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Unique Research on Calving Impacts on Nutrient Cycle Earns 2024 Bormann Prize

Fran Silverman — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 19:36:21 +0000

Unique Research on Calving Impacts on Nutrient Cycle Earns 2024 Bormann Prize Fran Silverman Tue, 04/16/2024 - 15:36

In the expanding field of zoogeochemistry, which examines how animals interact with nutrient cycles, Kristy Ferraro had a novel idea. The Yale School of the Environment doctoral candidate developed a field experiment that would look at how plant-fungal ecology interacted with the nutrients introduced by calving animals — white tail deer — during spring green-up.

“Animals interact with ecosystems in so many different ways. They are constantly impacting, and are impacted by, the environments they live in,” Ferraro said. “Untangling the ways in which animals are supporting ecosystems or contributing to ecosystem function is important because it helps us understand their role. While we know that carcasses and waste can accelerate nutrient cycles and create nutrient hotspots, for large mammals, there hasn’t been much work on the role of placenta and natal fluid in ecosystem functions. There also hasn’t been any work on the interactive effects of animal inputs and the underlying plant-fungal associations. The research really extends beyond the question of how animals impact ecosystems to how ecosystems are modulating that impact.”

This groundbreaking interdisciplinary research, which was published in 2023 in the Journal of Animal Ecology, earned Ferraro the 2024 F. Herbert Bormann Prize. The award honors a YSE doctoral student whose work best exemplifies the legacy of Bormann, a plant ecologist who taught at YSE from 1966-1993 and whose research called the world’s attention to the threat of acid rain. Ferraro received the award at the 40th annual Research Day held at YSE April 12.

For the study, Ferraro and a team of YSE researchers placed animal placentas and simulated natal fluid at Yale-Myers Forest in plots dominated by one of two different plant-fungal associations common in northern forests — ericoid mycorrhizal (ErM) or ectomycorrhizal (EcM). They returned to the sites three months later to record nutrient concentrations in the vegetation in the plots, as well as the cycling of nutrients in the soil. They found that the calving materials act as fertilizers and create nutrient hotspots that ultimately create more nutritious plants for animals to eat. They also discovered that while the nutrients introduced by the calving did accelerate nitrogen cycling, in some cases the underlying plant-fungal associations mitigated the effects by slowing it down.

“Our study highlights one newly discovered piece of an infinite feedback loop between animals and ecosystems … Specifically, the underlying plant-fungal association can mediate the impacts of calving inputs,” Ferraro said.

The study was co-authored by Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology; Mark Bradford, professor of soils and ecosystem ecology; Les Welker ’22,’24 MESc; and Eli Ward ’18 MFS, ’23 PhD.

Ferraro said she was thrilled to receive the Bormann prize for the research.

From left: Les Welker ’22, ’24 MESc; Eli Ward '18 MFS, ’23 PhD; and Kristy Ferraro ’24 PhD conduct field research at Yale-Myers Forest examining how calving animals impact the nutrient cycle and how those impacts can be modulated by plant-fungal associations.

“What is special about the Bormann prize is the legacy it represents. Professor Bormann not only did interdisciplinary work, but he also did impactful work … and that’s the sort of work I want to do. I want to do work that not only brings disciplines together and helps us better understand conservation and ecology, but also makes us do better conservation and ecology,” she said.

Ferraro first had set her sights on studying caribou in Canada, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she restructured her research and worked with Ward, a forest ecologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, to add the component of investigating plant-fungal interactions with zoogeochemistry at a site closer to home.

It wasn’t easy getting the materials for the study, Ferraro noted. Instead of white-tail deer placenta and natal fluid, the team substituted lamb placentas because it was easier to obtain. To get those, she had to call farmers around the state and ask them to freeze the placentas so she could obtain them and place them at the forest sites.

“We called about 50 sheep farmers around Connecticut to ask them to keep the materials, and we got a lot of varied responses. Some were like, ‘Absolutely not. That’s weird.’ But we ultimately found three really wonderful farmers who were super interested in the research and were really engaged,” she said.

During a field study at Yale-Myers Forest led by Kristy Ferraro, '24 PhD, a team of YSE researchers placed ungulate placentas in crab traps to study how calving impacts the nitrogen cycling.

After picking up the placentas from the farmers, sometimes out of buckets, the team then placed the placenta and simulated natal fluid in crab traps at the Yale-Myers plots that had the two different fungal associations (ErM and EcM).

“Not everyone has the stomach for it. I barely had the stomach for it. So that was the first hurdle,” Ferraro said.

