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.
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.
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.
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.
Researchers discover elephant extinction could have major impact on atmospheric carbon levels.
Microbes of Diverse Ecosystems (mDivE-STL) Symposium held on Oct 3 by the Living Earth Collaborative focuses on the important but unseen role of microbes in diverse ecosystems.
Many people believe that climate change is pushing back the start of fall leaf color to later in the year. The general thinking is that the warmer conditions anticipated under climate change will mean that trees can “hang on” to their green, energy-producing leaves longer. But scientists do not actually see this happening across North American forests, according to LEC Biodiversity Fellow, Susanne S. Renner, an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
The oldest known seeds from a watermelon relative, dating back 6,000 years to the Neolithic period, were found during an archaeological dig in Libya. An investigation of these seeds led by LEC Biodiversity Fellow, biologist Susanne S. Renner at Washington University in St. Louis, reveals some surprises about how our ancestors used a predecessor of today’s watermelon.
Missouri Ozarks study by WashU narrows in on spatial aspects of biodiversity, homogenization threat to forest ecosystems
Meet WashU professor, Fangqiong Ling who uses science to improve society
National Geographic Explorer Danielle Lee reveals the incredible array of wildlife often hiding in plain sight in our cities. Her other mission? As a Black scientist, she wants to open the door for others to join the field.
With funding support from LEC, researchers look at whether Ozark oases at Tyson Research Center — climate change refugia — could help species persist in spite of rising temperatures.
Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately harmed by air pollution from burning fossil fuels and by the health risks of climate change. Transitioning away from fossil fuels takes economic and political support, a difficult ask for St. Louis, a city located in a state with one of the highest rates of coal consumption in the country. New technical and scientific funding support from foundations, combined with a recent push by city leaders, religious communities, and clean energy advocates, is putting in place sustainability programs and policies that are moving the Midwest city in a new direction.
The Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis announced the recipients of its fourth round of seed grant funding.
Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at Museums Victoria and associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, led the collaborative research effort to emphasize the importance of prioritizing taxonomic research in conservation as part of a Fulbright Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences rewrites the origins of domesticated watermelons. The study corrects a 90-year-old mistake that lumped watermelons into the same category as the South African citron melon. Instead, researchers, including Susanne S. Renner, a first author now at Washington University in St. Louis, found that a Sudanese form with non-bitter whitish pulp, known as the Kordofan melon (C. lanatus), is the closest relative of domesticated watermelons.
Andean forests have high potential to store carbon under climate change. The study — which draws upon two decades of data from 119 forest-monitoring plots in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina — was produced by an international team of scientists including researchers supported by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. The lead author was Alvaro Duque from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín.
Black-and-white ruffed lemurs and diademed sifakas are the focus of Living Earth Collaborative effort in Madagascar to find out how to best support these two endangered species.
New research from Washington University in St. Louis helps flesh out the origin story for the so-called “lost crops.” These plants may have fed as many Indigenous people as maize, but until the 1930s had been lost to history.
Dr. Fangqiong Ling has won the 2020 Rising Star Award, which is presented to a promising young scientist in the field.
New research from an international team including Rachel Penczykowski, an assistant professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis shows that infection actually makes a plant more susceptible to secondary infection — in experiments and in the wild. The findings are published Aug. 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The LEC announced funding for 8 biodiversity projects, including one in Africa earlier this week.
A study published July 8 in the journal Nature Plants presents a novel model for how small-seeded plants came to the table — and it relies on help from large, grazing animals, including bison. The new work is a collaboration between Natalie Mueller, assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Robert Spengler, director of the Paleoethnobotany Laboratories at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.