Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

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New Plant Species and Habitat Near Knoxville

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A paper describing the discovery of a new plant species, the Leatherleaf Tassel Rue (Trautvetteria fonticalcarea), was just published by recent UT graduate Aaron Floden (PhD 2017) in the Nordic Journal of Botany. Floden, writing with his PhD advisor Prof. Ed Schilling, also provided the first published description of the unique habitat in which this plant species grows, which occurs along the Powell River just north of Knoxville, Tennessee. Seep drainages formed by springs occur over a unique limestone substrate type in the area, producing small garden-like arrays of grasses and grass-like plants, herbaceous perennials, and small shrubs, but lacking trees. The seeps host other distinctive plants, many of which reach the southern-most extent of their natural ranges and are found in Tennessee only in this distinctive habitat. These include such beautiful plants as the Showy Lady’s Slipper and a form of Grass of Parnassus that may also be new. Floden, who is now on the staff at the Missouri Botanical Garden, has been working with TVA biologist Adam Datillo to compile and map a complete list of seep sites along the Powell River, with an eye toward considering ways to keep them preserved. Some of the larger seep areas may have been partially or completely inundated when Norris Dam was built, but there are still many nice examples. The springs that form the seeps are also utilized as a source of water by local residents. The seeps and their plants are a unique gem in the east Tennessee landscape that are worth saving for future generations to enjoy and appreciate.

The full article can be found here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/njb.01738/full

Leatherleaf Tassel Rue, Showy Lady’s Slipper, and Grass of Parnassus

Three Minute Thesis Competition

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Two EEB grad students are competing in the 3-minute thesis competition next week: Jordan Bush (Simberloff Lab) and Sara Lipshutz (Derryberry Lab). This is a University-wide competition, so we are doing well to have two EEB-ers representing us! See pdf for details.

Jordan and Sara are speaking on February 26, 2018 at 3:30 p.m. in room 160 of the Plant Biotechnology Building, in the first of three Three Minute Thesis semi-final competitions. The Three Minute Thesis competition is one in which graduate students have three minutes and a single slide to explain their dissertation or thesis research to a group of judges and an audience (that may not even be familiar with the academic area). It’s a valuable exercise and a great way to showcase the amazing work being done by UT graduate students. It’s also a perfect way to start Graduate Education Week, so come by and watch the competition and support our graduate students!

Tewksbury Seminar 2/16

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Josh Tewksbury, of Future Earth, is the EEB seminar speaker this Friday (Feb. 16), at 3:30 PM in 307 SERF.  This seminar is affiliated with the Haines Morris Endowment-funded seminar series, “Why Natural History Matters in the 21st Century.”

The talk is entitled “Natural History’s place in Science and Society” (poster).

 

Darwin Day 2018

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Darwin Day at UT is hosting 2 events coming up this weekend and early next week!

We have Darwin’s Birthday Party at the McClung Museum on Saturday, Feb. 10th from 1-4pm with cake, scavenger hunts, crafts, and Darwin himself.

Monday, Feb. 12 at 7pm we have Dr. Nizar Ibrahim (discoverer of Spinosaurus, an aquatic dinosaur) coming to campus to give a lecture.

For more information, please visit darwindaytn.org.

Simberloff Amongst Most Cited

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Professor Daniel Simberloff is one of two UT faculty members who have earned the distinction of being among the most cited researchers in the world, according to Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thompson Reuters.

It’s the second such recognition in a row for Simberloff.

Those measurements came in relation to specific findings and papers rather than a cross-examination of all work tied to a researcher, placing Simberloff in the top 1 percent of all research scientists across the world.

The full UT News story can be viewed here.

Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity

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UT is home to a new Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity (DySoC), led by  Director Sergey Gavrilets.  Other EEB faculty involved in the center include Nina Fefferman and Lou Gross.

“The goal of the Center is to promote connections and collaborations between different researchers focusing on various aspects and levels of human social behavior. We use theoretical and empirical methods and work at the interface of mathematical, biological, social, and computational sciences. Our topics of interest include cooperation, conflict, cultural evolution and dynamics, mass behavior and psychology, human origins, emergence and evolution of human societies, social norms, and societal resilience and (in) stability to various shocks. We are interested in combining system thinking, modeling tools, and big data to develop testable predictions and practical agendas.”

