth reviewing 
and a familiarity with the broad brush of ecology, as well as a keen and 
discriminating awareness of the pool of book reviewers-scientists who are 
willing to pen a good review and to sign a critical one. 

The Book Review Editor is responsible for selecting the books to be reviewed, 
commissioning the reviewers, keeping the reviewers on schedule, editing the 
reviews, checking all the galleys, and working in conjunction with the 
Publications Office to publish an average of 3-4 Book Reviews in each issue of 
Ecology, published monthly. 

If you are interested in applying for this position, please describe your 
interest, vision, background, and skills in a letter to Joshua Schimel, Chair, 
ESA Publications Committee at schi...@lifesci.ucsb.edu and Katherine McCarter, 
Executive Director ESA.

Contact:   schi...@lifesci.ucsb.edu

[ECOLOG-L] ESA News: Sagebrush ecosystem recovery hobbled by loss of soil complexity at development sites

[Liza Lester]

Read a photo-enriched version of this news release online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/sagebrush-ecosystem-recovery-hobbled-by-loss-of-soil-complexity-at-development-sites/
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, 26 January 2015 
Contact: Liza Lester, 202-833-8773 ext. 211, lles...@esa.org

 

In big sagebrush country, re-establishing the ecosystem's namesake shrub may 
jump-start the recovery process more successfully after oil and gas development 
than sowing grass-dominated reclamation seed mixes typically used to quickly 
re-vegetate bare soil on well pads, report two Colorado scientists in the 
January 2015 issue of Ecological Applications, released today. 

Big sagebrush is often conspicuously absent at restoration sites decades after 
disturbance. Historically, grasses have dominated the vegetation recovery 
following development, offering limited diversity and poor quality habitat for 
the 350 wildlife species harbored by what was once the most widespread 
ecosystem in the western United States.

Successful restoration is more than establishing vegetation. To restore 
wildlife habitat so that it is self-renewing, it is critical that soils are 
returned to a healthy status as quickly as possible, said the study's lead 
scientist, Tamera Minnick, Professor of Environmental Science at Colorado Mesa 
University.

The authors sampled two undisturbed reference sites and eight reclaimed or 
abandoned natural gas well pads in Rio Blanco County, Colorado. They found that 
none of the oil and gas well pads included in the study had returned to a 
reference, or pre-drilling, condition, even those that had had 20 to 50 years 
to recover.

When a well pad is built, the topsoil and lower soil layers are removed and 
stored in piles in order to create a level work surface for drilling wells. 
Today's well pads, often consisting of dozens of wells per pad, may require 
removing soil from an area of 3-10 acres. When drilling is completed, current 
reclamation standards require oil and gas companies to replace the soil and 
reestablish plants. However, the stored soils are now thoroughly mixed or 
homogenized and have lost the patchy pattern of soil nutrients that existed 
before the well pad was built. 

Sagebrush modifies its habitat to create patchy soils that make the habitat 
more resilient and even better for supporting sagebrush and all the other 
plants and animals that depend upon this important ecosystem, said Richard 
Alward, Principal Ecologist with Aridlands Natural Resource Consulting, and the 
study's coauthor. 

Other researchers have documented that sagebrush shrubs trap decaying organic 
matter, moisture, and nutrients in the soil beneath their canopies, creating 
islands of fertility in sagebrush habitat, which Minnick and Alward 
confirmed. The patchy pattern of nutrients favors the recovery of sagebrush, 
creating a positive feedback that reinforces the persistence of the ecosystem. 

The researchers found that some reclaimed well pads had total plant cover that 
was similar to the reference sites, a current requirement for reclamation, but 
those plants were primarily grasses or rabbitbrush. These species do not 
produce patches of high and low soil organic matter; instead the soils are much 
more uniform. This uniformity may ultimately make it more difficult to 
reestablish sagebrush - and to restore conditions favorable to diverse wildlife 
species.

 There can be a conflict between short- and long-term restoration goals, for 
example, between immediate erosion control versus restoring wildlife habitat, 
said Minnick. For the long-term stability of these ecosystems, it is critical 
to establish the natural feedbacks between plants and soil. And in this 
ecosystem, that means establishing big sagebrush. Wildlife habitat goals cannot 
be realized by merely establishing grasses.

Semi-arid and arid ecosystems are notoriously difficult to restore after heavy 
disturbance. Researchers from Idaho to Nevada, from Australia to Israel, have 
been identifying techniques that improve the chances of restoration success in 
these dry areas. These techniques work to promote soil patchiness, and positive 
feedbacks between plants and soils, in a process termed autogenic restoration.

The region where this study was conducted is considered semi-arid since it 
typically records less than 11 inches of rain per year. The researchers studied 
10 sites on public lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Rio 
Blanco County, western Colorado, approximately 55 miles north of Grand 
Junction.  This area has seen periodic, and sometimes very intense, oil and gas 
exploration over the last several decades. The soils of eight well pads that 
had been completed at various times since the 1960s were compared to soils at 
two nearby undisturbed sagebrush sites.

Successful restoration of oil and gas disturbances generates many benefits - to 
hunters and conservationists concerned with wildlife habitat, to oil and gas

[ECOLOG-L] Communicating Climate Science Workshop - register by Feb. 13

[Liza Lester]

The Ecological Society of America invites you to a AAAS workshop on 
Communicating Climate Science

When: March 4th, 2015; 1:00 - 5:00 pm EST
Where:   AAAS headquarters, 1200 New York Avenue, Washington DC 20005
Registration deadline:   Friday, 13 February 2015

Read this invitation online: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/public-affairs/communicating-climate-science-workshop/ 


Have you often wanted to share your expert knowledge in the public conversation 
about climate change, but don't know how to get started? 

ESA is recruiting ecologists for a half day workshop created by the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science to help ecologists develop skills 
for talking about climate change in public forums. The workshop, to be held on 
March 4th, 2015 in Washington, DC, will guide group exercises designed to help 
you:

*   Define your interests
*   Identify your audience
*   Explain and discuss science in accessible language
*   Respond to questions
*   Talk about uncertainty 
*   Prepare for media interviews
*   Find public outreach opportunities

The workshop is also a great opportunity to initiate a network of like-minded 
colleagues in your area who can work together on events and share tips and 
experiences. This event is open to ecologists at all career stages, from 
graduate students to emeritus faculty. Faculty receiving this invitation are 
welcome to register their students or forward the invitation to colleagues.

The workshop is free, but space is limited. RSVP by February 13th, 2015, to 
secure your spot.

Register: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KB0-PN6TYKNv-7-T1U-eJjIbNJ60mMQWCkOE955l0h8/viewform?usp=send_form





Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] What are the big ecological ideas and discoveries of the last century?

[Liza Lester]

In December 2015, the Ecological Society of America will celebrate a big 
birthday: 100 years since the first group of botanists and zoologists, 
parasitologists, geologists, physiologists, and marine biologists gathered in 
Columbus, Ohio, to unite their shared interest in the relationships of the 
great diversity of living organisms to each other and their surroundings.

To kick off our centennial year, we are asking ecologists to tell us about the 
ideas and discoveries that have had the biggest influence on the field over the 
last century - and why.

A few folks have taken up the question on their blogs, arguing for concepts, 
tools, or events as diverse as food webs, quantification of natural selection, 
advent of biological field stations, trophic cascades, the modern synthesis, 
systems ecology, succession, the development of statistical standards of 
evidence, and the conservation movement of the mid-twentieth century.

Others are discussing the question on twitter under hashtag #ESA100.

I have a roundup of the current discussion on ESA's blog at 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/what-are-the-big-ecological-innovations-of-the-last-century-esa100/

What's your pick for the biggest milestones in ecology of the last 100 years?



Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America

[ECOLOG-L] looking for photos of Robert MacArthur

[Liza Lester]

I've been contacted by Cosima Amelang, a film and television producer currently 
working on a 2-hr documentary on EO Wilson for PBS. She is looking for 
photographs of Robert MacArthur from the late 60s, when he was working on 
island biogeography with Wilson. He is turning out to be quite elusive!
Does anyone out there have photos of  MacArthur (or maybe you recall seeing one 
in a presentation)?
Thanks all,
Liza

Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotonehttp://www.esa.org/esablog/: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA news: Seaweed engineers build crustacean homes; old forests store new nitrogen

[Liza Lester]

 produce substantial amounts of 
ammonia and nitrogen oxides. Since industrialization, human activities have 
tripled the global rate of fixation of nitrogen from the air. The excess has 
perturbed the nutrient economies of many ecosystems, most visibly by feeding 
algal blooms and oxygen-deprived dead zones in lakes and estuaries. The study 
suggests that we may want to strategically conserve or restore forests, 
preserving organic-rich soils where they intercept the movement of ground water 
towards streams, lakes, or estuaries. 
Forest succession, soil carbon accumulation, and rapid nitrogen storage in 
poorly-remineralized soil organic matter (2014) DB Lewis, M Castellano, and JP 
Kaye. Ecology 95(10): 2687-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-2196.1 [open access]
.   David Bruce Lewis, University of South Florida, Tampa. Corresponding 
author. Email: davidle...@usf.edu, Phone: 813-974-8108. 
.   Michael J. Castellano, Iowa State University, Ames
.   Jason P. Kaye, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Unexpected diets 
In streams around the world, small animals feeding at the bottom of the food 
chain are not eating the selection of decaying leaves, slimy film streambed 
films, and fine particulate detritus that ecologist have presumed they eat.
You are not always what we think you eat: selective assimilation across 
multiple whole-stream isotopic tracer studies. (2014) W. K. Dodds, S. M. 
Collins, S. K. Hamilton, J. L. Tank, S. Johnson, J. R. Webster, K. S. Simon, M. 
R. Whiles, H. M. Rantala, W. H. McDowell, S. D. Peterson, T. Riis, C. L. 
Crenshaw, S. A. Thomas, P. B. Kristensen, B. M. Cheever, A. S. Flecker, N. A. 
Griffiths, T. Crowl, E. J. Rosi-Marshall, R. El-Sabaawi, and E. Martí. Ecology 
95(10):2757-2767. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-2276.1

###


Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA news: river management in the Anthropocenes spotlight in October issue of 2014 issue of ESA Frontiers

[Liza Lester]

 Arthington, Matthew J Colloff, Carol Couch, Neville D 
Crossman, Fiona Dyer, Ian Overton, Carmel A Pollino, Michael J Stewardson, and 
William Young (2014). Environmental flows for natural, hybrid, and novel 
riverine ecosystems in a changing world. Frontiers in Ecology and the 
Environment 12: 466-473. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/130134

Noreen Parks (2014). Rebirth of the Elwha River. Dispatches. Frontiers in 
Ecology and the Environment 12: 428-432. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295-12.8.428

N LeRoy Poff (2014). Rivers of the Anthropocene? Frontiers in Ecology and the 
Environment 12: 427-427.http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295-12.8.427




Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA news: UMD Professor David Inouye named President of the Ecological Society of America

[Liza Lester]

ESA members have elected David Inouye, a plant ecologist and professor emeritus 
of the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, to 
lead the Society as president of the board of directors for the 2014-15 year. 
Inouye stepped into the post this August at the 99th Annual Meeting of the 
Ecological Society.

I'm greatly honored to be leading the ESA as it reaches its 100th anniversary. 
I've been a member for over four decades, since I was a graduate student, and 
have watched and participated as the Society has grown in membership, number 
and prestige of journals published, size of its annual meeting, and all other 
metrics of success, said Inouye.

The Washington, D.C. office provides a valuable service to government and 
other organizations by making the expertise of its membership available for 
advice on ecological issues, and we have an excellent educational program that 
is helping to train a diverse next generation of ecologists. We will also 
expand our international impact this year as we jointly publish a new journal 
with the Ecological Society of China. I look forward to the next century of 
growth and success by the Society, Inouye said.

Inouye's pollinator and wildflower research has encompassed pollination 
biology, flowering phenology, plant demography and plant-animal interactions in 
both the US and abroad since 1971. Over his 44-year tenure at the Rocky 
Mountain Biological Lab near Crested Butte, Colorado, Inouye has discovered 
that the wildflower growing season has increased by 35 days since the 1970s. 
His long-term studies of flowering phenology and plant demography are providing 
insights into the effects of climate change at high altitudes.

He is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and 
Ecosystem Services (IPBES) fast-track assessment of pollinators, pollination 
and food production, sits on the governing boards of the North American 
Pollinator Protection Campaign and the USA-National Phenology Network, is a is 
a member of the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on Public Information 
in the Life Sciences, and serves on numerous scientific publication editorial 
boards.

Inouye has taught courses in ecology and conservation biology at UMD and also 
instructed at the University of Colorado's Mountain Research Station, the Rocky 
Mountain Biological Laboratory, and with the Organization for Tropical Studies.

http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-the-news/news-events/david-inouye-elected-esa-president-for-the-societys-100th-year/
 

[ECOLOG-L] Volunteer 'eyes on the skies' track peregrine falcon recovery in California

[Liza Lester]

Datasets from long-running volunteer survey programs, calibrated with data from 
sporadic intensive monitoring efforts, have allowed ecologists to track the 
recovery of peregrine falcons in California and evaluate the effectiveness of a 
predictive model popular in the management of threatened species.

In recovery from the deadly legacy of DDT, American peregrine falcons (Falco 
peregrines anatum) faced new uncertainty in 1992, when biologists proposed to 
stop rearing young birds in captivity and placing them in wild nests. Tim 
Wootton and Doug Bell return to their 1992 models to see how the American 
peregrine falcons have fared over the last two decades in a new report in the 
September 2014 issue of Ecological Applications.

Read the full story  comment on Ecotone: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/volunteer-eyes-on-the-skies-track-peregrine-falcon-recovery-in-california/

ESA press release archive: http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=12234 



Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] #ESA2014: The Rim Fire, a natural experiment

[Liza Lester]

.

Large fires are a problem facing many of the world's temperate and boreal 
forests. As was the case with the Rim Fire, mega-fires are often driven by a 
combination of drought, heat, wind, fuel from fire suppression, budget cuts, 
and encroaching development, Stephens said.

These big fires are more expensive to contain and to recover from than the more 
frequent but less destructive fires that used to characterize the Sierra's 
mixed conifer forests, and they are dangerous for firefighters. They char 
enormous swaths of land, leaving large areas of up to 30,000 acres with no 
mature trees to seed a new generation.

Most of the trees died in the Rim Fire. Not just the little guys. We're 
looking at multiple patches of high severity fire that are of thousands of 
acres in size, said Safford. Where are the seeds going to come from? The 
landscape will be dominated by brush for a long time.

Prelude to a habitat regime change

Very large, intense fires can take out entire habitat ranges, and, in 
combination with the pressures of land use change and development, leave 
nowhere for animals to retreat and await regrowth (while at the same time 
benefitting species that thrive in snag fields). Forest is slow to return, 
topsoil erodes, and quick-spreading opportunistic exotics capitalize on the 
disturbance.

In concert with warming climate, which is increasing water stress on forest 
species, there is potential for a permanent change in habitat type, from forest 
to brush or to grassland.

After severe fire, mixed conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada are replaced by 
chaparral stands. When chaparral burns, it burns hot, and with the increasing 
frequencies of severe fire that are predicted, we expect to see progressively 
more forest converting to brush and not returning. With continued high fire 
frequencies, brush can convert to grassland as well, said Safford. We're 
seeing that type of thing happening in southern California already, mostly in 
chaparral lands that are turning to fields of exotic grass.

Questions of forest management are really questions about our priorities for 
the function and appearance of our landscapes-juggling priorities to protect 
property and respiratory health, esthetics, habitat, carbon sequestration, and 
water availability.

Given the difficulty of managing fire in proximity to homes and businesses, the 
Forest Service is considering mechanically thinning forests where it can, but 
these initiatives remain small in proportion to the huge fuel reduction 
backlog, and are currently expensive compared to controlled burning. Safford 
thinks it is an effort that all stakeholders should prioritize.

We need to think about our grandkids, said Stephens. When I think about 
climate change, I look at the opportunities to do more to change the structure 
of the forest before big fires hit, and create the conditions so that when it 
does burn, we can have a party. In 50 years, he said, opportunities are going 
to get squashed between the management history of the forests and an 
increasingly warm, dry climate. If we begin the transformation now, we give 
future managers options.

***

FT 18: The 2013 Rim Fire - Forest Management Influencing Fire Ecology
Friday, August 15, 2014: 7:00 AM-7:00 PM
Organizer: Hugh Safford, U.S. Forest Service, Region 5
Co-organizers: Eric Winford , Gus Smith , Jan van Wagtendonk , Kent van 
Wagtendonk, Becky L. Estes and Susan L. Ustin

More fire ecology at the upcoming meeting 
http://esa.org/am/info/press/topics/#fire 

Complete story on ESA's news page: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/the-rim-fire-one-year-later-a-natural-experiment-in-fire-ecology-and-management/
 

And press release archive:
http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=11975 



Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] 2014 Earth Stewardship Initiative Demonstrat ion Project: sustaining and enhancing Earth ’s life-support systems

[Liza Lester]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 
Contact: Alison Mize 703-625-3628;  ali...@esa.org 


*2014 Earth Stewardship Initiative Demonstration Project: sustaining and 
enhancing Earth’s life-support systems*
The American River Parkway at the nexus of ecological science and design

View this news release online: http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=11958



“Cities that Work for People and Ecosystems” is the theme for a full week of 
demonstration projects in the Sacramento’s American River Parkway from August 
10−15 during the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting. The 23-mile 
long Parkway faces multiple competing demands for water, flood control, habitat 
and recreation.  

