CALEB ALBERT 1.) How can we live off the land in our immediate community?? If we can no longer depend on a destructive, exploitive, and unsustainable system of the importation of food, we must learn how to live sustainable locally, with no dependence of outside resources. 2.) How do we stop the dominant mind of our culture that has led to the exploitation of animals, plants, and humans?? If we are to live in a sustainable world, the first thing we must do is change minds.? Our culture will continue to exploit, use, and kill everything they do not see as necessary for progress of the human race. 3.) How can we fall in love with our land base, and the plants and animals that are apart of it?? If we can get, especially the kids, people to fall in love with nature, we will have people who are willing to fight for it. DANIELLE AYCOCK 1.) How do we prevent depleting all of our un-renewable resources? Depletion of natural resources. Oil accounts for 40% of our primary energy production. We are depleting the amount of fossil fuels that we have and are not increasing the amount of renewable energy/fuel resources we have to fall back on when we run out of resources. We are also not focusing on the destruction that has been caused from drilling for oil, and are more focused on the main objective, oil. 2.) How do we reduce the amount of GMO's in our food? The amount of GMO's in our food. There is no regulation on GMO's that are being placed in our food. Nearly 60-70% of the ingredients in food products in the U.S. are GMO's. We need to educate people about these products, and make people more aware of what is being placed in our food without our knowledge. 3.) How do we educate the general public about science and its importance? Education and the importance behind science. We need to put more literature that is easily accessible and understandable to the general public. If more people are educated then they will be more likely to make better decisions that will help our environment. We also need to focus on younger generations so that they will make better decisions (ecologically) throughout life. BRETT BERRY 1. Promote general scientific knowledge and awareness to those which do not understand the processes, how they work, or even what they are. Push towards school systems educating our young generations on issues that will be pertinent in their lifetime, such as global warming, sustainability, how everything is inter-connected, etc. Teaching the youth practical things they can apply to their lives which will stick with them is one of the most important issues. Also, it is important to bring the knowledge we possess here in America to underdeveloped nations globally, and set up systems for their education to continue. 2. How can we better allocate our resources globally? Since the population is expanding to non-sustainable numbers at a very fast rate, resources such as energy and food much be distributed much more efficiently and effectively in the very near future. Once again, educating others with our knowledge to be more efficient in their practices, i.e. farming and irrigation techniques. 3. Public health concerns - this includes the promotion of more effective and readily available vaccines, working towards eradicating preventable diseases and viruses, and also focusing on unexplored areas of our world to look for new solutions. For example, searching unknown and unexplored parts of the world for new species while these areas still exist, such as rain forests which are being exploited at very high rates. MATT FORETICH 1.) How can ecologists more effectively quantify and translate the findings of their research such that it can be more easily interpreted by the average person and policymakers? There are certain things which seem absolutely clear to ecologists, and perhaps scientists in general, that inspire no response in people outside of that discipline (e.g., the seriousness of the issues mentioned above). Ecologists must find a way not only to make these issues seem more relevant, but more importantly give policymakers simple and clear frameworks for decision-making. Whether this means that they quantify the issues in terms of their economic impact, create models which help resolve necessary trade-off s between environment and economic concerns, or simply cooperating with other ecologists to prioritize certain objectives. Ecologists are the ones possessing the most knowledge about these issues, and they should not leave it in the hands of think-tanks, NGOs, and politicians to determine what the best courses of action. 2.) How can ecologists find research and data interpretation methods which balance the quick pace of technological and economic development with the slow pace of ecological research? For example, investigating the effectiveness of fishery reserves is often a project which takes 10 years or longer, and determining the effects of genetically-modified crops on the surrounding ecosystems is also a very long term project. Meanwhile, there is pressing economic incentive to continue fishing and farming. This may be another example of where developing applied models is useful, in this case for convincing people that patience is in their best interest, or it might simply mean that data must be more effectively shared with stakeholders during the collection period and not exclusively post-publication. 