Socioecology

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…

Can you describe your research with a sketch? What would you draw? Johanna Varner, Erin Gleeson, and Nancy Huntly are passionate about mountain research — and about promoting science communication. They’ve Storified what happened when they roamed the halls at the 2014 Annual Meeting in Sacramento, asking ecologists to #SketchYourScience. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions…

On Monday, ESA’s Natural History Section asked you to tweet your naturalist identity with pride during their #IAmANaturalist campaign, and you obliged, coming through with humor, awe, and humility—sometimes fishy, sometimes muddy, and always with great style. Tweeters shared their love of natural history and testified to how it roots their life and their research, outreach, and education endeavors. We’ve…

Are you a naturalist? Join the grassroots effort to reclaim the name. ESA’s Natural History section is calling on you to assert your naturalist identity with pride by tweeting a photo to #IAmANaturalist on Monday, September 8, 2014. Guest poster Kirsten Rowell explains why. [update: see some of the fantastic #IamaNaturalist photos and tweets in our September 10 collection or scroll…

Lesley Knoll and Peter Levi want to know how their fellow ecological scientists share knowledge about science outside peer groups. So Knoll, a director of research and education at Lacawac Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, and Levi, a postdoc at UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology, have created a survey. In this guest post, they explain the genesis of the project and how you…

The history of science is filled with famous, pivotal individuals, who were in fact surrounded by brilliant, inquisitive colleagues working on the same goals, ideas, collections, and experiments. The puppets tell the tale.

“Being a native of Wisconsin – land of beer, brats, and polkas – I’ve always dreamed of delivering a science presentation with a drink in my hand.” — Lisa Schulte Moore writes about her new adventures in public outreach at the Science Cafe, and as a fellow in the Leopold Leadership program.

By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs After 21 years working for the Ecological Society of America, first as communications officer and then as director of public affairs, I feel like I’ve kind of “grown up” with ESA.  During my time here, I got to see ESA go from a mostly volunteer-run organization to one with a professional staff…

September’s Special Issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment brings together the perspectives of anthropologists, architects, city planners, ecologists, engineers, ranchers, members of religious communities and others on ways to foster Earth Stewardship—defined here as taking action to sustain life in a rapidly changing world.

This guest post is by Holly Menninger, Director of Public Science for Your Wild Life at NC State University. Engage. Communicate. Reach out. Engage. Communicate. Reach out. These words echoed throughout the hallways of the Minneapolis Convention Center last week like a mantra. From organized symposia to high-energy Ignite sessions, ecologists both urged for and heard a rallying call to…

By Peter Janetos, ESA public affairs intern On September 11th 2001 the two iconic towers overseeing the New York City skyline, were reduced to a heaping pile of rubble and destruction. Twelve years later, a new World Trade Center (WTC) complex is emerging that aims to achieve the “gold” certification in its building design.  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental…

  By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs Since the earliest days of the Ecological Society of America’s existence (it’s 98 years old) ecologists have sought to share scientific information.  In the 1950s, the Society created a public affairs committee and its members actively engaged with federal policy makers on some of the key environmental legislation of the 1960s…