They also set up camera traps to record animal interactions. The cameras revealed that some placentas were stolen by animals to nourish themselves.

“Turns out possums are really good at sticking their little hands into the cages,” Ferraro said, adding that racoons, coyotes, and turkeys also helped themselves to the placentas.

Despite the scavenging by animals, they found that the natal fluid itself had enough of an impact to bump up nutrient cycling and create nutrition hotspots in the surrounding plant material, but the impact was mediated by both plant-fungal associations, with ErM plant-fungal associations having a slower nutrient cycle compared to EcM.

The findings have important implications. As shrubs move north and spread due to climate change, the ErM plant-fungal associations that are underlyng shrub communities could mute the nutrient hotspots animals create as they did at Yale-Myers Forest, Ferraro said.

“Kristy’s research fits well with the spirit of the Bormann Award. Herb Bormann pioneered the use of experiments at scale to evaluate how human impacts, such as forest harvesting, leads to alterations of biogeochemical cycling across the landscape. Kristy also reports on an experiment, at scale, to evaluate effects of another human impact — forest management that supports deer populations — in boosting biogeochemical cycling. The work gives holistic insight into an animal species’ impact on biogeochemical processes in ecosystems,” Schmitz said.

Other Research Day award winners include doctoral students Destiny Treloar, who earned the Schmitz Prize for best oral presentation for her research on “Exploring the Relationship Between Sociodemographic Characteristics, Food Access, and Food Assistance Participation During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Predominantly Hispanic/Latino City: Hialeah, Florida; Lachlan Byrnes, for Best Poster on “Contrasting patterns of mortality in an Amazon-Cerrado forest edge during exceptional drought”; and Ananya Rao ’25 MESc, who received the Master’s Student Oral Presentation Prize for her research on “Leveraging Community Forest Resources Rights to augment NTFP-based livelihoods in Central India.”

A study led by YSE doctoral candidate Kristy Ferraro demonstrates how plant-fungal associations in ecosystems can mitigate the impact of calving animals in nitrogen cycling.

Unique Research on Calving Impacts on Nutrient Cycle Earns 2024 Bormann Prize

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Black Environmentalists Discuss Their Research, Outcomes and Cultural Capital

Bree Shirvell — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:42:37 +0000

Black Environmentalists Discuss Their Research, Outcomes and Cultural Capital Bree Shirvell Thu, 02/29/2024 - 12:42

The highlight of Yale School of Environment PhD candidate Fransha Dace’s research into what role communities play in well-being and resilience has been going home to the South Side of Chicago and involving her community in her studies.

“I was able to study my community as a member of the community,” Dace said. “I hired retired folks, young people, custodians, and postal workers, all the folks that live in the South Side of Chicago. The people who are impacted by my research are the ones who can help inform the work that I'm doing.”

From left: Gabriel Gadsden, George Aniegbunem, Ambria McDonald (with daughter), and Fransha Dace speak on a YSE Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion panel at Kroon Hall on February 27, 2024.

Dace has been investigating climate adaptation efforts in two urban cities, Chicago and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to understand how to create better cohesive communities where members within a community support one another, especially during extreme weather emergencies. She was one of four YSE students, including fellow PhD candidates Gabriel Gadsden, Ambria McDonald, and master’s student George Aniegbunem' 25 MEM, who discussed their research and shared their thoughts during a Yale School of Environment Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion panel at Kroon Hall on February 27 on what it means to be a Black environmentalists.

Gadsden, the recipient of the 2023 Bormann Prize, is studying social-ecological landscapes of fear, theorizing why we see inequality in where and how ecological studies are done.

“I hope that there are policy implications, that the work is applicable to improving people’s everyday lives,” he said.

I'll be the first in my entire family history to complete a doctorate. That is truly why I’m here, doing the work in my hometown and hoping that some national policy change comes from this work.”

Ambria McDonald PhD candidate at YSE

McDonald's research investigates to what extent a correlation exists between community trust in government and blood lead levels in vulnerable populations and water distribution systems' Lead and Copper Rule violations.

“I'll be the first in my entire family history to complete a doctorate. That is truly why I'm here, doing the work in my hometown and hoping that some national policy change comes from this work,” McDonald said.

Aniegbunem, who is from Nigeria, is studying renewable energy access and is investigating how developers, regulators and financiers can work together to build renewable energy projects across Africa.

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"In Africa, we have lots of renewable energy resources, and my desire is to see how we can explore all these resources to make the lives of the people better, to keep improving their lives," Aniegbunem said.

