- Webinars (Pacific 4/14 and US editions 4/15) on coral mapping harmonizing and Ocean Data Platform. For those who experience the challenges around accurately mapping reef habitats, we are leading this webinar, we explore how combining coral reef datasets from many sources on a cloud based geospatial platform can help create a more complete and usable picture of reefs—from local to global scales. This will be followed by a live demonstration of the Ocean Data Platform, showing how coral reef maps can be brought together, explored, combined, and contributed to in one place. We will look specifically at some of the sources around Australia and also the Caribbean together with global maps such as Allen Coral Atlas and put ODP to work. We’ll close with an open discussion on the challenges and opportunities of building a more connected coral data ecosystem. What data would you like to see on ODP? What we will cover: Introduction to Coral Reef Mapping local to global, Introduction to HUB Ocean’s Ocean Data Platform, Live demonstration of coral reef data layers, How to access, combine, and contribute coral data, Open Q&A, This session is open to anyone working with coral reef science, conservation and data, including marine researchers, reef managers, NGOs, policy makers and ocean data practitioners. About the hosts, HUB Ocean is building the Ocean Data Platform aggregating, standardizing and making accessible ocean datasets from partners around the world — accelerating science, conservation and sustainable ocean management. Webinar April 14th 17-18 AEST, 9-10 CEST; Coral Reef Maps on Ocean Data Platform Sign-up here Webinar April 15th 11-12 EDT (US), 17-18 CEST American and Caribbean Coral Reef Maps on Ocean Data Platform Sign-up here
- Public seminar on Hope in a time of Ecological collapse on 4/10 : A friendly invitation for a public seminar hosted by the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University this Friday, 4/10, from 11am-12pm ET. This seminar from Becky Williams, faculty member at Grand Valley State University, is entitled "Critical hope in a time of ecological collapse: Centering emotions as a missing component of resilience.” For virtual attendance option via Zoom: https://msu.zoom.us/j/97715232159; Meeting ID: 977 1523 2159; Passcode: CSUS. You can find more information at our events page: https://www.canr.msu.edu/events/csus-hamm-norris-seminar-becky-williams
- Join us at the Center for Wildlife Studies for our (FREE!) Wildlife Wednesday webinars this spring! On April 8, we're excited to offer the second webinar in our 2-part series "From Influence to Impact: Conservation in Action" presented by CWS instructor Dulce Espelosin. Join us to begin connecting influence with action grounded in the science of how people think, decide, and act. April 8, 5:30 PM ET. Engaging Communities to Create Real Conservation Impact. We’ll examine why authentic community engagement is critical for sustainable results. Discover how human-centered approaches build trust, encourage participation, and create lasting conservation impact. LEARN MORE & REGISTER: https://www.centerforwildlifestudies.org/espelosin-presentation-2. Missed the first webinar? Watch "Influencing Behavior Without Losing Focus" on YouTube here.
- Did you know the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) offers biological, genomic, and environmental samples and specimens to support research and other activities through the NEON Biorepository? Join in Apr. 9 from 12-1 pm MDT for the webinar “Samples for Science: Orientation to the NEON Biorepository.” The webinar will provide information about the what the NEON Biorepository offers and how to explore and access samples. Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SBGggA1hTEOTI_7jDVHQDw#/registration NOTE: We have enabled Zoom auto-generated captions for our sessions. If you wish to use this feature, please ensure your Zoom version is recently up-to-date. The NEON Biorepository is a long-term archive that preserves samples collected from NEON’s 81 field sites across the U.S., including field sites in Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. Since 2012, NEON has gathered biological, genomic, and environmental materials from terrestrial and aquatic sites using standardized protocols designed to enable cross-site comparability and open ecological research. The NEON Biorepository offers a multitude of sample types for researchers to use, including for destructive or consumptive sampling. The NEON Biorepository portal is now seamlessly integrated into NEONscience.org. Whether you have connected with the NEON Biorepository in the past or this is your first introduction, all are invited to join this webinar to gain familiarity with updated tools for searching and exploring the samples.
- SCBNA Policy/Ethics Webinar: One Health on-the-ground: success stories in mountain gorilla conservation. Join us for the last session in a new webinar series co-hosted by the SCBNA Policy Committee and PAN Works and focused on One Health! We invite you to join us for a conversation about the powerful connection between people, wildlife, and the environment. Through her work with Conservation Through Public Health, Dr. Gladys has seen how protecting endangered mountain gorillas around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park goes hand in hand with improving the health and wellbeing of the communities who share their habitat. In this webinar, she will reflect on more than 20 years of experience applying the One Health approach in conservation and why it is increasingly important for addressing global challenges. She will also answer questions and discuss how we can work together across disciplines to build a healthier future for people, wildlife, and the planet. Whether you are a conservation practitioner, student, policymaker, or simply passionate about protecting our planet, we hope you will join the conversation. Date/Time: Wednesday, April 8th, 2026, from 10-11 AM CDT. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_fSaskhiRDGlUlpgMq9qtw
- SCBNA Policy/Ethics Webinar: One Health on-the-ground: success stories in mountain gorilla conservation. Join us for the last session in a new webinar series co-hosted by the SCBNA Policy Committee and PAN Works and focused on One Health! We invite you to join us for a conversation about the powerful connection between people, wildlife, and the environment. Through her work with Conservation Through Public Health, Dr. Gladys has seen how protecting endangered mountain gorillas around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park goes hand in hand with improving the health and wellbeing of the communities who share their habitat. In this webinar, she will reflect on more than 20 years of experience applying the One Health approach in conservation and why it is increasingly important for addressing global challenges. She will also answer questions and discuss how we can work together across disciplines to build a healthier future for people, wildlife, and the planet. Whether you are a conservation practitioner, student, policymaker, or simply passionate about protecting our planet, we hope you will join the conversation. Date/Time: Wednesday, April 8th, 2026, from 10-11 AM CDT. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_fSaskhiRDGlUlpgMq9qtw
- Biology Seminar Speaker - Annual Phi Beta Kappa speaker Monday, April 13 in Gottwald Auditorium 12-1 pm. Ximena Bernal (Purdue Univ.) is a mix of behavioral ecologist + sensory biologist, and her lab works on the eco-evo interplay in animal communications (mostly in frogs/toads), and also the impacts of human activities on these behavioral traits. Reach out to Dr. Jonathan Richardson if you would like to meet with this speaker outside of the presentation.
