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Forging ahead: the #ESA100 (2014-15) annual report

The 2014-2015 (August to August) Annual Report is online. The 100th year of the society featured lively conversations on the past, present, and future of ecology. We marked the centennial with special additions to the annual meeting program, reflections on notable papers of the last century, a contest imagining the ecological work of the future, and Centennial research articles, among many other projects. The year…

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The Dutch Sand Engine experiment in dynamic coastline management is an artificial sand beach designed to erode. Sand pulled away from the 126-ha peninsula by wave, wind, and currents spreads along the Delfland Coast of The Netherlands, naturally nourishing a shoreline that has suffered rapid erosion. The project, a collaboration of government, private industry, and academic researchers, was completed in 2011 and is expected to maintain the shoreline for the next 20 years. The peninsula is also popular with wind and kite surfers. Guest editor Kristina reviews innovations in coastal infrastructure designed to work with storm surge, sea level rise, and other natural processes in “Coastal infrastructure: a typology for the next century of adaptation to sea-level rise,” on page 468 of the November Special Centennial Issue of ESA Frontiers.

Building with Nature: the Dutch Sand Engine

“Cities are emergent systems, with only 5 to 7 thousand years of history, mostly during the relative climatic stability of the Holocene,” said guest editor Kristina Hill, an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. “We’ve never tried to operate a city during a rapid climate change, especially not on the scale of population we now have, with our largest cities housing upwards of 20 million people.”

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Ecological word associations, animated

Created by Ray Dybzinski (Loyola University Chicago, Institute of Environmental Sustainability) and Gord McNickle (Purdue University, Botany and Plant Pathology, @EvoEcoGames) and originally published on 8 January 2016. Which ecological concepts have most occupied ecologists over the last fifty years? The video animates the frequency of words appearing in Ecology abstracts from 1964 (when the journal began publishing abstracts with…

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Schuler (lower left), Rick Relyea (upper middle), and Bill Hintz (lower right) survey Lake George for invasive banded and Chinese mystery snails. Credit, Brian Mattes.

Wiring food webs at Lake George

A collaborative project at Lake George, NY, merges sensory, experimental, and natural history data to develop a better model for environmental monitoring and prediction in lake ecosystems around the world. Guest post by Matt Schuler, a 2013 ESA Graduate Student Policy Award winner currently working as postdoctoral researcher in Rick Relyea’s lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. The clear waters of…

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Landscape ecologist Monica Turner travels in her team’s boat, PICO1, across Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park in July 2012 to access long-term study plots in areas that burned during the 1988 Yellowstone Fires. Named for Pinus contorta, the lodgepole pines that dominate Yellowstone’s forests, PICO1 gets Turner and her group to remote study areas that are more easily reached from the lakeshore. The July trip was part of a major resampling of long-term plots 25 years after the 1988 fires. Turner took over the presidency of the Ecological Society of America in August, 2015, and will serve one year. Credit, Monica Turner.

Landscape ecologist Monica Turner steps up as ESA’s 2015-16 President

Monica Turner, the Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology and a Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison became President of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) on August 14, 2015. She will serve for one year. “It is a tremendous honor to serve as President of the Ecological Society of America, and even moreso to…

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ESA presidents comment on NEON de-scoping

A guest commentary from 16 current and past presidents of ESA addressing a recent move by the National Science Foundation to shrink the mission scope of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). Dear Colleague, During the recent ESA Centennial Meeting in mid-August, ESA Past-presidents gathered in Baltimore to discuss NEON’s (National Ecological Observatory Network) future. Here are some thoughts we’d like to share…

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Ecology in a Changing World: the #ESA100 centennial video

Who is the face of ecology in the new millenium? Where do ecologists work and what research questions engage the community? How will ecology bring science to bear on the environmental problems of our age? Ecological scientists at the peak of their careers and those just starting out comment on the state of the discipline as the society enters its second century.

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Ecology from treetop to bedrock: human influence in earth’s critical zone #ESA100

An organized session on Critical Zone Ecology at ESA’s 100th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Md. Tuesday, August 11, 2015: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, rm 328 Conference website Program Native Apps More press releases for the 100th Annual Meeting   On the high slopes of the Eel River watershed on California’s North Coast Range, large conifers sink their roots deep through the soil…

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Backyards prove surprising havens for native birds #ESA100

Tucked away from judging eyes, backyards are unexpected treasure troves of resources for urban birds. ESA Centennial Annual Meeting, August 9-14, 2015 in Baltimore, Md. Ecological Science at the Frontier Program Press Releases Media Registration Many of us lavish attention on our front yards, spending precious weekend hours planting, mowing, and manicuring the plants around our homes to look nice…

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Cover picture: Although climate change poses the largest anthropogenic threat to the Arctic and Antarctic, other impacts — including pollution, fisheries overharvesting, and invasive species — must not be overlooked. Applying lessons learned from ecosystem management at both poles may help to mitigate regional environmental risks and conserve species, such as the Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae).

Hardening shorelines, polar lessons, and legal divides in the Aug 2015 ESA Frontiers

Highlights from the August 2015 issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment   Armored in concrete, hardened shorelines lose the soft protections of coastal wetlands As we expand our coastal cities and armor the coast against the ravages of the sea, we lose the resiliency of the coastlines’ natural defenses. Rachel Gittman and colleagues at the University of North Carolina,…

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