Blending ecological research and applied ecological understanding with 
landscape management can inform the design and management of the Parkway for 
long-term adaptive management.  A host of ecologists working with local urban 
planners, flood system managers and landscape architects will combine 
scientific experiments with landscape design. Field site installations along 
the American River and displays in the Sacramento Convention Center will 
compliment a robust schedule of special sessions and workshops during the week. 
 

The 119-mile long American River headwaters begin in California’s High Sierra 
Nevada mountain range. The river plays an important role in the area’s history 
as gold was first discovered on along its banks in 1848, which ignited the Gold 
Rush. The almost 500,000 residents that call Sacramento home consider the 
American River Parkway the crown jewel of their city. Recreational 
opportunities abound along its 23-mile stretch of forests, beaches, bike paths 
and hiking trails. 

The demonstration project is part of the Ecological Society of America’s Earth 
Stewardship Initiative, which seeks to provide the scientific basis for 
actively shaping trajectories of social-ecological change to enhance ecosystem 
resilience and human well-being. Human activities affect Earth's life support 
systems so profoundly as to threaten many of the ecological services that are 
essential to society. Society has a window of opportunity in the next few 
decades to redefine our relationship with the planet to reduce risks of 
dangerous global changes. Ecologists are seeking to address this challenge with 
a new science agenda that integrates people with the rest of nature to chart a 
sustainable relationship between society and the biosphere. 

“What better way to illustrate how the science of ecology can be put to use 
than with a demonstration project woven into ESAs annual meeting?” said ESA 
President Jill Baron.  “Many of our ecologists embrace the idea of using their 
knowledge for the public good; the American River Parkway provides a great 
example of ecologists working with practitioners to promote more sustainable 
urban ecosystems.”

###

Ecological Society of America’s 99th Annual Meeting, August 10-15th, 2014, in 
Sacramento, Cal.
Main * Program * Press Information * App

2014 Earth Stewardship Initiative Schedule 

Many sessions, field trips and demonstration projects will delve into the 
benefits of ecological science and its applications that are useful for urban 
design, planning and adaptive management.

Field Trip 10:  Urban Bioblitz Along The American River Corridor
Sunday, August 10, 2014: 8:30 AM-3:00 PM, J Street Entrance, Sacramento 
Convention Center

The American River Parkway within Sacramento is the site for this field trip’s 
urban bioblitz. ESA organizers will be joined by US Fish and Wildlife Service 
wildlife biologists and volunteers from the American River Parkway Foundation 
to help conduct an the bioblitz. Participants will collect and identify the 
biodiversity along the corridor in teams that will focus on plant diversity, 
birds, insects and macro aquatic invertebrates.  A reference collection from 
the bioblitz will be given to the local community.

Organizer: Gillian Bowser  gbow...@colostate.edu
Co-organizers: Harold Balbach and Luben Dimov 


Field Trip 14:  Ecological Planning and Design Along the American River Parkway
Monday, August 11, 2014: 8:00 AM-1:00 PM, J Street Entrance, Sacramento 
Convention Center

This field trip is designed as an exploration of the American River Parkway 
employing ecological principles into the design landscapes to perform ecosystem 
services.

Organizer: Alexander J. Felson   alexander.fel...@yale.edu
Co-organizer: Neal M. Williams   


Special Session 8:  From Studying To Shaping: A Design Charette Bridging Site 
Analysis To Conceptual Design
Monday, August 11, 2014: 10:15 AM-11:30 AM, Camellia, Sheraton Hotel

Using the American River Parkway as a case study, this session provides an 
educational opportunity for ecologists to develop collaborative activities that 
build ecological resilience and sustainability principles into urban planning 
and landscape architecture.

Organizer: Alexander J. Felson   alexander.fel...@yale.edu
Co-organizer: 

[ECOLOG-L] For bees (and flowers), tongue size matters

[Liza Lester]

When it comes to bee tongues, length is proportional to the size of the bee, 
but heritage sets the proportion. Estimating this hard to measure trait helps 
scientists understand bee species' resiliency to change. Ecologists will report 
on this and other pollination research news at the Ecological Society of 
America's 2014 Annual Meeting in Sacramento, Cal., August 10-15.


Read the story: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/for-bees-and-flowers-tongue-size-matters/

More pollinators at ESA's 2014 Annual Meeting:
http://esa.org/am/info/press/topics/#pollinators



Presentation:

Contributed talk 122-4 - The allometry of bee tongue length and its uses in 
ecology
Thursday, August 14, 2014: 2:30 PM
Room 315, Sacramento Convention Center

Speaker:

Ignasi Bartomeus , Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Sevilla, Spain
nacho.bartom...@gmail.com

Session:

Contributed talks 102: Pollination I.
Thursday, August 14, 2014: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM. Room 315.



Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Do you identify with Stilgar? Urgently seeking Dune fans for radio book club

[Liza Lester]

Folks,

I have an NPR producer who would like to discuss the presentation of ecology in 
Herbert's Dune with an ecologist - on background, for now. Someone with some 
research experience in desert ecosystems is preferred. 

If this describes you or an ecologist you know, please contact me! They would 
like to chat this week, if possible.

This is just a background discussion, it won't be recorded, so if it's been a 
while since you read the novel that's okay, as long you are gungho to chat 
about it. (If you hated the book, that could be a good discussion too). And 
you'll probably have a little time to do a quick review :)

Thanks all,
Liza


Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Poo pump: whales as ecosystem engineers

[Liza Lester]

Great whales exert powerful effects on the environment as predators, prey, and 
bodies sinking to a final rest in the deep dark, sometimes boosting the 
productivity of ecosystems in non-obvious ways. The mass disappearance of the 
great whales in the last few centuries, leaving them at a tenth of their 
historical numbers, has likely changed the functioning of ocean itself.

A group of marine ecology heavyweights led by Joe Roman review the science on 
the influence of whale on ocean ecosystems in Whales as marine ecosystem 
engineers, published ahead of print this week in Frontiers in Ecology and the 
Environment.

More: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/poo-pump-whales-as-ecosystem-engineers/




Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC

[ECOLOG-L] ESA2014 Science Cafe deadline FRIDAY 30 May

[Liza Lester]

LAST CALL!
Have a science story you want to tell? Send in your pitch for our public pub 
talk at the Ecological Society's 99th Annual Meeting in Sacramento this summer.


Apply here:http://www.esa.org/esa/?page_id=1

Contest deadline:Friday, 30 May 2014


ESA is partnering with Professor of Chemistry Jared Shaw and the UC Davis 
Science Café series to present an informal public lecture (a Science Café) at 
de Vere's Pub, in nearby Davis, California. To choose a speaker, we are 
reprising our successful 2013 pitch contest.

You must be actively engaged in ecological research and be available to speak 
at the Davis Science Café from 5:00-7:00 pm on the evening of Wednesday, August 
13th (we will supply transport to Davis). You must register for the ESA 2014 
Annual Meeting, You must be of legal drinking age.

Ecologists at all career stages are encouraged to apply.


Questions? 
Email Liza at lles...@esa.org
Tweet at us @esa_org
Call (202) 833-8773 ext. 211

[ECOLOG-L] Sage grouse losing habitat to fire as endangered species decision looms

[Liza Lester]

SAGE GROUSE LOSING HABITAT TO FIRE AS ENDANGERED SPECIES DECISION LOOMS.
Post-wildfire stabilization treatment has not aided habitat restoration for the 
imperiled Great Plains birds.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Contact: Liza Lester (202) 833-8773 x 211; lles...@esa.org


Wildfire is the predominant cause of habitat loss in the Great Basin. Reseeding 
burned land to stabilize soils has not restored sagebrush habitat for the 
endangered greater sage grouse, according to a report in the journal Ecosphere. 
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering protecting the grouse under the 
Endangered Species act, which could affect the management of 250,000 square 
miles of land in the western US.

Read the full news release here: http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=11006

Or on Ecotone: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/sage-grouse-losing-habitat-to-fire-as-endangered-species-decision-looms/




Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] job opening: ESA Director of Public Affairs

[Liza Lester]

Job announcement: DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS


The world's largest professional organization of ecological scientists seeks a 
director of public affairs to manage the policy engagement and media outreach 
initiatives of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). These include building 
professional relationships in the scientific and environmental communities and 
with Congress and the White House, addressing federal policy issues affecting 
STEM research and education and the environment, sharing ecological research 
published in ESA's journals and presented at its annual meetings through press 
releases, social media and outreach events, and fostering ESA member engagement 
in policy and media arenas. The director of public affairs manages two full 
time staff and is part of the Society's senior management team.

The ideal candidate will have at least 5 years' experience working on science 
or environmental policy issues and/or communication, coupled with a strong 
background or interest in ecology.  In addition, comfort with ambiguous 
situations is extremely helpful as is the ability to work with a wide variety 
of people on a diversity of issues. Also desirable: an educational background 
in science, strong communication skills, ability to translate complex science, 
familiarity with social media, ability to juggle multiple projects, and strong 
interpersonal and supervisory skills. 

