Restoration Ecology Section Update – July 2, 2018
See you in New Orleans!
For those who will be attending the New Orleans meeting, there are several opportunities to get together with other members and/or share ideas about the direction of the Section.
The Section mixer is scheduled for Tuesday 6:30-8:00. Here is the link to mixer in the ESA 2018 preliminary online program: https://eco.confex.com/eco/2018/webprogrampreliminary/Session14917.html
We also have a booth at the exhibit hall this year. Our goal is simply to create a space for people to talk about restoration ecology, network, etc. If you’re willing to be present at the booth and help out for at least 1/2 hour sometime during the week, you can sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1__6lkw7uz87uQZe6b_2kQS5nf0y0cXbgejvd5sSZZ1g/edit?usp=sharing.
2018 Poster Contest
At ESA 2018 in New Orleans we will have our second annual student poster contest! Posters will be judged based on poster design and presentation and relevance to the conceptual and applied aspects of restoration ecology. Cash prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Any student is welcome to enter, and membership in the section is not required. The entry form is available here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfgVWY94LApkFTpXFTCzrb9ayoVBFc_S9BnohwIExenxBZWSA/viewform.
In case you missed it: Our 2017 Poster Contest winners!
Our section held its first annual student poster contest at the 2017 annual meeting in Portland. The judges were section members who selected five winners – there was a three-way tie for third place. Judging was tough, as all of those who entered the contest presented interesting information that can lead to improved efforts at ecological restoration. Winners were:
1st prize: Heather Herakovich, Northern Illinois University, The Effects of Bison Reintroduction on Grassland Bird Nest Success in a Tallgrass Prairie (with Holly P. Jones).
2nd prize: Ryan Blackburn, Northern Illinois University, Vegetation Impacts of Reintroduced Bison in a Restored Tallgrass Prairie and the Ability of UAV Imagery to Assess Them (with Holly P. Jones).
3rd prize (tie):
Courtney Coppinger, University of Kansas, Creating Links: Burrowing Mammals and Prairie Soils (with Helen Alexander and Benjamin A. Sikes).
Kirstie Savage, Northern Illinois University, Quantifying Coyote Dietary Niche Width in a Restored Grassland (with Holly P. Jones).
Zebediah G. Yoko, North Dakota State University, How Local is Local: Phenological and Life History Differences across the Range of Geum triflorum (with Jill A. Hamilton).
Mentorship Program
We started a new mentorship program at the 2017 annual meeting. The program’s goal is to connect later-career restoration researchers (professors, professionals) with students (grad, undergrad, postdoc) so that the students can ask about career choices, restoration research, and professional development. Hopefully the mentor relationships started at the meeting lay a foundation for longstanding professional relationships. Mentors and mentees are paired based on their interests, and then arrange a time to meet in person at the annual meeting. Those who participated last year reported it was a valuable experience.
We will be running this program again in New Orleans this year and hope to expand the number of mentors and mentees participating. If you are interested, please contact Kris Hulvey (kris.hulvey@nullusu.edu).
Meet this year’s Ecological Restoration Section officers
Jonathan Bauer is our new Section Chair, having moved into that position after serving two years as our website and social media guru, and also assisting with the poster contest and mentoring programs. Jonathan is a post-doc at Michigan State University studying community assembly of plants and fungi in restored tallgrass prairies.
Our new Secretary is Anisha Malik. Anisha is a restoration ecologist and certified SITES AP, designing and implementing a variety of habitat restoration projects for Michael Baker International in Irvine, California. She proactively tracks changes within the field, including the PSHB beetle research, to best manage her projects and the new variables that continue to develop within the area.
Adam Mitchell has agreed to serve as Treasurer this year. Adam is a PhD candidate in Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He has served on committees in other professional organizations (Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlife Society) to write and award travel grants for students to attend national conferences, as well as organize and implement symposiums at state and national meetings.
Kris Hulvey, who has served as co-chair the past two years with Elise Hulvey, continues to serve in a leadership role as Past Chair. Kris is an assistant professor of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, where she studies restoration options for semi-arid landscapes and the role of grazing management in influencing flows of rangeland ecosystem services.
Mark Brunson is our Outreach Coordinator, responsible for sharing information about the section’s activities far and wide. He is a professor of Environment and Society at Utah State University, studying social-ecological systems perspectives on disturbance, invasion, and restoration.
Julea Shaw, our Student Liaison, is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Group in Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Julea’s research interests lie in understanding how changes in biodiversity influence ecosystem function, especially in light of increasing pressures on ecosystems from human activity.