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Commentary — Page 2

Coronavirus

Ecology and COVID-19 #1: To go or not to go (in the field)?

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…

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The Ecology of Bourbon Country

By Bruce A. Byers Just north of what is now Frankfort, Kentucky, the capital of the state, the Kentucky River, flowing north at that point, makes a right-angle bend to the west. Sandbars developed at that turn, creating a shallow ford where bison crossed the river on annual migrations from east to west and back. Daniel Boone passed here, following…

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ESA Executive Director visits British Ecological Society Meeting

Blog post by ESA Executive Director Catherine O’Riordan This week I traveled to Northern Ireland for the first time to represent ESA at the British Ecological Society meeting in Belfast. Traveling to Belfast directly from the U.S. is difficult, as most flights go through London, so I flew to Dublin and took a two-hour bus ride across the border. Fortunately…

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Alumni share their experience with the Future Park Leaders internship program

The call for internship applications is open! Apply here What does it mean to become a Future Park Leaders intern? To get a better idea of the internships, we reached out to some past alumni to share their personal experiences, memories, and lasting benefits of the program. The Future Park Leaders of Emerging Change internship program pays upper level undergraduate…

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ESA’s Strategic Plan

By ESA President Osvaldo Sala, The landscape of science is changing, and the Society strives to be flexible and evolve to serve its members. Over the past year, I was charged as President-Elect to lead the Governing Board members and staff to thoughtfully craft the ESA’s Strategic Plan for 2019-2021 to meet the needs of ecologists. In-person and Zoom meetings…

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Federal Government Shutdown Stories

** ESA is collecting updates and publishing them on this blogpost about how the federal government shutdown is affecting the ecological and biological sciences. We request that you send us short posts and we will also request a photo if one is available.  ESA can publish your contribution anonymously or give you attribution. Please consider whether using your personal or…

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Former ESA President: “As the climate worsens, wealth inequality will, too.”

  Former ESA President David M. Lodge published an opinion piece in the Washington Post, arguing that climate change and resulting natural disasters like Hurricanes Florence and Michael, will exacerbate economic inequality. For some, a hurricane could mean homelessness and unemployment — tough obstacles to overcome without an adequate safety net and flood insurance coverage. Lodge urges Congress to reform…

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Classification, Communication & Conservation: The Novel EcoVeg Approach to Classifying Ecosystems

By Eliza Oldach — Science Outreach Intern, Spring 2018 The 19th  century was a time of accelerated ecological discovery. The New World, already plundered for trade and colonization, was opening to Europeans for scientific discovery. Now-famous figures—Humboldt, Darwin, Wallace, Schimper—struck out across oceans, armed with microscopes and collecting bags.  They returned home with trunks crammed full of samples and specimens,…

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Humans are components of ecosystems: a response to “100 articles every ecologist should read”

In November 2017, the publication in Nature Ecology & Evolution of “100 articles every ecologist should read,” by Franck Courchamp and Corey JA Bradshaw, stirred the ecological community. Timon McPhearson, an associate professor of Urban Ecology at The New School in New York City and Research Fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Stockholm Resilience Centre, Dagmar Haase a Professor of…

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Collaborating with the incarcerated in ecological restoration, education, and sustainability

By Nalini Nadkarni, professor at the University of Utah and ESA’s vice president for Education and Human Resources; Tom Kaye, executive director and senior ecologist at the Institute of Applied Ecology; Chad Naugle, sustainability program manager at the Oregon Department of Corrections; Debbie Rutt, adjunct faculty member at Portland State University and volunteer at the Coffee Creek Corrections Facility, Kelli…

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Top, L-R: Shane Hanlon (credit: S. Hanlon), Priya Shukla (credit: Gabriel Ng), Diogo Verissimo (courtesy of D. Verissimo) , Skylar Bayer (credit: Jesse Stuart); Bottom, L-R: Virginia Schutte (credit: V. Schutte), Annaliese Hettinger (credit: OMSI staff), Rebecca Johnson (credit: Alison Young)

ESA SciComm Section puts the human element front-and-center in #MySciComm blog series and #ESA2017 workshops and special events

By Kika Tuff, Annaliese Hettinger, and Bethann Garramon Merkle, current officers of ESA’s SciComm Section. Learn more about them and their roles here. Read more about our section here. Science Communication is an emerging career path with diverse entry points and skillsets. Have you ever read about a science writer, filmmaker, or blogger and wondered, how in the world did they…

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