(guest post by lab PhD student + lead author Courtenay Ray) Plants modify microenvironments by altering nearby abiotic conditions, such as ground temperatures, soil moisture, and nutrient availability. Microenvironment modification may lead to changes in species interactions (e.g. competition and facilitation) if the environment becomes more or less stressful for neighboring plants; however, the consequences…

This week at the AGU meeting in Chicago, lab PhD candidate Mickey Boakye will be presenting the work he did with lab honors undergraduate student Jason To on fern evolution, Please give his poster a visit! Abstract ID: 1187778 Abstract Title: Linking Leaf Venation Network Architecture to the Hydraulic and Mechanical Function of Ferns Final Paper Number: B55G-1049…

Jarome Ali just led a new paper on bird extinctions,  using  hypervolume  methods to assess how functional diversity varies for almost all species of birds under different extinction risks. This was part of his masters’ work and is an important contribution. White-necked Rockfowl (Picathartes gymnocephalus): a morphologically distinctive species threatened with extinction. Credit: Joe Tobias…

Fieldwork in ecology and the environmental sciences often leads to negative physical and emotional outcomes for workers. I argue that this is largely due to an abdication of responsibility on the part of their supervisors, and that supervisors are charged with carrying three interlinked moral burdens: first, the duty of promoting safety; second, the duty…