The Director of Public Affairs works out of the Society's Washington, DC 
Headquarters Office. Salary for this full-time position is commensurate with 
experience. ESA is an EOE and offers excellent employee benefits. 

To apply, send a cover letter which includes current salary and resume to: 
resu...@esa.org by February 10, 2014.  

[ECOLOG-L] editorial INTERN wanted - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

[Liza Lester]

Publishing Internship at Frontiers - Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is looking for an intern, to be based 
at its Washington, DC, office, beginning in early January, to help with the 
production of one of the Society's journals, Frontiers in Ecology and the 
Environment (www.frontiersinecology.org).  
The internship is a great opportunity to learn about the scientific publishing 
process and how journals are produced. Depending on experience and aptitude, 
the intern will be involved in many different aspects of journal production, 
including editing/proofreading, writing, and image research, as well as other 
day-to-day activities of the editorial office. 

The internship includes a small stipend. The successful applicant should have a 
background in ecology, environmental science, or a related discipline; an 
interest in, or experience with, publishing or science writing would be an 
advantage. 

Resume and names of two references, should be sent electronically to Dr Sue 
Silver, Frontiers Editor-in-Chief (suesil...@esa.org). Please specify 
availability (a minimum of 3 months is preferred). 

Closing date for applications is *December 18, 2013.*

The ESA is a non-partisan, nonprofit professional society, founded in 1915, to 
promote ecological science. Applicants unfamiliar with the ESA are encouraged 
to visit www.esa.org.

[ECOLOG-L] Making room for prairie STRIPs in Iowa's cornbelt

[Liza Lester]

Lisa Schulte Moore, a professor of natural resource ecology and management at 
Iowa State University, explains how Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated 
with Prairies (STRIPs) help farms, waterways, and wildlife in the newest 
episode of ESA's podcast, Field Talk.

Listen to the show, read show notes, and find links to iTunes, etc:

http://www.esa.org/fieldtalk/making-room-for-prairie-strips-lisa-schulte-moore-land-sharingsparing-1/



Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America

[ECOLOG-L] Do you have ideas for the ESA 2014 Opening Plenary?

[Liza Lester]

Do you have ideas for next year's 2014 Ecological Society of America Opening 
Plenary?
 
If you've been to an ESA meeting, you probably know that it officially kicks 
off with the Opening Plenary on the Sunday evening of the meeting.  We've had 
some great Opening Plenary speakers over the years including Jane Lubchenco, 
David Suzuki, Don Kennedy, Sandra Postel, Cristian Samper and many others who 
inspired us and set the tone for the meeting. 
 
Last year's speaker, Jon Foley, drew a large and vocal crowd in Minneapolis. 
Foley, a Saint Paul local, is active in the University of Minnesota's public 
outreach through the Institute on the Environment. He spoke about prospects for 
feeding the world in a future of global change, arguing passionately for the 
interdependence of environmental and human health and wellbeing. His 
presentation nicely introduced the meeting theme of Sustainable Pathways: 
Learning from the Past and Shaping the Future -- and ignited some equally 
passionate discussions.
 
Next summer, ESA's 99th Annual Meeting will be held in  Sacramento, CA, with 
the theme of From Mountains to Oceans, it's all Ecology.

Who would you like to see as the 2014 Opening Plenary speaker?  We're 
looking for someone (s/he doesn't need to be an ecologist) who may move, 
inspire, provoke or motivate us and whose insights need to be heard by our 
community.  
 
ESA doesn't pay speaker fees but we've managed to attract impressive folks in 
the past.
 
If you have suggestions, please drop us an email before the end-of-year 
holidays, at p...@esa.org






Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
Washington, DC
(202) 833-8773 ext. 211
lles...@esa.org

Ecotone: news and views on ecological science
http://www.esa.org/esablog/
Tweeting @esa_org

[ECOLOG-L] Special issue of ESA Frontiers assesses the impacts of climate change on people and ecosystems, and strategies for adaptation

[Liza Lester]

Special issue of ESA Frontiers assesses the impacts of climate change on people 
and ecosystems, and strategies for adaptation
For Immediate Release: Monday, 4 November, 2013


The coming century will bring many changes for natural systems and for the 
human societies that depend on them, as changing climate conditions ripple 
outward to changing rainfall patterns, soil nutrient cycles, species ranges, 
seasonal timing, and a multitude of other interconnected factors. Many of these 
changes have already begun. Preparing for a future of unpredictable change will 
require the coordinated action of people across all sectors of society, as well 
as good information from the research community. 

The November 2013 issue of the Ecological Society of America's journal 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment is devoted to an assessment of climate 
change effects on ecosystems, and the consequences for people. 

Read more: 
http://goo.gl/8n0fSw

Special Issue: Impacts of climate change on biodiversity, ecosystems, and 
ecosystem services. 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11(9) November, 2013
http://www.esajournals.org/toc/fron/11/9


The Special Issue tackles five major topics of concern:


Biodiversity
Ecologists have predicted that species will move out of their historic ranges 
as climate changes and their old territories become inhospitable. This is 
already occurring. Past predictions that species would seek out historic 
temperature conditions by moving up latitudes, uphill, or into deeper waters 
have turned out to be too simple, as species movements have proven to be 
idiosyncratic.  Because some species can move and cope with change more easily 
than others, relationships between species are changing, sometimes in ways that 
threaten viability, as interdependent species are separated in time and space.

Ecosystem functionality
Living things have powerful influences on the lands and waters they occupy. As 
existing ecosystems unravel, we are seeing the chemistry and hydrology of the 
physical environment change, with further feedback effects on the ecosystem.  
Ecosystem changes, in turn, feed back to climate.

Ecosystem Services
Impacts on natural systems have direct consequences for crop and seafood 
production, water quality and availability, storm damage, and fire intensity. 
Working with rather than against, ecosystems may help society to adapt to 
changes, like sea-level rise and storm surge, that threaten lives and property.

Combined effects of climate and other pressures
Species will be hard pressed to adapt to rapidly changing physical conditions 
without room to move. Ecosystems are already stressed by habitat loss and 
fragmentation, pollution, and natural resource extraction.

Preparation for change
Adaptation efforts may need to think beyond the preservation of current or 
historic natural communities. Existing relationships between species and the 
landscapes they inhabit will inevitably change. We may need to consider 
managing the changing landscapes to maintain biodiversity and the functional 
attributes of ecosystems, rather than specific species.

[ECOLOG-L] tiger shark partial migration during fall pupping (and shark bike risk) season -- ESA news release

[Liza Lester]

ESA NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, 5 September, 2013


*Female tiger sharks migrate from Northwestern to Main Hawaiian Islands during 
fall pupping season*


A quarter of the mature female tiger sharks plying the waters around the remote 
coral atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands decamp for the populated Main 
Hawaiian Islands in the late summer and fall, swimming as far as 2,500 
kilometers (1,500 miles) according to new research from University of Florida 
and the University of Hawaii. Their report is scheduled for publication in the 
November 2013 issue of Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology. The 
authors’ manuscript is available as a preprint.

“When we think of animal migrations, we tend to think of all individuals in a 
populations getting up and leaving at the same time, but it’s not as simple as 
that,” said first author Yannis Papastamatiou of the University of Florida. 
“Some are resident and some are transient.”


Read the full story:
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/female-tiger-sharks-migrate-from-northwestern-to-main-hawaiian-islands-during-fall-pupping-season/

ESA news release version:
http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=9233

More photos at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa version:
http://www.uhm.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=5947

[ECOLOG-L] Ecology in agricultural landscapes -- ESA2013 Annual Meeting agro-ecology highlights

[Liza Lester]

*Ecology in agricultural landscapes: seeking solutions for food, water, 
wildlife*
A compendium of agro-ecology sessions at the 2013 annual meeting of the 
Ecological Society of America



Agriculture alters the landscape more than any other human activity, with 
trickle-down effects on water, soil, climate, plant and wildlife diversity, 
wildfire, and human health. Crop and rangeland occupies nearly 40 percent of 
earth's ice-free land, and mountains and deserts make much of the remaining 
surface unwelcoming to agriculture. Our increasing population applies constant 
pressure for further conversion of wild lands to agricultural production. With 
yields plateauing in many parts of the world, managers, both private and 
public, are looking for new ideas to get the most out of agricultural lands, 
sustain production into the future, and protect natural resources.
Multiple sessions will address the ecological study of agricultural systems at 
the Ecological Society of America's 98th Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, 
Minnesota, August 4 - 9. 

Presenting scientists will examine routes to improved soil, water, and nutrient 
retention, pollinator support, and pest suppression by natural enemies. They 
will discuss opportunities to increase biodiversity in agricultural areas and 
mitigate runoff.

