US Assistantships and F.’s Post

This year's theme in the symposium series Current Themes in Ecology: long-term ecological research. Crucial to gain understanding in how ecological systems respons to global changes like climate change.

Coming up 14 November 2024: a Current Themes in Ecology symposium on long-term ecological research 🔍About Current Themes in Ecology is a yearly symposium that highlights some of the exciting developments and urgent challenges in ecological research and brings them to the attention of a wider audience of people working ecological and related fields. The symposium series is supported by NWO (Dutch Research Council). 🔬 This year’s theme LTER-LIFE is proud to co-host this year’s edition, which focuses on long-term ecological research. Long-term ecological research is pivotal in helping unravel key ecological processes that affect diversity of life on earth and is critical for quantifying and understanding ecological responses to global change. This year's Current Themes in Ecology aims to recognize the value of the infrastructures and networks that laid the groundwork for long-term ecological research, showcase the scientific insights obtained from long-term research in the Netherlands, and identify the challenges and chances on the road of open research. 📥 How to apply The conference is organized by Liesbeth Bakker, Stefan Vriend, Claudius van de Vijver, Gilian Van Duijvendijk, and Sanja Selakovic. Interested to join? Send an e-mail to sanja.selakovic@wur.nl. 🌍 Where and when Location: De Werelt, Lunteren Date: 14 November 2024 Time: 09:30-18:00 #LTERLIFE #Ecology #Research #Symposium #GlobalChange #CurrentThemes #NERN

I updated my newsletter on how to generate research ideas for ecology and environmental sciences. Now I have the following points: - Playing with ecological hierarchies - Transferring experimental designs from one field to another - Exchanging settings - Transferring to other organism groups - Transfer among temporal and spatial scales - Importing concepts from other areas of biology - Importing concepts into ecology from other sciences - Examining responses over a wider range of levels - Examining a phenomenon by experimenting (or observing) at a different order of magnitude This can almost be used to build an ideas engine for environmental research. What would you add? Please let me know in the comments!😀 Link to newsletter for more detail: https://lnkd.in/eC_7VXuJ #creativity #ecology #environment

In this blog post I reflect about setting up a new lab and working with my favorite organisms: #biocrusts Contributing to the development of the field of biocrust ecology, to increase awareness about the ecological roles and importance of these key communities, and to inspire additional research with these organisms has been without any doubt one of the highlights of my career so far. And publishing our biocrust research in a mainstream journal like Journal of Ecology has been fundamental for doing so. The articles highlighted in this post are also important for me because they showcase biocrusts as a great model system for studying multiple ecological questions of great interest and relevance within ecology and global change biology. They also illustrate how biocrusts can be used to test broad ecological theories, provide novel insights on heavily studied topics such as species coexistence, and show the potential and value of these organisms to set up complex climate change experiments (it is very difficult to warm up a forest or to experimentally manipulate the spatial pattern and diversity of a shrubland, tasks that while not easy are doable with biocrusts!). Above all I have really enjoyed working with awesome organisms I love, interacting with fellow biocrust lovers (the collaborative atmosphere of the global biocrust research community is quite unique and enjoyable) and making a lot of friends and colleagues along the way. Working with small organisms can lead to large and amazing things! https://lnkd.in/dCdWB4JG

My new substack newsletter explains the fundamental trade-off in experiments in ecology and environmental sciences: you can either have mechanistic resolution or realism, but not both in the same experiment. https://lnkd.in/ed2k2CVr

What is chemical ecology? Follow the video series of the European Network in Chemical Ecology (E-NICHE) and see. #ENICHE #chemicalecology

Recruiting PhD student and postdoc in trait based approaches to ecological synchrony Magda Garbowski, Lauren Shoemaker, and Jonathan Walter are recruiting a PhD student and a postdoc to join our team on a recently funded project applying trait based approaches to understand population and community patterns of synchrony. The PhD student will join the Functional and Restoration Ecology Lab (https://lnkd.in/gR7QqD_U) at New Mexico State University, led by Dr. Magda Garbowski and the postdoc will join Lauren Shoemaker's lab (https://lnkd.in/gAEHXcmS) at the University of Wyoming. All applications submitted by 11/3 for both positions will receive full consideration. Detailed information on the PhD position: https://lnkd.in/gmJhZBnP Detailed information on the postdoc position: https://lnkd.in/g5H2XMKE Lauren (lshoema1@uwyo.edu), Magda (garbowsk@nmsu.edu), and Jon (jawalter@ucdavis.edu) Project Overview: Synchrony, defined as correlated temporal fluctuations, such as in species' abundances, is a ubiquitous phenomenon across ecological levels of organization, and is driven by both biotic factors and abiotic environmental drivers. At the population level, correlations in temporal abundance fluctuations across distinct locations (i.e., population synchrony) increase species' extinction risk. To date, research has largely emphasized the role of environmental variation in shaping patterns of synchrony. However, species traits and their interactive effects with environmental conditions likely play major roles in regulating synchrony, as traits mediate species interactions and responses to environmental change. By integrating multi-site time series data from a global distributed experiment (the Nutrient Network) with novel trait collection, existing trait databases, and methods development, we aim to develop and empirically test frameworks for linking functional traits to synchrony across scales of ecological organization under both natural conditions and experimental treatments that alter the strength of top-down and bottom-up ecosystem controls. In Objective 1 we will synthesize multiple trait databases and collect new data on traits hypothesized to mechanistically affect synchrony, characterizing how trait composition responds to changing top-down and bottom-up controls and testing how bud bank, root, and seed traits relate to established plant form and function frameworks. In Objective 2 we will link species traits to spatial synchrony of populations, quantifying how multidimensional trait variation and trait-by-environment interactions result in interspecific differences in synchrony. In Objective 3 we will assess how community weighted mean traits and overall functional diversity determine patterns of community synchrony.

✨ 📽️ Exciting news: We just posted the first video on our E-NICHE YouTube channel to European Chemical Ecology: https://lnkd.in/e9eNn3-h In this first, short video, European experts in Chemical ecology briefly describe their beloved discipline and explain you why research in this field is necessary. Follow the E-NICHE YouTube channel to stay tuned!

Very excited to have a chapter co-authored with the incredible Tracey Osborne published in the new book "Doing Political Ecology" edited by Gregory Simon & Kelly Kay. This outstanding volume has a range of chapters that highlight the breadth and importance of political ecology to support critical inquiry and action on human-environment relations. Our chapter, "Engaging Nature: Public Political Ecology for Transformative Climate Justice" addresses the transformative potential of political ecology as a tool for developing tangible environmental governance pathways and just solutions. In short, the chapter discusses political ecology as a form of political action as society is confronted with a series of environmental crises. Focusing on climate justice, the chapter outlines a process of engaged political ecology scholarship, or “public political ecology” that is structured around relational, decolonial and participatory research methodologies. The chapter uses a public political ecology approach to highlight the need for scholars of the environment to convert our critical toolkit into public-relevant, grounded and inclusive action in pursuit of environmental justice (i.e., by “doing” political ecology in the most literal sense). This chapter will be of particular interest to those curious about key strategies and challenges associated with enacting political ecology research through public-facing and justice-based engagements. The book is available here: https://lnkd.in/dMiq2YfF

New NEON blog alert! In our latest Women in Ecology interview, we spoke with Dr. Mary Lofton, a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Ecosystem Forecasting at Virginia Tech. Here, she shares her non-linear ecology journey, what she likes the most about being an ecologist, and the impacts she hopes to continue to make within the field of ecology. Read the interview at the link!