Conservation Science

Biology major Bruno Ramos ’15 discovered the field of research by focusing on an area of biology he disliked most – the study of plants. “My intention is to go into the medical field,” Ramos said. “So, whenever the study of plants came up in my intro to biology courses, I couldn’t understand how it was relevant to me.” But when the future doctor became a recipient of a STEM scholarship in the spring of 2012, he decided to challenge his own bias and find out if he could possibly be wrong about plants.

When Jack Connelly first began studying the greater sage grouse in Idaho in the late 1970s, "it was not unusual to see 500 in a single flock," says the biologist, who is retired from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "Today, it would be unusual to see 200." That dramatic decline has made the sage grouse—a large, pointy-tailed bird with showy mating habits—the subject of one of the biggest endangered species battles ever in the United States.

The few remaining places in the wider Caribbean with relatively healthy reefs have one thing in common: a greater abundance of parrotfish and other herbivores. They also benefit by being adjacent to islands with comparatively small populations, more modest development and less pollution. You find this in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, on reefs around Curaçao and Bonaire and in protected marine areas in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.

Woodland Park Zoo, which has had elephants in its care since 1921, started discussing the future of its herd after a third pachyderm died in 2014. A community task force recommended in 2013 that the zoo bring in more elephants and expand its facilities, but zoo President and CEO Deborah Jensen said those goals were not achievable, in part because it's so difficult to obtain new elephants. Read more

Songs of Spring Underscore Importance of Vernal Pools

Doug Johnson sees the increasingly severe drought in California as a chance to educate people about the importance of invasive plant management at the landscape level in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Sierras are an important source of water for all of California, with snowpack formed in winter melting over the spring and summer months and running down to the dry parts of the state. Invasives, some of which are known to be water hungry compared to competing vegetation, can reduce the capacity of Sierra meadows to perform this valuable function. For the state’s residents and agricultural industry, this could make a bad problem worse.