Disturbance ecologists are drawn to the devastated, the disastrous and the demolished. The trajectory of a hurricane or the burn patterns of a wildfire become a pathway for scientific discovery, and human interactions only accelerate that course. Mali Hubert, a doctoral student in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is a disturbance ecologist who is... Continue Reading →

Two years after wildfires devastated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, researchers are striving to understand the fire's drastic and long-term effects on biodiversity. https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1-jLrtr-0OSu-DcM2z0CG4lV_ZaERb2_pBzHQryBah_M&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650 GSMNP is the most biologically diverse park in the National Park System, according to the Parks, with more than 19,000 documents species. Now, biodiversity is shifting  from soil to salamanders, with... Continue Reading →

The Great Smoky Mountains (GSM) were primed like a full box of matches leading up to the 2016 Wildfires. Dry soils and vegetation ignited, creating a patch-work disturbance event that would become a fire-singed laboratory for environmental and ecological researchers who flocked to the GSM for a chance to study a rare major fire event... Continue Reading →

https://spark.adobe.com/video/hJdIYzgAYT7Kv The nation's most visited national park, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is thriving ecologically only two years after wildfires devastated the area. In 2016, wildfires ignited across Sevier County, burning 11,410 acres in the GSMNP and 6,494 acres outside the park. These scorched acres have given way to meadows of new growth. Fires,... Continue Reading →

Salamanders The Great Smoky Mountains are the salamander capital of the world, and these creatures have the potential to be key indicators for local climate change. Some species of salamanders live in Tennessee and cannot be found anywhere else in the world, like the cave salamander. These amphibians can directly indicate the climate changes within... Continue Reading →

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwdv8BI9law Hungry, rowdy, and especially sleepy are stereotypes that follow college students, and all three can be attributed to the lack of sleep college students get on a regular basis, says a UT professor. Theresa Lee, dean of arts and sciences, claims cognitive problems college students face is due to more time counting... Continue Reading →

Environmentalists today constantly struggle with conservation costs—both with monetary expenses and the price of species diversity, claims a Georgia Tech professor. Bistra Dilkina’s computational sustainability research reveals that by connecting computational science with ecology, decision-makers can generate effective and business-savvy conservation decisions. “There’s a computational way to figure out how far from the solution you... Continue Reading →

https://youtu.be/rb5FD6yiJ08   A dark history of racism and violence maybe a threat to Mississippi’s tourism industry according to an associate professor of anthropology and southern studies at the University of Mississippi. Jodi Skipper spoke from personal and academic experience during her lecture “Touring Violence: History and Memory in Mississippi” at Strong Hall on Monday. Skipper... Continue Reading →