Ecology and COVID-19

This blogpost originally appeared on the website for Bruce Byers Consulting. by Bruce Byers The novel coronavirus is holding up a mirror for our species, giving us an opportunity to consider our place in the evolution of life on Earth and question our anthropocentrism. What I’ve missed during this pandemic and shutdown of our usual social and economic life is…

by Benjamin S. Halpern1,2, Julien Brun1, Amber Budden1, Marty Downs1, Carrie V. Kappel1, and Julia S. Stewart Lowndes1 1National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 2Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA When the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) started shutting down its research labs on March…

by National Ecological Observatory Network When humans can’t get to the field for ecological research, could the robots take over? When humans can’t get to the field for ecological research, could the robots take over? COVID-19 has limited the ability of ecologists to get to the field to collect samples and check instruments in many parts of the world. While…

by Jorge V. Crisci (Universidad Nacional de la La Plata, Argentina) and Tod F. Stuessy (Ohio State University, USA) The great German physicist Werner Heisenberg remarked that nature does not reveal itself directly but only through questions we ask about it. This is true for questions we have with the tragic pandemic of COVID-19. In the last 17 years, coronaviruses,…

By Martha Downs, Frank Davis, Jenn Caselle, Julien Brun, and Kristen Weiss Like marine fog that blankets one community while leaving a nearby neighborhood in sunshine, COVID 19 crept up on us at an uneven pace. In California, awareness and action to halt its spread came quickly, with in-person instruction at UC Santa Barbara, where the LTER Network Office is…