Read the full press release: http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=8528



__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036

202.833.8773 ext. 211
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
@esa_org
__

[ECOLOG-L] Declining fortunes of Yellowstone's migratory elk -- a Forum

[Liza Lester]

For Immediate Release:  Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Contact: Liza Lester (202) 833-8773 x 211; lles...@esa.org


DECLINING FORTUNES OF YELLOWSTONE'S MIGRATORY ELK
Are human choices redefining the fitness of an ancient survival strategy? 
Ecologists debate new evidence in an ESA Ecology Forum


IN THE late spring, the 4000 elk of the Clarks Fork herd leave crowded winter 
grounds near Cody, Wyoming, following the greening grass into the highlands of 
the Absaroka Mountains, where they spend the summer growing fat on vegetation 
fed by snowmelt. It's a short trip (40-60 kilometers) by migratory standards, 
and by modern standards, uncommonly free of roads, fences, metropolitan areas, 
and other human-built barriers. But it crosses an important human boundary: the 
border into Yellowstone National Park.  

The costs of migrating to the high green pastures have lately outstripped the 
benefits, according to a research report in the June issue of the Ecological 
Society of America's journal Ecology, published last week.

Arthur Middleton and colleagues at the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Game 
and Fish Department, and the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the migratory 
Clarks Fork herd has been returning to winter grounds with fewer and fewer 
calves over the last few decades. Herds that remain in the vicinity of Cody 
year-round have more surviving calves. Middleton et al. attribute the change in 
migration fortunes to climate change and a resurgence within the park of 
predators that hunt newborn elk calves.

In a Forum edited by Marco Festa-Bianchet, of the Université de Sherbrooke, 
Québec, five working groups of ecologists commented on the data, praising 
Middleton and colleagues' work, but, in some cases, challenging their 
interpretation. Middleton and colleagues addressed the commentary in a rebuttal.

To READ the full release with links to the papers: 
http://www.esa.org/esa/?p=8351 

For a longer version with links and more PICTURES:
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/declining-fortunes-of-yellowstones-migratory-elk/


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036

202.833.8773 ext. 211
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
@esa_org
__

[ECOLOG-L] ESA2013 Science Cafe Prize

[Liza Lester]

For the upcoming ESA Annual Meeting, I've arranged a Science Café at a pub in 
Minneapolis. Science Café is a nice opportunity to extend the conference into 
the local community and talk science with people outside our professional 
bubble. We're holding a contest for interested speakers, and I want to 
encourage ecologists at all career stages to think about entering.

The prize: 1 beer (or beverage of your choice) + 40 minutes to talk to locals 
about your work in ecology.

The contest is a very short exercise in framing your work (or a particular 
project) for a general audience - say, strangers you happen to be sitting with 
at the bar. You get 250 words (or fewer!) to pitch your concept, and one 
picture to illustrate it. The picture could be anything: photo, cartoon, graph, 
or composite image. I hope people will come up with creative ideas that I 
haven't thought of. I'll collect all of the images into a gallery to share on 
the night of the Science Café.

Contest deadline: Sunday, 23 June 2013

You can find more information, and the contest entry link, here:
http://www.esa.org/esa/?page_id=7640


Questions? Please email me.
Liza


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036

202.833.8773 ext. 211
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
@esa_orghttps://twitter.com/ESA_org
__

[ECOLOG-L] Chesapeake oysters, big river conservation, biofuels: April highlights from Ecological Society of America journals

[Liza Lester]

This month in ecology: oysters, big rivers, biofuels
April highlights from Ecological Society of America journals

For the full news release, see: 
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/esoa-tmi041613.php


*Ecological dimensions of biofuels: a report on the state of the science. 

Are biofuels a renewable, environmentally friendly energy source? The 
Ecological Society of America reviews bioethanol and biodiesel in conventional 
production as well as feedstocks still in development.
Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels. Cifford S. Duke, Richard Pouyat, Philip 
Robertson, and William J. Parton. Issues in Ecology No. 17, Spring 2013.


*Looking to tributaries for conservation gains: a case study in large river 
fish of the Mississippi Basin. 

On big rivers like the Mississippi, the infrastructure of modern civilization - 
dams, locks, dikes, power plants, cities - has made life easier for people, but 
harder for fish and other denizens of the river.
Enhancing conservation of large-river biodiversity by accounting for 
tributaries (2013) Brenda M Pracheil, Peter B McIntyre, and John D Lyons. 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11(3): 124-128


*Oyster reefs buffer acidic inputs to Chesapeake Bay.

When European settlers arrived on Chesapeake Bay, it was encrusted with a 
treasure trove of oysters and other bivalves. The living oyster reef and its 
stockpile of empty shells was voluminous enough to influence the water 
chemistry of the bay, says marine ecologist George Waldbusser and colleagues.
Ecosystem effects of shell aggregations and cycling in coastal waters: An 
example of Chesapeake Bay oyster reefs. (2013) George G. Waldbusser, Eric N. 
Powell, and Roger Mann. Ecology 94(4): 895-903. 


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036

202.833.8773 ext. 211
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
@esa_org
__

[ECOLOG-L] podcast - Changing climate, changing landscape: monitoring the vast wilderness of interior Alaska

[Liza Lester]

ESA's Field Talk podcast has a new episode out. 

Changing climate, changing landscape: monitoring the vast wilderness of 
interior Alaska
http://www.esa.org/fieldtalk/?p=235

What will climate change mean for the forests of interior Alaska?

Alaska National Park Service ecologist Carl Roland has an ongoing monitoring 
program in place across the Central Alaska Network. He and his colleagues in 
the  Inventory and Monitoring program have just published baseline data from 
the first decade of sampling in Denali on the distribution and abundance of 
southcentral Alaska's six tree species.

If you're interested in what they found, drop by the podcast, and maybe leave 
us a comment or question - or do us a favor and subscribe to the podcast in 
iTunes!

[ECOLOG-L] NSF notice regarding implementation of forced budget cuts

[Liza Lester]

*NSF notice regarding implementation of the impending sequestration order*

Because the sequestration order takes effect at mid-year, its impact is 
somewhat greater than might otherwise be the case. At NSF, the major impact of 
sequestration will be seen in reductions to the number of new research grants 
and cooperative agreements awarded in FY 2013. We anticipate that the total 
number of new research grants will be reduced by approximately 1,000.

In keeping with the first core principle listed above, and to assure continuity 
and minimize disruption of scientific research, all continuing grant increments 
in FY 2013 will be awarded, as scheduled, and there will be no impact on 
existing NSF standard grants. 


Read the full text here:
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=in133


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036

202.833.8773 ext. 211
202.833.8775 Fax
lles...@esa.org

ESA's Ecotone blog: http://www.esa.org/esablog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/esa.org
Twitter: @esa_org
__

[ECOLOG-L] February highlights from ESA pubs: Alaskan forests, plastic greenhouses, combining watershed protection and urban renewal

[Liza Lester]

ESA news release: 
February highlights from Ecological Society of America publications
Future of Alaskan forests, proliferation of plastic greenhouses, and the 
intersection of watershed protection and urban renewal

For Immediate Release:  21 February 2013
Contact: Liza Lester (202) 833-8773 x 211; lles...@esa.org

For the full, hyperlinked press release, please check out
 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/esoa-fhf022113.php


-Weighing the costs and benefits of plastic vegetable greenhouses

The economic benefits of intensive vegetable cultivation inside plastic 
greenhouses, particularly for small-holders, have driven a rapid mushrooming of 
long plastic tents in farmlands worldwide - but particularly in China, where 
they cover 3.3 million hectares and produce approximately US $60 million in 
produce (2008 figures). The method conserves water, binds up carbon, shrinks 
land use, protects against soil erosion and exhaustion, and mitigates 
problematic dust storms. But this change from conventional vegetable farming 
has harmful environmental effects as well.


-Ten-year study sets baseline for climate change modeling and park and 
forestry management in Interior Alaska's Denali National Park

Recent studies have predicted major landscape-scale change for the future of 
the Alaskan interior, with a potential shift from spruce-dominated boreal 
forest to broadleaf forest or grasslands, through a combination of heat, 
drought, insect outbreaks, and more frequent wildfires. The National Park 
Service's Inventory and Monitoring program reports on the first decade of 
ongoing ecosystem monitoring in Denali National Park.


-Integrating urban renewal and watershed restoration

Watershed 263 is a partnership of Baltimore's Parks  People Foundation, the 
Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, the USDA Forest Service, Baltimore's 
municipal Department of Public Works, and neighborhood volunteers - in the 
neighborhood David Simon depicted in The Corner.



-Ecological knowledge reduces religious release of invasive species. 
-Water, climate, and social change in a fragile landscape - Special Feature on 
Sustainability on the U.S./Mexico Border. 
-Where do Seeds go when they go Far? Distance and Directionality of Avian Seed 
Dispersal in Heterogeneous Landscapes. 

