Recent graduate Morgan Andrews (Environmental Sciences 2019) won the award for best poster in the applied research category at the annual national meeting for Freshwater Science in Salt Lake City, Utah, in May. Andrews started researching aquatic ecosystems in her junior year, and was supported by a Hooper Undergraduate Research Award working with Dr. Rebecca Best. She is now… Read more
Ecology & Conservation
How will riparian ecosystems respond to the future? Maybe the past can tell us.
School of Earth & Sustainability professor Rebecca Best, along with Co-PIs from the Department of Biological Sciences at NAU and the Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research , have received a new NSF grant to study the evolutionary origins and ecological consequences of “flexibility” in the way cottonwood trees at the heart of riparian ecosystems respond to stresses. By investigating the history and future of climate stresses and insect attacks, these professors, postdocs, and students hope to contribute better… Read more
Snakes! Erika Nowak talks myths vs. reality
SES Research Professor Erika Nowak is featured on NAU News for her work on rattlesnakes and gartersnakes, and discusses how the threats we pose to them far outweigh their danger to us. Read the article here or learn more about Dr. Nowak’s research program.
From fungi to lions: the Serengeti food web starts in the soil
New research from PhD student Bo Stevens and SESES Professor Nancy Johnson shows that symbiotic relationships between plants and fungi support a large part of the large mammal biomass in this iconic grassland ecosystem. Read more at NAU News.
Evolution is rapid enough to matter for ecosystems
Biologists interested in where biodiversity comes from and how it matters for ecosystem functioning are increasingly interested in the way evolution connects these two questions. Recent work on trait divergence in Swiss stickleback fish combines both processes in a single experiment. The paper by Rebecca Best and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, and highlighted in this recent feature on rapid evolution, available on Nature.com.
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