Archive by category | Ecological Society of America

ESA 2009: Geoengineering, the last word

Geoengineering — the deliberate manipulation of climate to counteract global warming — might not be taking off just yet, but the push to fund more research into it is increasing. Read the full story here on Nature News. And that wraps up our coverage of the 2009 Ecological Society of America meeting.  Read more

ESA 2009: Contributing to the book of life

ESA 2009: Contributing to the book of life

The exhibit hall here at the ecological meeting seems oddly empty — or maybe that’s just because I hit it at a down time when free beer wasn’t being offered. I did spend some time flipping through the fancy new materials at the unstaffed booth of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), the ambitious effort to catalogue the planet’s species onto a one-page-per-species website.  Read more

ESA 2009: War and the ordinary scientist

ESA 2009: War and the ordinary scientist

Powerpoint presentations at ecology conferences are usually dominated by pretty landscapes: flowering plants, cute little pikas, soaring mountain vistas. So it was a bit of a shock today to sit through pictures of corpses at the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, American warplanes spraying deadly Agent Orange on Vietnam, and refugees lining up at camps in Darfur.  Read more

ESA 2009: What color is your roof?

ESA 2009: What color is your roof?

While the idea of green roofs sounds lovely and eco-friendly, keeping those plants alive on your rooftop is easier said than done. That’s the message given the ecology meeting today by Colleen Butler, who’s been growing experimental green-roof plots at Tufts University in Boston for the past few years.  Read more

ESA 2009: Arriving in Albuquerque

Nature reporters Alexandra Witze and Emma Marris will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from Aug. 3-7, 2009, to cover the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. They’ll be posting updates here on In the Field, Nature’s news team blog from conferences and events.  Read more