Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America最新文献

On August 14, 2021, the 42-year-old Cuban botanist, plant ecologist, and conservation biologist Michel Faife Cabrera died from complications of pneumonia following Covid. His sudden death came as a great shock to his many friends, students, and colleagues not only in Cuba but also in North and South America and Europe. Just 6 weeks earlier, Michel had given an outstanding, inspiring, and animated Zoom presentation in which he outlined his ambitious plans for continuing and expanding capacity building inside and outside of postpandemic academia. The enthusiastic audience, the largest ever recorded in that series of talks, came from all over Latin America.

Michel touched many lives in Cuba as a university professor, co-founder of the third undergraduate biology major in Cuba (the first in the center of the country), and co-founder of the country's first master's program in conservation biology, where he served as a coordinator for a year. He had international connections to many other scientists, reaching out to others with questions, data, observations, and friendship. He also touched just as many lives outside of formal academia—lives of schoolteachers and schoolchildren, park guards, peasant farmers, nature guides, museum guides, and many others. Michel had a great sense of humor and a tremendous passion for the biodiversity of his native country—to understand it, to spread his appreciation for the treasures of Cuban ecological systems, and to protect them. His loss leaves a gaping hole in university education and field research in conservation biology, plant ecology, and the ecology of plant-pollinator interactions in Cuba. Repairing that hole will be a tremendous challenge. The gaping hole that his absence leaves in building capacity in autonomous environmental science across Cuba, outside of academia, may prove to be impossible to fill.

Michel grew up in the province of Villa Clara, in central Cuba. Upon entering the career in biology at the Universidad de La Habana, Michel quickly took advantage of every opportunity to do field work, studying nesting sea turtles, and biodiversity of various groups in natural areas and semi-natural landscapes in the west of Cuba, participating in the selection of management guidelines for biodiversity conservation in the Sabana Camagüey ecosystem in central Cuba, and many other themes (Photo 1). In his sophomore year, the faculty placed him in a select group of honor students. His undergraduate thesis, derived from the work in the Sabana Camagüey project, dealt with the coastal vegetation complex on Cayo Santa María, Villa Clara. Michel graduated in 2002 with the Cuban equivalent of summa cum laude and was also awarded the prize of “most integrated student” for his great diversity of extracurricular activities.

Upon graduating from the University of La Habana, Michel returned to the Botanical Garden of Villa Clara, where he devoted himself to the working partnership between that in

Institutions of higher education (IHE) throughout the United States have a long history of acting out various levels of commitment to diversity advancement, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Despite decades of DEI “efforts,” the academy is fraught with legacies of racism that uphold white supremacy and prevent marginalized populations from full participation. Furthermore, politicians have not only weaponized education but passed legislation to actively ban DEI programs and censor general education curricula (https://tinyurl.com/antiDEI). Ironically, systems of oppression are particularly apparent in the fields of Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (EECB), which recognize biological diversity as essential for ecological integrity and resilience. Yet, among EECB faculty, people who do not identify as cis-heterosexual, nondisabled, affluent white males are poorly represented. Furthermore, IHE lacks metrics to quantify DEI as a priority. Here we show that only 30.3% of United States faculty positions advertised in EECB from Jan 2019 to May 2020 required a diversity statement; diversity statement requirements did not correspond with state-level diversity metrics. Though many announcements “encourage women and minorities to apply,” empirical evidence demonstrates that hiring committees at most institutions did not prioritize an applicant's DEI advancement potential. We suggest a model for change and call on administrators and faculty to implement SMART (i.e., Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) strategies for DEI advancement across IHE throughout the United States. We anticipate our quantification of diversity statement requirements relative to other application materials will motivate institutional change in both policy and practice when evaluating a candidate's potential “fit.” IHE must embrace a leadership role to not only shift the academic culture to one that upholds DEI but to educate and include people who represent the full diversity of our society. In the current context of political censure of education including book banning and backlash aimed at Critical Race Theory, which further reinforce systemic white supremacy, academic integrity and justice are more critical than ever.