Following presentations about their research, the students participated in a panel discussion moderated by Rob Javonillo, YSE's assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Hearing their stories, what they're doing here, and what they want to do with the rest of their lives was a humbling experience. They are truly inspiring," Javonillo said.

In addition to their research, the students spoke about how they came to YSE, finding their place as Black environmentalists, and the advice they'd give to others.

“For me, Black joy is freedom," Dace said. "It's the freedom when 'fro is out, it's the freedom when my twists are in, it's the freedom to feel safe. It's the freedom to express, feel, live, and laugh.”

"I want to echo that; the first thing in my mind was not joy, but freedom, being able to be in this space, to know that I belong,” Gadsden said.

The YSE community celebrated Black History Month with a panel discussion featuring four students who talked about their research on community cohesion, social-ecological landscapes of fear, portable water supply, and renewable energy access.

Black Environmentalists Discuss Their Research, Outcomes and Cultural Capital

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Spotlight: Reid Lewis 'MF20, PhD Candidate

Matthew Garrett — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 16:54:33 +0000

Spotlight: Reid Lewis 'MF20, PhD Candidate

Stewarding Forests in the Face of Climate Change

Forests help mitigate climate change because of their ability to remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but they become carbon emitters during wildfires. PhD student Reid Lewis '20 MF is researching how satellite data and machine learning models can help fire-prone forests become more resilient.

“When we make these forests more fire resilient, we can not only store more carbon, we can also help protect human communities, foster wildlife habitat, safeguard watersheds, and can use the process of restoration to partner with and empower Indigenous nations,” says Lewis.

Matthew Garrett Tue, 12/05/2023 - 11:54

YSE Class of ’23: For Megan Sullivan, It Is All About Sustaining Forests

Fran Silverman — Wed, 10 May 2023 18:29:11 +0000

YSE Class of ’23: For Megan Sullivan, It Is All About Sustaining Forests Fran Silverman Wed, 05/10/2023 - 14:29

Growing up in rural Ohio, Megan K. Sullivan ’23 PhD submitted a drawing of a tree in her backyard and an essay expressing her concern for the environment to a contest at the local library. She thought her future might be in art or journalism.

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“It was really interesting to think back on that because I didn't always know I wanted to be an ecologist,” Sullivan says. “But I can see that interest was in me somewhere when I was young.”

In college, Sullivan pursued her interest in scientific illustration at the Cleveland Institute of Art. During her freshman year, she spent many hours drawing tropical plants inside a room at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, which had a humidifier system to replicate a natural environment for the plants and a soundtrack of jungle noises and animal sounds. As she drew, Sullivan found that she wanted to learn more about the plants. She enrolled in the ecology, evolution, and organismal biology program at The Ohio State University.

While earning her bachelor’s degree, she was an intern in forest ecology with the U. S. Forest Service and a field researcher with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. After graduating from OSU, she became a research technician at Duke University conducting transect censuses at the Ipassa research station in Makokou, Gabon, in Central Africa. It was there, she says, she discovered her passion.

“Gabon was my entry point for experiencing tropical forests and learning what the country was like,” Sullivan says. “I ended up managing a lot of different research projects. We would walk transects through the forests and see all these different animals. We would go to villages and interview people about what they thought about hunting or environmental work. It gave me a very broad picture of what the ecosystem was like and how the people and the ecosystem related.”

We can’t only look at the direct impacts of logging on large trees immediately after timber is cut. We also must look at the impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services when considering how logged forests recover over time.”

Megan K. Sullivan ’23 PhD

While in Gabon, Sullivan listened to the strong opinions local community members had about logging. She delved further into the issue and developed her dissertation on the ecological impact of selective logging in Gabon by setting up long-term vegetation monitoring plots to understand how logging activities change the composition, structure and function of seedlings, saplings, and mature trees in tropical rainforests.

Sullivan found that low-intensity logging had minor impacts on forest structure, diversity, and species composition. Her research also revealed that logged forest understories had higher abundancies of lianas — climbing plants that hang from trees especially in tropical forests — than unlogged areas.

“It's important to look at several metrics of how logging impacts ecosystems,” she says. "We can’t only look at the direct impacts of logging on large trees immediately after timber is cut. We also must look at the impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services when considering how logged forests recover over time.”

Liza Comita, professor of tropical forest ecology and co-director of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, who served as Sullivan’s doctoral adviser, says Sullivan designed and executed an exciting and challenging dissertation research project during her time at YSE.

