ecology

James Stroud Named Early Career Fellow by Ecological Society of America

admin — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:34:41 +0000

James Stroud Named Early Career Fellow by Ecological Society of America admin Tue, 04/30/2024 - 12:34

James T. Stroud has been named an Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society of America.

He joins the ranks of nine newly appointed ESA Fellows and ten 2024-2028 ESA Early Career Fellows, elected for "advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions" and recently confirmed by the organization's Governing Board.

Stroud, an Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Early Career Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is an integrative evolutionary ecologist who investigates how ecological and evolutionary processes may underlie patterns of biological diversity at the macro-scale.

He primarily studies lizards and his research is highly multidisciplinary, combining field studies with macro-ecological and evolutionary comparative analyses. Stroud’s current interests are particularly focused on measuring natural selection in the wild, often taking advantage of non-native lizards as natural experiments in ecology and evolution.

Earlier this month, Stroud presented his recent work at the inaugural College of Sciences Frontiers in Science: Climate Action Conference and Symposium, joining more than 20 faculty experts and 100 stakeholders from across all six colleges at Georgia Tech to discuss climate change, challenges, and solutions.

Stroud joined the Georgia Tech faculty in August 2023. He earned a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Florida International University.

"I am thrilled to recognize the exceptional contributions of our newly selected Fellows and Early Career Fellows,” says ESA President Shahid Naeem. “Their groundbreaking research, unwavering commitment to mentoring and teaching and advocacy for sound science in management and policy decisions have not only advanced ecological science but also inspired positive change within our community and beyond. We celebrate their achievements and eagerly anticipate the profound impacts they will continue to make in their careers."

ESA will formally acknowledge and celebrate its new Fellows for their exceptional achievements during a ceremony at ESA’s 2024 Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California.

About ESA Fellowships

ESA established its Fellows program in 2012 with the goal of honoring its members and supporting their competitiveness and advancement to leadership positions in the Society, at their institutions, and in broader society. Past ESA Fellows and Early Career Fellows are listed on the ESA Fellows page.

About ESA

The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishes six journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and education initiatives. The Society’s Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA website at https://www.esa.org.

Summary sentence

Stroud joins nine newly appointed Fellows and ten ESA Early Career Fellows, elected for "advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions" in the field.

Summary

Stroud, an Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Early Career Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, joins nine newly appointed Fellows and ten Early Career Fellows, elected for "advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions" in the field.

Dateline

Tue, 04/30/2024 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

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Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

Mayda Nathan
Ecological Society of America

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Earth and Environment

Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology

admin — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:58:37 +0000

Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology admin Mon, 10/09/2023 - 15:58

Charles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same species, found in the same location, can look identical despite being 50 million years apart in age?

Everything changed in the past 40 years, when an explosion of evolutionary studies proved that evolution can and does occur rapidly — even from one generation to the next. Evolutionary biologists were thrilled, but the findings reinforced the same paradox: If evolution can happen so fast, then why do most species on Earth continue to appear the same for many millions of years?

This is known as the paradox of stasis, and James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, set out to investigate it. He conducted a long-term study in a community of lizards, measuring how evolution unfolds in the wild across multiple species. In doing so, he may have found the answer to one of evolution’s greatest challenges.

His research was published as the cover story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the full feature in the GT Research newsroom.

Subtitle

By lassoing lizards, putting tiny chips on their legs, and tracking them for three years, Georgia Tech’s James Stroud revealed why species often appear unchanged for millions of years despite Charles Darwin’s theory of constant evolution.

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Dateline

Mon, 10/09/2023 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

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Media Contact: Catherine Barzler | catherine.barzler@gatech.edu

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How Insects Evolved to Ultrafast Flight (And Back)

admin — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:50:41 +0000

How Insects Evolved to Ultrafast Flight (And Back) admin Mon, 10/09/2023 - 15:50

Mosquitoes are some of the fastest-flying insects. Flapping their wings more than 800 times a second, they achieve their speed because the muscles in their wings can flap faster than their nervous system can tell them to beat.

This asynchronous beating comes from how the flight muscles interact with the physics of the insect’s springy exoskeleton. This decoupling of neural commands and muscle contractions is common in only four distinct insect groups.

For years, scientists assumed these four groups evolved these ultrafast wingbeats separately, but research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) shows that they evolved from a single common ancestor. This discovery demonstrates evolution has repeatedly turned on and off this particular mode of flight. The researchers developed physics models and robotics to test how these transitions could occur.

Read the full feature in the GT Research newsroom.

Summary sentence

Many insects fly synchronously, matching the nervous system pulses to wing movement. But smaller insects don’t have the mechanics for this and must flap their wings harder, which works only up to a certain point. That’s where asynchronous flight comes in.

Summary

Dateline

Fri, 10/06/2023 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

Contact

Media Contact: Tess Malone | tess.malone@gatech.edu

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James Stroud Named Early Career Fellow by Ecological Society of America

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Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology

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