LEC Biodiversity News

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.

Missouri Botanical Garden has named international botanist and conservationist Dr. Lúcia G. Lohmann as the Garden’s next President and Director and George Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis. Lohmann will be the eighth president of the Garden and the first woman to hold the position.

KMOV reporter Nathan Vickers talks to Heather Navarro, director of the Midwest Climate Collaborative, and Kim Medley, director of Tyson Research Center, about the impacts of urban heat islands.

Jonathan Losos, a distinguished Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis and the Director of the Living Earth Collaborative, teaches a unique course titled “The Science of Cats” at Washington University. The course has captured the interest of students and cat enthusiasts alike. Listen in as Jonathan discusses this course on Wake Up Call, a program on KFI AM 640.

Jonathan Losos’s course, “The Science of Cats” was featured in the Uncommon Courses series, an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. that highlights unconventional approaches to teaching.

A new study in the journal Ecology Letters suggests that “ornamented” dragonfly species are better able to survive habitat destruction and other human threats. The study’s authors include Michael Moore, a former postdoctoral researcher with the Living Earth Collaborative and Kim Medley, Tyson Research Lab Director.

Forest Park Living Lab is understanding racoon ecology in urban land through GPS tracking and how this work informs One Health programs.

As part of the UN’s International Day of Biodiversity, Kara Andres, a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, collected samples of water from Simpson Lake, in Valley Park, Mo., as part of a coordinated global effort to use environmental DNA—genetic material shed by organisms into the environment—to document the current state of biodiversity.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis (UHSP) contributed to a national study that identifies how gentrified parts of a city have notably more urban wildlife than ungentrified parts of the same city.

What can be done when one threatened animal kills another? Scientists studying critically endangered lemurs in Madagascar confronted this difficult reality when they witnessed attacks on lemurs by another vulnerable species, a carnivore called a fosa.

Researchers from the Forest Park Living Lab Project including LEC post-doc Stella Uiterwaal are conducting bird surveys to understand where and when birds like the red-tailed hawks can be found in Forest Park

In a new paper published in People and Nature, LEC post-doc Elizabeth Carlen and her co-authors shared a framework that illustrates how social and ecological factors combine to create bias in contributory data and offered some recommendations to help address the problems.

Meet Charlotte Taylor, a taxonomist at the Missouri Botanical Garden. She’s identified more than 500 new species, more than any other living woman in the field.

Meet Fred, the Canada goose, that has been fitted with a satellite tracking tag as part of the Forest Park Living Lab project which was funded by a LEC Seed grant.

The Living Earth Collaborative is supporting a critical project to restore primary forest in the heart of Betampona Reserve which comprises about 7.7 square miles of trees, surrounded by fields that have been cleared for agriculture.

Forest Park Living Lab partners with Gateway to the Great Outdoors (GGO) to bring St. Louis metro students from low income schools to get more students interested in science, nature, and ecology.

WashU researchers at Tyson Research Center use acoustic recorders to detect bats.

The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis used its annual Whitney and Anna Harris Conservation Forum last Tuesday night to explore the issue of urban heat islands, their impact and what can be done to mitigate them in an event titled, “It’s Getting Hot in Here: Urban Heat Effects and St. Louis.” LEC post-doc Kaylee Arnold was a featured panel member.

Postdoctoral research associate Kara Andres used eDNA to follow invisible trails of genetic information from fish. While her original work probed the Great Lakes, her recent work is focused on microbial communities in local waterways.

With its host of top-rated attractions and miles of bike paths and running trails, Forest Park has enticed generations of WashU community members to step outside the university’s campuses and explore. Today, students and faculty are venturing deeper into the woods to learn about the biodiversity that teems there and to highlight the connectedness between the natural and the human.

Matthew Austin, an ecologist and biodiversity postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, published a study in the American Journal of Botany that describes changes to the flowering time and other important life cycle events in Leavenworthia species, a group of small flowering plants found in glades in Missouri.

Officials in Argentina are building a statue to recognize the work of Train, a rescue dog who contributed to significant conservation research by a WashU scientist.

LEC post-doc Matt Austin leads research team to examine the role of climate change to discover warmer and drier springs is a major contributor to Leavenworthia blooming earlier.

Research published in Regional Environmental Change has shown that as climate zones shift toward hotter and drier conditions, ecological diversity will decline, posing a major threat to terrestrial ecosystems with far-reaching social and ecological impacts, This work was supported in part by the Taylor Geospatial Institute and a seed research grant from the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Earth is facing two interconnected crises — loss of biodiversity and climate change. Each separately is an enormous threat to life on this planet. However, together they are fueling each other, creating a worsening downward spiral.

Research from Washington University in St. Louis calls for a reappraisal of the process of plant domestication, based on almost a decade of observations and experiments.

A new documentary film, “Mussel Grubbing: A Citizen Science Treasure Hunt,” about a freshwater mussel biodiversity project supported by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, kicked off the inaugural World Water Film Festival March 19 in New York, and it won “Best Documentary Film” at the festival.

From exploring the beach and San Diego Zoo as a kid to studying kissing bugs in Panama as a PhD candidate, Kaylee Arnold’s path in biology has been a long and winding one. Most recently, it has brought her to St. Louis, where she is joining Washington University’s Living Earth Collaborative as a postdoctoral research associate.

This month, the Republic of Congo agreed to protect a 36-square-mile area called Djéké Triangle by making it part of the adjacent Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park. Biodiversity research led by St. Louis scientists helped inform the decision to include the Djéké Triangle in the existing national park.

Learn about the Forest Park Living Lab project that started with LEC Seed grant monies. Experts in wildlife ecology, animal movement and veterinary medicine joined forces in a landmark collaboration to enhance how we understand Forest Park.

Researchers discover elephant extinction could have major impact on atmospheric carbon levels.

A new book by WashU biology professor, Joan E. Strassmann, borrows from the slow food movement to propose a more thoughtful, less competitive form of bird-watching.

St. Louis scientists including LEC postdoctoral fellow, Stella Uiterwaal, collaborate on new study of wildlife in one of America’s greatest urban parks called the Forest Park Living Lab. The Forest Park Living Lab received a LEC seed grant in 2022.

The twin threats of climate change and loss of biodiversity on Earth are mobilizing scientists and policy makers to help ensure a future for humanity. The Living Earth Collaborative is leading the way.