“Her project offers insights into fundamental ecological processes while at the same time having important implications for biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of African tropical forests,” Comita says.

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Sullivan was a 2018-2022 Lewis B. Cullman Joint Yale School of the Environment and New York Botanical Garden Fellow and received a 2016-2021 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

After commencement, she will continue working as a tropical ecologist in Africa as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Rwanda and will be a postdoctoral research associate at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University.

“I really love doing research and I really enjoy working in Gabon and in African forests. For the moment, I'm going to continue pursuing that research. It puts me in a position to connect with other people about the environment, make connections to conservation, and learn more about the world. I'm looking forward to doing that in whatever form it may be for at least the next couple of years," Sullivan says.

From drawing to exploring trees, doctoral student Megan Sullivan focuses on logging impacts on tropical forest ecology in Africa.

YSE Class of ’23: For Megan Sullivan, It Is All About Sustaining Forests

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Research on Place-Based Bias in Environmental Scholarship Wins 2023 Bormann Prize

Fran Silverman — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 20:58:16 +0000

Research on Place-Based Bias in Environmental Scholarship Wins 2023 Bormann Prize Fran Silverman Fri, 04/28/2023 - 16:58

As a wildlife and research technician, Gabriel Gadsden studied conflict, specifically how predators impact the behavior of animals through fear. He also encountered a similar pattern in the human world while working on energy justice issues, noticing how socio-economic disparities and narratives of violence have led to fear of neighborhoods. These observations during his master's studies research prompted him to reflect more deeply about how fear and conflict impacts scientific inquiry as a whole.

“How do we view a space?” he asks. “What are our preconceived ideas and how does that affect our research and our questions?”

When he entered Yale School of the Environment’s doctoral program, Gadsden continued to delve into these issues, publishing a paper in BioScience in January — Place-Based Bias in Environmental Scholarship Derived from Social-Ecological Landscapes of Fear — that examined bias in environmental inquiry. The research earned Gadsden the 2023 F. Herbert Bormann Prize, an award that honors a YSE doctoral student whose work best exemplifies the legacy of the late YSE professor. Bormann, a plant ecologist who taught at YSE from 1966-1993, called the world’s attention to the threat of acid rain in the 1970s.

Gadsden’s research proposes a new concept, “social-ecological landscapes of fear,” which states that certain places hold legacies derived from historical events that create bias and curtail scientific inquiry.

“Gabe’s work really shines a light on how negative human histories have impacted how ecologists perform their research and provided recommendations on how to correct these biases in our research moving forward,” says Peter Raymond, senior associate dean of research and doctoral studies and professor of ecosystem ecology.

Gadsden, who works in the Applied Wildlife Ecology (AWE) lab of Nyeema C. Harris, Knobloch Family Associate Professor of Wildlife and Land Conservation at YSE, says his interest in this issue is rooted in his own experiences growing up and visiting family in Philadelphia, where he is conducting doctoral research on rodents and spread of disease.

“There are specific areas of inefficient housing with low amounts of green space, areas that are forgotten about and looked down upon, whose full histories haven’t been told. There is this idea that the space is degraded and not worth our resources,” he says.

In nominating his work, Harris, a co-author of the study, says Gadsden challenges environmental scholars to reckon with biases in how and where research is conducted across ecosystems.

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“He highlights the role of fear (conscious or unconscious) stemming from the historical legacies of trauma places hold that deter broad participation. He expands on the ecological concept of landscapes of fear applied often to prey avoidance of predators to apply a social lens of how fear governs study area locations, biasing the production of research,” Harris states in her nomination letter.

The study, which was also co-authored by Nigel Golden, a postdoctoral researcher at Woodwell Climate Research Center, recommends recognizing negative histories, including community perspectives, and collaborating with local environmental justice and political ecology scholars to overcome bias.

Gadsden will continue his research on this issue as part of his doctoral dissertation.

“This research is interdisciplinary. It sits at the nexus of many disciplines,” he says. “Landscapes are not just broad brushstrokes of one concept. We have to ask, why are these areas the way they are? We have to self-reflect. It reminds researchers to ‘check yourself.’”

Gadsden was presented with the Bormann Prize at YSE’s annual Research Day on April 14. Other award winners include doctoral student Jacob Peters, who earned the Schmitz Prize; Amaya Sathurusinghe ‘24 MFS and Jessie Wainer ’23 MESc, who were each awarded the Master’s Student Oral Presentation Prize; and doctoral student Joseph Zaillaa, who won the Best Poster Presentation award.

