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Cary Institute education initiatives span from K-12 students to undergrads and graduate students. We also have programming that gives K-12 educators the training and tools needed to bring cutting edge ecological science into their classrooms.

Architect Allan Shope reveals how modern innovation can inform ecologically responsible architecture. Discover the long and short-term costs of decisions that we make relating to our homes.

Humans have an outsized impact on the planet: we’ve wreaked havoc on countless ecosystems and one study estimates only 3% of land on Earth remains untouched by our influence.

Catskill Science Collaborative's Research Fellows present findings and results from the 2023 field season.

Dr. Lucas will explore how interacting global stressors, including the introduction of antibiotics, increasing temperature and changing precipitation, are shaping communities and nutrient cycling in our soils.

We have a problem in this country: not with science, but with the public’s perception of it. Those who enjoy understanding about science must speak out.

Curbing emissions will require shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy or perhaps capturing the CO2 emissions for long-term storage. There are costs and risks associated with carbon capture and storage, and we can’t depend on CCS forever, but it may well be an important way to reduce emissions to the atmosphere as we transition away from fossil fuels.

The observation that particles—ice crystals, sulfate aerosols, and volcanic ash—in the stratosphere cool the Earth has stimulated interest in the idea that we might engineer Earth’s climate rather than simply wait to suffer the consequences of global warming. Scientific investigation is always advised, but experience suggests some caution in the application of geoengineering of our planet.

Dr. Roland Kays, a zoologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences discusses how coyotes, fishers, and other predators are adapting to urban and suburban life.

A few decades ago, a marine biologist suggested that if we added iron to a large area of the world’s oceans, we could dramatically lower the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. This geoengineering of the world’s oceans could mitigate global climate change from fossil fuel combustion.

The number of species in a given area, what is often called alpha diversity or species richness, sounds like it would be easy to measure.  Make a thorough survey of an area in question and add up the number of species you encounter.

In recent years, phosphorous concentrations in waters draining agricultural lands have increased, especially since 2000, with the greater implementation of no-till agriculture. Agricultural lands contribute a large fraction of the waters draining to the Great Lakes.

Unfortunately, the yield of organic crops is nearly always lower than that of conventional crops grown under comparable conditions. To produce the same amount of food, we’d need to clear about 1/3 more land for agriculture if it were organic. That’s less natural land for wildlife and more disturbed soils, which lose carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when they are cultivated by any means.

With liberal assumptions, the maximum apparent rate of carbon sequestration in biochar is only about 2% of the current annual emissions of carbon, as carbon dioxide, to the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion. One might ask if it might be better to use all these crop residues for bioenergy, to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

When, where, and why do diseases jump from animals to people? A new project will monitor how changing seasons, land use, and human behavior influence outbreaks in wild rodent populations, to identify hotspots with high potential for viral spillover into people. The project is co-led by Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in an international team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institution, Royal Veterinary College, Oxford University, and the University of Glasgow. 

Rediscover the lost ecology of Manhattan in a presentation by Wildlife Conservation Society's Dr. Eric Sanderson. Sanderson reveals the thin wooded island that Henry Hudson sailed past in 1609.

Having overtaken China in population, India is arguably now the most crowded society in human history. It is also home to the world's largest remaining populations of wild tigers, Asian elephants, Asiatic lions, one-horned rhinos, and a host of other charismatic but dangerous megafauna.

The proliferation of satellite imagery has facilitated the analysis of deforestation trends using multi-source time series approaches. This combination of long-term data sources can be crucial for near real-time (NRT) deforestation monitoring in tropical regions with extensive cloud cover.

Nutrient inputs to oceans are difficult to establish where deltas lie at land and sea interfaces. Deltas reroute flow through bifurcating or anastomosing channels, spread flow over wetlands, and temporally store water in transient lakes and embayments. They modify nutrient processing and residence times— essential controls on nutrient transport.

Best-selling author Doug Tallamy discusses how we can create home landscapes that enhance local ecosystems, rather than degrade them – to serve as sustaining refuges for native plants and animals.