ESF Research

How will maple products adapt to a changing climate? ESF's Dr. Diane Kuehn was one of the co-leads on a study that looked at maple producers, the changes they've seen to their businesses in the past few years, and the measures they're taking or planning to take to assist the resiliency of their trees.

How will maple products adapt to a changing climate? ESF's Dr. Diane Kuehn was one of the co-leads on a study that looked at maple producers, the changes they've seen to their businesses in the past few years, and the measures they're taking or planning to take to assist the resiliency of their trees.

Tomorrow is the last day for Student Spotlight on Research & Outreach submissions! One week until the event! http://ow.ly/10x4TO

WRVO interviewed Dr. Tim Volk and Justin Heavey about the ESF Willow Project and their aims for the future of sustainable energy. http://bit.ly/1YhR5Zy

As an intern for Andropogon, ESF grad student Toby Liss is working to model native ecologies for green roofs like Gateway. Part 1: http://androblogon.tumblr.com//small-but-tough-a-visit-to- Part 2: http://androblogon.tumblr.com//small-but-tough-a-visit-to-

Dr. Greg Boyer is quoted in a Daily Messenger article about preparing for toxic algae blooms on Canandaigua Lake this summer.

Dr. Bill Powell authored an article on ESF's American Chestnut Project in The Conversation. He answers a number of questions about the science, safety and continued genetic diversity of transgenic American chestnuts.

Dr. Karin Limburg's discovery of the properties of otoliths--fish ear stones--may revolutionize our understanding of fish ecology and conservation. PhD student Ted Hermann has published a paper using the tree-like growth rings of otoliths to uncover the secret lives of fish in the Amazon basin. His work has pulled back the curtain on the mysteries of their migrations and shone new light on hidden portions of these species' life cycles. The new information could help to shape effective conservation agreements for economically important fish, and may even lead to improvements in dam siting so as to minimize disruption to wildlife.

ESF quietly serves a very important role in protecting water quality in the US. We house one of the few labs in the country capable of testing for a full range of algal toxins. The lab performs testing for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the NYS Department of Health, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada, and serves as one of NOAA's rapid-response labs. In 2015 alone, a research team headed by Dr. Gregory Boyer, professor of biochemistry and director of the ESF-based Great Lakes Research Consortium, analyzed over 2000 samples from across the state, including 750 that were found to be toxic. The full story: http://www.esf.edu/communications/view.asp?newsID=4057

Tomorrow is the last day for Student Spotlight on Research & Outreach submissions! One week until the event! http://ow.ly/10x4TO

Less than one month to submit your research or outreach project to the Spotlight poster session!

This week's Going Green: With one of few labs in the country capable of doing a full range of testing for blue-green algae, ESF is monitoring water quality in NYS lakes to protect against toxic algae blooms.

Dr. Bill Powell authored an article on ESF's American Chestnut Project in The Conversation. He answers a number of questions about the science, safety and continued genetic diversity of transgenic American chestnuts.

Is it possible Lonesome George wasn't the last of his species? Dr. James Gibbs is off to the Galapagos this month to find out. He'll join a team of scientists on Isabela Island (that's the one with the volcano that recently erupted). Their mission is to investigate a tortoise population that a Yale team recently identified as hybrid Pinta tortoises. With a bit of luck, and about 10 years of conservation breeding, the Pinta tortoise may trundle again. How did the tortoises get to the wrong island, and what are the odds some of them could be pureblooded? For the full story: http://bit.ly/1I1UwOh

Scientific American tells the story of how one stowaway snail provided the key for an ESF grad student to successfully breed the endangered Chittenango ovate amber snail in captivity.

ESF quietly serves a very important role in protecting water quality in the US. We house one of the few labs in the country capable of testing for a full range of algal toxins. The lab performs testing for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the NYS Department of Health, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada, and serves as one of NOAA's rapid-response labs. In 2015 alone, a research team headed by Dr. Gregory Boyer, professor of biochemistry and director of the ESF-based Great Lakes Research Consortium, analyzed over 2000 samples from across the state, including 750 that were found to be toxic. The full story: http://www.esf.edu/communications/view.asp?newsID=4057

Did you know that Onondaga Lake plays host to New York's largest native fish? Since they discovered in 2010 that endangered lake sturgeon are returning to Onondaga Lake, Dr. Neil Ringler and his team have been monitoring the lake's sturgeon population. Dr. Ringler thinks the sturgeon probably made their way into Onondaga from Lake Oneida, where the NYS Department of Conservation has been stocking sturgeon to try to bolster their numbers. Dr. Ringler's team is looking for evidence that Onondaga's sturgeon are breeding, and are continuing to monitor the size and movements of the population. Sturgeon migrate upstream to spawn, so the rehabilitation of the lake's tributary streams could play an important role in supporting the sturgeon in the long term.

