News

The Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research program, a unit of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, was recently featured in an episode of “Catalyst” by Arizona PBS. The episode, “Desert animals in urban centers,” discussed current research about how natural environments (including plant and animal life) are affected by urban development.

Sharon Hall, a senior sustainability scientist who works with the CAP LTER, said that some plant and animal life continues to flourish within or nearby Phoenix.

"There's all these hidden spots around the city that nature is thriving,” said Hall. “If we can think about finding those areas and protecting them — or at least understanding them a bit better, maybe then we can try to make our landscape a little bit more friendly to the types of animals that . . . are living among us all the time."

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An ASU Now story titled “The inconvenient consequences of a culture of convenience” was published today.

In this article, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Associate Director of Biodiversity Valuation and Assessments Beth Polidoro and other center affiliated faculty shared insights on the health, pollution and biodiversity issues associated with single-use plastics.

Plastics can take decades, centuries and even millennia to break down. As they break down, they can separate into tiny pieces called microplastics. These microplastics release harmful chemicals into the environment, harming species that ingest them — humans and animals alike.

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If conservation science is going to save the myriad species under threat in the world today, it’s going to have to go about it more efficiently, according to a paper published this week by an Arizona State University ecology professor.

If academia remains in an ivory tower and nongovernmental organizations working to save species lurch from problem to problem, headway won’t be made fast enough to stem the tide of biodiversity loss, said Leah Gerber, a professor in the School of Life Sciences. She is also founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, where she leads a team of staff and scholars building capacity to solve the most pressing biodiversity environmental challenges.

Like many other fields, conservation science tends to rely on intuition — rather than evidence — about decision-making, resource allocation and spatial planning. Evidence would be the basis for an actionable principle, Gerber said.

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber recently co-authored a paper titled “Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management for Social-Ecological System: Renewing the Focus in the United States with Next Generation Fishery Ecosystem Plan” published in Conservation Letters – a publication of the Society for Conservation Biology.  (PDF)

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If not all species can be saved, how do we decide which ones to save?

This question is more relevant than ever, as we live in the Anthropocene, a geological age characterized by human activity having a dominating influence over Earth's ecosystems and living organisms.

Learn from the voice of ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber about the various approaches to addressing endangered species protection in this Got a minute? segment.

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The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is excited to welcome Danica Shaffer-Smith, the second NatureNet Science Fellow hired in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, and Gwen Iacona who will be spearheading two conservation investment decision tools for the corporate sector.

Dr. Schaffer-Smith has technical expertise in remote sensing and geospatial analysis. Her research has spanned a variety of topics, including modeling the spread of wind-driven fires, assessing habitat connectivity for endangered species, analyzing global tropical deforestation dynamics and exploring methods to quantify linkages between coupled social-ecological systems.

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The ASU-Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute partnership is currently accepting applications from graduate students interested in learning about tropical science in Panama.

Students can apply to attend the Tropical Ecology and Conservation Boot Camp, which runs January 13-February 6, 2019 or the ASU Tropical Biology Study Abroad Course, which runs June 4-21, 2019.

Courses and application details are available here.

Applications close Monday, October 15, 2018 at 5 p.m. AZ time.

A new publication by ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director and Professor Leah Gerber and Conservation International’s Americas Field Division Senior Vice President Dr. Daniela Raik calls for cross-sector collaborations to tackle the most pressing conservation challenges of the 21^st Century.

The paper, entitled “Conservation science needs new institutional models for achieving outcomes,” was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment – a publication of The Ecological Society of America – in October 1, 2018. (PDF)

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Mountain snowpack is melting earlier, leaving water regulators searching for new approaches and farmers concerned about the risk to their crops. To help stakeholders find solutions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday awarded $4.9 million to an interdisciplinary team of researchers from five institutions in three states, including Arizona State University.

Mountain snowpack and rainfall are the primary sources of water for the arid western United States, and water allocation rules determine how that water gets distributed among competing uses. But earlier melting of mountain snowpack is altering the timing of runoff, putting additional pressure on reservoirs to meet the needs of agricultural water rights holders.

Over the next five years, scientists from ASU will join researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno; Desert Research Institute; Colorado State University and Northern Arizona University to use a new $4.97 million grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to explore different aspects of this issue:

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On September 7, 2018, Founding Director Leah Gerber represented  the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes at a workshop titled “Biodiversity and Business” at the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology.