3.) How can we inspire and educate our youth that the complex and interconnected earth system is more beautiful than the newest coach bag or Nike kicks? Despite the growing "environmental movement" in the past decade, there is still a large majority in the population who are more concerned with their own well-being and quality of life than that of the collective on our planet. Some might argue that it is the responsibility of lower-level educators and various environmental NGOs to inspire our youth while ecologists focus on "important research". I vehemently disagree. If we want our youth to have the same yearning for knowledge and the same appreciation for the earth "system" that we have as ecologists we cannot expect anyone else to do that for us. I often tell myself: I would rather teacher my daughter WHY all species are important in the context of ecosystem function and trophic dynamics than try to instill an appreciation for cute or novel species like penguins and polar bears. As was explained in the TED lecture, people buy the "why", not the "what" of an issue. Only someone who truly understands ecology can even explain those concepts, and it puts the responsibility on us to lead the charge in educating future generations. JACK GLENN With the burgeoning human population (currently 7 billion-plus), we as a species require more and more space and resources to house and feed ourselves. However, the methods we use to support ourselves (farming, power generation, etc.) all deplete resources available to the rest of the biosphere. By the competitive exclusion principle, we are forcing more and more species either out of their niches or to extinctin. As we depend on complex food web interactions to cycle nutrients back to us and our crops, we as ecologists must ask and attempt to learn: just how much of the earth's resources can we exploit before it catches back up to us, causing a massive population crash? There are two possible outcomes of the above scenario. The first is that we manage to limit our resource consumption to the extent that functioning ecosystem processes can still persist. If we do manage to do that, then the obvious question to ask is: how do we ethically prevent total collapse in the future, i.e. by limiting our own growth or being more efficient with our resource allocation (or a combination of these two and other factors)? The second, and in my opinion more likely (based on my observations of human nature), scenario is that the global human demand for resources combined with modern resource-gathering technology will lead to global ecological collapse. While life would still persist in the form of micro- and meio-organisms, macroorganisms (including humans) would likely go extinct before ecosystem processes could recover. Therefore, to preserve the possibility of human survival, we must learn to design self-sustaining, fully enclosed "microecosystems" based on our knowledge of current ecosystem processes. Such attempts have been made, such as the Biosphere and Biosphere II projects, which failed due to inadequate understanding of soil nutrient fluxes. As ecologists, our "why", our ultimate goal for work in this area, is to develop more accurate models of nutrient cycling dynamics and such that could one day help to successfully design such modules that could exist on Earth or elsewhere. KATE HELMICK 1. How can we conserve our depleting natural resources? In a time of an exponentially increasing world population, urbanization, and industrialization the demand for our world's limited natural resources is greatly increasing as well. Natural resources, like oil, are rapidly depleting. Finding new ways to conserve and utilize these precious resources are necessary if we want to use them in the future. 2. In what ways should we respond to the negative consequences of global climate change? As global climate change continues to occur, we will have to cope with already worsening issues such as the global biodiversity decline and rapidly changing ecosystems. As the earth's environment continues to change, it is important to research its impacts on different species and ecosystems and to develop new methods of preventing ecological damage from global climate change. 3. How can we, as humans, develop new sustainable ways of living with minimal impact on the environment? Sustainable development is an increasingly popular field of study as people are starting to realize our way of life and our impact on the environment will not continue to support future human populations. Daily aspects of our lives need to be changed such as our energy, water, and waste consumption in order to ensure the future well being of our environment. Finding creative and new ways to create a balance of environmental, social, and economic needs is a difficult task but essential for the future of our environment. AMANDA HUELS 1- learning how fluxes in nutrients in ecosystems effect them and us, so we can better understand the problems in ecosystems that can occur with nutrient imbalances and how to avoid them are fix them 2- learning about poisons/chemicals being put into the air/land/water and how biomagnification works in regards to these on their way up the food chain to us.? I think the rise in cancer and certain diseases we see today is because of toxins-ones we know about and the ones we don't-that we are putting out there 3-learning more about our effects on climate change. I think there is so much more to learn about with climate change, but we just haven't been doing research for long enough to fully comprehend all our effects. CODY JORDAN 1) Environmental degradation (habitat fragmentation, climate change, deforestation, etc.). The impact on species (~7/8 of estimated species on earth not even discovered yet) is a major one, not only for curiosity's sake, but also for the knowledge and applications (medicines, technologies, etc.) we could potentially gain. 2) Depletion of natural resources (potable water, crude oil, and many others) and its impact on intra- and international sociopolitical relationships. I think this one pretty much speaks for itself, and it reminds us that we are part of the study of ecology. 3) Lack of scientific literacy and public understanding about not just ecology, but science in general. Scientific literacy is important to further research (specifically, securing funding and public support), and scientific literacy is also extremely significant in policy-making and pragmatic planning. Policies will be made with or without scientific literacy by legislators and constituents (as we have seen numerous times), but it benefits us all if they actually know something about the things they are writing laws about. Ultimately, scientific literacy affects every other ecological dilemma, even those not on my short list. OLAKEKAN KAMAU-NATAKI 1. To what extent can environments and ecosystems be altered before the results are irreversible? 2. Do some alterations have effects that are not exclusively negative? 