Gabriel Gadsden’s prize-winning doctoral research on “social-ecological landscapes of fear” examines how negative human histories can limit scientific lines of inquiry and challenges environmental scholars to reckon with biases.

Research on Place-Based Bias in Environmental Scholarship Wins 2023 Bormann Prize

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Humidity May Increase Heat Risk in Urban Climates

Fran Silverman — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 16:05:55 +0000

Humidity May Increase Heat Risk in Urban Climates Fran Silverman Thu, 03/23/2023 - 12:05

As temperatures across the globe reach record-level highs, urban areas are facing increased heat stress. Cities are generally warmer and dryer than adjacent rural land. But in the Global South, there is an additional complicating factor — urban humid heat.

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Xuhui Lee Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of Meteorology

A new study, led by Yale School of the Environment scientists and published in Nature, investigated the combined effect of temperature and humidity on urban heat stress using observational data and an urban climate model calculation. Researchers found that the heat stress burden is dependent on local climate and a humidifying effect can erase the cooling benefits that would come from trees and vegetation.

“A widely held view is that urban residents suffer more heat burden than the general population owing to the urban heat island phenomenon. This view is incomplete because it omits another ubiquitous urban microclimate phenomenon called the urban dry island — that urban land tends to be less humid than the surrounding rural land,” says Xuhui Lee, Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of Meteorology, who directed the study. “In dry, temperate, and boreal climates, urban residents are actually less heat-stressed than rural residents. But in the humid Global South, the urban heat island is dominant over the urban dry island, resulting in two to six extra dangerous heat stress days per summer.”

Lee and YSE doctoral student Keer Zhang, lead author of the study, say they were motivated to investigate the issue for several reasons: a large percentage of the global population lives in urban areas; many people in informal urban settlements do not have access to air conditioning; and the problem is going to get worse as temperatures rise and more people move to cities. About 4.3 billion people, or 55% of the world's population, live in urban settings, and the number is expected to rise to 80% by 2050, according to the World Economic Forum.

In dry, temperate, and boreal climates, urban residents are actually less heat-stressed than rural residents. But in the humid Global South, the urban heat island is dominant over the urban dry island, resulting in two to six extra dangerous heat stress days per summer.”

Xuhui LeeSara Shallenberger Brown Professor of Meteorology

The researchers developed a theoretical framework on how urban land modifies both air temperature and air humidity and showed that these two effects have equal weight in heat stress as measured by the wet-bulb temperature, in contrary to other heat indexes, which weigh temperature more heavily than humidity. Wet-bulb temperature combines dry air temperature with humidity to measure humid heat. The results of the study, the authors note, raise important questions.

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“Green vegetation can lower air temperature via water evaporation, but it can also increase heat burden because of air humidity. The question then is to what extent this humidifying effect erases the cooling benefit arising from temperature reduction. We hope to answer this question in a follow-up study, where we are comparing observations of the wet-bulb temperature in urban greenspaces (with dense tree cover) and those in built-up neighborhoods,” Lee says.

Zhang says she hopes the study can lead to further research on how cities can mitigate heat stress.

“Our diagnostic analysis on the urban wet-bulb island found that enhancing urban convection efficiency (the efficiency in dissipating heat and water) and reducing heat storage at night can reduce daytime and nighttime urban humid heat, respectively. We hope that our work will promote more research on optimizing urban shapes and materials for better thermal comforts,” she says.

Humidity May Increase Heat Risk in Urban Climates

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Study Finds Potential Use of Machine Learning for Sustainable Development of Biomass

Fran Silverman — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 17:58:58 +0000

Study Finds Potential Use of Machine Learning for Sustainable Development of Biomass Fran Silverman Fri, 03/03/2023 - 12:58

Biomass is widely considered a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, and many experts say it can play a critical role in combating climate change. Biomass stores carbon and can be turned into bio-based products and energy that can be used to improve soil, treat wastewater, and produce renewable feedstock.

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Yuan Yao Assistant Professor of Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Systems

Yet large-scale production of it has been limited due to economic constraints and challenges to optimizing and controlling biomass conversion.

A new study led by Yale School of the Environment’s Yuan Yao, assistant professor of industrial ecology and sustainable systems, and doctoral student Hannah Szu-Han Wang, analyzed current machine learning applications for biomass and biomass-derived materials (BDM) to determine if machine learning is advancing the research and development of biomass products. The study authors found that machine learning has not been applied across the entire life cycle of BDM, limiting its ability for development.

