News

A new postdoc position is available, called "Challenges and opportunities for coastal livelihoods associated with China’s Maritime Silk Road investments."

The fisheries social science team at the University of Technology Sydney is recruiting for a postdoctoral research associate to conduct research as part of the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center, a new interdisciplinary research group that studies changes, responses and solutions to societal issues that emerge in relationship with the oceans.

Continue Reading

Biodiversity is all around us! Even in urban settings, we can observe a variety of interesting species of plants and animals, each serving a unique role in our ecosystems.

To recognize and celebrate biodiversity close to home, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes invites you to submit cool photographs or short videos of species you observe in your surroundings as part of our #BackyardBiodiversity social media campaign.

Continue Reading

A new publication co-authored by ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes founding director Leah Gerber illustrates a pathway for the private sector to assess their biodiversity performance and demonstrate responsible management practices.

The publication, titled “Bringing sustainability to life: A framework to guide biodiversity indicator development for business performance management,” was published in Business Strategy and the Environment.

Continue Reading

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber recently published an op-ed in Mexican newspaper El Universal titled “Protecting biodiversity: our best shot to prevent the next pandemic.”

In this article, Gerber highlights the relationship between environmental health and human health. Habitat degradation by human activities, such as pollution, climate change, overexploitation, species removal and introduction, parallels the emergence of zoonotic (animal-to-human transmitted) viruses with pandemic causing potential.

Continue Reading

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, an ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes partner, reported that almost a third of lemurs and North Atlantic Right Whales are now critically endangered.

The IUCN Red List categorizes species worldwide by their level of threat to extinction. Critically Endangered is the last level before the species becomes extinct.

The currently revised list contains more than 120,000 species assessed, with at least 32,000 of these species threatened with extinction. The updated list reveals the true scale of threat the primate and whale species are facing.

Continue Reading

ASU Now I June 17, 2020

As a follow-up to her recent article, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber presented a webinar to address the link between natural habitat destruction and pandemics.

This webinar, titled “A Global Strategy for Preventing the Next Pandemic,” took place on June 11, 2020 and was co-sponsored by the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. A recording of the webinar is available here.

Continue Reading

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber will be delivering a virtual talk on Thursday, June 11, 2020, titled “A Global Strategy for Preventing the Next Pandemic.”

This webinar will take place via Zoom at 12:00 p.m. AZ Time and 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US and Canada).

While the media and the public are focusing on the wildlife trade as the main factor for COVID-19, Gerber believes it is only one part of the equation. During this talk, she will discuss her proposal for combating future infectious diseases by implementing a global body backed by science, which she calls the Zoonotic Disease Commission.

Continue Reading

As the 2020 hurricane season begins, a new study published today by The Nature Conservancy and Arizona State University's Center for Biodiversity Outcomes shows that Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, flood hazard maps underpredicted the extent of recent hurricane-induced floods, their effect on vulnerable human communities and consequential environmental damage in the North Carolina region.

This study, titled “Repeated Hurricanes Reveal Risks and Opportunities for Social-Ecological Resilience to Flooding and Water Quality Problems” was published in Environmental Science and Technology.

Continue Reading

In partnership with Conservation International and the Global Trophic Cascades Program at Oregon State University, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes published a new study in Conservation Biology revealing the potentially significant contribution reforestation could have on biodiversity conservation.

The publication, titled “Global reforestation and biodiversity conservation,” was led by Postdoctoral Research Associate Krista Kemppinen and co-authored by Pamela Collins and David Hole from Conservation International, Christopher Wolf and William Ripple from the Global Trophic Cascades Program at Oregon State University and Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber.

Continue Reading

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Faculty Affiliate Garth Paine developed a tool that tracks gunshots in rainforests to stop illegal poaching of wild animals.

This device identifies sonic characteristics of a gunshot from a mile away that reports the location of the shot to local authorities. Originally, wildlife conservationists used camera traps to document illegal poaching. However, if the perpetrators sighted the cameras they destroyed them.

Continue Reading

Written by Nosizo Lukhele

As an undergraduate student at Bennington College, which highly cultivates students to be multifaceted, I cannot imagine a better way to have spent the six weeks dedicated to my fieldwork term than at the Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology and Center for Biodiversity Outcomes at Arizona State University.

