Category: Science

Biodiversity in the News: the Practice of Biology in Modern Times

Daniel Molloy working in Sleepy Hollow Lake, Athens NY (photo: L. Mann/APO)
Daniel Molloy working in Sleepy Hollow Lake, Athens NY (photo: L. Mann/APO)

This past week I’ve come across two fascinating and instructive news articles about biologists in NY and IL doing important research in different contexts, with instructive lessons for how we conserve biodiversity in the face of urbanization and invasive species. Today’s NY Times‘ Science Times section features this piece on Daniel P. Molloy, a biologist at the New York State Museum who has spent his career studying and developing environmentally-safe biological controls for invasive species, such as the notorious zebra and quagga mussels that plague the Great Lakes ecosystem.

David Bohlen in his office (photo: Tom Handy, IL Times)
David Bohlen in his office (photo: Tom Handy, IL Times)

The other story, from my own state of Illinois, appeared on Feb. 6th in Illinois Times (Springfield) — a long feature article on the work of H. David Bohlen, who has studied the bird populations of Sangamon County in Central IL for a continuous 40-year period and just released a massive two-volume report on his research. Bohlen is a biologist with the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. His 2013 report, “A Study of the Birds of Sangamon County, Illinois, 1970-2010,” can be found here as pdfs (Volume 1 and Volume 2).

The valuable work of these two scientists illustrates several points about the impact of biological research in conserving biodiversity and making ecosystems more sustainable. Molloy’s research strives to find and implement natural biological controls (such as a species of bacteria) for invasive species, not just to effectively mitigate their impacts on the food chain but also to avoid using chemical toxins and further polluting freshwater aquatic systems as a means of “saving” them. His work also demonstrates the increasing prominence of microbiology in sustainability science, which is also a key starting point for developing biofuels (itself a really hot topic!).

Bohlen’s field-based research method, by contrast, is a throwback to the organismal field studies of natural history that were common in the 19th century but have largely fallen out of favor with the biological mainstream’s emphasis on cellular- and molecular-level work. Yet Bohlen’s phenomenal 40-year record of avian biodiversity in a representative Midwestern farm county shows how the land use changes resulting from decades of urbanization and industrial agriculture have negatively impacted the diversity and abundance of bird species in the Illinois landscape. It also illustrates what you can accomplish by walking around, observing, and recording systematic phenological data over a long-term timeframe.

Environmental Studies at Roanoke College

Roanoke College campusThis week I had the opportunity to visit the Environmental Studies Program at Roanoke College in Salem, VA, and give two guest lectures.

Tuesday, Jan. 14th:
“Writing the Urban Landscape: Literature, Environmental Studies, and the Sustainable Future of Cities” (ppt and pdf of slideshow)

Wednesday, Jan. 15th:
“Exploring the Chicago River: Science, Policy, Ethics, and Sustainability” (ppt and pdf of slideshow)

New Book on Rachel Carson by Robert Musil

Rachel Carson and her Sisters coverThis looks to be an excellent new book on Rachel Carson and many other women scientist/writers/activists who have profoundly shaped environmental discourse and policy in the US. Notably included here is Sandra Steingraber, who recently spoke at Roosevelt University during the Great Lakes Bioneers conference on Nov. 1st. As the book’s website from Rutgers University Press notes:

In Rachel Carson and Her Sisters, Robert K. Musil redefines the achievements and legacy of environmental pioneer and scientist Rachel Carson, linking her work to a wide network of American women activists and writers and introducing her to a new, contemporary audience. Rachel Carson was the first American to combine two longstanding, but separate strands of American environmentalism—the love of nature and a concern for human health. Widely known for her 1962 best-seller, Silent Spring, Carson is today often perceived as a solitary “great woman,” whose work single-handedly launched a modern environmental movement. But as Musil demonstrates, Carson’s life’s work drew upon and was supported by already existing movements, many led by women, in conservation and public health.

On the fiftieth anniversary of her death, this book helps underscore Carson’s enduring environmental legacy and brings to life the achievements of women writers and advocates, such as Ellen Swallow Richards, Dr. Alice Hamilton, Terry Tempest Williams, Sandra Steingraber, Devra Davis, and Theo Colborn, all of whom overcame obstacles to build and lead the modern American environmental movement.