Yao’s research investigates how emerging technologies and industrial development will affect the environment with a focus on bioeconomy and sustainable production. Wang worked in the production of biomaterials during her master’s research. The two researchers said they were interested in pursuing this study to find out if machine learning could help with best practices for creating BDM, a chief component of a bio-based economy, as well as predicting their performance as sustainable materials.

We believe machine learning has the potential to support sustainability-informed design for biomass-derived materials.”

Yuan YaoAssistant Professor of Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Systems

“There are so many combinations of biomass feedstock, conversion technologies, and BDM applications. If we want to try each combination using the traditional trial-and-error experimental approach, this will take a lot of time, labor, effort, and energy. We already generate a lot of data from these past experiments, so we are asking, can we apply machine learning to help us to figure out how we can better design BDM?" Yao explains.

For the study, which was published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Yao and Wang reviewed more than 50 papers published since 2008 to understand the capabilities, current limitations, and future potential of machine learning in supporting sustainable development and applications of BDM. What they found is that while a few studies applied machine learning to address data challenges for life cycle assessment, most studies only applied machine learning to predict and optimize the technical performance of biomass conversion and applications. None reviewed machine learning applications across the entire lifecycle, from biomass cultivation to BDM production and end-use applications.

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“Most studies are applying machine learning to just a very small part of the entire lifecycle of BDM,” Yao says. “Our argument is that if you really want to incorporate sustainability into development of this material, we need to consider the entire lifecycle of the materials, from how they are generated to their potential environmental impact. We believe machine learning has the potential to support sustainability-informed design for biomass-derived materials.”

Wang said the study has led to further research on data gaps in machine learning on biomass-derived materials.

“We found a future direction that people have not yet explored in terms of sustainability assessments for BDM. There needs to be a full pathway prediction to enhance our understanding of how various factors regarding BDM interact and contribute to sustainability,” she says.

Study Examines Potential Use of Machine Learning for Sustainable Development of Biomass

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Examining Changes in Public Opinion on Ivory in China

Fran Silverman — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 18:31:04 +0000

Examining Changes in Public Opinion on Ivory in China Fran Silverman Tue, 02/07/2023 - 13:31

When the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, allowed a one-off chance for China to bid on a 108-ton stockpile of ivory amassed from natural African elephant deaths and culling in 2008, many conservationists around the world assumed Chinese public sentiment toward ivory would become more favorable. But new YSE-led research employing machine learning techniques to analyze public opinion , which was published in Conservation Biology, reveals that the exact opposite happened.

“After CITES authorized the sale of ivory, our analysis shows that the macro-public opinion in China became more negative toward ivory,” says Yufang Gao ’14 MESc, a PhD student in conservation science and environmental anthropology. “Chinese mass media coverage of ivory became more framed as anti-ivory, with news stories more focused on ivory smuggling and the government’s efforts to tightly control the ivory trade.”

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has listed the African forest elephant as critically endangered, the savanna elephant as threatened, and the Asian elephant as endangered. Where once there were 10 million wild elephants in Africa, there are now only about 400,000 left on the continent. The Asian elephant population has declined 50% in the last three generations to about 50,000 and they are now at a high risk of extinction.

By monitoring mass media framing of wildlife and conservation issues, we might be able to sooner identify emerging problems or threats toward wildlife or the environment.”

Yufang GaoPhD Student at YSE

Gao has been dedicated to studying the elephant ivory trade for more than a decade. For this study, he teamed up with Yuntian Liu, a statistician at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation, and a team of international researchers to review Chinese media coverage of the elephant ivory between 2000 and 2021.

Using a machine learning technique known as latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, the researchers studied how media stories framed ivory in 6,394 pieces of coverage, looking for evidence of how wildlife policies impacted public opinion in China.

“LDA topic modeling [helps us identify and define] recurring topics. In this case, topics refer to collections of words that commonly appeared together throughout news stories on ivory, such as smuggling, customs, seized, Africa, endangered, and animal,’” Liu says.

The team was particularly interested in the impact of the 2008 decision by CITES —a 173-nation coalition that monitors international plant and animal trade — allowing the sale of African ivory stockpiles to China and a 2016 ban on domestic ivory trade announced by the Chinese government (a move by China to deter elephant poaching in Africa for illegal ivory trade).

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Gao and Liu looked for clues on how these policies influenced Chinese public opinion on ivory arts and culture, elephant conservation, and ivory-related crimes. Their discovery that the CITES-approved sale of ivory negatively influenced public opinion on ivory was not the only surprising finding.

