Congratulations Dr. Amanda Gallinat!

Posted by Richard B. Primack

“If one advances confidently in the direction of [her] dreams, and endeavors to live the life in which [she] has imagined, [she] will meet with success unimagined in more common hours.”  -Thoreau, in Walden. 

Amanda during her final thesis seminar

Congratulations to Amanda Gallinat for the successful defense of her doctoral dissertation “Effects of climate change and species invasions on autumn phenology and bird-fruit interactions in Massachusetts, USA.” Amanda’s thesis was notable for the strong connections between successive chapters, and her large number of collaborators and co-authors both at BU and elsewhere in the USA and internationally. Also, the first chapter of the thesis, “Autumn, the neglected season in climate change research” has already been published in the high-impact journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. And the second chapter on using herbarium specimens to monitor fruiting phenology was accepted for publication in the American Journal of Botany two hours before the defense; great timing!

Amanda with her committee members after her successful defense!

An International Network of Trees, published in Silva

Posted by Amanda Gallinat

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes" -Thoreau in a letter, May 22, 1832

For the last five years, the Primack Lab has been part of a collaborative effort to monitor leaf-out, leaf senescence, and fruiting times at a network of seven international botanical gardens. We recently published an overview of this collaborative work in the Arnold Arboretum's magazine, Silva. 

Richard Primack carefully monitors leaf senescence at the Arnold Arboretum

In the article, we describe how the living collections of botanical gardens have allowed us to monitor the phenology of an enormous range of species; with our colleagues, we have monitored >1600 species for leaf-out, 1360 species for leaf senescence, and several hundred species for fruiting. Our lab conducts our observations right here in Boston, MA, at the Arnold Arboretum.

Young leaves of Acer japonicum observed on April 24th at the Arnold Arboretum

The group's observations across botanical gardens and years have demonstrated that species leaf-out and fruit in a consistent order from year to year and place to place (and related species have similar timing), while the order in which species change color and drop their leaves is not consistent across space and time.

I record fruiting times for plants in the vast Viburnum collection at the Arnold Arboretum

Uncovering these and other patterns in the spring and autumn phenology of many species has given us new insight into the rich natural history present at the Arnold Arboretum (our home site) and other botanical gardens, and helps us understand how plant schedules will respond to climate change.

Humidity does not appear to trigger leaf out in woody plants

Posted by Lucy Zipf

Leaf-out phenology in woody trees and shrubs is considered to be strongly controlled by a combination of spring warming, winter chilling requirement, and photoperiod. In 2014 researchers suggested that humidity, rather than temperature itself, might be also be a main trigger of the spring leaf-out of woody plants – with plants leafing out earlier in higher humidity environments. We tested this hypothesis in our recent paper titled “Humidity does not appear to trigger leaf-out in woody plants.”

Gathering dormant twigs from the Hammond Woods in Newton, MA 

We gathered dormant twigs from 15 species of woody plants and exposed twigs from each species to four humidities ranging from 20% to 94% relative humidity. We then monitored the twigs daily for a month to see if twigs in higher humidity treatments leafed out before those exposed to lower humidities.

Twigs of the 15 study species in the highest humidity treatment halfway through the experiment 

The title of the paper gives away our main result: We did not find any consistent, measurable effect of high humidity advancing leaf-out. We also did not see patterns of progressively earlier leaf-out in successively higher humidities. Given our results, humidity does not appear to be a determinant of spring leaf-out in these New England plants.

Late Autumn Colors

Posted by Richard B. Primack

“Live in each season as it passes - breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit & resign yourself to the influence of each.” -Thoreau, in his Journal, 1835

During the past 100 years as global temperatures have risen, the date of the first autumn frost has gotten a week or more later, as reported in an Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein, entitled "Science says: Jack Frost nipping at your nose ever later". Late autumn frosts combined with early springs result in a growing season that is now several weeks longer in much of the United States. This year’s warm October temperatures have delayed Boston’s autumn, with night-time temperatures above freezing through November 1. Across the northeastern United States, the mild weather has held back the the vibrant leaf colors associated with the autumn season, as described the Popular Science article, "Where the heck is autumn?" by Rachel Feltman. 

At the end of October, our Newton garden was still green and productive (photo by Margaret Primack)

As November begins, many trees and shrubs in the Boston area are still covered with green leaves, many ornamental plants are still flowering, and bees and butterflies are still flying. Closer to home in our garden in Newton, we are still harvesting tomatoes, lettuce and other salad greens, parsley, beans, and zucchinis as November starts. Most surprisingly, we are eating fresh figs every day from our fig trees. We are in eastern Massachusetts, but the weather and the season seem like somewhere hundreds of miles to the south.

We are still harvesting tomatoes from our garden in early November 

Last Days at Biological Conservation

Posted by Richard B. Primack

“Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.” 
-Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack

After nine years, I recently stepped down as Editor in Chief of Biological Conservation. I supervised a team of 9 Editors, handling over 14,000 submissions, and eventually publishing over 3,000 articles that advanced our knowledge and provided practical value for people protecting biodiversity in the field and developing policy. 

In this staged photograph, four co-authors are having a disagreement; in one Biological Conservation editorial, my co-authors and I describe problems co-authors can encounter, and provide some recommendations for happy co-author relationships

We published many Special Issues on topics of current interest. For example, articles in the special issue on environmental DNA showed that the presence of rare species and newly arrived invasive species in lake or river could be detected from a few molecules of DNA in small water sample. And our Citizen Science issue described how to work with networks of volunteers in conservation projects. 

We examined the editorial process of the journal, finding there was no bias in acceptance rates of papers submitted by female authors, though individual editors had different acceptance rates. We learned that Chinese and Indian scientists often worked on weekends, Japanese and Mexican scientists often worked at night, and European scientists tended to work typical office hours. We evaluated how reviewer recommendations affected acceptance rates, and determined that a “Reject” review was like the “kiss of death.” And finally, we described problems that co-authors sometimes encounter in working together, and provided constructive suggestions for co-authors. 

This confused editor tries to make a decision based on four very different reviews! In fact, our analysis showed that reviews tend to be consistent from reviewer to reviewer

As Editor in Chief, I always tried to recognize that authors needed to be treated as individuals, and in many cases I could assist them with particular issues. We helped many young scientists to publish their first paper in an international journal, and establish their careers. In the end, we were able to create a community of authors, reviewers, editors, and readers, who could cooperate to advance our knowledge in the field of conservation biology.