SpaCE: SPATIAL & COMMUNITY ECOLOGY LAB
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Past Lab News
(for recent Lab News click here)

June 2023
  • Phoebe, as IBEEM Director and PI, leads a scientific team to redefine scientific exploration and compete for the $10 million XPRIZE Rainforest as part of the team ACT NOW Amazonas Action Alliance.
  • Welcome to Adrian Noecker, our 2023 KBS REU student working on soil microbial and plant responses to climate change at the Kellogg Biological Station!
  • New paper in Ecology is out: Diversity–stability relationships across organism groups and ecosystem types become decoupled across spatial scales, with co-authors Phoebe, Annie, and Nina is out! ​​
May 2023
  • Congratulations to Beth, Pat, and Phoebe on the open access paper in Global Ecology & Biogeography, Frugivoria: A trait database for birds and mammals exhibiting frugivory across contiguous Neotropical moist forests​ and accompanying open database in EDI!
    • ​Press release: Supersized fruit eater database on climate change frontline​​
    • ​​Also see Data Publication: Gerstner et al. 2023 Environmental Data Initiative (Frugivoria database)
  • ​Congratulations to Phoebe and Lala on a successful EEB Seed Grant Proposal to study climate change and climate intervention risk to marine systems!
April 2023​
  • Phoebe presents a collaborative performance with composer Lyn Goeringer: "Potentialities I and 2", contrasting the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity, according to different emissions scenarios. The performance occurred during the MSU Science Festival as part of the Falling Tree Collaborative.
    • video available on PBS!
  • Congratulations to Kara on her MSU Collections Fellowship!
  • Congratulations to Moriah on her KBS Research Fellowship!
February 2023
  • Congrats to Laura, Chris Klausmeier and Phoebe on their publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Life-history responses to temperature and seasonality mediate ectotherm consumer–resource dynamics under climate warming. 
    • Nice write-up from NatSci here: Mixing theory, observation to envision warmer world
January 2023
  • Phoebe speaks on biodiversity & geodiversity at the Royal Society Geodiversity Meeting.
  • Phoebe serves on 2 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committees: (1) Research at Multiple Scales: A Vision for Continental Scale Biology; (2) Climate Intervention in an Earth Systems Science Framework: A Workshop​. Media releases:
    • ​​Zarnetske to serve on National Academies committee
    • Two MSU scholars to serve on prestigious National Academies committee​
November 2022
  • New paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution is out: Consistent stabilizing effects of biodiversity across spatial scales and environmental gradients with Phoebe and other members of the NEON Biodiversity project as co-authors.
    • ​Press: Nature Ecology and Evolution Behind the Paper, NEON Observatory Blog​​
August 2022
  • Welcome to Lala Kounta (MSU African Future Leadership Postdoctoral Fellow) and Casey Youngflesh (MSU EEB Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow).
  • Welcome to India Hirschowitz (Honors College PA student)​
July 2022
  • ​Multiple papers out in the Ecosphere Special Issue from the NEON Biodiversity group co-led by Phoebe and Sydne Record, from the 2019 NEON Science Summit: 
    • Standardized NEON organismal data for biodiversity research. 
    • Community stability is related to animal diversity change. 
June 2022
  • Welcome to the field team: Jordan Zapata, Lisa Leonard. 
May 2022
  • New collaboration with the MSU ERSAM lab: paper in Global Ecology and Biogeography: Towards mapping biodiversity from above: Can fusing lidar and hyperspectral remote sensing predict taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic tree diversity in temperate forests? with Quentin and Phoebe co-authors.
    • Press: NEON Observatory Blog
  • Congratulations to Kara and Moriah on advancing to PhD candidacy!
  • Congratulations to graduating senior Emily Parker! Emily will continue in the lab as a research technician.
  • Congrats to Hazel on the MSU Collections Summer Fellowship!
December 2021​
  • Phoebe gives an invited talk on ecological impacts from solar radiation modification (American Geophysical Union Meeting). 
September 2021
  • Welcome back!
    • Welcome to new PhD student Hazel Anderson!
    • Welcome to our new Honors College PA students, Jacklyn Alsbro and Aaron Guggenheimer!
August 2021
  • Ecological Society of America Meeting​
    • Beth presents on Frugivoria: An open trait database of birds and mammals exhibiting frugivory in the montane Neotropics 
    • Jasper presents on Combining open NEON and Landsat data to connect biodiversity and disturbance regime
    • Phoebe moderates session on Ecological Impacts of Solar Geoengineering.
  • Phoebe starts sabbatical (Lyon, France)​
​June/July 2021
  • Excellent undergraduate research presentations!