ESF has received an NSF grant to acquire a new transmission electron microscope that will enable CNY scientists to do new kinds of research. http://bit.ly/1PbOxU7

A new species of giant tortoise has been identified! Dr. James Gibbs and his partners on the study are excited for the find, but also about the chance to honor the man the tortoises have been named after. Galapagos National Park ranger Fausto Llerena Sánchez worked with the tortoises of the Galapagos for 43 years, establishing many of the methods used today for their conservation and providing an example of dedication to his colleagues.

Journalist Jane Braxton Little accompanied Dr. Gibbs and others on the Galapagos expedition to recover hybrid tortoises descended from two extinct species. She writes about their adventure on the Galapagos Conservancy blog.

ESF's Willow Project is producing biomass and reclaiming brownfield sites by growing and harvesting shrub willow. The quick-growing renewable hardwood provides shrubby habitat for animals, serves as a carbon sink, and can be readily processed into wood pellets and other bio-products. http://bit.ly/1SdBQid

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Scott Turner has been studying the termites of southern Africa. He shares his accumulation of observations, processes, questions and enduring wonder at these tiny but remarkable creatures in a new article in The Conversation.

Successful chestnut reproduction news from the ESF Chestnut The American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project!

Populations of rusty blackbirds are crashing, and an ESF alumna wants to know why. Shannon Buckley Luepold's findings on their population impacts--including nest predation by red squirrels and insufficient tree density--were published in the journal "The Condor: Ornithological Applications." ESF's Dr. Jonathan Cohen was one of the additional authors, and two undergraduate students also worked with her as field assistants: Linnea D'Amico and Sara Prussing.

Emily Heiser and Michelle Stantial pack up the ESF piping plover chick mortality study for the year, and take a look at the season they've had.

ESF grad student Chellby Rae Kilheffer spent some of her summer at Fire Island National Seashore: "This is a photo of me collecting ground cover vegetation dat...a in overwashed areas of Fire Island National Seashore, NY. The overwashes are a result of Superstore Sandy (2012), and my job is to quantify the regeneration of dunes and impacts of white-tailed deer on this process. I am in my second year of a PhD with ESF, and I'm working with Brian Underwood." #esfflags #esfsummer This is one of the projects under ESF's Roosevelt Wild Life Station. for conservation research.

Great news from ESF researchers! Roosevelt Wild Life Station

Dr. James Gibbs sends us these #esfflags photos from Katon-Karagay National Park, Kazakhstan. He and an international team of researchers are pursuing ongoing conservation work with endangered snow leopards in the Altai Mountains, which lie in this border region of Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia. The horses investigating him in the first photo are members of a local herd.

Excellent new dispersal findings for US plover populations from ESF researchers!

An ESF graduate student's work to boost the numbers of the endangered Chittenango ovate amber snail via a breeding program is seeing results.

Divers on the St. Lawrence River are engaging in a citizen science project, collecting data on the river's ecology for researchers at ESF's Thousand Islands Biological Station and elsewhere.

ESF entomologist Dr. Melissa Fierke is researching ways to save New York's ash trees from emerald ash borer.

Dr. Powell was a guest on the Talking Biotech podcast, with host Dr. Kevin Folta. They talked about the ESF Chestnut Project, and Dr. Powell provided an update on the many tests being done on the transgenic American chestnuts to ensure that they're identical to their wild-type cousins in every way but blight resistance.

You could say that the new harvester was made just for ESF. New Holland designed and built the new coppice header in collaboration with ESF's Willow Project, specifically to harvest woody biomass. The new design has now gone into production and will be available on the market--providing a tool to significantly reduce the time and money involved in biomass harvesting, just as planned. It'll be a boon to our researchers as they continue to work on ways to lower the cost of biomass production.

Our own Dr. Paul Hirsch is making a name for himself in research collaboration, as evidenced by his presence in this article in Nature. Dr. Chris Nomura, leader of a successful SUNY Networks of Excellence collaboration, was also interviewed.