Attending

President Collinge Presiding; meeting called to order at 9:00 AM PDT.

A. Adopt Agenda

Motion: Bruna moved to adopt the agenda. Seconded by Ramirez. All aye.

A. Report of the President (Collinge)

President Collinge began by welcoming all GB members, staff, and guests Stephanie Hampton and James Rattling Leaf – both of whom will shortly be joining the GB – and by reminding all GB members of their fiduciary duties as ESA GB Members. She also reminded all GB members to submit their annual COI declarations.

President Collinge continued by sharing her excitement about the upcoming meeting, it being in Portland, and how its structure and content has changed to reflect member interests. She also reminded all of the recent change in governance structure, which brought us the smaller ESA Council and its leadership to provide a direct line of communication between membership and the GB. She reminded all of the afternoon's discussion of the GB self-assessment, as well as of the visioning project conducted under Past-President Ojima. The visioning project will be used to inform a new strategic plan to be led by a new Strategic Planning Working Group.

President Collinge next acknowledged the launch of the new journal Earth Stewardship, which places much of the work published across the ESA portfolio in a new outlet. She also recognized the work going into changes in the meeting format (e.g., spreading out special sessions, hybrid sessions) designed to allow more people to participate and learn new skills and the assessment, via survey, of how membership feels about these changes.

Finally, she reflected on her year as President, beginning by expressing her gratitude to the staff for their efforts and leadership on ESA activities and for carrying out GB initiatives. She also recognized Executive Director O'Riordan for her leadership, collaboration, and commitment to ESA.

President Collinge felt that three words came to mind regarding her term: relevance, engagement, and impact. Among the activities she highlighted were the Visioning Exercise, efforts to understand how the ESA demographics have changed and how the ESA can broaden participation by all sectors in society, and contributions to the National Nature Assessment spearheaded by Past-President Ojima, Incoming President Naeem, and Past-Past President Kathleen Weathers. She also highlighted ESA's efforts at DEIJ and the work of the DEIJ Committee under the leadership of Carmen Cid, which included participation in the SACNAS meeting and the NSF LEAPS projects. She noted one of the most interesting things she learned from the NSF-LEAPS RISE program – the idea of “Intellectual Humility” (“Justly recognizing the limits of one's knowledge so that one is not arrogant nor differential”) She hypothesized that groups that are Intellectually Humble and able to recognize their limits should be more effective at building

Scientists and supporting institutions seek to generate research that has impact. In addition to basic research focused on scientific knowledge-building, there are national and international calls to foster research that incorporates direct benefits to society, economies, communities, marginalized groups, end-users, taxpayers, agencies, stakeholders, and environments (Bornmann 2013, Morgan 2014, Penfield et al. 2014). However, while there is an increasing desire for research to integrate diverse impacts (Reed et al. 2021), there remain gaps in resources to conduct research activities that have benefit beyond the academy. Many researchers are trained in research that builds scientific knowledge and incentivized to disseminate this knowledge through peer-reviewed publications that may be inaccessible or filled with disciplinary jargon. Other forms of impact are less supported despite personal desire and institutional discourse (Heath et al. 2014). While robust advice exists regarding science communication, outreach, and exposure (e.g. Skrip 2015), guidance for other forms of impact is less developed, resulting in a narrow set of objectives and strategies to expand the benefits of research activities (Nadkarni and Stasch 2013, Gould et al. 2019, Woodson and Boutilier 2023). Simply put, the desire for a variety of research impacts has not yet been matched by actionable guidance, training, and other support necessary to achieve it.

As a community of early-career researchers working on pressing environmental and water management issues, we desire to increase the impact of our research along dimensions beyond what is often required in grant applications or performance evaluations. We recognize the value of basic science, however, in reviewing our training and guidance in the literature, we have found limited advice for pursuing some types of impact that are critical in our fields to effectively address social and ecological problems. In this paper, we aim to help bridge this gap and support researchers who want to diversify the impact of their research. We draw on current literature and our own experiences to develop a framework for setting intentions, developing strategies, and navigating challenges to achieve increased impact.

There are many ways to categorize impact and we discuss five types that are important for environmental and water issues: scientific (builds knowledge and advances the state of science), project or programmatic (improves the implementation of interventions, such as a restoration project or water infrastructure management), organizational (shapes the management practices and methods used by entire organizations and professions across multiple projects and programs), policy (guides or informs policies, regulations, and political priorities), and community (contribute

Break—5 min.

Although average temperatures are increasing globally, abrupt cold stress in winter can occur regionally. For example, the winter thermal gradient between the Arctic and middle latitudes is weakening because Arctic temperatures are rising faster. This phenomenon can lead to pronounced cold air outbreaks in Eurasia and North America in winter. In eastern Canada, an unusual cold snap occurred in February 2023. In intertidal habitats from southeastern Nova Scotia, entire mussel stands disappeared and some seaweeds experienced massive bleaching shortly afterwards. Winter extremes related to climate change can therefore be as important for species survival as summer heat waves.

These photographs illustrate the article “Mass disappearance of intertidal mussels after an unusual winter cold snap in eastern Canada”, published by Nicole M. Cameron, and Ricardo A. Scrosati in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ECY.4179.

There is evidence to suggest that the nature of human impact upon forests, measured both quantitatively and qualitatively, tells a story about dominant social paradigms throughout recent history. In this sense, forests are social mirrors. Collectively, we are consuming ecological resources at 1.5 times the rate they can be replenished, while often simplifying or adversely impacting forest ecosystems. At the same time, ecocentric and enlightened self-interest movements are emerging, manifest in woodland management approaches that embrace multiple values, ecological sensitivity, and traditional ecological knowledge. The evidence therefore shows that contradictory paradigms exist alongside each other, exerting influence over landscapes at shared temporal and spatial scales simultaneously. Consequently, forest management reflects the sociocultural dynamics of a species experiencing cognitive dissonance; responding to human ideals around the need to tread lightly and the contradictory reality of an ever-increasing economic output.

New evidence from Magnetic Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, shows that the mangrove whipray (Urogymnus granulatus) can actively produce sounds. Juvenile mangrove whiprays appear to make loud clicking noises as an agonistic display, either to warn off and startle predators or to signal to other nearby juveniles to aggregate in defense. Though it is clear that elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates) can hear and respond to sounds in various ways, until now, there have been no confirmed examples of active sound production by this group in the wild.

These photographs illustrate the article “Evidence of sound production in wild stingrays” by Lachlan C. Fetterplace, J. Javier Delgado Esteban, Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons, John Gaskell, and Barbara E. Wueringer, published in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3812.

In our study, we examined environmental reservoir dynamics of Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the fungal pathogen causing white-nose syndrome in hibernating bats. We quantified changes in pathogen shedding, infection intensity, and species abundance during pathogen invasion and establishment within sites in the Midwestern US. We evaluated these effects together through the metric of propagule pressure which allowed us to capture which bat species within the community contributed to pathogen invasion success and ultimately the maintenance of indirect transmission, which is an important driver of infection and mortality. Broadly, our results demonstrated that multiple factors of species variability scale to influence environmental reservoir dynamics within communities.

These photographs illustrate the article “Host infection and disease induced mortality modify species contributions to the environmental reservoir” by Nichole A. Laggan, Katy L. Parise, J. Paul White, Heather M. Kaarakka, Jennifer A. Redell, John E. DePue, William H. Scullon, Joseph Kath, Jeffrey T. Foster, A. Marm Kilpatrick, Kate E. Langwig, and Joseph R. Hoyt published in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4147.

This report summarizes activities and meetings from the period August 2022 to July 2023 and is submitted as an annual report from the staff.