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Discover how educators can engage middle and high school students with local datasets to explore climate change in the Hudson Valley region.

Topics explored include: the effects of aquatic invasive species on freshwater quality and how deer and invasive pests shape forest regeneration.

Soils are home to diverse microbial communities that cycle nutrients, support agriculture, and trap carbon – an important service for climate mitigation. Globally, around 80% of Earth’s terrestrial carbon stores are found in soils.

White-footed mice are able to survive and thrive with physical impairments. An assessment of 26 years of monitoring data on wild populations of white-footed mice found that mice with missing or deformed limbs, tails, or eyes persisted at a rate similar to their unimpaired counterparts.

Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve added about 950 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and warmed the planet about 1^oC.  Atmospheric scientists calculate that we should add less than another 1000 billion tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere if we hope to hold Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5^o C by 2050, which is considered a tolerable, if undesirable, future.

A fundamental challenge in ecology is understanding the assembly of diverse communities. Both abiotic habitat filtering (e.g, light) and biotic interactions (e.g., competition) likely contribute to compositional turnover, but these processes are rarely tested simultaneously.

The easiest way to make hydrogen is from fossil fuels, especially natural gas. With this approach, producing hydrogen is responsible for carbon dioxide added to Earth’s atmosphere. Only if the hydrogen is made without fossil fuels (e.g., solar) is it really clean.

Cary Institute forest ecologist Charles Canham has deep concerns about the true climate benefits of the current forest carbon offset market and discusses the limitations of forest carbon offsets.

Dr. Christopher Reyer presents the latest discussions revolving around how forests and their products and services can best contribute to climate change mitigation.

Back and forth transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between people and other mammals increases the risk of new variants and threatens efforts to control COVID-19. A new study used a novel modelling approach to predict the zoonotic capacity of 5,400 mammal species. Of the high risk species flagged, many live near people and in COVID-19 hotspots.

With the arrival of the pilgrims in 1620, the invasion of exotic species in North America began in earnest—annual grasses in the west, meadow weeds in the east, starlings and house sparrows coast to coast.  The onslaught continues today with forests pests and pathogens, zebra mussels, and nutria.  Many of these species have no natural predators or pathogens of their own, so they expand without limit in their new habitat.

The animals that carry SARS-Cov-2, an analysis from Barbara Han of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York shows there are many more than previously thought.

An Alabama Company, Twin Pines LLC., has proposed to mine titanium from beneath Trail Ridge, in 8000 acres adjacent to Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Titanium is used as a whitener for toothpaste, white paints, and cosmetics and as an alloy to produce strong, lightweight metals for a variety of specialized purposes.

While observational records can document changes in the climate of the last few centuries, they only provide a brief snapshot of Earth’s longer climate history.

Carbon registries are allowing gross exaggeration of the likely additional carbon storage that would be expected under a carbon offset deal. Markets are extending credits for previously stored carbon that could be liquidated by cutting trees, yet chances of that happening are incredibly slim.

A $2 million gift recently received by Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies will support the transformation of its Millbrook, New York headquarters into the facilities needed to advance 21st century science.  

When invasive species move into a new region, they can outcompete native species. Yet this is not the case with mosquitoes in Baltimore, Maryland. A Cary  research team found that invasive Aedes albopictus mosquitoes and native Culex pipiens mosquitoes are able to coexist given the right breeding habitat, with trashcans playing an outsized role in Culex persistence. Findings can help inform mosquito control strategies.

Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Downs, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry