In the Media
Ellen Marsden, Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, was interviewed by a journalism student for the Great Lakes ECHO in December, 2016. She was also interviewed by a reporter for the Alpena News, which can be watched here.
Recent PhD graduate Lee Corbett’s research with Professor Paul Bierman on what Greenland’s past and present tell us about the earth’s future was featured on Vermont Public Radio.
PhD student Lisa Izzo was interviewed on Vermont Public Radio about her research on lake sturgeon. Lisa works with Research Professor Donna Parrish, Leader of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.
Trish O’Kane, Lecturer and Advisor in the Environmental Program, was interviewed about her class, “Birding to Change the World,” by Vermont newspaper Seven Days in January.
Rubenstein’s Spatial Analysis Lab was featured on local Vermont news channel WCAX in their program “Across the Fence” on February 15th. The episode consults Spatial Analysis Lab GIS technician Emma Estabrook, who recently became one of the first certified drone pilots in Vermont.
Deb Markowitz, visiting professor and Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, was featured on Vermont Public Radio speaking about Town Meeting Day in Vermont.
Lini Wollenberg, RSENR Research Associate Professor, Gund Institute Fellow, and researcher for CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security, spoke at a side event at COP 22 in Marrakech in December. The video is titled Improving Reporting for Agricultural Emission Reductions in the Livestock Sector.
The climate change and mountain water supply research of Professor Nate Sanders, Director of the UVM Environmental Program, and Associate Professor Aimee Classen was featured on Public News Service. More about the study, which was profiled in Nature Magazine, can be found here.
Kathryn Elmer, lecturer on herbal medicine and founder of Spoonful Herbals was featured on local news speaking about her work supporting the Burlington Herb Clinic and Railyard Apothecary. RSENR senior Chrissy Doherty, advised by Kathryn Elmer, recently secured funding for Spoonful Herbals through City Market's Co-op Patronage Seedling Grant program. These funds will allow Spoonful Herbals to offer herbalism education on local organic farms.
Awards, Scholarships, Appointments and Accomplishments
Jed Murdoch, Associate Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, was elected to the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy Vermont.
Visiting Professor and Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Deb Markowitz, was also elected to the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy Vermont.
Jason Stockwell, Director of Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, was awarded a grant from the USGS Great Lake Science Center in the amount of $150,000 in December, along with co-applicant T. Stewart. The grant supports a project on Lake Superior entitled, “Coregonus artedi egg development and larvae survival dynamics.”
Jason and co-applicants were also awarded funding from the USGS John Wesley Powell Center in January for his project entitled Global Evaluation of the Impacts of Storms on Freshwater Habitat and the structure of phytoplankton assemblages in the amount of $132,000.
Lastly, Jason was awarded funding for a project entitled Global to local assessment of cyanotoxins in fish from the Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center in the amount of $40,000, for March 2017 with co-applicant T. Miller of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, Director of the University of Vermont’s (UVM) Spatial Analysis Laboratory, was awarded $85,000 from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to test Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for transportation decision support. He was also awarded $60,000 from the USGS for his project Translating geospatial conceptual ontologies to the software domain.
Two graduate students advised by Ellen Marsden, Professor of Fisheries, Carrie Kozel and Lee Simard, both successfully defended their Master’s degrees in December, 2016. Lee has accepted a long-term position as a Fisheries Biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife in Springfield. Carrie has accepted a position as a Fisheries Technician with USFWS in Michigan.
Graduate student Lucia Orantes, who is finishing up her dissertation this spring with advisor Associate Professor and Associate Dean Kimberly Wallin, accepted a position as Epidemiologist IV for the Department of Health at the State of Vermont. She will develop an active surveillance system to detect adverse outcomes possibly related to maternal Zika virus to use for public health action through monitoring, prevention, and intervention.
Class Notes
Rubenstein School Forestry students took first place in the Quiz Bowl at the New England Society of American Foresters Annual Meeting in Maine in early March.
Students taking the 4-credit service learning course ENSC 295 Nutrients Recovery Solutions: For Improving Water Quality of Natural Aquatic Systems partnered with a local wastewater treatment facility to learn about several nutrient recovery solutions. This course is taught by BioEnergy Program Director and Lead Instructor Dr. Anju D. Krivov.
Presentations and Conferences
Graduate students Peter Euclide, Carrie Kozel, and Lee Simard presented talks, and post-graduate Bethany Alger (WFB ’15) presented a poster at the Canadian Conference on Fisheries Research in Montreal in January. All of these graduate students are or were advised by Ellen Marsden, Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology.
Christine Vatovec, Research Assistant Professor at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, presented a poster at the annual conference of the National Council for Science and the Environment in Washington, DC on January 24-26. The project was entitled Pharmaceuticals in the environment: a multi-disciplinary systems approach to a complex socio-ecological challenge.
Kathleen Osgood, Lecturer in the Environmental Program, presented a paper at the University of the Arctic Congress in Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, entitled Gaining a better understanding and awareness of the Arctic through education and outreach. Borealis Voices: Online Humanities Curriculum for the North. Borealis curriculum is designed to give a voice to human expressions in the north. From storytelling to film, from shamanism to cultural identity, Borealis courses are targeted at upper undergraduate and graduate students with abiding interests in the circumpolar world.
Julie Nash, a research leader for CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security, gave a presentation at USAID Global learning and evidence exchange conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture along with Lini Wollenberg, RSENR Research Associate Professor, Gillian Galford, RSENR Research Assistant Professor and Meryl Richards, Research Associate, Natural Resources at RSENR.
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, Director of the University of Vermont's (UVM) Spatial Analysis Laboratory, presented the following work:
O'Neil-Dunne, J.P.M. 2017. Mapping your urban forest from above. Preparing Urban Forests in the Boston Region for Climate Change. Cambridge, MA, January 24th.
O'Neil-Dunne, J.P.M. 2017. UAS in Transportation. New Hampshire Department of Transportation Annual Winter Technical Meeting. Concord, NH, January 20th.
O'Neil-Dunne, J.P.M. 2016. UAS in Emergency Management. FEMA Regional Information Steering Committee Meeting. Boston, MA, December 15th.
Walt Kuentzel, Professor and Director of the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Program, gave an invited presentation entitled "The Uncertainty of Attitude Certainty about Non-native Insect Threats,” at the Interagency Forum on Invasive Species in Annapolis Maryland. PhD student Ariana Cano and Kimberly Wallin, Research Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Programs were co-authors.
Alexandra Kosiba, Ph.D. student working with Paul Schaberg, Adjunct Associate Professor and USDA Forest Service Plant Physiologist, contributed to several presentations recently:
Kosiba, A.M., Schaberg, P.G., Rayback, S.A., Hawley, G.J.2016. Linking climate and environmental factors to the recent and surprising growth increase of red spruce trees across the northeastern US. American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 12, 2016.
Schaberg, P.G., A.M. Kosiba, B.J. Engel, S.A. Rayback, G.J. Hawley, J. Pontius, E.K. Miller. 2016. Pollution critical load exceedance and an extended growing season as modulators of red spruce radial growth. American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 12, 2016.
Rayback S.A., A.M. Kosiba, G.J. Hawley, P.G. Schaberg. 2016. Examining the possible causes and implications of the surprising growth resurgence of red spruce in the Northern Forest. Northeastern States Research Cooperative Webinar, Burlington, VT, December 21, 2016.
Kris Stepenuck, Extension Leader, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, Ph.D, was the keynote speaker at the 12th annual Michigan Clean Water Corps (MiCorps) conference, which was held November 2-3, 2016, at the Kettunen Center on Center Lake near Tustin, Michigan.
Members from the laboratory of Jason Stockwell, Associate Professor and Director of the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Lab presented the following research, *indicates graduate student.
*O’Malley, B.P., S. Hansson, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Partial diel vertical migration in Mysis: specialized feeding strategy or a night off? ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Stockwell, J.D., O. Anneville, V. Patil, A. Looi*, C. Carey, G. Dur, B. Ibelings, S. MacIntyre, G. Morabito, P. Nõges, D. Pierson, J.A. Rusak, S. Souissi, D. Straile, S. Thackeray. 2017. Global Evaluation of the Impacts of Storms on freshwater Habitat and structure of phytoplankton Assemblages (GEISHA). ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Stockwell, J.D., Y. Xu, T.0. Höök, and K.C. Weathers. 2016. Opportunities across the waters: international collaboration in networking in limnology. Chinese Society of Oceanology and Limnology, Haikou City, Hainan Province, China. [Invited talk]
Stockwell, J.D., P. Isles*, B.P. O’Malley*, D. Joung, A. Schroth, and Y. Xu. 2016. Under-ice ecology of two shallow, productive freshwater systems. 2nd International Workshop on Urbanization in Watersheds: Towards a Sustainable Urbanization, Xiamen, Fuijan, China.
Jason Stockwell’s students also presented the following posters at conferences (*indicates graduate student, ** indicates undergraduate student)
McFarland **, S., A.R. Hrycik*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. The effects of mild versus cold winter conditions on zooplankton community winter-spring transitions. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Knight **, J.C., B.P. O’Malley*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Benthic invertebrates show little variation in offshore lake champlain but a major decline nearshore since 1991. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Lister **, H.R, H. Grigel, A.R. Hrycik*, B.P. O’Malley*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Under-ice diel vertical migration of zooplankton in a shallow hypertrophic lake. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Grigel **, H., H. Lister, A. Lini, A.R. Hrycik*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Under-ice phytoplankton diel vertical distribution in a shallow hypertrophic lake. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Griffin **, J., B.P. O’Malley*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Food quality and diet preference of Mysis diluviana. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Mitchell **, E.J., T.A. Gearhart*, B.P. O’Malley*, J. Kraft, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Are spring Daphnia dynamics controlled by phytoplankton quality in a hypertrophic lake? ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Calvitti, ** J., T.A. Gearhart*, B.P. O’Malley*, J. Kraft, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Fatty acids as an indicator of partial diel vertical migration in the macroinvertebrate Mysis diluviana. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Scorpio **, G.P., B.P. O’Malley*, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Using functional-trait based analysis to observe rotifer population dynamics within a hypertrophic lake. ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Jonathan Tollefson, a graduate student working with Bindu Pannikar, Assistant Professor in the Environmental Program at RSENR, presented a paper entitled The construction of resource materialities during the permitting process of newly proposed large-scale mines in Alaska. at the ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba in December, 2016.
Professor Taylor Ricketts, Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, along with Gund professors Stephen Posner, Joe Roman, Patricia González Díaz, and Insu Koh presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Boston in February. http://www.uvm.edu/newsstories/news/scientific_road_trip_boston_or_bust
Publications
Lini Wollenberg, RSENR Research Associate Professor, Gund Institute Fellow, and researcher for CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security, and Meryl Richards, research associate at with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), published a book entitled Methods for Measuring Greenhouse Gas Balances and Evaluating Mitigation Options in Smallholder Agriculture
Tony D’Amato
Curzon, M., S. Baker, C. Kern, B. Palik, and A.W. D’Amato. 2017. Influence of mature overstory trees on adjacent 12-Year regeneration and the woody understory: aggregated retention versus intact forest. Forests 8:31.
Looney, C. E., A. W. D'Amato, B. J. Palik, R. A. Slesak, and M. A. Slater. 2017. The response of Fraxinus nigra forest ground-layer vegetation to emulated emerald ash borer mortality and management strategies in northern Minnesota, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 389:352-363.
Bottero, A., A. W. D'Amato, B. J. Palik, C. C. Kern, J. B. Bradford, and S. S. Scherer. 2017. Influence of repeated prescribed fire on tree growth and mortality in Pinus resinosa forests, northern Minnesota. Forest Science 63:94-100.
Curzon, M. T., A. W. D'Amato, S. Fraver, E. S. Huff, and B. J. Palik. 2017. Succession, climate and neighborhood dynamics influence tree growth over time: an 87-year record of change in a Pinus resinosa-dominated forest, Minnesota, USA. Journal of Vegetation Science 28:82-92.
Looney, C. E., A. W. D’Amato, B. J. Palik, and R. Slesak. 2017. Canopy treatment influences growth of replacement tree species in Fraxinus nigra forests threatened by emerald ash borer in Minnesota, USA.Canadian Journal of Forest Research 47:183-192.
Roberts, M. W., A. W. D'Amato, C. C. Kern, and B. J. Palik. 2017. Effects of variable retention harvesting on natural tree regeneration in Pinus resinosa (red pine) forests. Forest Ecology and Management 385:104-115.
Kern, C. C., J. I. Burton, P. Raymond, A. W. D'Amato, W. S. Keeton, A. A. Royo, M. B. Walters, C. R. Webster, and J. L. Willis. 2017. Challenges facing gap-based silviculture and possible solutions for mesic northern forests in North America. Forestry 90:4-17.
Jason Stockwell
Weyhenmeyer, G.A., M. Mackay, J.D. Stockwell, W. Thiery, H.-P. Grossart, P.B. Augusto-Silva, H. Baulch, E. de Eyto, J. Hejzlar, K. Kangur, G. Kirillin, D.C. Pierson, J.A. Rusak, S. Sadro, and R.I. Woolway. Accepted. Citizen science shows systematic changes in the temperature difference between air and inland waters with global warming. Nature Scientific Reports.
DongJoo, J., M. Leduc, B. Ramcharitar, Y. Xu, P.D.F. Isles, J.D. Stockwell, G. Druschel, T. Manley, and A.W. Schroth. Accepted. The impact of winter weather and system configuration on phosphorus, iron and manganese dynamics in water and sediment of ice-covered lakes. Limnology and Oceanography.
Euclide, P.T., S. Hansson, and J.D. Stockwell. 2017. Partial diel vertical migration in an omnivorous macroinvertebrate. Hydrobiologia 787:387-396. doi:10.1007/s10750-016-2982-5
Gearhart, T.G., K. Ritchie, E. Nathan, J.D. Stockwell, and J. Kraft. 2017. Alteration of essential fatty acids in secondary consumers across a gradient of cyanobacteria. Hydrobiologia 784:155-170. doi:10.1007/s10750-016-2864-x
Hampton, S.E., A.W.E. Galloway, S.M. Powers, T. Ozersky, K.H. Woo, R.D. Batt, S.G. Labou, C.M. O’Reilly, S. Sharma, N.R. Lottig, E.H. Stanley, R.L. North, J.D. Stockwell, R. Adrian, G.A. Weyhenmeyer, L. Arvola, H.M. Baulch, I. Bertani, L.L. Bowman, Jr., C.C. Carey, J. Catalan, W. Colom-Montero, L.M. Domine, M. Felip, I. Granados, C. Gries, H.-P. Grossart, J. Haberman, M. Haldna, B. Hayden, S.N. Higgins, J.C. Jolley, K.K. Kahilainen, E. Kaup, M.J. Kehoe, S. MacIntyre, A.W. Mackay, H.L. Mariash, R.M. McKay, B. Nixdorf, P. Nõges, T. Nõges, M. Palmer, D.C. Pierson, D.M. Post, M.J. Pruett, M. Rautio, J.S. Read, S.L. Roberts, J. Rücker, S. Sadro, E.A. Silow, D.E. Smith, R.W. Sterner, G.E.A. Swann, M.A. Timofeyev, M. Toro, M.R. Twiss, R.J. Vogt, S.B. Watson, E.J. Whiteford, and M.A. Xenopoulos. 2017. Ecology under lake ice. Ecology Letters 20:98-111. doi:10/1111/ele.12699
Pinheiro, V., J.D. Stockwell, and J.E. Marsden. 2017. Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) spawning site used in Lake Champlain. Journal of Great Lakes Research. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0380133016302350
Ellen Marsden
Pinheiro, V. M., J. D. Stockwell, and J. E. Marsden. 2016. Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) spawning site use in Lake Champlain. J. Great Lakes Res. 00:00-00
Jed Murdoch
Ekernas, L. S., W. M. Sarmento, H. S. Davie, R. P. Reading, J. Murdoch, G. J. Wingard, S. Amgalanbaatar, and J. Berger. In press. Indirect effects of desert pastoralists help and hurt rare wildlife. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12881
M’soka, J., S. Creel, M. Becker, and J. Murdoch. In press. Ecological and anthropogenic effects on the density of migratory and resident ungulates in a human-inhabited protected area. African Journal of Ecology.
Coleman, K., J. Murdoch, S. Rayback, A. Seidl, and K. Wallin. In press. Students' understanding of sustainability and climate change across linked service-learning courses. Journal of Geoscience Education.
Reading, R., J. Murdoch, S. Amgalanbaatar, H. Davie, M. Jorgensen, D. Kenny, T. Munkhzul, G. Onloragcha, L. Rhodes, J. Schneider, T. Selenge, E. Stotz, S. Buyandelger, E. Tuguldur, and G. Wingard. 2016. From “paper park” to model protected area: transformation of Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, Mongolia. IUCN Parks Journal 22.2:41-54. [cover article]
Murdoch, J., R. Reading, S. Amgalanbaatar, G. Wingard, and B. Lkhagvasuren. In press. Ecological interactions shape the distribution of a cultural ecosystem service: argali sheep (Ovis ammon) in the Gobi-Steppe of Mongolia. Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.02.035
Meryl Richards
Richards M, van Ittersum M, Mamo T, Stirling C, Vanlauwe B, Zougmoré R. 2016. Fertilizers and low emission development in sub-Saharan Africa.CCAFS Policy Brief no. 11. Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
Vermeulen S, Richards M, De Pinto A, Ferrarese D, Läderach P, Lan L, Luckert M, Mazzoli E, Plant L, Rinaldi R, Stephenson J, Watkiss P. 2016. The economic advantage: assessing the value of climate change actions in agriculture Rome, Italy: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Peter Clark (PhD student working with Tony D’Amato, Associate Professor, Co-Director of Forestry Program)
Clark, P., J.H. Speer, and L.J Winship. Accepted 1/2017. Extracting Climate and Pandora Moth Outbreaks from a 1,500-Year Long Ponderosa Pine Chronology from Central Oregon. Tree-Ring Research.