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by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer The pressures of global trade may heighten disease incidence by dictating changes in land use. A boom in disease-carrying ticks and chiggers has followed the abandonment of rice cultivation in Taiwanese paddies, say ecologist Chi-Chien Kuo and colleagues, demonstrating the potential for global commodities pricing to drive the spread of infections. Their work appears…

Sandra Chung knows social media. As a communications specialist for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) she handles all things multimedia, including spearheading NEON’s Twitter feed (@NEONinc, with Jennifer Walton), and Facebook page. Last week, Sandra wrote about the power of Twitter to open up a meeting (the Ecological Society of America’s 97th annual meeting, to wit) and start conversations…

An August 2012 supplementary issue of Ecology explores the interface of ecology and phylogenetics. By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Lebensbaum (Tree of Life): Detail from Gustav Klimt’s 1910/11 drawing for the immense dining room frieze at Stoclet Palace, in Brussels. Watercolor and pencil. Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna. NATURALISTS of the late 19th century tended to holistic interpretations…

Sylvia Fallon, a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, blogged about ecosystem dynamics and the key role of salmon in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed last week, in a post inspired by Peter Lisi’s presentation at ESA’s 2012 annual meeting in Portland. Peter is a postdoc in Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Here’s an excerpt…

Joern Fischer is back with blog post on Jerry Franklin’s Monday morning plenary talk, “Forests, Fish, Owls, Volcanoes . . . and People: Reflections on fifty years of accumulated ecological knowledge and its application to policy.” Jerry Franklin just gave a very inspiring keynote address, on his favourite topic, the forests of the northwest of the US. This was one…

Computational ecologist Ted Hart is in Portland (OR), blogging ESA’s annual meeting at Dynamic Ecology. Here’s an excerpt from his Sunday post–thanks for sharing, Ted! In 2007 at ESA I and two other people were using twitter. Back then I didn’t understand it and had to ask what hashtags were. I gave up on twitter until 2010 and now with…

During ESA’s 2012 annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, next week, EcoTone will be highlighting blog posts from meeting participants. Joern Fischer of Leuphana Universität, Lüneburg, gets the jump on the conference coverage today with a post at his blog Ideas for Sustainability, excerpted below.  I’ll be a the Ecological Society of America Meeting in Portland next week! And I intend…

Disparate citizen science disciplines come together at the Public Participation in Scientific Research conference by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer The idea of a big, cross-disciplinary meeting had been floating around citizen science circles for a while. Though public participation in scientific research has deep roots in the history of science, in the last few years it has taken off…

Can women (or parents?) ever have it all? by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Erin McKittrick and her daughter Lituya at remote Malaspina glacier on the coast of Alaska. Credit, Erin McKittrick,  Bretwood Higman,  Ground Truth Trekking, 2011.   The trials of balancing a competitive research career on top of the other demands and joys of life, most prominently family,…

In the Willamette River watershed, an experiment in ecosystem economics is underway. Map of the Willamette River Basin; Temperature Effects of Point Sources, Riparian Shading, and Dam Operations on the Willamette River. Credit, Oregon Water Science Center, USGS. “What we want to do,” said Bobby Cochran, “Is take the money that we’re spending now and redirect it the way nature…

Dear ecological bloggers, We know that there are many of you out there in the broader ecological community, blogging your impressions of ecology’s intellectual ecosystem. Are you planning to blog ESA’s annual meeting in Portland, Ore. this August? We would like to gather your varied commentary on the research, workshops, field trips, and symposia presented at #ESA2012. To create a…

End of routine acquisitions for the Thematic Mapper, secondary sensor is still sending data. [update, March 2014: the Landsat 8 mission launched successfully last year and the new satellite is sending great data back home. USGS decommissioned Landsat 5 in 2013.] By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. The US Geological Survey’s Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper has been a faithful friend…