Climate change may be doing insidious damage by disrupting the synchronization of natural cycles like migration and spring thaw. Stacy McNulty and the research of Newcomb Campus's Huntington Wildlife Forest feature in this story from Adirondack Explorer.

USFWS Northeast Region shares a video from ESF's own Amanda Cheeseman, taken in her conservation and research work with New England cottontail rabbits.

NPR leaves no stone (or nut) unturned in this exceptional article about the work of ESF's American Chestnut Project. ESF's own Andy Newhouse contributed commentary on the science involved, and the testing that's being done to make sure the genetically engineered trees will live harmoniously in their ecosystem.

Help ESF's Center for Community Design Research gather information to improve the Syracuse Creek Walk!

Our own Dr. Ivan Gitsov is leading a team of SUNY researchers to develop nanotechnology for safer, more targeted chemotherapy.

Dr. Karin Limburg is the lead on a team of SUNY researchers who are studying NYC's Jamaica Bay. They want to gain a better understanding of the wildlife refuge's importance to the city, and how to best protect it.

ESF alum Derek Crane is featured in this month's cover story for Fisheries Magazine, with a study on Muskellunge and Northern Pike Ecology and Management.

When it comes to science, of course research usually gets the attention. Scientists do their work for the advancement and knowledge of humankind, and their work is what they want to be known for. But this means that the courage, passion and skill that drive them often go unsung. This article pays tribute to the heart of two conservation biologists, and the emotional strength their work demands.

A month after it went missing and a social media-driven manhunt was launched, the space balloon is returned to ESF--courtesy of a friendly hiker! Even better, it was recovered with its data payload intact. Check out ESF from space and find out how high it really went in the full story: http://bit.ly/esfinspace

National Geographic reports on ESF's American Chestnut Project in a story on the food history of chestnuts, and the hope of seeing them return.

"It is an extraordinary time on Española. Finch songs fill the air, the repetitive groans of mating tortoises resound from all directions, mockingbirds gather nest material, and caterpillars seem to be everywhere." Read James Gibbs' account of his latest excursion with Wacho Tapia of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative and rangers from the Galapagos National Park.

The second of our two researchers working with plovers this summer, under the Roosevelt Wild Life Station's Dr. Jonathan Cohen, is Michelle Stantial. Michelle and her research partner Emily Heiser are working with piping plovers in New Jersey. Emily authored this article to explain the work they're doing to understand and reduce chick mortality among their already threatened population.

We have two researchers working with plovers this summer, under the Roosevelt Wild Life Station's Dr. Jonathan Cohen. Maureen Durkin, a PhD student, is researching snowy plovers in northwestern Florida. She was interviewed by the Pensacola News Journal for Memorial Day weekend, where she cautioned beachgoers to drive carefully on roads near beaches and to be respectful of shorebirds that nest on the sand dunes.

ESF alumna Michelle Stantial is working under Jonathan Cohen on this project to band and study piping plovers. Watch her and her partner Emily at work in this short video on the Readings from the Northside blog, which is continuing to follow and report on their project and their tiny research subjects.

ESF grad student Maureen Durkin is on this project.

ESF grad student Maureen Durkin is included in this article, for her work with snowy plovers at Gulf Island National Seashore. Maureen works with Jonathan Cohen of ESF's Roosevelt Wild Life Station.

Scientific American reports on the work of ESF's American Chestnut Project in their 60-Second Science podcast.

The ESF Chestnut Project was featured on WCNY's weekly SciTech Now show. http://bit.ly/1PGI2JR

Transgenic American chestnuts will be planted in three locations this spring, in the next step of the restoration efforts of ESF's American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project. http://bit.ly/1H1NKDZ Under a USDA permit, spindly "plantlets" about a foot high will be planted on ESF property in the Syracuse area, at a site in the Zoar Valley of Western New York under the direction of the New York chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACFNY), and in Westchester County on property owned by the historic Camp Fire Club. Their growth will be controlled and monitored as the newly developed strains undergo a rigorous federal approval process.

Engineering a high-altitude balloon turns out to be a real challenge, but Giorgos Mountrakis' engineering class thinks they've got it figured out. They'll find out tomorrow, when they launch their balloon as part of a world-wide competition to design balloons that can gather data like a satellite without the enormous cost. Want to cheer them on? Join them for their launch on the ESF quad on Wednesday morning!

