ESPM grad student Colin Carlson is featured in this New York Times article on a study recently published in Science Advances that suggests global climate change threatens parasites with extinction, which could have big consequences for ecosytems. The study was co-authored with ESPM grad student Eric Dougherty and alum Carrie Cizauskas. Stories on this topic have appeared in many sources around the world, including the Pacific Standard, Independent, Smithsonian, Xinhua, and Daily Californian.
Scientists: Climate Change May Wipe Out a Third of World's Parasites, with Disastrous Ripple Effects
ESPM grad student Colin Carlson is featured in this Democracy Now video segment on recently published research which revealed climate change is driving the mass extinction of parasites that are critical to natural ecosystems. Carlson notes that parasites serve important regulatory roles in ecosystems. With a changing climate, the loss of that stabilitzing role could produce opportunities for new patterns of wildlife in human disease.
ESPM grad student Colin Carlson is featured in this Popular Science article on the potential impacts of climate change on parasites. By tracking how parasites are moving and disappearing as the climate changes, Carlson and his fellow researchers predicted how parasite populations will shift as this process continues. They found that a third of all parasites face a risk of extinction.
ESPM grad student Colin Carlson is featured in this Guardian article on potential impacts of climate change on parasites, which play a vital role in eocsystems. Major extinctions among parasites could lead to unpredictable invasions of surviving parasites into new areas. “If parasites go extinct, we are looking at a potential massive destabilisation of ecosystems [which] could have huge unexpected consequences,” Carlson said, with other parasites moving in to take advantage. “That doesn’t necessarily work out well for anyone, wildlife or humans.”
A former Trump science adviser on his “impeach” message, getting rid of coal, and embracing renewable energy
ERG professor Dan Kammen is featured in this Vox interview on his resignation as science envoy, the debate on 100 percent renewables for the grid, the recent Department of Energy report on grid reliability and coal’s supposed contribution to grid resilience
ESPM professor Gordon Frankie is featured in this California magazine article on the Sonoma Bee Count, a citizen-science initiative led by Frankie's Urban Bee Lab. The Sonoma Bee Count has identified more than 70 species in the agricultural region of Sonoma, a higher number than Bee Lab scientists expected to find in an urban environment. “This is a people, flower, bee thing,” says Frankie, meaning it takes each of the three for this study to work, and, more generally, to keep bees in urban environments.
ESPM postdoc researcher Justine Smith is featured in this Scientific American article on new research shows that some of the world’s biggest carnivores are responding to humans in a way that resembles how prey animals react to predators.
ERG professor Dan Kammen is featured in this KQED Forum segment on the role of climate change on the severity of Tropical Storm Harvey and on his recent resignation from his appointment as a science envoy for the US State Department.
ESPM professor Neil Tsutsui is featured in this Bay Nature article on citizen science and the California Pools Project. Although the project has been running less than a year, it is already giving scientists a new perspective on insect biodiversity in California, with roughly 4,000 insects and arachnids recorded – from just 12 pools — so far. That figure includes over 300 ant specimens, which has been especially exciting for ant specialist Tsutsui. Pools are also potentially a new way of identifying invasive species that might be showing up in California or that have extended their range to a new place in the state.