By Richard B. Primack

 

“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants.” Henry David Thoreau in Walden

 

In the January 2022 issue of the journal Conservation Biology, Titus S. Imboma of the National Museum of Kenya reviewed the book Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa. He wrote:

“Renowned U.S. conservation biologist Richard Primack teamed up with his South African colleague John Wilson to write a book specifically for Africans. They are to be commended for it, and they succeed brilliantly.” 

 

Cover of the book.

 

“As a training tool for students and conservation scientists and managers, the book covers the value of scientific methods for long-term preservation of biodiversity and the need for employing creative structures in biodiversity management.” 

 

“The book, published by Open Book Publishers, is freely available in pdf format. The decision of the authors to make the book open access is highly commendable and makes it of major importance to biodiversity conservation in Africa by Africans. I recommend this textbook to African students, conservation personnel, policy makers, and everyone interested in nature conservation. Free distribution ensures a wide readership among African environmental scholars, researchers, and other practitioners.” 

 

“This book is currently the most comprehensive publication on conservation in Africa; provides a reference point for environmental scholars, wildlife biologists, conservationists, and policy makers working with the environment and wildlife of Africa; and is set to become a classic publication.” 

 

This book can be downloaded for free:  https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1013

Over the past 30 months, the book has been downloaded more than 36,000 times.

To read the full book review:  https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13879

Thoreau-ly Observed: 170 years of climate change impacts in Concord

By Richard B. Primack

“The first sparrow of the spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!” Thoreau in Walden. p. 310.

 

Henry David Thoreau was a climate change scientist! For eight years in the 1850s, Thoreau recorded the timing of flowering and leafing out of plants and the spring arrival of birds while walking around Walden Pond and Concord. Our research group and other naturalists have since added to this remarkable collection of observations. As a result, Concord has become one of the most intensively studied locations in the world and an iconic example for how climate change has affected plants, birds, and ecosystems. 

 

We have recently published this compiled dataset and made it publicly available in the journal Ecology. 

 

Richard Primack posing next to the statue of Thoreau at Walden Pond around 15 years ago.

 

Our papers based on this data set have demonstrated that warmer temperatures have caused plants to flower and leaf out as much as two weeks earlier than when Thoreau observed, but birds have changed much less.  Also, trees may be responding more rapidly than wildflowers to spring warming, and wildflowers may be getting shaded out.

 

A page from one of Thoreau’s tables showing the first flowering dates of plants in May 1857.  Thoreau’s writing is in black, and Primack’s writing is in blue. For example, highbush blueberry was first observed to flower on May 14, 1857. 

By publishing this paper, we are encouraging other scientists and student to investigate climate change in new ways, and to connect with the life of Thoreau.

The article is available at: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ecy.3646