3. How are evolutionary processes affected by alterations in environment? WILLIAM LEWIS 1.How close are we as the human population to reaching the carrycapacity of the planet, if we have not already reached the carrycapacity? 2.How are reef ecosystems, globally, being affected by the increasingacidification of the oceans? 3.What will be the long term affects, ~ 20 years, of oil spills onthe aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems that they occur in, forinstance on reefs and marshes? STEPHANIE MCCALL 1. Ecology of disease- finding alternative treatments for diseases in order to reduce the creation and evolution of treatment resistant strains. 2. energy crisis- finding alternative energy sources in order to stop exploiting our nonrenewable resources 3. conservation- keep the world from ending via ecosystem collapse! BRENDAN MEANY 1. Is the more recently prominent disconnection of human beings from exposure to the natural world damaging to humans as a species? By this I mean, is there some genetic sanction imbedded within us that relies on exposure to nature? 2. Is the earth and it's resources capable of handling a world in which each country is developed. Developed nations such as the US seem to encourage and facilitate developing countries to grow. But if every individual on the planet lived like we do in the US, the earth would be drained of its resources quickly. So I guess my question boils down to, is there a better way to mediate equity issues around the world? 3. Is there an easy way to let the public know just how damaging our lifestyles are to the environment? SERGIO MINCHEY 1.) How will climate change affect the distribution of arable land? As climate patterns and therefore ecosystems shift geographically, once useable farmland might become unusable as abiotic conditions such a precipitation and temperature change. The ability to shift our agricultural mass-production in accordance with these changing patterns is critical to ensuring an abundance of food for a growing population in which roughly a billion people already live in dire need. 2.) How will climate change affect the distribution of infectious diseases? As with the previous question, climate patterns affect the distribution of organisms. Some research suggests that emerging diseases such as Lyme disease as well as older problems like malaria might become more prevalent in areas where increasing temperature allows these parasites and/or their vectors to proliferate more readily. Like the previous issue of agriculture, greater foresight about the diseases which harm us will be critical to ensuring the well-being of humans in the coming decades. 3.) Where are the biodiversity hotspots? It is only in recent years that ecologists have realized the magnitude of the loss of biodiversity being perpetuated by humans. Many ecologists have concluded that we are actually causing the 6th great mass-extinction event in the earth's history. Given limited funding and limited time, conservationists struggle to decide which species to devote their efforts towards saving, giving the myriad of choices. The study of biodiversity hotspots allows ecologists to narrow their efforts down to those geographic areas in which the most biodiversity is concentrated. This allows conservationists to focus their efforts in a cost-effective manner, thereby preserving the greatest amount of genetic and ecological diversity. TIERNEY O'SULLIVAN 1) Gaining a deeper understanding the dynamics that are present in ecosystems so that they can be preserved. 2) Reducing the rate of habitat degradation and overexploitation of natural resources. 3) Understanding the mechanisms causing climate change and how to lessen the human impact. TAYLOR PIEFKE 1.) What should be done about an overpopulated world that surpassed its natural carrying capacity? 2.) What is the best way to determine biodiversity hotspots and gain support for protecting these areas? 3.) How are global geographic ranges of species changing as the world is heating? TODD PIERSON 1) How does disease interact with climate change, habitat fragmentation, and the rest of the axis of evil to threaten global biodiversity? 2) What is the true value of biodiversity to humanity? 3) What happend to Plethodon ainsworthi? MALAVIKA RAJEEV My most pressing interests in ecology focus at the interface of humans and wildlife. Understanding how we interact in terms of 1)disease and 2)consumption, I think, will be the most important applied ecological challenges of our time. In the world where the boundaries between the "wild" and humans are existent only in the human mind, it seems important to understand what our ecological and biological interactions are with something we separate ourselves from psychologically. I think disease is one of those interactions that is not well understood, as chytridiomycosis is devastating multitudes of amphibian populations and as 61% of the currently know human pathogens are zoonotic. Consumption is also an interesting phenomena to examine. As people try to establish sustainable methods of production, especially in agriculture, I think it is of utmost importance to examine seriously the ecological impacts of these practices. And, perhaps, to apply ecological wisdom and understanding to the problems facing food and energy production. On the other hand, in terms of theoretical ecology, phylogenetics is a new frontier that we are just beginning to explore. The current way we describe taxonomy is actually rather arbitrary. I think it will be interesting to see how scientists will use new DNA analysis to categorize species. In the case of birds, whole orders have been rearranged based on DNA analysis. The way we think about species, genus, order, class, may change drastically with this new method and probably affect the way ecologists classify and qualify organisms in their studies. JAMES SCHOBAK 1. How do we get the public concerned about helping the environment. 2. How do we slow/stop the effect of global warming. 