Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

ESA 2010 Day 2 (August 2nd)

Posted 02 Aug 2010 / 0

The second day of the ESA Meeting began with a morning plenary. Catherine McCarter, executive director of ESA, provided an introduction. She described the Lawrence Center, pointing out that it is the world’s largest LEED-gold-certified convention center. She also announced the launching of ESA’s newest journal, Ecosphere, which is the first online-only open-access journal published Read More

Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Ecology

ESA 2010 Day 1 (August 1st)

Posted 01 Aug 2010 / 0

I began the 2010 ESA annual meeting with a Sunday field trip. In the past these field trips seemed like a luxury due to their expense in terms of money and time, but with my wife Teresa accompanying me to the meeting I figured that we should give the field trip concept a chance. Far Read More

Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Ecology

ESA 2009 Day #3 (Tuesday) – “Big Models” Special Session

Posted 05 Aug 2009 / 0

During Tuesday evening of ESA’s meeting I attended a really great special session entitled “Big Models in Ecology: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly Are All Possible Outcomes”. Organized by Vince Gutschick, the session began with a series of overviews by Gutschick, Lou Gross, Lara Prihodko, and Matthew Potts. It then opened up for a Read More

A Major Post, Computing, Conferences, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Individual-based Models, Mathematics, Talks & Seminars

ESA 2009 Day #3 (Tuesday): Afternoon sessions

Posted 05 Aug 2009 / 0

At lunchtime I attended a workshop dedicated to helping participants to integrate environmental justice content into ecology courses. The workshop started off with an introduction by Leanne Jablonski. She discussed the absence of ecologists (and therefore the science of ecology) in the environmental justice movement and the need to connect ecologists to communities suffering from Read More

A Major Post, Allometries, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Environmental Justice, Human Evolution, Macroecology, Talks & Seminars

ESA 2009 Day #3 (Tuesday) – Mutualistic Networks Symposium

Posted 05 Aug 2009 / 0

I spent Tuesday morning in a really well-organized symposium entitled “Mutualistic Networks”. Headed up by Jordi Bascompte, the collected talks focused on the network architecture of mutualistic interactions, mostly among plants and their various insect pollinators. I came in with only a very basic understanding of matrix-based interaction networks, but Bascompte’s introduction to the session Read More

A Major Post, Competition, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Interactions, Mutualism, Mutualistic Networks, Parasitism, Pollination, Predation, System Stability, Talks & Seminars

ESA 2009 Meeting Day #2 (Monday)

Posted 04 Aug 2009 / 1

Sunny Power started off the first full day of ESA’s meeting with a great overview of where the society has been and where it is headed. My impression has been that ESA has been slowly asserting its rightful place as not only a source of scientific information relevant to policy but also an active commentator Read More

A Major Post, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Education, Public Policy, Senescence, Sustainability, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Urban Ecology

ESA 2009 Day #1 (Sunday)

Posted 03 Aug 2009 / 0

Today I arrive in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am here to attend the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting and give a talk entitled “Virtual Prairie Dogs Weigh in on the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis”. I have never been to Albuquerque and when I mapped the various locations where I will be during the conference I Read More

A Major Post, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Freshwater Ecosystems, Talks & Seminars, Water Supply