Public Affairs Staff

Public Affairs staff manages the Society’s public policy and media initiatives. Working closely with its elected leadership, we facilitate opportunities for members to engage beyond the scientific community through media contacts, press releases, social media, briefings, and one-on-one meetings with policymakers. We provide media and policy training to our members, in addition to bimonthly updates on national policy developments relevant to this ecological community.


Alison Mize Director of Public Affairs gro.asenull@nosila 202.833.8773, ext. 205	Heidi Swanson Public Information Manager gro.asenull@idieh 202.833.8773 ext. 211	Nicole Zimmerman Public Affairs Manager gro.asenull@elocin 202.833.8773 ext. 224

Public Affairs Committee

Laura Petes, NOAA (2020-2023)

Karen Lips, University of Maryland (2020-2023)

Tim Male, Chair, Environmental Policy Innovation Center (2020-2023)

Ann Bartuska, Resources for the Future (2019-2022)

Astrid Caldas, Union of Concerned Scientists (2020-2023)

James Rattling Leaf, Sr., Rattling Leaf Consulting, LLC 2020-2023)

Ayos Deas, Student Representative (2021-2024)

News

Canned salmon dating back to 1970s shows that marine mammals face increasing risks of intestinal parasitism

(August 3, 2022) – Cans of salmon processed between 1979 and 2019 reveal that whales and dolphins have become increasingly likely to consume prey containing parasitic worms that can cause acute gastritis in marine mammals.

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Pathogenic microbes in drying soils could present public health threat

(July 28, 2022) – Research on soil fungal communities in the southwestern United States suggests that spore-producing fungi in increasingly dry soils could represent a future threat to public health.

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Senator Rosa Galvez Selected as the 2022 ESA Regional Policy Award Winner

(July 21, 2022) – ESA will present its 15th annual Regional Policy Award to the Honorable Rosa Galvez, an independent Senator for Quebec, on Sunday, Aug 14, 5:00pm EDT, during the ESA Annual Meeting Opening Plenary.

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High-flying hover flies: entomologists report for the first time that some North American hover flies migrate

(July 19, 2022) – Scientists have documented long-distance migration for the first time in several species of North American hover flies, some of the continent’s most important pollinators.

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Journals and Publications

To examine the role fungal and bacterial microbiomes play in infection dynamics of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), McKnight et al. sequenced both fungal and bacterial amplicon sequence variants taken from 169 frogs, such as the Litoria dayi (Australian lace-lid frog) pictured here, in three national parks in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia. L. dayi has been seriously impacted by chytridiomycosis, and their populations have not recovered from the disease outbreak, despite having the highest relative abundance of inhibitory bacteria. In their study published in the July issue of Ecosphere, the authors found that fungal and bacterial microbiomes were positively correlated for both richness and beta diversity, but they did not find an association between the fungal microbiome and Bd infection in the populations studied.

Ecosphere