    • KBS Research Symposium: Emily Parker & Kristin Wolford
    • MSU ICER ACRES and Mid-SURE Conference: Chakata Hart 
  • Lots of field work at Kellogg Biological Station LTER !!
  • New Open Access Papers!
    • ​​Dahlin, Kyla M., Phoebe L. Zarnetske, Quentin D. Read, Laura A. Twardochleb, Aaron G. Kamoske, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, and Patricia A. Soranno. 2021. Linking Terrestrial and Aquatic Biodiversity to Ecosystem Function Across Scales, Trophic Levels, and Realms. Frontiers in Environmental Science.
    • ​Charney, N.D., S. Record, B.E. Gerstner, C. Merow, P.L. Zarnetske, and B.J. Enquist. 2021. A Test of Species Distribution Model Transferability Across Environmental and Geographic Space for 108 Western North American Tree Species. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
May 2021
  • Welcome to our new undergraduate researchers and technicians! MSU Emerging Scholar Ashley Ezzo, MSU URAs: Emily Parker, Kristin Wolford; Research technicians: Sarah Johnson, Emerson Wesselhoff!
  • Congratulations to our amazing graduating seniors Hazel Anderson, Nellie Chalem, and Kate Kelly!!! 
  • Congrats to Moriah and Kara on receiving KBS Summer Research Fellowships!!
  • Beth and Hazel present their research at the MSU Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Symposium!
  • New Papers!
    • Congrats to Tori on her new paper in Journal of Mammalogy! Fire-driven landscape heterogeneity shapes habitat selection of bighorn sheep
    • Congrats to Beth on her new paper in Global Ecology and Conservation! Temporal matching of occurrence localities and forest cover data helps improve range estimates and predict climate change vulnerabilities
April 2021
  • Erik, Minali, and Hazel present at UURAF! Check out their presentations here:
    • Using species’ traits to improve extinction risk assessments - FIRST PLACE AWARD!!!
    • Using plant and frugivore traits to understand biodiversity across scales and inform conservation
  • Check out the new open access paper in PNAS: Potential ecological impacts of climate intervention by reflecting sunlight to cool Earth from Phoebe and colleagues' Climate Intervention Biology Group
    • ​MSU press release, Stony Brook press release, UMN press release, CUNY press release
    • ​CBC's Quirks & Quarks episode
  • ​Welcome Hazel to the Integrative Biology and EEB grad program! Hazel will join as a PhD student in our lab this fall to work on geographic patterns and mechanisms of plant traits!
  • Phoebe gives a Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies seminar titled Explaining Patterns of Biodiversity Across Spatial Scales with Traits, Geodiversity, and Disturbance.
March 2021
  • Congrats to Chakata on receiving a MSU ICER ACRES REU position with our lab this summer working on Macrosystems Biodiversity and disturbance!
  • Congrats to Hazel on receiving a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and to Kara on her NSF GRF honorable mention!!
  • Congrats to Kara on her NRT IMPACTS Fellowship on computational & plant sciences!
  • Congrats to Kara and Moriah on receiving KBS LTER Research Grants!
  • New website for Phoebe and colleagues' NSF-funded Climate Intervention Biology Working Group!
February 2021
  • New article in Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution from the LTER Metacommunities Synthesis Working Group (with Phoebe and Nina) on the importance of long-term data for metacommunity ecology: 
    • Novel Insights to Be Gained From Applying Metacommunity Theory to Long-Term, Spatially Replicated Biodiversity Data
    • Summary article on the LTER Network Website
  • Join Phoebe and climate science and ecologist colleagues for a special AAAS session on a hot topic: Biosphere Responses to Geoengineering!
  • Check out our new website for the NSF-funded Climate Intervention Biology Working Group: www.ClimateInterventionBiology.org 
January 2021
  • Check out our new open-access paper in Global Ecology & Biogeography: "Freshwater insects CONUS: A database of freshwater insect occurrences and traits for the contiguous United States" led by Laura Twardochleb and featuring the lab's first open-access database on freshwater insects!
December 2020
  • We're attending the 2020 American Geophysical Union meeting virtually! Check out our presentations:
    • Jasper Van doninck: B072-06 - Explaining patterns of biodiversity across spatial scales with improved detection and attribution of disturbances
    • Kyla Dahlin: B070-02 - Mapping dimensions of biodiversity in forested ecosystems with lidar and imaging spectroscopy fusion
August 2020
  • We're attending the 2020 Ecological Society of America meeting virtually! Check out our lab members' presentations: Jon Knott, Jasper Van doninck, Phoebe Zarnetske. 