The goal of the workshop was to develop a proof of concept “That the wealth of academic research and practice on biodiversity indicator development is directly relevant to businesses who are seeking to identify or develop biodiversity indicators,” as stated by the organizers.

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ASU-Conservation International Professor of Practice Jorge Ahumada recently published a paper in Oryx - Cambridge University Press, in partnership with other conservation scientists, titled “Detecting tropical wildlife declines through camera-trap monitoring: an evaluation of the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring protocol.”

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A Science magazine story was published today titled “Should it be saved?” It addresses the various debates surrounding approaches to endangered species protection – in particular how decisions are made regarding funds allocation for recovery efforts.

A related story, titled “How triage became a dirty word,” was also published. This story reflects on insights shared by ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber on this topic.

Read both stories here.

On January 30, 3019, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber will be partnering with Elliott Millinor and Greg Kaebnick to present a session on “Organizing concepts in biodiversity conservation.”

The session is the first in a series of four-presentations on organizing for biodiversity conservation in the age of extinction. These events are an initiative of the ASU Center for Biology + Society, as part of their Conservation Series. This particular segment on biodiversity conservation is also sponsored by the School of Life Sciences Ethics program.

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber will be giving a presentation at the University of Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Center for Conservation Science in London, UK on September 10, 2018, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. (GMT+1).

The presentation is titled “Casting Biodiversity Conservation as a Budget Allocation Problem,” and will take place in the seminar room at the Zoology department.

Click here to learn more.

The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes recently secured two grants, one with the Electric Power Research Institute and one with Monsanto, to develop respective tools that will help enable each organization to estimate the range of potential operational, reputational, legal and regulatory risks associated with compliance with the U.S. Endangered Species Act for their respective industries.

The Endangered Species Act mandates that the US federal government take actions to conserve threatened and endangered species and their associated ecosystems. Critical the success of the ESA is engaging with the private sector to build understanding how biodiversity conservation and business practices can be complementary and synergistic.

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN-WCPA) recently issued new guidance to help ecologists assess ecosystem services within important sites for biodiversity and nature conservation. The report — co-authored by Arizona State University’s Leah Gerber and Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Affiliate researchers Penny Langhammer and Rachel Neugarten — reviews nine assessment tools and focuses on their application in key biodiversity areas, natural World Heritage sites and protected areas.

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On December 2017, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes affiliated faculty John Sabo, in partnership with other scientists, published a Science magazine article titled “Designing river flows to improve food security futures in the Lower Mekong Basin.” [PDF]

The Greater Mekong is Southeast Asia’s longest river, supporting the livelihoods of around 300 million people across the region. Deforestation, poorly operating dams and fisheries management are some of the major threats to the river. This article studies the link between hydrology and fisheries and provides recommendations for improving fishing and dam development relations.

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When ASU Barrett Honors College student Celeste Delaune walked into the ASU-Conservation International joint course Conservation in Practice (BIO 412) last spring, she did not know it would take her to Peru – literally.

Under the supervision of ASU-CI Professor of Practice Percy Summers, Delaune worked in Moyobamba during the summer. Upon her return to ASU, she spoke about her experience with Amy Scoville-Weaver, ASU-CI Program Manager, ASU Corporate Engagement and Strategic Partnerships.

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes faculty, students and partners have been busy advancing cutting-edge research that supports biodiversity conservation understanding and decision-making. We present you some of their most recent publications:

Ayers, A. L., Kittinger, J. N., and Vaughan, M. B. 2018. Whose right to manage? Distribution property rights affects equity and power dynamics in comanagement. Ecology and Society. 23(2):37. PDF.

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The Arizona State University Zero Waste department collected 58,000 pounds of reusable items in the spring 2018 Ditch the Dumpster event, more than any previous years.

Ditch the Dumpster is a campus program to collect and redistribute or divert student's items when they move out of the dorms. Collected items are donated to organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Goodwill, St. Mary's Food Bank, The Center for Habilitation, and United Food Bank.

This year, Zero Waste collected 58,820 pounds of reusable clothing, electronics, furniture, and other household items. On top of these donations, 97,480 pounds of materials were recycled. The Ditch the Dumpster program also donated more than $5,400 in scholarships for local students.

Visit the Zero Waste website for more Ditch the Dumpster information.