No Fortuitous Short-Cuts When Deciding Conservation Priorities

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The Armsworth Lab has a new open-access publication out in Nature Communications: “Factoring economic costs into conservation planning may not improve agreement over priorities for protection.”  It is a collaboration between an interdisciplinary team of UT researchers with scientists at The Nature Conservancy and focuses on how best to identify candidate areas for establishing nature reserves.

Co-authors include Research Assistant Professor Heather Jackson, former graduate students Gwen Iacona (PhD 2014, now a postdoc at the University of Queensland) and Nate Sutton (MS 2014, now a data scientist for MedAmerica), and former postdoc Eric Larson (now faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

The abstract is pasted below.

Conservation organizations must redouble efforts to protect habitat given continuing biodiversity declines. Prioritization of future areas for protection is hampered by disagreements over what the ecological targets of conservation should be. Here we test the claim that such disagreements will become less important as conservation moves away from prioritizing areas for protection based only on ecological considerations and accounts for varying costs of protection using return-on-investment (ROI) methods. We combine a simulation approach with a case study of forests in the eastern United States, paying particular attention to how covariation between ecological benefits and economic costs influences agreement levels. For many conservation goals, agreement over spatial priorities improves with ROI methods. However, we also show that a reliance on ROI-based prioritization can sometimes exacerbate disagreements over priorities. As such, accounting for costs in conservation planning does not enable society to sidestep careful consideration of the ecological goals of conservation.

Energy and Environment Forums, Spring 2018

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The list of seminar speakers for the Spring 2018 Baker Center Energy and Environment Forums has been released!  Download the pdf here.

  • Thursday, February 1—Laura Ogden, Energy and Environment Forum, 1–2:30 p.m., Toyota Auditorium. Ogden will present “Trace Impressions of Being: Loss, Change, and Wonder in the Fuegian Archipelago ” Dr. Ogden is an associate professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College.
  • Thursday, February 15—Desiree Tullos, Energy and Environment Forum, 1–2:30 p.m., Toyota Auditorium. Tullos is a professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University whose work and passion is in the sustainable management of rivers. Presentation title will be announced at a later time.
  • Thursday, March 1—Robin Craig, Energy and Environment Forum, 1–2:30 p.m., Toyota Auditorium. Craig, is the James I. Farr Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is also currently serving as the Acting Director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment, is on the Executive Board of the University of Utah’s new Water Center, and is affiliated faculty with the Global Changes and Sustainability Center. She will present “Narrating the Anthropocene, or, Learning to Live with the Trickster.”
  • Thursday, April 5—Andrew Plantinga, Energy and Environment Forum, 1-2:30 p.m., Toyota Auditorium. He is a professor in the Bren School of Enironmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on the economics of land use, climate change, and forests, with emphasis on empirical modeling of land markets and the analysis of environmental policies that affect private land-use decisions. Plantinga will present “Missing the People for the Trees: Elucidating the Role of Human Behavior in the Ecology of Lyme Disease.”
  • Thursday, April 26—Sadie Ryan, Energy and Environment Forum, 1–2:30 p.m., Toyota Auditorium. Ryan is an associate professor of Medical Geography at the University of Florida. Her focus areas GeoSpatial Analysis & Techniques and Medical Geography in Global Health (MGGH). Presentation title will be announced at a later time.

Stachowiak Fellowship Finalist

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Graduate Student Chad Stachowiak (Armsworth Lab), is a finalist for a 2018 Presidential Management Fellowship.

“The PMF Program is a flagship leadership development program at the entry level for advanced degree candidates. It was created more than three decades ago by Executive Order and has gone through many changes over the years. The Program attracts and selects the best candidates possible, but is really designed with a more narrow focus – developing a cadre of potential government leaders. It provides some sustenance during the first years of employment and encourages development of leadership capabilities. The PMF Program inculcates a lasting bond as well as a spirit of public service, ultimately encouraging and leading to a career in the government.”

Approximately 6,040 applications were received and 425 applicants were selected as Finalists. The 2018 Finalists’ pool represents approximately 69 different disciplines, 161 academic institutions, and 15% are veterans.