Press Releases — Page 7

ESA EEE Scholars 2023- Top row left to right: Drs. Sara Bombaci and Aidee Guzman. Bottom row left to right: Drs. Danielle Ignace and Lynette Strickland.

Researchers are increasingly turning to citizen scientists for data collection on bird-window collisions because in the US alone, it is the cause of hundreds of millions bird deaths each year.

New research from Japan published in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology suggests that increasingly severe weather driven by climate change may push oceangoing seabirds to their limits.

After a competitive search, the Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce the appointment of Scott L. Collins as the new editor-in-chief of its journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. In his new role, Collins will lead Frontiers in publishing ecological and environmental research that is timely, clearly written and relevant to all users of ecological science, including policy makers, resource managers and educators.

Mangroves play a vital role in protecting human habitations from strong storms. But how does that protection affect the mangroves themselves? A team of environmental scientists led by Yu Mo of Trinity College in Dublin harnessed the power of satellites to analyze the damage to mangroves caused by every tropical cyclone around the world since the year 2001. Their results were published in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Adkins presents this research with the contributed poster, “Nitrogen Deposition is Not an Indicator of Continental-Scale Soil C Sequestration,” at 5 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday, Aug. 9, at the 2023 Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.

Jessica Murray publishes in the journal ‘Geoderma’; presents at Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting on the basic mechanisms of soil carbon sequestration in canopy soils from sites in Costa Rica.

New research led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center scientists offers participatory action research as a potential bridge between the macro scope of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the needs and desires of local communities.

Newly published research describes the successful pilot of a novel method to study how well grassland birds are faring on croplands. The study may serve as a model for monitoring wildlife on working lands more generally, which can also include cattle ranches and logged forests.

A new study from U.S. Geological Survey biologists shows that grassland birds in North Dakota have responded more negatively to the expansion of corn and soybeans as compared with oil and gas development and other types of agriculture.

A new University of Maryland-led study published online in the journal Ecology found a simple way to take advantage of spiders’ natural ecosystem service of being pest regulators: give tree-dwelling spiders a more diverse habitat.

New research underlines the need to monitor and understand how changes in the supply of organic material affect life in the sea, especially in view of climate changes.

A new study that analyzed more that 500,000 camera grid images taken at the HREC in the years before and after the Mendocino Complex Fire is one of the first studies to compare continuous wildlife observations made before and after a megafire.

A new analysis of National Park Service data published in the journal Ecosphere shows a steady increase in non-native plant cover since 2014, and rapid regrowth of non-native annual grass and herbaceous species after the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which burned nearly 80% of the entire region.

A new method developed by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior has counted Africa’s largest colony of bats with the greatest accuracy yet. The method uses GoPro cameras to record bats and then applies artificial intelligence (AI) to detect animals without the need for human observers.

Honey bees are more faithful to their flower patches than bumble bees when it comes to returning to collect more pollen and nectar, according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service scientists.

The Wildlife Conservation Society released footage of a wolverine foraging for fish frozen in a perennial spring along a river in the Alaskan Arctic. It is the first-known observation of a wolverine eating fish – usual prey includes everything from snowshoe hares to caribou to voles.

In a study published in the journal Ecology, a University of Michigan-led research team used a pint-sized predator-prey-parasite system inside 20-gallon water tanks to test the “healthy herds hypothesis.”

Researchers compared cacao productivity and arthropod diversity in the presence and in the absence of birds and bats in organically managed, native cacao agroforests from northwestern Peru. Their results showed that the presence of birds and bats increased cacao productivity by 118%.

Healthy bat and bird populations don’t only help to keep the endangered tropical dry forests of northern Peru in equilibrium. For the regions’ farmers of cacao—the main ingredient in chocolate— these predators are worth almost $1,000 per hectare of annual production.