Contents:

1 Have You Seen the Robins? Rachel Carson’s Mother and the Tradition of Women Naturalists

2 Don’t Harm the People: Ellen Swallow Richards, Dr. Alice Hamilton, and Their Heirs Take On Polluting Industries

3 Rachel and Her Sisters: Rachel Carson Did Not Act Alone

4 Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams, and Ecological Empathy

5 The Environment Around Us and Inside Us: Ellen Swallow Richards, Silent Spring, and Sandra Steingraber

6 Rachel Carson, Devra Davis, Pollution, and Public Policy

7 Rachel Carson and Theo Colborn: Endocrine Disruption and Public Policy

Epilogue

Introducing Sandra Steingraber at the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference

Back on November 1st, the opening day of the Great Lakes Bioneers environmental sustainability conference on “Community Resilience” hosted by Roosevelt, I had the honor of introducing Dr. Sandra Steingraber, that evening’s keynote speaker. Here’s the text of my introductory comments.

Connection. It’s a basic tenet of ecology as well of human relations. Nothing and no-one are truly disconnected. The water cycle flows through the ground, the ocean, the air . . . and each of us. We throw away our trash and flush our bodily wastes; but ecology teaches us there is no “away.” That is a falsely comforting myth of our disposable and fossil-fueled society, in which pollution and toxicity — in our lakes and streams, in our food, even in human breast milk — are accepted as normal.

Normal? That is where I first met our distinguished keynote speaker this evening, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, back in the late 1980s. More precisely, I mean the campus of Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, where I had gone for a poetry reading upon the recommendation of my creative writing professor at nearby Illinois Wesleyan, Jim McGowan. He had rightly admonished me for being a lazy writer, too content with a quick semi-catchy draft of a poem. “Go hear my former student, Sandy Steingraber,” he said. “Then you’ll understand the difference between just dashing something off and really working at your craft.” Boy, he was right.

Science. At the time of being blown away by Steingraber’s poetry in Normal, I didn’t know she was a scientist, too. Like me, only a few years earlier, she had studied biology and English at Illinois Wesleyan; then she had gone on to get a masters in creative writing and a PhD in ecology. I remember my brother David attending Columbia College here in Chicago as a theater major and telling me, “I’m taking this amazing class on evolution. It’s taught by a really cool professor, Sandra Steingraber. Do you know her?” I thought, wow — anyone who can get young hipster actors to dig Charles Darwin has to be really good.

That far from eloquent assessment turns out to be uncannily accurate and widely shared. Since the original publication of her acclaimed book, Living Downstream, in 1997, Dr. Steingraber has become an award-winning author of several subsequent books; an influential environmental journalist for Orion, the Huffington Post, and other publications; a sought-after speaker and scientific consultant; an internationally recognized authority on the links between cancer and the chemical pollution of our environment; and a passionate yet scientifically rigorous critic of the environmentally devastating gas and oil extraction process called fracking.

It’s a distinct honor and privilege to have Sandra Steingraber speak at this year’s Great Lakes Bioneers conference at my longtime academic home, Roosevelt University. Her writing and life’s work — as an environmental activist, an artist, and a parent — truly embodies the spirit of this gathering and the ethos of sustainability. As Steingraber argues in Living Downstream and elsewhere, as Rachel Carson knew more than fifty years ago as she wrote the complacency-shattering book Silent Spring, it is not enough to know something scientifically, or to express that knowledge poetically. We must also act — to change policy for the better, to fight for environmental justice in all communities, and to become true stewards rather than reckless exploiters of nature.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Sandra Steingraber.

Presenting at SLSA 2013: Water & the Postnatural City

UND in fallYesterday I arrived at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana — my first visit to this storied campus — to participate in the annual meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. This year the conference theme is “Postnatural.”

My talk yesterday afternoon was part of a panel entitled “Water and the City,” and included stimulating presentations by Christine Skolnik of DePaul University (“Imagined Eco-Futures” Restoring the Current” [of the LA River]) and Peter Hobbs of York University in Toronto (“What Does Lead Do? Toxic Entanglements, Exposures, and Cosmo-Chemo-Politics”).

Below is the introduction to my talk, which was an extemporaneous exposition of this slideshow (pdf, 10MB file).

