News & Stories

A new study in Nature Cities co-authored by LEC postdoc, Liz Carlen, argues that human culture — including religion, politics and war — influences how wildlife evolves in cities. In Los Angeles, factors such as policing, zoning, and local values and attitudes influence where animals live, how they’re treated and their behaviors. Indigenous Californian leaders say respecting animals as relatives, not threats, can guide better ways to share urban spaces.

Evolution is not separate from human society—human cultural practices, especially in cities, can significantly influence the evolution of wildlife. Actions like habitat fragmentation and altering local environments create new evolutionary pressures, leading to changes in genes favored by natural selection. A recent global review in Nature Cities by evolutionary biologists, including Marta Szulkin, Colin Garroway, and LEC postdoc, Elizabeth Carlen, shows how cultural forces like religion, politics, and war shape urban evolution in animals and plants.

A new study in the journal Nature Cities co-authored by LEC Postdoc Elizabeth Carlen describes how socially driven interactions between humans and urban wildlife can lead to evolutionary change for animals or plants.

Combining the forces of WashU, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Saint Louis Zoo, the Living Earth Collaborative works to protect the plants and animals of the world — for their sake and ours.

Representatives from the Missouri Botanical Garden and WashU have begun discussing an ambitious new project that would combine botany with data science. Garden staff are currently engaged in a long-term effort called Revolutionizing Species Identification (RSI), which aims to digitize more than 8 million specimens of the Garden Herbarium. The resulting database would include high-resolution images and fully searchable details on each specimen, opening the door for groundbreaking data analysis projects

A new study published in the journal Ecology and led by researchers at WashU, UMSL, and the Missouri Botanical Garden has uncovered a surprising layer of diversity in tropical forests. The researchers examined tree leaves collected as part of the Madidi Project (https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plant-science/plant-science/south-america/the-madidi-project). The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Living Earth Collaborative.

Faculty at WashU follow the natural world for inspiration and ideas for innovative and “wild” solutions.

The Living Earth Collaborative welcomed Lúcia Lohmann, renowned Amazon forest expert and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s new president and director, as the keynote speaker for Tropical Forest February, drawing over 250 attendees. Lohmann’s talk highlighted both the staggering biodiversity of the Amazon and the immense gaps in scientific knowledge, underscoring the importance of collaborative research and conservation efforts led by the Garden, WashU, and the Saint Louis Zoo.

Meet Fran, a Canada Goose fitted a GPS collar as part of the Forest Park Living Lab project. From Forest Park to Fairground Park and across the Mississippi to East Saint Louis, Fran is moving through the green spaces and waterways of the St. Louis region.

Washington University in St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden are welcoming two internationally recognized botanists who will have joint appointments with both research institutions. The hiring of Lúcia Lohmann and Toby Pennington bolster long-standing ties between university, garden

By linking an expert nutritionist from WashU with a team of ethnobotanists from the Missouri Botanical Garden, this transdisciplinary project delved into the complex interplay between plants and people.

Can St Louis Missouri, the city of 280,000 residents located near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers be the nature city of the twenty-first century? As Peter Bernhardt reports, public knowledge of the city’s urban biology is poor, so St Louis has some catching up ahead if it’s to achieve this lofty title.

Lora Iannotti, a Biodiversity Fellow and professor at Wahu’s Brown School sat down with WashU’s School of Public Health Dean Sandro Galea to discuss a paper Iannotti co-authored, “Wild Foods Are Positively Associated with Diet Diversity and Child Growth in a Protected Forest Area of Madagascar.” This paper was co-authored with several Biodiversity Fellows from Missouri Botanical Garden: Tabita Randrianarivony, Armand Randrianasolo, Robbie Hart and originated from a Living Earth Collaborative Seed Grant project. Learn more about the project at https://bit.ly/Wildfood

Scientists show changes in genes related to diet of urban coyotes who eat foods high in glucose and starches

A recent study in Genome Biology and Evolution co-authored by LEC postdoc Liz Carlen examines the genetic makeup of urban coyotes to understand how these animals adapt to city environments. The research suggests that urban coyotes may be undergoing evolutionary changes that enable them to thrive alongside human populations. These findings contribute to our understanding of urban ecology and the impact of urbanization on wildlife species.

The Revolutionizing Species Identification (RSI) project at the Missouri Botanical Garden uses advanced AI technology to digitize its vast herbarium collection, creating a global reference library for rapid plant species identification. This online platform will enable scientists to upload data from unidentified plants for automated identification, accelerating restoration and conservation efforts worldwide. Additionally, the project provides training in plant taxonomy and herbarium creation, cultivating the next generation of botanical experts.

Researchers with the Forest Park Living Lab say that the home ranges of both Silver, a male coyote, and Solar, a female coyote with pups, were typical for urban coyotes.

Forest Park Living Lab researchers aimed to track two coyotes for a year to study their behavior and movement patterns. Unfortunately, the animals did not survive.

LEC postdoctoral fellow, Elizabeth Carlen and UC Berkely student Tyus Williams explore how superstitions have created biases in approaches to animal conservation.

Biologist Elizabeth Carlen, a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at WashU, received a 2024 Spark Award from the Association for Women in Science (AWIS).

USHSP associate professor of biology and LEC Biodiversity Fellow, Ben Jellen, is featured on Saint Louis on the Air discussing his copperhead snake study in Powder Valley and his longstanding partnership with Saint Louis Zoo.

LEC Co-director, Crickette Sanz was installed as the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor in Arts and Sciences Sept. 4. Her installation address was titled “Learning From Great Apes About Rank.”

On September 13th, the Living Earth Collaborative — a three-way partnership between the Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis Zoo, and WashU — convened a symposium to imagine a St. Louis that lives in harmony with its natural surroundings.

The wildflowers that bring a burst of color to meadows and forests across St. Louis are blooming later and longer than they did in previous decades, according to a study led by researchers with the Living Earth Collaborative, a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan. The study by Missouri Botanical Garden’s Matthew Austin and Ken Olsen, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology is published in New Phytologist.

Biodiversity Fellow and UMSL faculty, Nathan Muchhala’s new research published in New Phytologist reveals the evolutionary advantage that this characteristic provides to plants to ensure that they are discovered by bats.