Being at the centers and seeing researchers and staff with expertise in research, STEM, computer science, curriculum and education, and other interdisciplinary areas work together to manifest a project that showcases the transdisciplinary nature of STEM was nothing short of inspirational.

Continue Reading

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber was interviewed by ASU Now regarding her recently published Issues in Science and Technology op-ed titled “A Global Strategy for Preventing the Next Pandemic.” In this publication, Gerber proposes a global body to monitor and enforce wildlife trafficking to prevent future pandemics.

Many scientists have found that past diseases have been linked to wild animal markets, including the recent coronavirus pandemic. Past evidence has predicted these outbreaks, but nothing has been done to prevent them from occurring.

Now is the time to act.

Continue Reading

According to researchers, about half of Caribbean coral reefs have died since the 1970s, with the iconic elkhorn and staghorn corals being the hardest hit. However, climate change does not completely explain the loss of the reefs. So, in order to get a better picture of the drastic coral loss, Arizona State University researcher Katie Cramer has published a new paper in Science Advances.

"I am interested in going back to the scene of the crime when humans first began to significantly impact coral reefs centuries ago, to understand when, why and how much reefs have been altered by humans,” said Cramer, an assistant research professor at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and an Ocean Science Fellow at the Center for Oceans at Conservation International.

Continue Reading

COVID-19 may have jumped from a wild animal market in Wuhan, China, to people. If so, it’s not the first deadly disease to spring from nature. Middle East respiratory syndrome is said to have a source at a camel market in Saudi Arabia. In the United States, the H1N1 swine flu originated in factory farms where animals are held in extreme confinement. And Ebola likely had its start in a chimpanzee habitat in West Africa.

A rising chorus is calling for wildlife markets to be shut down across the globe.

Continue Reading

ASU-Conservation International Assistant Research Professor Katie Cramer recently co-authored a paper in Science Advances titled the “Widespread loss of Caribbean acroporid corals was underway before coral bleaching and disease outbreaks.”

The publication presented evidence through fossil data, historical records and underwater data, that throughout the last 125,000 years, the abundance of staghorn and elkhorn corals began declining in the mid-1900s. This reveals new speculation that the corals began to decline from fishing and land-clearing, but warming oceans have impelled this deterioration further.

Continue Reading

An Ensia opinion article by ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber was published on the 50^th anniversary of Earth’s Day, identifying viable solutions to combat biodiversity loss through Project Drawdown.

Project Drawdown is an organization that researches the most practical global climate change solutions while sharing their findings with the rest of the world. Just as Project Drawdown pursued interventions for climate change, Gerber believes we need to produce a project drawdown for biodiversity to identify and share solutions to alleviate the biodiversity crisis.

Continue Reading

ASU-Conservation International Research Professor Jack Kittinger co-authored a new Science publication titled “Meeting fisheries, ecosystem function, and biodiversity goals in a human-dominated world.”

Abstract:

The worldwide decline of coral reefs necessitates targeting management solutions that can sustain reefs and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them. However, little is known about the context in which different reef management tools can help to achieve multiple social and ecological goals.

Continue Reading

Arizona State University ranked top in the U.S. and fifth in the world for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Back in 2017, world leaders came together to produce 17 sustainable objectives to improve the state of our planet by 2030.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, April 22, 2020, Times Higher Education magazine announced that out of 766 institutions from around the world, only three American universities placed in the top 100. ASU scored 96.3 out of 100 points, therefore making our university the top American university and fifth-best in the world.

Continue Reading

Today's issue of ASU Now features a video by ASU experts, including ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber, sharing insights and recommendations for saving the environment.

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, they remind us that every action counts towards conserving nature and the diversity of life on our planet.

Watch the video to learn how you can make a difference.

Continue Reading

On April 10, 2020, Issues in Science and Technology published an article by ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber titled “A Global Strategy for Preventing the Next Pandemic.”

While the media and the public are focusing on the wildlife trade as the main factor for COVID-19, Gerber believes it is only one part of the equation. In this publication, she explains how environmental degradation has contributed to the transition of disease from animals to humans.

Continue Reading