Another summer of fieldwork is successfully wrapped up, and we are trading the high peaks of the Rockies for a convention center in Portland for the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting. The fresh air of the mountains has been replaced with smoke from nearby wildfires, but it will be an exciting week of science…

Building environmental stewardship and engagement with public lands is a central challenge for youth education in southern Arizona. The Tucson area is home to almost a million people, of which 20% live below the poverty line. While the city is surrounded by a national park and a national forest, there is no public transit to…

Look around on any landscape and you will quickly notice that some areas appear more diverse than others. Not necessarily in species, but in function – compare the bare meadow in the foreground of this photograph to the more diverse wetland area, or to the even more diverse forest and understorey community in the distance.…

Pineapples grow best in hot environments, and wheat grows better in cold steppes; saguaro cacti live in deserts, and Venus fly-traps live in nutrient-poor wetlands. We all have very reasonable intuitive ideas of what organisms can be found in what environments, that are often borne out by careful observations. Alexander von Humboldt was one of…