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A group of scientists gathered—virtually, of course—to share their research on a video call. The group was launching an international network to detect pathogens that can jump from wildlife to the human population, a field of inquiry that’s become politicized since the coronavirus pandemic began—and they were doing it with federal money, even though the United States government has been the source of the politicization.

Will climate change create conditions that let invasive species thrive? Learn how climate change may influence the spread of invasive plants and animals that threaten northeastern ecosystems. 

The record of Atlantic storms in the past two decades has been characterized by several record-breaking hurricanes that have positioned climatic changes as a present issue rather than a concern for the future. How these storms have affected the Caribbean compared to the US mainland has illuminated the uneven nature of vulnerability to changes in the earth’s climate system.

Last month, 3,214 freshwater mussel shells from the Hudson River made the trip from Cary’s labs in Millbrook, NY to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (UMMZ). Why did we collect these shells, and why did they wind up at UMMZ?

This is a blog that attempts to translate science to the general public, using simple language to describe what we know and what we don’t know about how the world works. Among its basic goals, Translational Ecology tries to make people understand what science is and what it does, especially as it applies to the environment.

Living in Maine, a state with legalized sale and use of marijuana, I’ve seen a proliferation of pot shops across the countryside. A lot of cannabis was used here before the new policy, but now we can expect that its use will be more open and prevalent.

Speaker: Dr. Grayson Badgley, Postdoctoral Fellow, Black Rock Forest

Quantifying photosynthesis at the global scale is a long-standing goal of ecology, with implications for our understanding of global change, biodiversity, and agriculture.

Do you ever wonder what happens to all the rain (and snow) that falls on land? Despite dramatic flash flooding after big storms, studies of the fate of precipitation over long periods and large regions, show that only about 35% of it becomes runoff in streams and rivers.

A few years ago, I measured photosynthesis of algae that inhabit the underside of translucent quartz pebbles in the Mojave Desert of California. When I first saw them in the field, I couldn’t believe that a green plant could exist under a rock!

One in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In studies of identical twins only 27% showed the co-occurrence of breast cancer, suggesting that 73% of breast cancers can be attributed to life-style and environmental factors, rather than to genetic predisposition.

There are striking parallels between the 1998 legal settlement with the tobacco companies and ongoing lawsuits that blame the big oil companies for the costs of climate change.

An advisory panel to New York’s Climate Action Council is considering how forests, forestry and harvested wood products could play a role in meeting the state’s climate goals.

Our parents told us not to waste food—urging us to be a member of the “clean-plate” club! Now, several studies have examined the magnitude of the food waste problem and its impacts on the environment.

One of those nagging questions facing the modern homeowner is whether or not a kitchen disposal, such as an InSinkErator^TM, is good or bad for the environment.  Should we buy a house with one? Should we use it at all?

The ash borer and woolly adelgid are invasive species, native to Asia. The woolly adelgid may have first arrived in the 1950s on an imported ornamental tree. But the ash borer was perhaps a sneakier stowaway, likely hiding in wood packaging that made its way to the U.S. in 2002.

For all the fights about clearcutting old-growth forests in Alaska and Oregon, some of the most lasting scars from aggressive logging can be found just a few hours' drive from New York City.

Scientific research on urban green infrastructure, planning, and community resilience must consistently deal with the operationalization of squishy semantic concepts pertaining to qualities of complex systems and normative goals guiding their evolution.

The latest issue of Science contains an article describing the worldwide decline of amphibian populations due to the international spread of chytridiomycosis, a lethal fungal disease, largely as a result of the trade in amphibians as pets.

Many claim that environmental impacts are driven by the high consumption patterns of modern society and not by the number of people. My argument is that both people and consumption are central, as John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich pointed out years ago, with their equation: Impact = People x Affluence X Technology

Much of the plastic that pollutes the oceans arrives in rivers. A recent study found that there was about 1 item of litter for each square meter of riverbank along 250 sites in Germany. Cigarette butts and plastic dominated these collections.