[ECOLOG-L] Depression-era drainage ditches emerge as sleeping threat to Cape Cod salt marshes -- ESA news release

[Liza Lester]

_Contemporary recreational fishing combines with old WPA project to hasten 
marsh die-off_


Cape Cod, Massachusetts has a problem. The iconic salt marshes of the famous 
summer retreat are melting away at the edges, dying back from the most popular 
recreational areas. The erosion is a consequence of an unexpected synergy 
between recreational over-fishing and Great Depression-era ditches constructed 
by Works Progress Administration (WPA) in an effort to control mosquitoes. The 
cascade of ecological cause and effect is described by Tyler Coverdale and 
colleagues at Brown University in a paper published online this month in ESA's 
journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.


Read the complete story at EcoTone:
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/depression-era-drainage-ditches-emerge-as-sleeping-threat-to-cape-cod-salt-marshes/

Or on AAAS' press release database, Eureaklert:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/esoa-ddd012413.php


Journal citation:
Latent impacts: the role of historical human activity in coastal habitat loss.
Tyler C Coverdale, Nicholas C Herrmann, Andrew H Altieri, and Mark D Bertness
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 0 0:0 (currently in e-view)
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/120130


For more information, or to subscribe to ESA press releases, please contact 
Liza Lester, lles...@esa.org

[ECOLOG-L] Elk bones tell stories of life, death, and habitat use at Yellowstone National Park

[Liza Lester]

Josh Miller likes to call himself a conservation paleobiologist. The label 
makes sense when he explains how he uses bones as up-to-last-season information 
on contemporary animal populations. 

Bones, he says, provide baseline ecological data on animals complementary to 
aerial counts, adding a historical component to live observation. In his 
November cover article for the Ecological Society of America's journal Ecology, 
he assesses elk habitat use in Yellowstone National Park by their bones and 
antlers, testing his method against several decades of the Park Service's 
meticulous observations.


Read more---

Complete press release: 
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/esoa-ebt120712.php

Longer story on ESA's blog: 
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/elk-bones-tell-stories-of-life-death-and-habitat-use-at-yellowstone-national-park/

Spatial fidelity of skeletal remains: elk wintering and calving grounds 
revealed by bones on the Yellowstone landscape (2012) Joshua H. Miller. Ecology 
93:11, 2474-2482
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/12-0272.1


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036
202.833.8773 ext. 211
202.833.8775 Fax
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
http://www.facebook.com/esa.org
tweeting @esa_org
--

[ECOLOG-L] Conservation scientists look beyond greenbelts to connect wildlife sanctuaries [ESA press release]

[Liza Lester]

For Immediate Release:  October 18th, 2012
Contact: Liza Lester (202) 833-8773 x 211; lles...@esa.org


Conservation scientists look beyond greenbelts to connect wildlife sanctuaries;
Landscape corridors and connectivity in conservation and restoration planning.

We live in a human-dominated world. For many of our fellow creatures, this 
means a fragmented world, as human conduits to friends, family, and resources 
sever corridors that link the natural world. Our expanding web of highways, 
cities, and intensive agriculture traps many animals and plants in islands and 
cul-de-sacs of habitat, held back by barriers of geography or architecture from 
reaching mates, food, and wider resources. 
A team of researchers, managers, and ecological risk assessors review the 
current state-of-the-art in landscape connectivity planning, offering models, 
case studies, and advice for coping with the uncertainty inherent in dynamic, 
real-world conditions in the Ecological Society of America's 16th volume of 
Issues in Ecology. 

This supplement is available as a free download from the Ecological Society of 
America's website.
For images and more information, see:

AAAS' EurekAlert! [full press release]
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/esoa-csl101812.php

ESA's blog [more photos and links]
http://www.esa.org/esablog/research/landscape-connectivity-corridors-and-more-in-issues-in-ecology-16/

The Issues in Ecology main page [to download the report]
http://www.esa.org/science_resources/issues_ecology.php


Special thanks to all the Ecolog-l-ers who supplied photos and useful links for 
this story, including
Adam Ford, Nova Simpson, Tony Clevenger, John Perrine, Jen Watkins, Michael 
Marsh, Kari Gunson, David Kirschtel, Ally Czechowicz, Stephanie Walden, Reuben 
Clements, Timothy Curran, Than Boves, Lyne Morissette, Alec Forest, and Kevin 
Krasnow. I was overwhelmed, and heartened, by your generosity.


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036
202.833.8773 ext. 211
202.833.8775 Fax
lles...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
http://www.facebook.com/esa.org
tweeting @esa_org
--

[ECOLOG-L] looking for photos of wildlife overpasses

[Liza Lester]

Dear ecologers,

I'm looking for photos of wildlife highway crossings to accompany an upcoming 
Issues in Ecology monograph on landscape connectivity. I need a photo that I 
can allow news media to reproduce, so it needs to be your own art -- and art 
you're willing to release into the wilds of the internet. The photographer will 
be credited, but I can only offer fame, not fortune.

If you have a photo you would like to share, please get in touch-
Thanks!

Liza


__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036
202.833.8773 ext. 211
202.833.8775 Fax
lest...@esa.orgmailto:lest...@esa.org

http://www.esa.org/esablog/
http://www.facebook.com/esa.org
tweeting @esa_orghttps://twitter.com/ESA_org
--

[ECOLOG-L] Inaugural cross-disciplinary Public Participation in Scientific Research conference (ESA press release)

[Liza Lester]

Inaugural cross-disciplinary Public Participation in Scientific Research 
conference gathers at the 97th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of 
America Special Citizen Science issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the 
Environment accompanies the event



Though public participation in scientific research has deep roots in the 
history of science, in the last few years it has taken off spectacularly from 
launch pads across the disciplines of science and education, fueled by advances 
in communications technology and a sea change in a scientific culture now eager 
to welcome outsiders as collaborators. 

Citizen science, crowd-sourced science, DIY research, volunteer monitoring, 
community participatory action research - the variety of banners flying over 
participatory science projects reflects the diversity of their origins, from 
astronomy to zoology. This August, the first cross-disciplinary conference on 
Public Participation in Scientific Research will bring the clans together as 
part of the Ecological Society of America's 2012 annual meeting in Portland, 
Oregon.

Citizen science projects give non-specialists the power to apply their 
curiosity about the natural world, and their love of puzzles and games, to real 
scientific questions. Projects have recruited naturalists and novices to 
classify galaxies, refine protein models, align DNA sequences, identify and 
count birds, record weather, and track plant and animal life through the 
changing of the seasons. 

The participatory science field has been growing, but in isolated silos. Even 
within the environmental sciences, the water quality people self-organize 
separately from the biology people, said Abe Miller- Rushing, one of the 
meeting organizers, and a science coordinator for the National Park Service. 
We really wanted to have an open-invite meeting that emphasized innovation, 
and could kick-start conversations.

Miller-Rushing will open the conference with a presentation on the history of 
public participation in scientific research. He has a paper on the same topic, 
with Richard Primack of Boston University and Rick Bonney of the Cornell Lab of 
Ornithology, in the upcoming August 2012 special issue of ESA's journal 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Citizen Science - new pathways to 
public involvement in research, timed to coincide with the conference.

Other invited speakers hail from public health, biochemistry, education, 
geography, and atmospheric sciences, at universities, government agencies, and 
indigenous organizations.  Organizers expect over 150 poster presentations.

Many participatory science initiatives started with a researcher's need for 
additional hands, eyes, and boots on the ground. With the help of dedicated 
hobbyists, enthusiastic school kids and teachers, and curious on-lookers, they 
could multiply data collection and analysis by orders of magnitude, essentially 
creating thousands of lab and field assistants.

Educators and scientific organizations soon saw the potential for 
learning-through-doing, drawing the practice of science back into public life - 
from which it has grown increasingly estranged.

Though projects are diverse in style and application, they overlap in their 
need for large data repositories, attractive user interfaces, sustainable 
funding and management, connectivity with their volunteers, recruitment, and 
quality control.   The conference offers a chance to cross-pollinate, and share 
ideas. 

The conference comes at a time when citizen science is gaining significant 
momentum in advancing scientific knowledge and enhancing science education, 
said Sandra Henderson, director of NEON's Project BudBurst, guest editor for 
Frontiers' Citizen Science special issue, and an advisor for the Public 
Participation in Scientific Research conference. This conference will bring 
diverse stakeholders together to form new communities that will help citizen 
science reach its full potential in addressing the needs of science and 
society.




**The Ecological Society of America's 2012 annual meeting, Aug. 5-10 in 
Portland, Oregon**, is free for reporters with a recognized press card and 
institutional press officers. Registration is also waived for current members 
of the National Association of Science Writers, the Canadian Science Writers 
Association, the International Science Writers Association and the Society of 
Environmental Journalists. In a break from previous policy, meeting 
presentations are not embargoed.
http://www.esa.org/portland/

Press interested in attending the Public Participation in Scientific Research 
conference or other portions of ESA's annual meeting should contact Liza 
Lester, lles...@esa.org, 202-833-8773 x211.