Water and the Postnatural City: Reversals, Invasions, and Prospects for Sustainability

It is hard to think of a natural substance more vital to life than water. Yet, “the natural” is difficult to locate amidst the bewildering complex of intakes, filters, screens, pumps, chemical treatment chambers, distribution mains, pipes of all sizes, gutters, storm drains, sinks, sewers, settling tanks, combined sewage overflows, canals, locks, oxygenating waterfalls, electric fish barriers, and myriad other technological accouterments that allow us to convey, control, imbibe, and dispense with freshwater/wastewater in our cities and suburbs.

One of the tunnels within the Deep Tunnel / TARP system (photo: Chicago Tribune)
One of the tunnels within the Deep Tunnel / TARP system (photo: Chicago Tribune)

Despite the utter domination of water’s movement by what environmental engineers call the “hard path” of water resource management, however, the capacity of even highly degraded urban river corridors to support surprising levels of biodiversity — not to mention the tendency of urbanized landscapes to flood — demonstrates that Nature in the form of wild (read: violent) water frequently reasserts its power over us.

This presentation takes a deep dive into the water resources and management systems of the Chicago Region to ask:

  • What does it mean for the aptly named Chicago Area Waterway System to be “postnatural,” and why has it been such for so many decades?
  • How does a dredged, straightened, polluted, reversed, flushed, rerouted, industrialized, and biologically invaded since the mid-19th century urban river become a locus of urban sustainability and ecological restoration in the 21st century?
  • In what ways are Chicago’s rivers and canals connected to its other vital water resources and systems: fresh water supply (intake) and wastewater (outflow)?
  • Finally, what might the salient tropes of various Water and the City narratives teach us about our capacity to explore and apprehend an urbanized but still wild (read: unpredictable) nature in a postnatural age?

Toward a Sustainable Future: Why Science and Policy Need the Environmental Arts and Humanities

Recent reports in the popular media would have it that the humanities are embattled: waning in popularity among students, deemed irrelevant by the general public, and viewed by legislators as expendable luxuries in today’s rapidly changing higher education environment. In truth, though, the humanities in general — and the environmental arts and humanities in particular — have never been more important and necessary, both to the academy and within the culture at large.

First, a bold claim: the arts and humanities, broadly conceived, are the most exciting and diverse sources of creativity, intellectual speculation, and cultural critique we have. Together with the empirical methods of the physical and biological sciences, as well as the critical tools of the social and behavioral sciences, the arts and humanities do a great deal more than provide us with amusing diversions or a well-rounded college education. They literally define us as a species. They embody the best of our capacities as human beings.

Just as importantly, the three Es of sustainability — Ecology, Economy, and Equity — dictate a vital role for the environmental arts and humanities in envisioning and working toward a more sustainable future for humanity as well as for the millions of fellow species on our beautiful yet vulnerable planet. Thought-provoking ideas, artwork, architecture, poetry, stories, historical accounts, ethical frameworks, theater, music, theology, and films are necessary complements to the production of ecological data and development of progressive environmental policy.

Why? Because ideas and vision matter. Compelling narratives, whether literary or visual, can bring scientific facts to life and change hearts and minds. Ethics must guide our thinking to ensure that social equity and environmental justice are not marginalized or ignored in the pursuit of the next great clean energy source or wastewater treatment process or organic food production system. Environmental and economic sustainability thus cannot be achieved without the full participation and engagement of the arts and humanities.

Consider just one issue: climate change, arguably our most pressing and seemingly intractable global problem. Decades of compelling scientific evidence on global warming, glacial retreat, increasing severe storm frequency, rising ocean levels, and more have not yet produced the sea change in values and priorities needed to create effective national climate change mitigation laws. Neither have the voluminous policy analysis, political lobbying, and other efforts by social scientists and activists.

Science and policy do matter, of course. But they are not enough. This is where the environmental arts and humanities — those areas of inquiry and creative expression concerned with the natural environment and our place in it — come into play, not in opposition to the empirical findings and systematic methodologies of the natural and social sciences, but in concert with them.

In a truly sustainable society, an ethic of stewardship would reside in each individual as well as be a pervasive value within the community. Such an ethos, though, is seldom adopted in a fully rational way based upon mere apprehension of scientific data. It must be embodied and inspired by stories, arresting images, powerful metaphors, enduring questions; it should be felt as well as comprehended. It is not surprising, then, that the scientist-writers I have researched and greatly admire — Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Loren Eiseley; and in the present day, E. O. Wilson, Sandra Steingraber, and others — articulate this synthesis in their work.