  • Laura's Ecology paper is online! Foraging strategy mediates ectotherm predator–prey responses to climate warming. And this cool video of predator-prey dynamics in a warming world.
    • ​NatSci Press Release: "Under climate change, good things come to bugs who wait."  
July 2020
  • We've launched our Macrosystems Biodiversity website featuring research related to the NSF Macrosystems research on ecological observation networks, including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).
    • ​https://neon-biodiversity.github.io/​
June 2020
  • MSU NatSci Press Release on our Macrosystems research grant: MSU Integrative Biologist Utilizes NEON to Illuminate Biodiversity
May 2020
  • Check out the MSU NatSci Virtual Event: "Biodiversity" by Phoebe Zarnetske and Elise Zipkin - featuring work by many students and postdocs in the lab!
  • Congratulations to Hazel Anderson for receiving a College of Natural Science Undergraduate Research Award to conduct research on plant and frugivore traits!
  • Congratulations to Dr. Laura Twardochleb for successfully defending her PhD!!! We're so proud of you!
    • Watch Laura's PhD seminar!
  • ​Welcome to Jasper Van doninck and Jon Knott! Both postdocs join the lab this month to work on our new NSF Macrosystems grant investigating drivers of biodiversity across scales.

April 2020
  • We're excited to welcome Moriah Young and Kara Dobson to the lab in Fall 2020 as incoming PhD students! Both will be working on aspects of climate change effects on ecological communities, with our warmXtrophic experiment.
    • Moriah Young received a NSF GRFP to conduct her PhD research and Kara Dobson received a MSU CNS fellowship (and honorable mention on her NSF GRFP)!
February 2020
  • Watch our Video on understanding and protecting biodiversity, highlighting Phoebe and the SpaCE Lab's research with current and past lab members featured!
  • MSU Today and NatSci Press Release on Global Ecology & Biogeography: Beyond counts and averages: Relating geodiversity to dimensions of biodiversity
January 2020
  • See our new paper out in Global Ecology & Biogeography: Beyond counts and averages: Relating geodiversity to dimensions of biodiversity led by Quentin!
  • New NEON blog post on our Macrosystems Biology research!​
August 2020
  • We're attending the 2020 Ecological Society of America meeting virtually! Check out our lab members' presentations: Jon Knott, Jasper Van doninck, Phoebe Zarnetske. 
  • Laura's Ecology paper is online! Foraging strategy mediates ectotherm predator–prey responses to climate warming. And this cool video of predator-prey dynamics in a warming world.
    • ​NatSci Press Release: "Under climate change, good things come to bugs who wait."  
July 2020
  • We've launched our Macrosystems Biodiversity website featuring research related to the NSF Macrosystems research on ecological observation networks, including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).
    • ​https://neon-biodiversity.github.io/​
June 2020
  • MSU NatSci Press Release on our Macrosystems research grant: MSU Integrative Biologist Utilizes NEON to Illuminate Biodiversity
May 2020
  • Check out the MSU NatSci Virtual Event: "Biodiversity" by Phoebe Zarnetske and Elise Zipkin - featuring work by many students and postdocs in the lab!
  • Congratulations to Hazel Anderson for receiving a College of Natural Science Undergraduate Research Award to conduct research on plant and frugivore traits!
  • Congratulations to Dr. Laura Twardochleb for successfully defending her PhD!!! We're so proud of you!
    • Watch Laura's PhD seminar!
  • ​Welcome to Jasper Van doninck and Jon Knott! Both postdocs join the lab this month to work on our new NSF Macrosystems grant investigating drivers of biodiversity across scales.

April 2020
  • We're excited to welcome Moriah Young and Kara Dobson to the lab in Fall 2020 as incoming PhD students! Both will be working on aspects of climate change effects on ecological communities, with our warmXtrophic experiment.
    • Moriah Young received a NSF GRFP to conduct her PhD research and Kara Dobson received a MSU CNS fellowship (and honorable mention on her NSF GRFP)!
February 2020
  • Watch our Video on understanding and protecting biodiversity, highlighting Phoebe and the SpaCE Lab's research with current and past lab members featured!
  • MSU Today and NatSci Press Release on Global Ecology & Biogeography: Beyond counts and averages: Relating geodiversity to dimensions of biodiversity
January 2020
  • See our new paper out in Global Ecology & Biogeography: Beyond counts and averages: Relating geodiversity to dimensions of biodiversity led by Quentin!
  • New NEON blog post on our Macrosystems Biology research!​
December 2019
  • Check out our new paper! Nina and Phoebe co-author a new paper in Ecography on Multi-Species Distribution Modeling.
October 2019
  • The NEON Science Summit is happening!
