Climate change and human activity are going to combine to create new challenges to biodiversity in the coming century. Over the last decade, it’s become increasingly apparent that 20th century conservation strategies may be poorly suited to protect species in a changing world. Take the Endangered Species Act of 1973 — it’s a place-based, […]
I told a group of students a while ago that we had red pandas in North America until “relatively recently.” Big mistake. “Wait,” one stopped me. “What do you mean by ‘relatively recently?’” Oh, you know. 4.5 million years. I don’t know if paleo cultivates the temporal mind, or if the temporal […]
For decades, paleontology was broadly a descriptive science; it was seen by many as a novelty, but not necessarily relevant to the study of modern systems. This has changed as our field has become more quantitative, but also as methodological advances have led to better dating and data that have allowed […]
As a general rule, I care much more about the consequences of extinction than the causes. Even though I work on past landscapes, my mind is firmly rooted in the present, and I strive for my work to be relevant to. We know what’s causing extinctions today, for the most […]
It’s no secret that science funding rates are, in a word, abysmal*. As a pre-tenure faculty member, this has been weighing heavily on my mind, and I’ve devoted a substantial portion of my year to grant writing (fingers crossed!). There’s a running joke that you typically get funded to do […]
The horse has a complex and fascinating environmental history. Wild horses have become such an icon of the American west that it’s easy to forget that humans introduced them to the continent five hundred years ago, during European colonization. Horses quickly became part of Native American livelihoods and played an […]
What happens when large herbivores disappear from landscapes? Much of my research to date has used the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna as a natural experiment, documenting the cascading effects of the loss of large herbivores on the plant communities they left behind. To do this, I marshall the paleoecological […]
“As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought the wood began to move.” – Messenger, Shakespeare’s Macbeth The simple story of the last 2.5 million years of vegetation response to climate change could be summed up like this: temperature goes up and down, plants […]
Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided […]
Last year, I crowd-funded my attendance to ScienceOnline2012, an un-conference for people communicating about– and doing– science on the internet. In exchange, I offered to interview one attendee for every $100 I raised. In the lead-up to ScienceOnline2013, I’ll be sharing those interviews. Based on feedback from Twitter, I decided […]
The Contemplative Mammoth 