Influenced by these and other artists, writers, and scientists, my own journey as a scholar and teacher have affirmed for me the capacity for art, storytelling, history, music, and poetry to enrich and energize the conversations we must have about environmental science and policy. All of these endeavors, properly integrated, can help us work toward the long-term sustainability of our planet.

All’s Fair in Love, War, and Science Education

The great poet and critic T. S. Eliot once wrote “April is the cruelest month.” I’m unsure what he had in mind exactly. But it quite possibly could have been an elementary school science fair.

As a professional educator, former biology major, and avowed science geek, I admit the following with considerable guilt and associated feelings of hypocrisy: I am so, so glad that my daughter’s science fair project is done.

Jr. Scientist Lily gathers survey information from a human subject for her study, "Are you Left- or Right-Handed?"
Jr. Scientist Lily gathers survey information from a human subject for her study, “Are you Left- or Right-Handed?”

Moreover, I fervently hope that no other take-home project of similar magnitude is on the horizon for either of our kids the remainder of the school year. Because if there is, either my wife or I — or possibly even both of us — surely will perish from educational anxiety and physical exhaustion.

(Yes, I’m sure there are many parents out there who cook delicious and healthy meals five nights a week, maintain their homes in a clean and well-decorated state, get to sleep by 10pm each night, and have diligent children who complete their science fair projects during daylight hours on a single weekend. I’m also certain that I truly despise such people.)

Displaying the poster at Eisenhower Academy
Displaying the poster at Eisenhower Academy

These science fair undertakings aren’t for academic wimps. At Eisenhower Academy here in Joliet, each kid must research a topic, write a formal paper, design an experiment, assemble materials for their procedure, collect and analyze data, and present their results on a colorful three-panel poster complete with typed text, pictures, data tables, graphs, and a bibliography. Oh, yes — and give an oral report, too.

That’s a lot of work for ten-year-olds, most of whom would rather be climbing a tree or yelling loudly during their precious after-school time, instead of toiling in the service of science.

We adults are in on the fun, too, for there is no way most kids can pull off such an involved and complex research project on their own. Consequently, parental help is guided and encouraged by Eisenhower’s teachers, who helpfully provide research guides, assignment checklists, grading rubrics, sample data graphs — even a required parent-student orientation session two months before the final project is due.

Testing the eye for "sidedness" in a human subject (Youth Category)
Testing the eye for “sidedness” in a human subject (Youth Category)

This means that parents have to navigate the tricky line between not providing enough help and doing too much of the project ourselves. Somewhere between these two extremes is a demilitarized zone of Appropriate Parental Assistance — and trying to stay in that zone without going crazy may well be one of the key science fair learning outcomes for each family.

So am I sorry that my older daughter had to do a science project this year here in Joliet’s District 86?

Hmm. No, I guess I’m not, when you really get down to it. Despite all the work involved and all the stress it can create, the project is a good thing on the whole.

Which ear does a subject cup when listening to low sounds?
Which ear does a subject cup when listening to low sounds?

I know this because of what my daughter said to me over breakfast the day before her poster was due. We had been working late the night before, importing our data tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document for final printing (yes, fifth graders do such things these days), and as she ate her food before catching the bus, I asked her if she felt the science fair project was worthwhile.

“Oh, sure!” she enthused, between giant mouthfuls of noisy cereal. “My topic is awesome. And we learn how to design an experiment, and collect data, and make cool graphs. You know, Dad, the jobs of the future will be STEM-related, so the more science we get early on, the better.”

My jaw fell open and I spilled coffee on my shoe. She’s invoking STEM education and career development in breakfast conversation now? (That’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math for those unfamiliar with the acronym.)

“Besides,” she continued after noticing my stunned silence, “doing the experiment is super fun!” (Munch, munch, munch.) “Hey, these Atomic Crunchers are good. Can we get a bigger box next week?”

After that job you did on your science fair project, kid? You bet.

chocolate-frosted-sugar-bombs

This is an expanded version of my monthly op-ed column for the Joliet Herald-News that will appear later this month.

Congratulations to Fall 2012 SUST Graduates!

