Department of Natural Resources

Help celebrate the  2013 Senior Class graduating with Distinction in Research

Friday, May 24 12:30 pm-3:00 pm
102 Mann Library

Posters and Oral Presentations

Students and Thesis Titles

1)      Emily Bialowas (NTRES): The impact of Didymosphenia geminata (Didymo) on macroinvertebrate communities in Esopus Creek, New York

2)      Kelsey Erickson (NTRES): Secondary effects of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae) infestation on Hemlock stands and implications for their management in Ithaca, NY

3)      Cassandra F.L. Garcia (NTRES): Quantifying the effects of Marcellus Shale gas development on forest salamanders

4)      Tianjun Hou (SNES): The effects of soil calcium restoration on the growth rate and annual mortality of sugar maples in Hubbard Brook Experiment Forest (HBEF)

5)      Mou Jian Lee (NTRES): Possibilities for the emergence of Civic Ecology practices in response to social-ecological disturbance: The Case of nuisance Chironomids in Singapore

6)      Margaret M. Luebs (NTRES): A comparison of predation on Soft-Shell Clams (Mya arenaria) and Stout Razor Clams (Tagelus plebeius)

7)      Sarah A. Maclean (NTRES): The sound of danger: Threat sensitivity to predator vocalizations, alarm calls, and novelty in gulls

8)      Erica Merritt (NTRES): Management of Chicago’s Lincoln Park ash trees in the face of Emerald Ash Borer: A spatial plan using ArcGIS 10.1

9)      Emma Schnur (NTRES): Deploying the Conservation Awareness Index in New York: Do family forest landowners know their conservation options?

10)   Jennifer Sun (SNES): Investigating the environmental source and function of thiaminase I

11)   Olivia Walton (NTRES):

On May 10th, NYFOA President, Jim Minor, and DNR’s Peter Smallidge, also a NYFOA board member, were interviewed on Susan Arbetter’s Capitol Report, a NPR program out of Albany, regarding NYFOA’s Restore New York Woodlands (RNYW) initiative. To listen here’s a link to the program. Smallidge and Minor are on in the last 15 minutes of the hour-long program so move the slider over 3/4 of the way.

Tags: Peter Smallidge

Jay Boulanger and Bernd Blossey were recently prominently featured in a new PBS Nature documentary, The Private Life of Deer, to be premiered on Wednesday, May 8 at 8pm EST.

Here is a link to a video preview at the PBS website: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365005652/.  DVDs are available at PBS or Amazon.com.

Tags: Bernd Blossey, Jay Boulanger

After two years of renovations, DNR’s home of Fernow Hall is now open! The renovated building now has a rain garden to control stormwater runoff, a garden terrace for use by the faculty and staff, and solar panels. Renovated Fernow has 4 floors and two classrooms, one of which was built as a modern extension to the historic building with floor to ceiling glass windows.

Click here to read the article in the Daily Sun about Fernow’s transformation: http://www.sustainablecampus.cornell.edu/blogs/news/posts/natural-resources-building-opens-to-praise-excitement-after-renovations

DNR PhD student Laura Martin has been invited to join the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network’s terrestrial species monitoring working group. The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) was launched in 2002 in response to the widely identified need for adequate information to support environmental decision making. GEO is a voluntary partnership of 73 national governments and 46 participating organizations. It provides a framework within which these partners can coordinate their strategies and investments for Earth observation. This summer Laura will travel to Lisbon, Portugal, to work with GEO BON participants.

Tags: Laura Martin

DNR grad student, Darrick Evensen, recently won a Jewish sermon contest for his interpretation of the Torah, other Jewish literature, and rabbinic responses as they relate to individual and societal obligations associated with shale gas development.

The contest came with a $1800 cash award.  Evensen plans to donate a few hundred dollars of the winnings to “Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light”, an interfaith organization (Jewish, Christian, Muslin, and several other religions) that works to increase stewardship of God’s earth by mitigating the consequences of climate change.  This group has put forth a nicely nuanced position statement on “Marcellus Shale Drilling.”).

Tags: Darrick Evensen

DNR graduate student Nirav Patel was nominated and selected to be the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Core Biology Program (BIOG 1440) for 2012-13. The award values the important contribution made towards the core biology instructional program and recognizes the distinguished performance in this vital role.