3. How should we deal with the growing global population. STENKA VULOVA (1) What are the present and future agricultural and ecological effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? In 2011, microbial ecologist and mycologist Ignacio Chapela published a paper reporting the presence of introgressed transgenic DNA in native maize landraces in Oaxaca (center of origin and diversification of maize) (Quist and Chapela 2001). Rather famously, this was the first paper to ever be retracted by the prestigious journal Nature, due to pressure from the biotechnology industry. To address the adverse effects of GMOs can be a professionally dangerous task for a researcher. However, considering the rapid genetic engineering of all kinds of organisms (viruses, bacteria, algae, fungi, grasses, trees, insects, fish, and shellfish) presenting novel traits beyond the scope of what could be achieved through traditional breeding, it is particularly vital to investigate the interactions and impacts of GMOs with natural ecological communities and agroecosystems with traditionally-bred crops. A synthesis paper by the Ecological Society of America discussed probable environmental risks associated with the release of GMOs, including the creations of new and stronger pests or pathogens, harm to non- target species (such as the monarch butterfly, birds, other insects, soil organisms, and other organisms), disruption of biotic communities (including agroecosystems), and irreparable loss in species or genetic diversity (Snow et al. 2005). For instance, even a miniscule release of fast-growing transgenic salmon could jeopardize native fish populations. The sheer evolutionary novelty of genetically modified organisms makes it pertinent to fully investigate their already-occurring and possible effects on ecosystems worldwide. (2) How will climate change affect disease dynamics in human populations? More broadly, it is important to expand research relating changing worldwide weather patterns and human health. This sphere of research is already being developed to a certain extent, mostly focusing on the adverse effects of climate change on human health through thermal stress, extreme weather events, and infectious diseases. However, the real ecological question within this broader, anthropocentric field of study is how global warming will affect disease vectors such as ticks and mosquitoes. Addressing this question has, of course, clear implications for humans. For instance, a succession of warmer winters in Sweden over the past two decades has increased the geographic ranges of ticks that transmit Lyme borreliosis and viral encephalitis. The incidence of tick-borne (viral) encephalitis in Sweden has concurrently increased. (Lindgren et al. 2000) Currently, papers addressing this issue rely on limited real-world data and models riddled with uncertainty. The uncertainty is spread across climatic, ecological, and physiological factors. How exactly will the climate change throughout time and space in the near future? How exactly would specific disease vectors respond to these changes? How exactly do alterations in precipitation and temperature affect the lifespan, reproductive success, and health of disease vectors such as mosquitoes? Clearly, more models, field studies, and lab studies are necessary to even begin to address this question-a question both intrinsically ecologically fascinating and vital to shaping public health policy. (3) What species are likely to become successful invasive species in the near future? This question could be supplemented with the question of what current invasive species are likely to persist. Thought this question initially seems simple, as if population models incorporating the lifespan, life stages, reproductive capacity, and other factors of a species could predict how well it would fare in a new environment (and compare it to the native species occupying a similar niche), it is rather more complex than that. The key to approaching this broad ecological question is identifying what makes an introduced species invasive. For one, invasive species often show greater vigor (in terms of population dynamics) in the introduced range as compared to their native range, a factor which could be attributed to different ecological conditions in the introduced habitat which favor the invasive species (such as absence of natural enemies) (Willis et al. 2000). In addition, invasive species may undergo genetic changes after being transplanted to a new habitat (for instance, changes enhancing reproduction). Post-invasion genetic alterations of a species further enhance its viability (Willis et al. 2000). These, of course, are just a small sampling of the variables that need to be considered when evaluating the potential success of an introduced species in a new environment. Another related question could be in which specific geographic areas invasive species are likely to proliferate. The potential future spread of introduced species, investigated by incorporating field data and current theories about the factors influencing the success of invasive organisms into models, is vital to the field of ecology as invasive species can fundamentally alter the functions of ecosystems. Invasive species have been found to cause the decline and extinction of native species, hybridization with native species, and wider effects in native ecosystems, such as alterations in nutrient cycling, fire regimens, and hydrology. Bibliography: -Quist, D. and Chapela, I. (2001). Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico. Nature. 414: 541-543. -Lindgren E., L. Tallenklint, and T. Polfeldt. (2000). Impact of climatic change on the northern latitude limit and population density of the disease-transmitting European tick Ixodes ricinus. Environmental Health Perspectives. 108: 119-123. ALEX WRIGHT 1) How land-use change affects species composition and ecological interactions over large temporal and spatial scales? 2) What are the resultant land-use changes from lower water quality/availability in a commmunity? 3) Where are we going to live next after we finish trashing this planet? AMY WRIGHT 1. What is the future role of ecological theory in applied sciences? 2. How will the knowledge of ecological systems be impacted and changed in the future with the current and coming age of ecological distrubances? 3. How are future generations going to consider current ecological theories in their everyday lives?