Last Friday marked the graduation of several Sustainability Studies majors at Roosevelt: Alexandra Bishay, Jessie Crow Mermel, Kenton Franklin, Keith Nawls, Jeff Wasil, and Joe Zambuto. These former undergraduates walked across the famed Auditorium Theater stage in downtown Chicago to join the growing list of alumni from Roosevelt’s SUST program, which was founded in 2010 and offers classes in downtown Chicago, suburban Schaumburg, and online.

Jessie Crow Mermel and Jeff Wasil at RU's graduation ceremony, 15 Dec 2012 (photo: M. Bryson)
Jessie Crow Mermel and Jeff Wasil at RU’s graduation ceremony, 15 Dec 2012
(photo: M. Bryson)

Each of these students pursued interesting and varied experiences during their time at RU, both within and outside of the university. Alex Bishay, Keith Nawls, and Joe Zambuto were members of the first Service & Sustainability (SUST 350) course in the spring of 2012; that class took place at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm and involved multiple field trips to urban agriculture sites in Chicago and Milwaukee, and did weekly work at this Growing Power farm site in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood.

Kenton Franklin worked as an environmental sustainability work-study student, then intern, at RU’s Schaumburg Campus, and has been an instrumental contributor to the sustainable campus redevelopment efforts focused on making the Schaumburg facility more sustainable in its landscaping, energy use, and recycling. He plans to study environmental economics in graduate school.

Jessie Crow Mermel, who worked as a part-time farm educator at Angelic Organics Farm in Caledonia, IL, while pursuing her studies at RU full-time, wrote a recent guest essay for the SUST @ RU blog, co-developed a media presentation (with current SUST major Mary Beth Radeck) on suburban sustainability issues for the 2011 Sustainability and Ethics Forum at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and intends to pursue graduate study in ecopsychology.

Jeff Wasil was already working in the environmental field when we transferred to Roosevelt in 2009, and then soon thereafter declared himself as one of the very first SUST majors at RU in the Fall of 2010. That semester he took SUST 220 Water, and managed to find time to fly to Lake Constance in Switzerland to give a talk at one of the most prestigious water conferences in Europe. Jeff later won acceptance to the University of IL at Chicago’s summer Sustainability Institute in 2011, where he worked on Chicago water conservation issues and planning with fellow undergraduate and graduate students from throughout the region. Jeff is employed as an Engineering Technical Expert in the Evinrude Corporation’s emissions testing, certification, and regulatory program, trying to lower the carbon emissions of boat engines as much as is technically feasible.

Congratulations to all our SUST grads this December, and best of luck to our continuing majors as they enjoy a well-earned rest and gear up for the Spring 2013 semester!

Assessing Water Quality on the Chicago River’s North Branch at West River Park

Saturday, Sept. 8th, was the first day of class for my Fall 2012 Sustainability Studies 220 Water seminar at Roosevelt University. Instead of staying inside our classroom all day, though, we took advantage of excellent late-summer weather here in Chicago to take an urban river parklands adventure to Chicago’s North Side. From RU’s campus in downtown Chicago, we caught the Brown Line L train to a quiet and charmingly at-ground-level station near the end of the line (Francisco, in case you’re curious), where we walked through a quiet residential neighborhood just south of Lawrence Avenue to the entrance of Ronan Park. This is one of several parklands that border the North Branch of the River as it winds its way south through the city.

The North Branch of the Chicago River, as seen from the Ronan Park Bird Sanctuary trail
(M. Bryson)

We met up with naturalist-educators Mark Hauser and Claire Snyder from the environmental organization Friends of the Chicago River, who led us on a hike through the community-established Bird Sanctuary in Ronan Park — a charming linear greenspace that hugs the river and provides excellent wildlife habitat as well as soil stabilization with a lush landscape of native grasses and wildflowers as well as trees.

Hiking along the Ronan Park trail, through its restored Bird Sanctuary along the west bank of the river.
(M. Bryson)

Immediately north of Ronan Park, we entered West River Park, a multi-use parkland which provides numerous recreation activities as well as open space and excellent public access to the river. Prominent here is the confluence of the North Branch, which heads north for several miles out of the city and toward the Wisconsin border; and the North Shore Channel, a canal that was dug between 1907 and 1910 to provide a connection between Lake Michigan and the North Branch, thus increasing the flow and improving the water quality of the latter.

