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.
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.
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.”
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.
Princeton University Press interviews Jonathan Losos, LEC director, and Ben A. MInteer about The Heart of the Wild, a new collection of essays about conservation in the modern world.
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.
Soil microbial communities play a crucial role in oak woodland restoration, influencing the success of conservative herbaceous species reintroductions. Using DNA metabarcoding, researchers at Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve studied how different restoration ages affect soil microbial composition and plant growth. Their findings suggest that younger restorations may offer more beneficial microbial conditions for conservative plant species, potentially improving nutrient uptake and stress resistance.
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.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is leveraging AI to digitize its nearly 8 million plant specimens, creating an online database to support conservation efforts and preserve critical ecological data. By combining AI with historical and genetic information, the Garden is also advancing research on tree migration and ecosystem adaptation to climate change, while ensuring these technologies complement rather than replace human expertise.
Forest Park Living Lab is understanding racoon ecology in urban land through GPS tracking and how this work informs One Health programs.
LEC director Jonathan Losos has been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society
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.
Assistant professor of biology, Rachel Penczykowski and 5 WashU graduate and undergraduate students tracked infestations of powdery mildew on 22 sites in the Saint Louis area.
LEC postdoctoral fellow, Kaylee Arnold, awarded 2024 Maya Angelou Award for Postdoctoral Excellence in Leadership for outstanding service and outreach in the Saint Louis community.
Recently observed interactions between lemurs and a losa are describe in a new paper published in Ecology and Evolution. The interaction highlights the importance of an ecological approach to biodiversity conservation.
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 recently published paper in People and Nature, LEC post-doc Elizabeth Carlen and collaborators, demonstrated how citizen science data can be skewed by social and economic factors.
HEC Science and Technology video report features Biodiversity Fellow Nicole Miller-Struttmann’s Shutterbee Project, a community science project documenting St. Louis’ region’s bee diversity. The Shutterbee Project received a LEC seed grant in 2020.
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.
Elizabeth Carlen and two of her undergraduate researchers work to bring science outside the walls of WashU.
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.
A citizen scientist participating in the Shutterbee Project,a research initiative supported by an LEC seed grant, discovered a rare parasitic bumblebee species, Bombus suckleyi, which was identified through the project’s efforts. This finding highlights the valuable contributions of citizen scientists to local biodiversity research and the importance of community involvement in ecological studies.
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences led by Washington University Biology post-doc James Stroud and co-authored by LEC director, Jonathan Losos, is shedding new light on our understanding of evolution in species that live in close proximity to each other.
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.
WHRO interviews LEC director, Jonathan Losos, about his new book, The Cat’s Meow.
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.
In a world without humans, many dogs could survive due to their wolf ancestry and adaptability, but cats may face greater challenges from predation and competition. While cats are independent, their survival would depend on factors like outdoor access and the threat posed by larger predators, including dogs.
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 Outlook on Agriculture has shown that the population relative to available climate-suitable areas in Kenya has increased, posing a threat to the country’s economy and food security.
New research published in Regional Environmental Change, funded in part by a Living Earth Collaborative seed grant, reveals that climate zone shifts in Kenya between 1980 and 2020 are leading to hotter and drier conditions, threatening ecological diversity and food security. The study found that tropical climate zones expanded, while arid regions grew by over 50,000 square kilometers. This shift, driven by rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns, significantly impacts agriculture, particularly in regions dependent on rain-fed farming. The findings highlight the urgent need for adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on ecosystems and livelihoods in Kenya and similar regions.
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.
Forest Park Living Lab is collaborative of six different partners: the Saint Louis Zoo, Washington University, St. Louis University, Forest Park Forever, the World Bird Sanctuary and the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, where researchers from around the St. Louis area are tracking animals and trying to learn more about them and how they’re adapting to the urban area around the park.
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.