MacArthur grant supports new model of ecosystem dynamics

June 28, 2012

The MacArthur Foundation recently approved a $500,000 grant to support improving the scientific understanding of water and fisheries resource use in the Tonle Sap region of Cambodia. CHANS-Net member Les Kaufman, lead PI and Boston University professor of biology, sees the grant enhancing the growing study of coupled human and natural systems (CHANS).

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Seeping Arctic methane has serious implications for Florida coastline

June 20, 2012

The ancient reserves of methane gas seeping from the melting Arctic ice cap told CHANS-Net member Jeff Chanton and fellow researchers what they already knew: As the permafrost thaws, there is a release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes climate warming.

The trick was figuring out how much, said Chanton, the John W. Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State University.

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CHANS-Net Newsletter -- June 2012

June 18, 2012

Table of Contents

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2012 CHANS Fellows aim to expand networks and knowledge at AGU Fall Meeting

June 15, 2012

Ten exceptional junior scholars studying coupled human and natural systems will have a unique opportunity to interact and network with scientific thought leaders at the 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December as part of the CHANS Fellows program.

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More people, more environmental stress

June 11, 2012

Although it’s long been suspected that human activity has greatly contributed to environmental stress, it’s only recently that science has begun to show just how great a role that activity is playing.

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20 years after Rio Earth Summit ecologists call for preservation of planet's remaining biological diversity

June 7, 2012

Twenty years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 17 prominent ecologists, including a CHANS-Net member, are calling for renewed international efforts to curb the loss of biological diversity, which is compromising nature's ability to provide goods and services essential for human well-being.

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Human hands leave prominent ecological footprints

June 4, 2012

Early human activity has left a greater footprint on today's ecosystem than previously thought, says a CHANS-Net scientist working with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and in the multidisciplinary Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, created by the National Science Foundation to investigate ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial scales. Highlighted in the June issue of BioScience, the study shows how historic human actions caused changes in nature that continue to reverberate throughout present-day ecosystems.

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Journals issue calls for papers

May 29, 2012

Two journals have issued calls for papers for upcoming special issues focusing on wetlands, sustainability and risk analysis.

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CHANS-Net member seeks collaborators for SRA Annual Meeting symposium

May 25, 2012

CHANS-Net member Matteo Convertino, of the University of Florida and the Risk and Decision Science Team of the Engineering R&D Center of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is looking for potential collaborators for a symposium he has proposed at the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, Dec. 9-12 in San Francisco.

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Can nature's beauty lift citizens from poverty?

May 1, 2012

Using nature’s beauty as a tourist draw can boost conservation in China’s valued panda preserves, but it isn’t an automatic ticket out of poverty for the human habitants, a unique long-term study shows.

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