This confluence is an excellent place to examine the water quality of the river, for we were able to take a chemical and biological profile above and below the dam/spillway on the North Branch, which is just upstream from the North Shore Channel’s mouth. We measured key chemical indicators such as temperature, turbidity, pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, and phosphate; and wading into the river with D-nets to scrape up mud in search of macroinvertebrates (worms, leeches, crawfish, snails, damselfly nymphs, etc.).

In West River Park, north of Argyle Ave, looking north toward the dam/spillway on the North Branch. This wide area is the confluence of the N. Branch (which heads upstream to the upper left of this photo) and the North Shore Channel, built between 1907 and 1910 to provide an influx of Lake Michigan water (from Wilmette) for the North Branch.
(M. Bryson)

Above the dam, where the water travels downstream from the North Branch’s long journey southward through forest preserves and residential areas in the northern suburbs and North Side of the city, the water quality rated a “D” according to our chemical profile, mainly due to high suspended solids, high phosphates levels from polluted stormwater runoff, and low dissolved oxygen concentrations. Here our biological profile was slightly better (rated as “fair”) since we found a decent diversity of organisms, some of which are not highly pollution tolerant.

Sampling the macro-invertebrates living in the sediment and along the margins of the river, north of the spillway. This provides a biological sample of the river’s biodiversity and water quality, since different species of macro-inverts have different tolerance levels for pollution.
(M. Bryson)

Downstream of the dam, the chemical analysis results were a little better (“C-“), since the spillway served to oxygenate the water and significantly raise the dissolved oxygen value, which is critical for aquatic life to flourish. This was despite somewhat higher nitrate levels, which likely result from the wastewater effluent inputs to the Channel north of here, at the MWRD’s O’Brien wastewater treatment plant just north of Howard St.

The spillway is a great place for fishing, whether you’re a human or one of three heron species we saw that day (great blue, green, and black-crowned night).
(M. Bryson)

Both the North Branch and North Shore Channel are impacted by polluted stormwater runoff in the city and suburbs (which includes excess pesticides and chemical fertilizers applied to residential and commercial lawn properties, as well as from the ten golf courses within 20 miles of our sampling site); normal wastewater effluent discharges (where treated water nevertheless contains high bacterial levels, since effluent is not yet disinfected in a final stage of treatment, as in all other major US cities); and periodic combined sewage overflow (CSO) events, which occur when during a rainstorm the sewage system reaches capacity and untreated wastewater is released into the waterways to prevent sewage system back-ups into people’s homes.

Beyond learning to use the water sampling equipment and calculating a quick chemical and biological profile of the For images and notes from our trip, this trip allowed us to examine the way people interact with the river in an urban parkland, as well a discuss the river’s history of transformation here in Chicago. For more images from our day, see this annotated slideshow of photos; and check out the data from our sampling work at the link below.

West River Park Water Quality Data 2012-09-08 (pdf)

Looking southward on this scenic stretch of the North Branch, in West River Park.
(M. Bryson)

Talkin’ Biodiversity at the Field Museum

Last week I had the privilege of attending a two-day meeting at the Field Museum’s Biodiversity Synthesis Center (BioSynC) hosted by museum botanist and early land plants collections manager Matt von Konrat. I joined faculty and students from several Chicago colleges and universities to discuss how to develop college curriculum for the taxonomic study of the liverwort genus, Frullania, one of many under-studied yet incredibly important bryophytes that are the oldest type of land plants and key bio-indicators of environmental degradation and climate change.

Faculty and students convene at the Aug 29 and 30 biodiversity research and curriculum workshop held in the FMNH’s BioSynC center
(photo: K. Lugo)

With the rise of molecular genetics and related disciplines since the 1950s, biology as a whole has seen a massive shift away from the traditional natural history-based disciplines of comparative anatomy and taxonomy, pursuits rooted in the 18th- and 19th-century study of nature. Yet the imperative to catalog and assess the world’s remaining biodiversity in our current age of mass extinction, a process largely driven by human action, means that current taxonomists working in museum collections and the field have a critical task ahead of them. The NSF-funded Connecting Biodiversity Research with Curriculum project spearheaded by the Field Museum’s Konrat and his colleagues is a creative way to involve students and non-scientists in the essential data collection and analysis work vital to cataloguing bryophyte species, re-assessing their place on the tree of life, and providing a model for similar work for other organisms.

For more on this endeavor, check out this post on the SUST at RU blog.