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North Carolina, long known for embracing concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), especially for hogs, has welcomed the burgeoning industrialized production of chickens.  Of course, we all embrace chicken—the meat is healthier than beef and produces less impact on the climate.  Something on the order of a billion chickens are now housed in North Carolina.

Biologist and nonfiction Pulitzer Prize finalist David George Haskell discusses his book The Songs of Trees. Haskell's work integrates scientific, literary, and contemplative studies of the natural world. The Songs of Trees explores the biological networks that surround all species, including humans.

Most lawns are maintained at an unnaturally low level of biological diversity, largely through the use of herbicides on the grass. In the absence of natural predators of insects and other pests, we often use pesticides, which inadvertently reduce the populations of soil microbes, earthworms, and other organisms that maintain natural fertility. Rain then washes a portion of these pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers to local streams, eventually leading to the pollution of major rivers and groundwaters that are our source of drinking water.

The two-cycle engines powering lawn maintenance equipment account for 42% of the carbon monoxide, 13% of the fine particulate matter, and 25% of the VOCs emitted from mobile sources.

Small wetlands provide a number of ecosystem services that improve the quality of daily life. They offer habitat for a variety of species; insects and small amphibians are the food for many animals, including birds. A network of vernal pools slows springtime runoff from the landscape, enhancing infiltration of water and denitrification by soil bacteria. These vernal pools are also important breeding grounds for amphibians, which control mosquitos during the period when water is present.

Understanding the biogenic sources and sinks of methane (CH4) is critical to both predicting and mitigating future climate change. Methane is 28-34 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere compared to an equivalent mass of carbon dioxide over a 100-year time frame and accounts for ∼ 42 % of warming since the pre-industrial period.

Using field studies and new molecular tools, Dr. Lucas is examining how livestock antibiotics affect soil microbes, soil carbon storage, nitrogen cycling, and the rise of antibiotic resistance.

Excessive concentration of nitrate in streams stem from the runoff from agricultural fields that are fertilized, from leaking septic fields, and from human sewage that is incompletely treated in wastewater facilities. Thankfully, nitrate is a raw material for the metabolism of bacteria known as denitrifiers that convert nitrate to nitrogen gas that is released to the atmosphere. One recent study suggests that small wetlands are five times more effective at removing dissolved nitrogen from streamwaters compared to various direct human interventions.

An Earth Day lecture by writer and scholar Terry Tempest Williams discussing her new book- a personal journey and celebration of America’s national parks, delving into their history, politics, activism, and ecological threats.

Tom Wessels teaches us to read landscapes the way we might solve a mystery. Why do beech and birch trees have smooth bark when the bark of other northern species is rough? How do you tell the age of a beaver pond or determine if beavers still reside there? Why are pines dominant in one patch of forest, while maples are dominant in another?

Dr. Pilowsky is collaborating with Dr. Barbara Han and the interdisciplinary Verena Institute on disease ecology and viral spillover.

Contaminant tipping points are one facet of global change indicators of rapidly growing concern. With new antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals discovered and fabricated for use in human and animal medicine, our understanding of the broader impacts of the use of these compounds becomes more and more necessary.

In this talk, Dr. Gaglioti will introduce the idea that ecosystems located near glaciers can serve as natural laboratories for global change biology.

In Butchers Hill, one of Baltimore’s more affluent neighborhoods, a small patch of nature stands out in a landscape dominated by brick rowhouses, asphalt roads and other hard surfaces. The colorful sign planted in the soft earth identifies this corner of the intersection of East Lombard and South Chester streets as a “rain garden.”

When the environmental temperature rises above body temperature, the body must dissipate heat via evaporative cooling—i.e., sweating.   Anything that impedes evaporation from the surface of the body will reduce heat loss under these conditions and death may occur.

When I see a road sign for Quail Run Lane in a new suburban development, I rest assured that no quail have run in that paved and treeless neighborhood in recent years.  The road clings to a nostalgic past and offers a tempting pitch to future real estate sales.  Perhaps land developers are poking fun at us.

Understanding how various sources of environmental heterogeneity (community structure) affect the dynamics of ecological communities is a key goal in ecology.

Discover catfish that eat pigeons, mussels that seduce fish, the world's largest water lilies, and lakes with the pH of battery acid. Dave Strayer talks about our planet's inland waters and the rich diversity of life that they support.

The dynamics of chronic wasting disease (CWD) are driven by spatially and temporally varying processes that operate on multiple scales, leading to complicated population effects.

Peer review begins when a scientist finishes a study and submits a manuscript to a journal, where the editor typically sends the paper to a couple of known experts in the subject area for their anonymous comments—a review of the work by peers. However, even appropriate reviewers are hard pressed to detect all errors in scientific work.