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Ian McGregor is collaborating with Dr. Evan Gora to better understand and characterize tropical forest disturbance and mortality dynamics from lightning. Their research is centered on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, in collaboration with other sites across the Tropics and involves analyses using a mixture of drone flights, multi-source satellite imagery, and field validation surveys.

With a $1.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation, forest ecologist Evan Gora from Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is co-leading a new project that will combine drone surveys and on-the-ground observations to investigate the deaths of large tropical trees.

It's with a heavy heart that we share news of the death of limnologist Jon Cole, who had been a part of the Cary Institute’s community since the organization was founded in 1983, climbing the ranks from Assistant Scientist to Distinguished Senior Scientist.

Across the United States, there’s a growing disconnect between young people and nature, particularly in urban environments. In Poughkeepsie, NY a community science project that sends high school students wading into the Hudson River to monitor an endangered eel species is helping to bridge that divide, according to a recent study.

Comparing sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), with traditional internal combustion engines, hybrid systems, or electric/battery power, each driven for about 70000 miles over a ten-year period, a study found that internal combustion vehicle delivered 43 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, whereas hybrids and battery options, delivered about 30 tons each.

For forests, the response to higher temperatures brought about by climate change is not immediate. Of course, in the face of windstorms, fire, lightning, and insect attacks, no tree lasts forever, and eventually even the giants of the forest will succumb. With climate change, the new trees that replace them are likely to be different species, and eventually the entire forest composition may shift.

Neonicotinoids, a new class of insecticides, interfere with signal transmissions in the nervous system of both mammals and insects. They have been implicated in the widespread observations of bee decline in the U.S. and Europe, leading to fears that many crops would not set seed because of a lack of pollination.

Bats carry a number of viruses that sometimes spill over into people. Antiviral medications are our first line of defense and can help our bodies fight off these infections, but a paper by scientists at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Umea University raises new concerns about whether those treatments will continue to be effective in the future. 

For more than 50 years, the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has been one of the most intensely studied landscapes on earth. Gene Likens, Cary Institute President Emeritus, discusses his new book, Hubbard Brook: The Story of a Forest Ecosystem.

For nature, as for humans, timing matters. Cues from sunlight, temperature, and precipitation influence when flowers bloom, pollinators emerge, and birds migrate. But climate change and other disruptions are throwing off those cues, nudging organisms out of sync. Citizen scientists can help monitor these changes at two sites on Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies’ campus.

Cemeteries provide a unique laboratory for studies of environmental chemistry. They are known emitters of methane, which contributes to the global inventory of this gas, and thus global climate change. Cremation consumes considerably more energy than simple decomposition in a casket. Combustion with natural gas and electricity are thought to emit the most CO2 and toxic gases during the typical cremation.

CO2 emissions from fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, and coal—are responsible for about 10 billion metric tons of carbon each year versus about 0.10 billion metric tons per year attributable to emissions from active volcanoes.

As the world warms, the atmosphere will be able to hold more water vapor, so cloudiness will increase. The small droplets in these clouds are likely to act like airplane contrails to cool the planet during the day and to warm it at night. Unfortunately, this cooling effect is dwarfed by the warming from CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide that humans have added to the atmosphere.

Convincing evidence of the existence of chemtrails would come from the identification of unusual chemical substances in rainfall or dry fallout from the atmosphere—chemicals like barium, aluminum, lithium, sulfate, silver, or any of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals that might alter human behavior. No one has ever found any of these substances in rainfall that could be linked to dispersal by high-flying aircraft.

Historically, Chicago hasn’t been a hub for tiny blood suckers because the city’s long, dreadful winter provides a “hard reset on the mosquito population,” said Shannon LaDeau, a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. As temperatures warm globally and Chicago’s winters become milder, mosquito season is lengthening.

Biologist Dr. John Waldman discusses why sea-river fish have dwindled in numbers, what we stand to lose, and actions needed to ensure their recovery. Discover the past, present, and future of these fascinating fish through research, historical accounts, anecdotes, and images.

As part of the Mid-Hudson Young Environmental Scientists program, 12 local high school students came to Cary Institute this summer to design and conduct original scientific research.

Plastics are more than an aesthetic problem in the marine environment. Larger pieces of plastic debris are degraded by sunlight, in a process known as photo-oxidation, and fragment into smaller pieces. Small pieces of plastic, such as bottle caps and fragments, are easily ingested by marine organisms, such as albatross, seals, and whales. The smallest fragments of plastic can be eaten by zooplankton and passed up the marine food chain.

The ocean sediments have topography. Thus, it is of increasing interest to marine biologists how much of the ocean bottom is trawled to catch fish and shellfish. Trawling involves dragging a heavy net along the bottom, which smooths off the seabed, reducing the structural diversity of the sediments.

Coal is predominantly composed of carbon, which is released as carbon dioxide during combustion. Some of the other volatile components in coal are captured in fly ash, whereas a variety of metals and other non-volatile constituents of coal are concentrated in bottom ash. Arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and selenium are of particular consequence to humans and wildlife for their toxic properties.