**National Workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research** Saturday 
and Sunday, August 4-5, 2012, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR This 
conference is made possible by the generous support of the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. 
Foundation

[ECOLOG-L] Risks and rewards of quantifying nature's ecosystem services at ESA's 2012 annual meeting in Portland OR, Aug 10 (press release)

[Liza Lester]

Risks and rewards of quantifying nature's ecosystem services

Symposium takes on the ecological science underpinning dollar assessments of 
ecosystem services at the 97th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of 
America in Portland, Oregon

For immediate release: 21 July 2012


How much is a stream worth? Can we put a dollar value on a wetland? Some 
conservation proponents have moved to establish the economic value of 
ecosystem services, the benefits that nature provides to people. The approach 
translates the beauty and utility of a wetland into pounds of phosphorus 
removed from agricultural runoff, Joules of heat pulled out of urban 
wastewater, and inches of floodwater absorbed upstream of riverside communities.

The idea of trading ecosystem services has surged in popularity since the 2005 
United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. But not all ecologists are 
enthusiastic about ecosystem services markets. In a half day symposium at the 
Ecological Society of America's annual meeting this August, experts will 
discuss the science underlying ecosystem services and the benefits and pitfalls 
for conservation.

If you don't put a dollar on it, decision makers are not going to take it 
seriously, says symposium speaker Bobby Cochran, Executive Director of the 
Willamette Partnership. He says framing a natural system as an economic good 
puts it into a context where decision makers recognize its value. Reframing 
conservation in terms of benefits to people helps break down old stalemates 
between conservation advocates and other economic interests.

Natural ecosystems provide us with numerous services, not all of which are 
easily quantified, says symposium organizer Emily Bernhardt of Duke 
University. A challenge inherent in new ecosystem service markets is ensuring 
that commodifying one or more services doesn't lead to unintended consequences 
for non-target ecosystem attributes. Critics would prefer to invest 
comprehensively in the maintenance of ecosystems, with the understanding that 
people extract benefits from these resources that may not be easily captured by 
economic instruments.Bernhardt has recruited a slate of speakers with opposing 
views on the effectiveness of compartmentalizing nature into economic services 
with monetary values. To stir debate, she will push speakers to address 
tendentious questions, including:

* What variables have you measured as proxies for ecosystem services? How well 
do they match? Where are the uncertainties?
* How do you choose which ecosystem services to include in your analyses, and 
which to leave out?
* How does maximizing the profitability or effectiveness of one aspect of an 
ecosystem affect other essential ecosystem properties - particularly those that 
are more difficult to quantify?

Cochran has run into these hard choices on projects for the Willamette 
Partnership, where he has to balance the complexity of ecosystems against 
clarity of implementation. Our biggest enemy in the conservation field is lack 
of trust and credibility, he says. The more complicated a program is to 
implement, the harder it is to breed trust and credibility. 

Trust and credibility also grows from good experiences with programs that 
produce what they promise. Successful development of markets in ecosystem 
services, says Cochran, requires a sound understanding of the ecological 
systems in play, and the research that can provide that understanding. There's 
just so much about ecosystems that we do not know. Ecosystems are changing 
dynamically, and the pace of change is increasing, he says. If we don't have 
good science, none of this stuff works. 


SYMPOSIUM 23 - Commodifying Nature: The Scientific Basis for Ecosystem Services 
Valuation In Environmental Decision Making. Friday, August 10, 2012: 8:00 
AM-11:30 AM, Portland Blrm 252, Oregon Convention Center.

Organizer: Emily S. Bernhardt, Duke University
Moderator/ Co-organizer: Jana E. Compton, US Environmental Protection Agency

Speakers:
* Robert Costanza, Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Portland State 
University, Portland, OR 
* Sarah E. Gergel Centre for Applied Conservation Research, University of 
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
* Jennifer L. Morse, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY 
* Bobby Cochran, Willamette Partnership, Hillsboro, OR 
* Anne Neale, US Environmental Protection Agency
* Morgan Robertson, Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 
* Guy Ziv, Stanford University, Natural Capital Project and Rebecca 
Chaplin-Kramer, Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, Stanford, CA


see the program at: 
http://eco.confex.com/eco/2012/webprogrampreliminary/Session7837.html

[ECOLOG-L] ESA2012 invitation to bloggers

[Liza Lester]

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, OR this August?

We would like to gather your varied commentary on the research, workshops, 
field trips, and symposia presented at #ESA2012. To create a central location 
where folks can browse a collection of annual meeting-related blog posts, we 
are offering ESA's blog EcoTone as a launching pad. 

If you would like to join in, contact us during the annual meeting with your 
published blog post. We will create a new EcoTone post with your post title, an 
excerpt of your story, and a link back to the full post on your own blog. All 
meeting posts will be listed at www.esa.org/blog/tag/esa2012.

For more information, please contact Liza Lester: llester [at] esa [dot] org
Sincerely,


The ESA Public Affairs Team

[ECOLOG-L] Dry rivers, vibrant with culture and life (ESA press release)

[Liza Lester]

Dry rivers, vibrant with culture and life
Ecologists review the human and biological communities of wadis, arroyos, 
gulches, washes, and other intermittent flows.



WASHINGTON-'When the River Runs Dry' is a familiar song in Australia. Some 
rivers in the arid center of the continent flow only after a stiff monsoon 
season, and smaller tributaries all over the country commonly shrink to puddled 
potholes and dry river beds during the dry season. But rivers also run dry in 
more temperate climes. Much of the upper reaches and feeder streams of the 
great rivers of North America, and even the mighty Amazon, dry out seasonally. 

Dry rivers are more than mere desiccated shells of their robustly flowing 
incarnations, says Australian ecologist Alisha Steward and colleagues. In the 
May issue of ESA's journal iFrontiers in Ecology and the Environment/i, 
they contend that dry river ecology is under-researched and under-appreciated.

I was drawn to dry stream ecology from working on river health monitoring and 
assessment programs, said Steward, a PhD student at Griffith University in 
Brisbane, Queensland. Many potential river monitoring sites turned out to be 
dry and couldn't be sampled. It was very annoying! It started to get me 
thinking that 'dry' wasn't necessarily bad or unnatural - some rivers were 
naturally dry at particular times of the year.

Dry river beds have qualities and inhabitants distinct from their adjacent 
riversides, as well as from their wet-phase communities, says Steward. They are 
places of isolation and re-connection: when rivers flow, aquatic animals, 
plants and microorganisms, organic material, and nutrients flow as well.

Temporary rivers are conduits for biota even when dry, sometimes guiding 
animals through human-dominated landscapes that lack other continuous habitat. 
They demand great resilience of their permanent inhabitants, which must be able 
to survive the swings from immersion to dry land to wet again. Plants, algae, 
insects, fungi, and even fish have adapted to ride out the dry spells, 
sometimes seeming to resurrect themselves miraculously from the dust. In the 
more ephemeral rivers of arid regions, the demands are extreme, the flows 
erratic, and often separated by years.

But in arid country, dry river beds are oases for animals and people alike. 
They are sources of water and greenery. Worldwide, human societies use the rich 
and episodically dry land for vegetable patches, orchards, and pastureland, 
walking and vehicle paths, hunting and hiking, and herding animals to market. 
We mine the beds for sand and gravel to build homes and businesses. We park our 
cars in the beds, and hold races and festivals on the flat river bottoms.

Land use changes, climate changes, and diversions to water projects are 
transforming historically perennial rivers into capricious or seasonal flows. 
Impoundment behind weirs and dams can completely dry a river course, or, 
conversely, turn an erratic flow continuous or cyclical through controlled 
releases. Steward thinks these are good reasons to learn more about the ecology 
of intermittent river systems.

Aquatic scientists seem to ignore dry river beds because they don't contain 
water, and terrestrial scientists seem to ignore them because they are 
considered to be part of a river! said Steward. But they are not typically 
recognized as rivers by government programs, she said, complicating 
monitoring programs. 



Title:

When the river runs dry: human and ecological values of dry riverbeds (2012) 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10: 202-209. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/110136.

Journalists and public information officers can obtain this article and related 
images, and gain access to all ESA publications, by contacting the public 
affairs office. Email Liza Lester, lles...@esa.org.



Authors:

Alisha L Steward and Jonathan C Marshall
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management, Ecosciences 
Precinct, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia;

Alisha L Steward  and Stuart E Bunn
Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, 
Australia;

Daniel von Schiller
Catalan Institute for Water Research, Scientific and Technological Park of the 
University of Girona, Girona, Spain;

Klement Tockner
Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, and Institute of 
Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

###
The Ecological Society of America is the world's largest community of 
professional ecologists and the trusted source of ecological knowledge.  ESA is 
committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth.  The 10,000 member 
Society publishes five journals, convenes an annual scientific conference, and 
broadly shares ecological information through policy and media outreach and 
education initiatives. Visit the ESA website at http://www.esa.org or find 
experts in ecological science at http://www.esa.org/pao/rrt/.

[ECOLOG-L] Publishing Internship at Frontiers - Ecological Society of America

[Liza Lester]

Publishing Internship at Frontiers - Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is looking for an intern, to be based 
at its Washington, DC, office, to help with the production of its journals, 
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (www.frontiersinecology.org).
  