Many conservationists hypothesized that the 2016 domestic ivory ban would lead to more negative public opinions in China about ivory. But after the ban, media framing shows that macro-public opinion throughout China became more positive about elephant ivory.

Gao says the ban may have drawn more attention to the perceived value of ivory in art and culture, making ivory seem more desirable.

The research is important because it underscores the need for conservationists to take a more nuanced approach to understanding the relationship between mass media reports, policies, and public opinion, Gao notes.

“By monitoring mass media framing of wildlife and conservation issues, we might be able to sooner identify emerging problems or threats toward wildlife or the environment,” he says.

He recommends that conservation organizations work more closely with the media to share information and elevate the importance of wildlife conservation in mainstream public dialogue.

“Conservation is a social process that involves many different stakeholders, including the media industry, governments, general public, researchers, and more,” he says. “Topic modeling is a powerful tool for uncovering shifts in media framing, dynamics of the interplay between different perspectives, and gauging how policies are actually changing public opinions.”

A team of international researchers, led by YSE PhD student Yufang Gao '14 MESc, used machine learning techniques to study two decades of ivory trade media coverage in China, discovering some surprising shifts in public sentiment.

Examining Changes in Public Opinion on Ivory in China

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Kat J. McAlpine2023-02-07cream topographic-map ResearchNoStudents Research PhD MESc

Does ‘Fear’ Drive Bias in Environmental Scholarship?

Josh Anusewicz — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 21:37:29 +0000

Does ‘Fear’ Drive Bias in Environmental Scholarship? Josh Anusewicz Thu, 12/22/2022 - 16:37

The term “landscapes of fear” is well established in the field of ecology. Traditionally, it refers to how the risk of predation affects animal behavior and, in turn, the ecosystems in which they live. Researchers including Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at YSE, have ventured deep into this concept to understand how fear affects key ecosystem functions like decomposition and carbon cycling.

But when the lens is turned, what effect does “fear” have on a researcher?

Gabriel Gadsden, YSE PhD student

A recent paper published in BioScience, led by Yale School of the Environment PhD student Gabriel Gadsden, proposes a new take on the concept: “social-ecological landscapes of fear.” The hypothesis, Gadsden explains, is that certain places hold legacies derived from historical events that create “identity bias,” leading to unsatisfactory lines of inquiry that affect the success of conservation goals.

“Much like animals will not use certain spaces because of risk of predation or reduction of resource uses, people are afraid of certain landscapes, and our discipline is lacking a bit because of it.” says Gadsden, who works in the Applied Wildlife Ecology (AWE) lab of Nyeema Harris, Knobloch Family Associate Professor of Wildlife and Land Conservation and senior author of the paper.

The authors argue that few landscapes are entirely associated with positive identities. The recent history of globalization, modernization, and colonization — and the racism, exploitation, and displacement there within — underscores the necessity to understand how our ecological and evolutionary processes have been impacted, they say.

Place-based bias is historic and present, multi-scale, and includes multiple historical traumas of different peoples, from marine ecosystems to the tropics to the American West.”

Gabriel GadsdenPhD student

"As we explore locations for new projects, we are forced to grapple with the identity of that place beyond its biodiversity. We need to know the political, economic, and historic context to design inclusive, culturally sensitive, and impactful science," Harris says.

As an example, the authors explain how housing discrimination has impacted environmental processes in urban environments, creating inequities within cities that are evident today. But Gadsden admits that using case studies to explain the concept would paint an incomplete picture.

“Place-based bias and research is not a three-part case study," he says. "It is historic and present, multi-scale, and includes multiple historical traumas of different peoples, from marine ecosystems to the tropics to the American West.

“There are often powers beyond our control that choose what we think of these spaces. It then affects our scholarship. I know I’m certainly not immune to it. But there are ways we can overcome our biases," Gadsden says.

To do so, the authors provide several recommendations. First, researchers need to recognize negative histories, from further education on the historical context to engaging in land acknowledgments. Then, researchers should include community perspectives when engaging in conservation work.

“In the context of geographies chosen for scientific inquiry, any semblance of fear that prohibits research must be acknowledged and then dissolved. For example, persistent cases of police violence that disproportionately result in the killing of Black people, be it in Minneapolis, Ferguson, or New York City, could result in less research in these locations by Black scholars because of the trauma held there. We recognize building effective partnerships as one strategy to combat fears researchers may have working in a place," Harris says.

The authors also suggest “co-creation” — collaboration with local environmental justice and political ecology scholars.