Augmented reality games (ARGs) are like video games you play in the real world. With puzzles that can include scavenger hunts, clue-finding investigations and more, they're a great way to explore real-world locations, knowledge and skills in the context of playing a game. Dr. Beth Folta and graduate student Jackie McCabe are designing ARGs that turn New York state parks into the stage (or world map, if you prefer) for a mystery: where are these plant and animal invaders coming from, and how can we stop them?

Bill Powell will speak on the American Chestnut Project at SUNY New Paltz on April 22 as part of the college's #EarthDay celebration.

An international team of researchers, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Brazil's Federal University of Paraná and Federal University of Santa Catarina, ESF and the University of Missouri, has captured bacteria in action as they perform nitrogen fixing--the process of pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere and binding it into soil in a form that plants find nourishing. These bacteria, already used as crop inoculants by some farmers, especially in South America, promote growth in certain grass crops, offering new strategies for eco-friendly farming. Wider use in the farming of crops like corn, sorghum, switchgrass and wheat could mean a decreased need for nitrogen-rich fertilizers, whose runoff can be damaging for aquatic ecosystems.

Owned but largely unused by the US Department of Homeland Security, Plum Island has become a refuge for many endangered species. ESF and NYSDEC researchers from our New York Natural Heritage Program partnership are cataloging the wildlife that call the island home.

Coyotes are moving into human neighborhoods, following the animals they prey on. Dr. Jacqui Frair and Brian Underwood are both included in this Syracuse.com report.

West Virginia University is one of the organizations partnering with ESF on a $3 million grant from the US Department of Energy. The funds will be used to refine the supply chain for woody biomass crops, resulting in a more affordable, readily available product.

Liming may affect Adirondack soils in different ways: ESF graduate student Caity Homan is researching earthworms and found soil acidity constrains earthworms (they prefer higher pH). This suggests liming will increase the invasion risk to the region's forests.

What happens when 80 tons of lime are added to an Adirondack pond? In a separate study, a team including ESF's Colin Beier is studying whole-watershed liming. They monitor Adirondack soil and water chemistry as well as plant and animal responses: http://ny.cf.er.usgs.gov//projects/images/LK00-FDD00-00.pdf

Led by SUNY Upstate Medical, ESF researchers are among the collaborators on a new study identifying #climate drivers that may be pushing the expansion of #dengue fever.

SUNY 4E has sprouted another collaboration! Researchers from ESF, SUNY Plattsburgh and University at Albany, SUNY are working together to investigate air quality, climate change and human health in the Adirondacks. #airquality #health #climatechange

On Friday, March 27, Dr. William Powell spoke before the National Research Council Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources on the subject of genetically engineered trees. The session was part of the committee's GE crop study, to gain a deeper understanding of genetically engineered crops, their science, effects and benefits. The session was recorded and is available on their website. http://bit.ly/1GPk2B6 Dr. Powell also encourages positive comments, especially those specifically mentioning the American chestnut and ESF's American chestnut project. Positive comments from the public will encourage the committee to support the project in the regulatory approval process. http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/2014/06/15/provide-comments/

Dr. Kathy Licht will be at ESF on Tuesday, March 31 to give a talk on the role of Antarctica's ice in Earth's climate system. 3:30 pm in Gateway.

Giorgos Mountrakis, associate professor in environmental resource engineering, and his partner Dr. George Grekousis have surveyed over 3000 counties in 48 states to build a map that shows US land development compared to population. The map can reveal which population centers are using land most efficiently, and where infrastructure and services may be lacking.

North Country Public Radio quoted Dr. Jacqui Frair of ESF's Roosevelt Wild Life Station on the impacts of winter ticks on moose populations in their northern US ranges. http://bit.ly/1EG77yV

On Friday, Dr. William Powell will speak to the National Academy of Sciences about genetically engineered trees. He's one of three experts who have been invited to speak on the state of the science regarding GE traits in development for tree species and governance issues related to the commercialization of GE trees. The session will be available for viewing by the public. If you would like to listen to the presentations, you can register at the event site: http://bit.ly/1GPk2B6

ESF's Adirondacks campuses, Newcomb campus and the Cranberry Lake Biological Station, have joined the Ecological Reflections network. The network should increase ESF's opportunities to collaborate with other colleges, and bridge the gaps between science and the arts and humanities.