Nirav Patel is a graduate assistant at the Human Dimension Research Unit (HDRU) working with Dr. Richard Stedman on his doctoral work. His research is focused on the role of community perception, specifically the attitudes of Educators and Students towards Renewable Energy Systems (RES) and its impact on assessing Renewable Energy Literacy (REL). He has been actively involved in teaching various biology courses at Cornell University. He has also served as a visiting lecturer for PSP introductory biology courses and served as an instructor for the introductory biology cluster-writing program. He has also worked as a teaching fellow at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) for new graduate students, a position that involved instruction in methods of teaching, development of course materials, and evaluation of new graduate instructors.

Nirav Patel will be recognized at a lunch reception on May 08, 2013.

Tags: Richard Stedman

Several articles by The Human Dimensions Research Unit were included in the recently published textbook Essential Readings in Wildlife Management and Conservation. The book is edited by Paul Krausman and Bruce Leopold, and includes forty-two essential papers on wildlife management and conservation, each with a commentary and associated publications. Daniel Decker and Barbara Knuth, along with former NTRES faculty Charles Krueger, Richard Baer, Jr., and Milo E. Richmond, have an article entitled “From Clients to Stakeholders: A Philosophical Shift for Fish and Wildlife Management” in the philosophical section of the book. Dr. Decker also has two other articles in the human dimensions section: “Human Dimensions of living with wildlife– a management challenge for the 21st century” written with Lisa Chase, and “Public Attitudes Toward a Suburban Deer Herd” written with Thomas Gavin.

Tags: Barbara Knuth, Dan Decker, Human Dimensions Research Unit

Please join me in congratulating the following CALS teaching, staff, and student awardees. (Note that Research and Extension awards are a separate process and are announced in the fall.) It’s awesome to see so many winning nominations this year from our department!

Carter Loftus, ALS ’14 (Natural Resources and Biology), and Devin McMahon, ALS ’14 (Biology, active in NTRES): Goldwater Scholarship

Michelle Baumflek: NTRES TA of the year

Nirav Patel: Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Core Biology Program – BIOG 1440

Sarah Gould: SUNY Award for Excellence in Professional Service

Karim-Aly Kassam: CALS Diversity Award

Joe Yavitt: NACTA (North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture) Teaching Award

Thanks to Carter, Devin, Michelle, Nirav, Darrick, Shorna, Sarah, Karim, and Joe for the commitment that has led to this recognition.

Tags: Joseph Yavitt, Karim Kassam, Sarah Gould, Shorna Allred

In Ningxia, China, the average annual rainfall in only about 6 inches. Associate professor Rebecca Schneider, along with professor James Lassoie, senior research associates Stephen Morreale and Ruth Sherman, and Crop and Soil Science professor Harold van Es, have made several trips to Ningxia in the past two years to help improve the dry, sandy soils in China. They have developed a method to sequester water and add components into the upper soil layer to maximize the use of limited rainfall to contribute to soil fertility and carbon sequestration.

A research plot in China

Last August, the researchers prepared a test field using compost materials from the white poplar tree (Populous alba). They will now look at alternative soil types to improve plant growth. In addition to the research effort, the project has been expanded into an extension site for policymakers and the public. Eventually, it will be brought into a Chinese “harmonious village,” where residents relocated from rural areas can learn how to apply the soil enhancement technique in their own gardens.

This project is located at the Ningxia Forestry Institute’s State Key Laboratory of Seedling Bioengineering, working with Li Changxiao, a professor at the Southwest University in Chongqing, China, and a former Humphrey fellow at Cornell, in a three-year collaborative project between the Chinese government and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Rebecca Schneider

As part of a two-year INTEL science internship program, Steven Kalayam worked with Schneider to develop his own small-scale project testing the efficiency of organic matter amendments in reducing water run-off. Kalayam used a native species of aspen similar to the poplar grown in Ningxia so his results are relevant to the evidence Schneider is collecting to present to the local people.

Check out these articles to read more about the project:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March13/AridChina.html

http://www.sustainablecampus.cornell.edu/blogs/news/posts/compost-helps-restore-soil-in-arid-region-of-china

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2013-04/09/content_16386342.htm

Tags: Jim Lassoie, Rebecca Schneider, Ruth Sherman, Stephen Morreale