The internship is a great opportunity to learn about scientific publishing. 
Depending on experience and aptitude, the intern will be involved in many 
different aspects of journal production, including editing/proofreading, news 
writing, podcasting, and image research, as well as other day-to-day activities 
of the editorial office. 

The internship includes a small stipend. The successful applicant should be a 
graduate student with a knowledge of ecology and/or environmental science; an 
interest in, or experience with, publishing or science writing would be an 
advantage. Resume and cover letter, together with letters from two referees, 
should be sent electronically to Dr Sue Silver, Frontiers Editor-in-Chief 
(suesil...@esa.org). Please specify availability between mid-May and end of 
August. 

Closing date for applications is May 21, 2011.

The ESA is a non-partisan, nonprofit professional society, founded in 1915, to 
promote ecological science. Applicants unfamiliar with the ESA are encouraged 
to visit www.esa.org and www.frontiersinecology.org

[ECOLOG-L] ESA press release: Mud manifests history of clear water in murky Minnesota duck depot Lake Christina

[Liza Lester]

Mud manifests history of clear water in murky Minnesota duck depot Lake 
Christina:
Implications for ducks, fish, and landscape management

During peak migration days in the early 1900s, tens of thousands of canvasback 
ducks could be seen floating and diving on Minnesota's Lake Christina. Since 
midcentury, changes to the lake have diminished this grand, iconic spectacle. 
Restoring it will require both top-down control of life in the lake, and 
bottom-up management of the surrounding landscape. So says a team of Minnesota 
scientists calling on extensive modern records and 200 years of history trapped 
in sediment, in a report released online last week in the journal Ecological 
Applications.

Lake Christina is very important for the region culturally, and ecologically, 
said Will Hobbs, a scientist at the Science Museum of Minnesota and lead author 
of the report. The lake is a significant stop-over for waterfowl migrating 
along the Mississippi Flyway, but it has been compromised since the 1950s.

Lake Christina has an unusually long history of management, offering a unique 
opportunity to study the effects of biological manipulations and management.

In the 1950s, the lake's clear water darkened to a green algal soup.  By 
calibrating sediment cores to 25 years of modern records, the research team 
learned that Lake Christina had had clear waters for 100 years prior to 
European settlement in the late nineteenth century - the clear water was a 
stable state, and not an historical aberration. But now the lake is in a 
stable, murky state.

Managers have been struggling to regain clear waters in the lake for migrating 
waterfowl, particularly the big, rusty-headed canvasbacks. The ducks need a 
healthy meal of submerged aquatic plants to fuel their journey, but the dense 
algae blocks out so much sunlight that underwater plants like sago pondweed and 
wild celery can't grow.

A similar loss of submerged aquatic plants has developed at the canvasbacks' 
major historic wintering grounds on Chesapeake Bay.

Life is not easy for a duck. You need those areas where you can stop and rest 
- large open expanses of shallow water with readily available food, said 
author Mark Hanson, a research scientist with the Minnesota Department of 
Natural Resources.

Two factors led to the clouding of the waters: an influx of nutrients from 
agriculture fed the algae, and a dam built in 1936 led to a fall in the 
population of tiny, algae-eating zooplankton. The dam doubled the depth of the 
lake, from two feet to four, allowing fish that eat zooplankton to survive the 
winter, and thrive.

To make the lake attractive for ducks, managers killed most of the fish in 
1965, 1987, and 2003, each time achieving only temporary success. Within a 
decade, the fish recovered, and the algae followed.

Restoration of wetlands surrounding the lake has not, as yet, met hopes for 
lowered nutrient levels.

It's very difficult to get the nutrients out of the lake, said author Kyle 
Zimmer, an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas who has studied 
the fish at Lake Christina for several years. We know from the literature that 
these things can take time, and maybe top-down, active management allows that 
time, or at least simulates the outcome we want, even if a self-maintained 
stable state is not achieved.

Managers walk a fine line, balancing short and long term needs, and balancing 
the interests of ducks and duck hunters at Lake Christina with those of 
recreational anglers. This fall, top-down management will include a series of 
pumps and pipes installed to draw-down the water level, mimicking the natural 
winter fish kill.

The study presents compelling evidence that, in the long run, managers need to 
focus on strategies that target landscapes, not just  the food webs in the 
lakes themselves - bearing in mind that the short term is also important, said 
Hanson. The people that live here today are very much in this culture of ducks 
and migratory water birds, and the incredible history around them. When we get 
all sectors working on lake ecology together, that's a very productive basis 
for the future.
###


Students at North Dakota State University, in collaboration with the Minnesota 
Department of Natural Resources, contributed significant contemporary data to 
this project from long term monitoring efforts at Lake Christina.

A 200-year perspective on alternative stable state theory and lake management 
from a biomanipulated shallow lake was published online, ahead of print, on 19 
March 2012. It is slated for the July edition of Ecological Applications. doi: 
10.1890/11-1485.1. To obtain a pdf, or associated images, contact Liza Lester.
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/11-1485.1



__
__
Liza Lester
Communications Officer
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036
202.833.8773 ext. 211
202.833.8775 Fax
--

[ECOLOG-L] Conference to develop ecologically-based conservation strategies for a future of global change, Feb 27th - Mar 1st, 2012

[Liza Lester]

ESA media advisory


For immediate release:  February 15th, 2012 
 
Contact: Liza Lester (206) 553-9964; lles...@esa.org 
or Nadine Lymn (703) 220-2508; nad...@esa.org



Conference to develop ecologically-based conservation strategies for a future 
of global change, Feb 27th - Mar 1st, 2012


Ecosystems are shifting under pressure from human activities, invasive species, 
and a changing climate, presenting us with hard philosophical and practical 
choices on conservation strategy. Should we preserve parkland as time capsules 
of past and current wilderness, or embrace changing species ranges and 
demographics to encourage new diversity as new ecosystems form? Eighty 
scientists, policy makers and resource managers will meet this month to 
challenge assumptions and explore potential solutions at the Ecological Society 
of America's second conference on Emerging Issues, Developing 
Ecologically-Based Conservation Targets under Global Change. 

How do we protect species when their ranges are changing? Ecological research 
predicts that climatic change will reshape the competitive landscape for 
wildlife and drive species to seek out new territory, shaking up existing 
community structures and relationships.

Climate change throws a wrench into traditional conservation planning efforts. 
We really need to step back and ask what we should be trying to conserve. What 
should our goals be? How do we achieve them? asked conference organizer Dov 
Sax, professor of biology at Brown University. It's a question he wants to put 
before the conservation community, and society at large.

Conservation has operated under a fortress mentality, says Sax. We wall off 
wilderness areas from human habitation. Buffer them from construction, 
agriculture and urbanization. Eject invading species if we can, creating havens 
for native species in their natural groupings, often based on historical 
descriptions of the landscape. But natural, pristine, and historical, are 
all, to some extent, value judgments.

In the Americas, 1492 is the benchmark that a lot of people are using, as if 
transformative changes weren't happening before Columbus sailed, said 
co-organizer Bernd Blossey, professor of natural resources at Cornell 
University. The people who lived here prior to the flood of Old World 
immigrants and the explosion of modern technology also wrought powerful 
systematic change on their surroundings.
 
Geological, climatic, and ecological change has marched visibly onward within 
the last thousand years.  Species have moved, forests have become savannas, and 
savannas have become prairies in a history of dynamic change that the fortress 
mentality does not encompass. Current conservation ideals are unprepared for 
the changes ahead, according to Sax and Blossey.

What do you replace the fortress mentality with? Is it a way-station 
mentality? Part of this is a science question and part is a values question, 
said Sax.

Blossey and Sax want to build a new conservation paradigm, shucking stasis for 
an assumption of dynamism. They are bringing together players from different 
corners of the conservation community to imagine what a new paradigm might look 
like, with the hope that a dynamic conference will catalyze new ways of 
thinking about conservation and future management. They are aware that the 
community has real fears about unforeseen consequences of radical change and 
unmoored stewardship standards. But they aren't counseling a hands-off approach.

I'm not advocating letting species blink in and out without our intercession, 
said Blossey. But he thinks species should be free, or assisted, to move to and 
multiply where they can thrive-even some species that might now be labeled 
invasive. The question we want to answer is how can we achieve keeping all the 
parts, as Aldo Leopold said, while not keeping all the parts in the places 
where they are now? 


Developing Ecologically-Based Conservation Targets under Global Change 
http://www.esa.org/emergingissues/conference.php
*   Seminars:   Monday/ Tuesday, 27 - 28 Feb 2012
*   Breakouts:  Wednesday/ Thursday, 29 Feb - 1 Mar 2012
*   Location:   National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, 
WV
*   Keynote:Dan Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, 27 Feb, 7:30 pm 
*   Organizers: Bernd Blossey, Cornell University and Dov Sax, Brown 
University


###