August 2019
  • Check out our new paper led by Franziska Schrodt in PNAS on the importance of geodiversity in addition to biodiversity.
  • Annie and Nina present their research on disturbance detection and joint distribution modeling at the Ecological Society of America Meeting in Louisville, KY.
  • Phoebe, Annie, and Beth present research on geodiversity, biodiversity, and functional traits at the International Biogeography Society Meeting in Quito, Ecuador.
July 2019
  • 2 NSF grants are funded!! 
    • NSF Macrosystems Biology: "Local- to continental-scale drivers of biodiversity across NEON" NSF DEB #1926567
    • NSF Workshop: "Workshop on ecological impacts of solar radiation management geoengineering" NSF DEB #1937699
June 2019
  • Welcome to Tori Donovan! Tori is a visiting scholar interested in climate change, disturbance and resilience, and is taking part in the Preparing Future Faculty program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
  • Beth receives a NASA FINESST fellowship!​
May 2019
  • Laura presents her research on continental-scale freshwater insect traits at the Society for Freshwater Science! 
February 2019
  • Our open access Global Ecology and Biogeography paper on connecting Biodiversity & Geodiversity across scales with remote sensing is published online early.
  • Laura presents her research at the MSU FW Graduate Symposium
  • Annie presents her research in the Hanover Forest Science Seminar
January 2019
  • Check out our Science paper on marine predator diversity, led by John Grady, including this Science Perspective, and example press: The Atlantic, EurekaAlert
  • Our Ecography paper on trait variation across NEON is now open access! - check out our related paper on sizes, niches, and latitudinal diversity gradients in Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology.
  • Welcome to Emma, MSU Lyman Briggs student research assistant!
December 2018
  • Beth receives the Academic Programs Fellowship from KBS! 
  • We helped advance science through research this year! Check out our publications here.
October 2018
  • MSUToday: Laura and her research are featured!
September 2018
  • Welcome to Minali and Erika, MSU Honor's College Professorial Assistants
  • Phoebe attends and presents at the Biotic Dimensions of Climate Refugia Workshop, INRA, France
August 2018
  • ESA in New Orleans: Phoebe presents research on NEON biodiversity and Laura and Tyler present on climate warming effects on predator-prey dynamics.
June 2018​
  • Krymsen and Cameo join the lab as summer REU and SROP students 
​April 2018
  • Press release on our Hemlock Woolly Adelgid research and recent Ecology paper.
  • Quentin gives a talk on Geodiversity and Biodiversity at the IALE meeting in Chicago
March 2018
  • Phoebe gives a plenary talk on 'the future of biotic interactions' at the International Biogeography Society meeting in Portugal
February 2018
  • We publish the first paper using NEON organismal data, in Ecography. Check it out!
  • Check out a recent press release on our Biology Letters paper let by Quentin, with global variation in bird body sizes and climate gradients.
  • Congrats to Laura for best poster award and Beth for honorable mention, oral presentation, at the MSU FW Research Symposium!
December 2017
  • We helped advance science through research this year! Check out our publications here.
November 2017
  • Laura presents her research at Kellogg Biological Station and the EEBB Colloquium.
  • Congrats to Ethan who received a 2018 CANR Undergraduate Research Assistantship to continue research in our lab. 
October 2017
  • John Grady gives a joint Hanover Forest Science and ESPP VISTAS seminar on research with energy equivalence in forests.  
September 2017
  • Congrats to Faith and Arpita on their 2nd year Honor's College Professorial Assistantships to continue research in our lab. 
August 2017
  • Simone, Jay, Elizabeth, Alex, and Amy present on their summer research at MSU symposia.
  • Check out our ESA sessions in Portland:
    • Ignite Session and Evening Session on Remote Sensing to Biodiversity Science in the Anthropocene
    • Quentin speaks on our NEON project in our Organized Oral Session: Challenges and Opportunities for Investigating Ecological Communities Across Space and Time: Insights from Coordinated Research Networks.
May 2017
  • Congratulations to Laura Twardochleb on her successful NASA NESSF Graduate Fellowship: "Predicting freshwater biodiversity across scales using measures of land use, climate, and primary productivity." See the KBS write-up here.
  • Congrats to Ethan Hiltner who received a 2017 CANR Undergraduate Research Assistantship to conduct research in our lab. 
​April 2017
  • Congrats to Kileigh Welshofer on successfully defending her MS Thesis!
  • ​Congratulations to Collin Love who was accepted to a Shoals Marine Lab undergraduate summer research position in parasite ecology! Read more about it here.
  ...
and some old news that is still relevant on a daily basis...

June 2014
  • The youngest members of the lab are born - welcome Annika and Zoe!
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