News Archives - Department of Environmental Conservation

New Research Shows Marine Species May Be More Tolerant to Warming

December 2, 2022 by Comment Closed

To save nature, focus on populations, not species Human-released greenhouse gasses are causing the world to warm, and with that warming comes increasing stress for many of the planet’s plants and animals. That stress is so great that many scientists believe we are currently in the midst of the “sixth extinction,” when entire species are disappearing up to 10,000 times faster than before the industrial era. However, scientists have been uncertain which ecosystems, and which species, are most at risk. New research, recently published in Nature Climate Change, is the first to show that the focus on species-level risk obscures a wide variability in temperature tolerance, even within the same species, and that this variability is greater for marine species than terrestrial ones. The findings have immediate implications for management and conservation practices and offer a window of hope in the effort to adapt to a rapidly warming world. “One of the most important biological discoveries in the last century is that evolution...

Pre-Construction Student Team Takes Second Place in 2022 ASC Competition

November 14, 2022 by Comment Closed

UMass’ Pre-Construction Team – our 2nd Place Winner! As in years past, BCT participated in the 2022 Annual Associated Schools of Construction Region 1 Student Competition in Albany, NY this past weekend with two teams. Under Prof. Romero’s expert mentoring and with several months of hard work behind them, the Pre-Construction Team (shown in the image above) took home a stellar second place in the pre-construction category. This was only the third year in which our students competed in this competition. We congratulate the team members for this superb effort! The pre-construction team consisted of Patrick Koenen (Project Manager), Jocey Krooks, Erica Marschke, Cody McCreanor, Aidan McSheffrey, and Daniel Smith. The commercial construction team – which placed fifth this year – consisted of William Harmelink (Project Manager), Mark Carstairs, Jillian Contois, John McKinnon, Tali Shoham, and Hiram Tatis. UMass’ Commercial Construction Team Gallery Links ASC Region 1 website The post Pre-Construction Student Team Takes Second Place in 2022 ASC Competition appeared first on Building and Construction Technology....

Environmental Conservation Professor Honored with Symposium

November 10, 2022 by Comment Closed

Joseph Elkinton, Entomologist and Professor of Environmental Conservation When the Entomological Society of America, Entomological Society of Canada and Entomological Society of British Columbia gather next week for their joint annual meeting, they will spend an afternoon celebrating the work of UMass Amherst professor of environmental conservation Joseph Elkinton. Elkinton, an entomologist who came to UMass in 1980, has been awarded more than 270 grants and authored more the 220 research articles, reviews and books during his career. He has also trained dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Elkinton has focused his career on the population dynamics and biological control of invasive forest insects, and currently focuses on winter moth, hemlock woolly adelgid, Japanese knotweed and emerald ash borer. On Nov. 16th, Elkinton’s colleagues and former students will meet in a symposium titled Inspiring Ecological Rigor in the Study of Forest Insects: Celebrating the Career of Joseph Elkinton. “I am honored because two of my former graduate students have organized this event,” says Elkinton. “It will...

New Research at UMass Amherst Aims to Establish Comprehensive List of Invasive Plants

November 6, 2022 by Comment Closed

Invasive plants species are increasing exponentially, but no one knows how many there are Invasive plants can have devastating effects on local ecologies, comparable to the effects wrought by global warming. And yet, there is currently no reliable understanding of how many invasive plant species there are in the world. New research, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and recently published in Ecological Applications, is the first to comprehensively pinpoint the various unknowns that need to be addressed in order to intelligently manage invasive species around the world. The most cost-effective method of stopping invasive species is to put a halt to their introduction. In order for this to happen, managers need to know exactly what plants are invasive. Existing lists of global invasive plants include species that have been reported by scientists, but species that haven’t yet been reported as invasive still pose a risk. The team at UMass Amherst, led by Brittany Laginhas, who completed the research as part of her...

BCT CityLab: Blurring the Lines between High School, College, and Industry

October 4, 2022 by Comment Closed

The BCT ‘CityLab-ers’ visited a live construction site located in Roxbury, MA and managed by Haycon – a Boston-based construction and design-build firm specializing in high performance building. Using the Boston Metro area as a real-world classroom, the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) this summer launched a new immersive pre-college program – the BCT CityLab – a first-ever offering at the UMass Mount Ida Campus, for high school juniors and seniors interested in exploring building construction, sustainability, engineering, architecture, and technology-related learning and career pathways. The inaugural program attracted students from five states (MA, NJ, CT, UT, IL) and three countries (Honduras, Switzerland, USA). Each participant learned about college life and earned college credits while engaging in construction site tours, hands-on fabrication projects and skills trainings. The innovative program was designed to make learning fun, and to build tangible learning pathways to access Boston’s innovation economy. In the Building Physics Module, students learned about heat transfer and thermodynamics in buildings and...