“I hope these ideas broaden the scope of science into geographic spaces that have not been historically investigated and, in areas that have been investigated, there are some retroactive questions about what may have been missed,” Gadsden says. “I don’t think we can just take a ‘business as usual’ approach to Western science and call it a day anymore. We need to be better, more intentional researchers.”

Gadsden says that Harris and the other researchers in her lab have already begun infusing these ideas into their work. “It challenges all of us and checks our biases. It’s providing a thought-provoking framework that has been very beneficial,” he says.

Scientists understand that fear of predation affects animal behavior within landscapes. Now, YSE researchers are using a similar hypothesis — which they are calling “social-ecological landscapes of fear” — to explore the need for conservationists to address negative human histories in their research.

Does ‘Fear’ Drive Bias in Environmental Scholarship?

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2022-12-22cream topographic-map Nyeema HarrisNoResearch Doctoral Program PhD

Yale Doctoral Students Highlight ‘Animal-Vectored Subsidies’ in Journal of Animal Ecology

Josh Anusewicz — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 20:50:06 +0000

Yale Doctoral Students Highlight ‘Animal-Vectored Subsidies’ in Journal of Animal Ecology Josh Anusewicz Mon, 12/12/2022 - 15:50

The November 2022 virtual issue of the Journal of Animal Ecology focused entirely on the topic of “animal-vectored subsidies” — how the movement of animals of all shapes and sizes contribute to and remove nutrients within and across ecosystems, altering their nutrient cycling, stability, and structure.

The issue was a compilation of scholarly papers published in the journal, dating back more than a dozen years, that show a progression of understanding of how animals affect biogeochemistry. The task of putting together the issue fell to Yale School of the Environment doctoral student Kristy Ferraro and Diego Ellis Soto, a PhD student at Yale’s Center for Biodiversity and Global Change. The students were the lead authors on a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, “A methodological roadmap to quantify animal-vectored spatial ecosystem subsidies,” which is showcased in the November issue.

Kristy Ferraro

“This roadmap explains how animals affect nitrogen and carbon cycling, and it highlights many amazing new tools for tracking the processes,” says Ferraro, who researches how large herbivores help shape the ecosystems they inhabit in YSE’s Schmitz Lab. “It brings together many disciplines that researchers need to understand — soil science, animal movement ecology, ecosystem ecology — in a cohesive, streamlined way.”

The paper covers tools that include camera traps, DNA, remote sensing, and GPS data, as well as theory and technical research tools. It also covers a variety of animals — mammals, insects, and fish — that affect nitrogen and carbon cycling. Combined, this research contributes to the understanding of the role animals have in shaping, connecting, and promoting the stability and functioning of ecosystems and also informs nature-based solutions, including “rewilding” animals to restore ecosystem functions and large-scale ecological restoration.

Ultimately, Ferraro and Ellis Soto highlight five key steps for understanding the effects of animals within ecosystems: addressing how, why, and where an animal is moving; identifying the habitats used by the animal; determining nutrients available to and consumed by the animal; discerning the movement rate and directional flows of the species; and identifying the quantity and location of nutrient deposition by the animal.

“Our goal was to show how research projects covering these topics can come together, combining different disciplines and novel tools at each step,” Ferraro says.

Diego Ellis Soto

Ellis Soto, a movement ecologist who studies giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, says editing the journal gave the authors an opportunity to see how research around animal-vectored subsidies has been approached over time and how much combining different disciplines into the research has created more cohesion.

“It was interesting for us, as young researchers, to witness. It shows a need to bring different skillsets and interdisciplinarity into our work,” Ellis Soto says.

The two also stressed the importance of including a diversity of voices — in gender, race, and geographic location — when selecting the papers featured in the issue.

Ferraro and Ellis Soto were given the opportunity to edit the Journal of Animal Ecology when they won the 2022 Sidnie Manton Award by the British Ecological Society, a competition for early-career ecologists submitting a review or long-term study to the publication. Ferraro also will be presenting the findings of that paper at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting this month in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Kristy Ferraro and Diego Ellis Soto have developed a “roadmap” to quantify how the movement of animals of all shapes and sizes contribute to and remove nutrients within and across ecosystems. This work earned them the 2022 Sidnie Manton Award from the British Ecological Society.

Yale Doctoral Students Highlight ‘Animal-Vectored Subsidies’ in Journal of Animal Ecology 2022-12-12cream topographic-mapNoStudents Awards / Grants / Funding Research PhD