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.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is known for its beautiful plants and flowers, but that’s not where you’ll find ecologist Matthew Austin.
Most days, you’ll find the post-doctoral fellow with Washington University’s Living Earth Collaborative combing the stacks, not of a library, but of the garden’s Herbarium, one of the world’s best research resources for all things plants.
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.
On November 12, 2022,Webster University held the Shutterbee Symposium. The symposium featured 12 presentations on topics ranging from the American Goldfinch to native gardening, highlighting the project’s success in documenting nearly 39,000 individual bees in the region since its inception in 2020.
The “páramo biodiversity farms” initiative in Colombia’s Sumapaz region represents an innovative approach to biodiversity conservation, emphasizing the creation of ex situ living collections of threatened plants like Espeletia. These collections serve as tools for research, education, and ecological restoration while fostering collaboration with local communities. By prioritizing sustainable, community-driven conservation efforts, the initiative challenges traditional “ark paradigm” approaches and promotes biodiversity management rooted in the ecosystems and populations most affected.
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.
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.
Elizabeth Carlen is a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. She is studying how city life is changing the local populations of eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis).
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.
Writing in the journal Ecology Letters, Michael Moore, a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, and his collaborators Noah Leith and Kasey Fowler-Finn at Saint Louis University (SLU) published a new paper in Ecology Letters.
Climate change is affecting how and when common blue violets reproduce, according to a study of preserved specimens of the flower published last month by the Missouri Botanical Garden and LEC postodotoral fellow, Matthew Austin.
Research from Matthew Austin, a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, found that climate change is affecting how the common blue violet, a common native flower, reproduce.
Missouri Ozarks study by WashU narrows in on spatial aspects of biodiversity, homogenization threat to forest ecosystems
Washington University in St. Louis and the Living Earth Collaborative are part of a new Missouri-based conservation initiative led by the Saint Louis Zoo. Working with the Endangered Wolf Center, scientists are looking to answer ecological and health-related questions about canids — red foxes, gray foxes and coyotes — as well as bobcats, which live in close association with canids.
Researchers from the St. Louis Zoo, Washington University, and the Endangered Wolf Center have initiated the Canid Conservation Initiative to study the health and ecological roles of Missouri’s foxes, coyotes, and bobcats. The study is conducted at two sites: the Tyson Research Center near Eureka and the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park in north St. Louis County. To date, the team has collected samples from 16 opossums, 12 raccoons, one red fox, and two bobcats, with the red fox and bobcats now being monitored via GPS tracking devices.
Researchers from WashU, Saint Louis Zoo, and the Endangered Wolf Center have have launched a collaborative research effort to investigate the ecological roles and health of Missouri’s native canids—red foxes, gray foxes, and coyotes—as well as bobcats. The research focuses on two distinct sites: the rural Tyson Research Center and the suburban Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park, aiming to determine if these species can serve as indicators of ecosystem health.
Meet WashU professor, Fangqiong Ling who uses science to improve society
LEC Postdoc Yusan Yang partners with WashU faculty Swanne Gordon and Andrés Lopez-Sepulcre to explore how sexual behaviors affect female guppy eating habits.
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.
Science Journal for Kids picked up Moore et al (2021) on coloration changes in dragonflies article and brought it to younger audiences.
LEC post-doc Michael Moore led a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looking at if dragonflies have adapted with climate historically and what is projected to happen with an even warmer climate in the future.
Video highlighting Dr. Sacha Heath’s, LEC postdoc, research in the Sacramento Valley looking at the effects of planting hedgerows on the edges of different types of crops.
Jonathan Myers, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, and William Farfan-Rios, a postdoctoral research fellow of the Living Earth Collaborative, are co-authors of the new study led by Duke University, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In a new PNAS publication by Miles Silman and William Farfan-Rios, a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis’s Living Earth Collaborative, about 80% of the 600 species they studied, trees’ fecundity, or physical potential to reproduce, peaked or plateaued as they reached an intermediate size. After that, it declined.
Postdoctoral researcher, Mariana Braga, has modeled how butterfly-plant interactions evolve.
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.
Meet Elizabeth Carlen, a Living Earth Collaborative postdoc and NSF postdoctoral fellow working in the Losos lab at Washington University
In a study published last week, local researchers, including LEC post-doc Michael Moore, found that male dragonflies have less wing coloration in warmer climates to prevent overheating in the sun. This discovery enhances scientists’ understanding of how organisms adapt to climate change, offering insights into conservation strategies.
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences led by LEC postdoctoral fellow, Michael Moore, finds that dragonfly males have consistently evolved less breeding coloration in regions with hotter climates.
In an article for The Hill, Living Earth Collaborative postdoc Michael Moore highlights the threats facing dragonflies, one of Earth’s oldest and most resilient species. Despite surviving major extinction events and natural predators for over 200 million years, dragonflies are now at risk due to habitat loss, pollution, and climate change caused by human activity. Moore warns that if we fail to act, we risk being responsible for the extinction of a species that has withstood previous global catastrophes.
Saint Louis on the Air interviewed LEC post-doc Michael Moore about his new findings that male dragonfly wing patterns are changing.
LEC post-doc Michael Moore found that male dragonflies are adapting to warmer conditions by changing their wing patterns in a new study published in PNAS
New research led by post-doc Michael Moore and in collaboration with LEC Biodiversity Fellows, Kim Medley and Kasey Fowler-Finn, and several WashU undergraduate students reveals that male dragonfly wing patterns are changing in response to warming temperatures.
Climate change may make the male dragonflies of North America less colorful – which might also make them less sexually attractive to females according to new research by LEC post-doc Michael Moore and colleagues.
LEC postdoctoral fellow Michael Moore and collaborators find that black patterns used to attract mates can cause dragonflies to overheat in hotter climates according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis announced the recipients of its fourth round of seed grant funding.
Studies ranging from orchards in Michigan to vineyards in California and New Zealand show that birds including American Kestrels, Barn Owls, and Western Bluebirds are better than chemicals at reducing pest damage. Read about LEC post-doc fellow, Sacha Heath’s research in Sacramento Valley orchards added to this body of knowledge.
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.
Talk about a rude awakening. Brood X cicadas are coming of age in world that is drastically altered from the one their ancestors knew. LEC Postdoctoral Fellow, Brett Seymoure is a behavioral ecologist who studies the effect of lighting on animal behavior.
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.
The Elizabeth “Ibby” Danforth Butterfly Garden began as a service project of the Washington University Women’s Club in 1996, to honor the eponymous wife of former chancellor William Danforth.
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.
“Climate change is altering when plants are blooming, and it’s disrupting the historic relationships between plants and their pollinators,” said Matthew Austin, an ecologist and biodiversity postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. “But we know remarkably little about what effect that has on how plants interact with one another and the evolutionary consequences of altered plant-plant interactions.”
Peter H. Raven, George Engelmann Professor Emeritus of Botany at Washington University and Missouri Botanical Garden President Emeritus, has released Driven by Nature, his newly released autobiography that takes readers across multiple continents and decades.
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.