- Free for Students - The Virginia Land Conservation and Greenways Conference, April 27-29, 2026, The Newport News Marriott at City Center, 740 Town Center Drive, Newport News, Students interested in conservation, we hope you will join us for the Virginia Land Conservation & Greenways Conference, April 27-29, 2026 in Newport News, VA. The conference is sponsored by Virginia’s United Land Trusts (VaULT). There is a student session on April 28 for those looking to gain experience and make connections in the field of land conservation and outdoor recreation. This is our fourth year offering this session. Students registration is free, but all interested students/interns/fellows should complete this form no later than April 10, 2026: 2026 Student Participation Form, Land Conservation & Greenways. The Virginia Land Conservation and Greenways Conference is the key annual forum for land protection and parks and trails professionals. Attendees include local planners; state and federal agency staffers; land trust staff and board members; appraisers, lawyers, and other practitioners. This will be our 20th conference and our first time in Newport News! The conference theme is Adaptation. We want to highlight the theme of adaptation in all areas of our work from protecting wetlands, wildlife, and working lands to expanding public outdoor spaces to designing natural and multi-use trails to conserving historic and cultural resources. More than 20 sessions will take place over the course of the conference. The conference kicks off with field trips as a way to see conservation projects in action. We hope you will join us. For more information please reach out to Ellen Shepard (eshepard@vaunitedlandtrusts.org).
- Virtual Career Conversation with Melanie Lippert '19; Thursday, April 2; Sign-up for a 30 minute virtual chat with UR Alum Melanie Lippert to learn more about their career path. Register in Handshake to receive the Zoom link. Meeting times 2-2:30pm or 2:30-3pm: Melanie Lippert graduated from the University of Richmond with a degree in Journalism and Biology, where she worked in a marine lab researching sponges and conducted wildlife research in Belize and Zanzibar. She previously worked at the National Wildlife Federation as a Communications Fellow and spent 2021 working as a cheetah keeper and educational assistant for the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia and Somaliland. In 2022, Melanie worked at National Geographic Channel as a Production Assistant, helping with shows such as Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship. Melanie now works as an Associate Producer for National Geographic’s Pristine Seas team – helping to develop documentaries that showcase unprotected marine ecosystems around the world in order to inspire protection.
- Invasion Ecology webinar next Wed 3/25 @ 10 am EDT by Jessica Hartshorn. The Invasion Ecology section is hosting Dr. Carrie Fearer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech, where she specializes in forest health, bioinformatics, tree diseases, host resistance, and forest ecosystem resilience. She obtained her PhD from the Ohio State University in 2022 and joined Virginia Tech in 2023. Dr. Fearer has worked on a variety of forest health issues including invasive species such as the beech leaf disease complex, and works extensively on applied forest pathology, developing new detection methods for tree diseases using machine learning and other emerging technologies. Dr. Fearer will present next Wednesday, 3/25 @ 10 am EDT followed by the monthly section business meeting. Use the link to join! Meeting ID: 239 874 841 730 9, Passcode: WC67kK6b
- Registration is now open for the Science Communication in the Parks (SCIP) Information Webinar on March 9, 2026 at 3 pm ET. Jointly administered by the Ecological Society of America in cooperation with the National Park Service, the SCIP program supports communications related to high-profile regional resource initiatives. Starting initially with the Northeastern National Parks, the program has expanded and now supports a wider variety of resource-related communication needs within the National Park Service. The Information Webinar is a great opportunity to meet ESA and NPS program personnel and to have your questions about the SCIP program answered. Applications are expected to open March 5 and close April 2. To be eligible, applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents AND be affiliated with a CESU partner institution or an active ESA member. Graduate students, recent graduates (post-baccalaureate), postdocs or early career scientists with some SciComm experience are welcome to apply. Benefits: Stipend of $3,000 to be paid in two installments Professional development in science communication Monthly check-ins and collaborative product design with peers Mentoring by project manager who is also a SciComm professional Access to network of NPS professional personnel and others with indepth perspectives on science in the national parks Potential travel support to selected NPS sites; Full details are available on the SCIP webpages.
- Wildlife field course for students: The Northeast Section of The Wildlife Society, in cooperation with Paul Smith’s College, will be hosting our 14th annual 2-week Wildlife Field Course at Paul Smith’s College, New York, May 17-30, 2026. Please visit the course website for details and application materials: https://tws-northeast.org/about/student-field-course/. The course fee is $1300 and includes 3 undergraduate or graduate credits through Paul Smith’s College (PSC) and room and board for the 2 weeks. The course is housed at the PSC Campus on 14,000 acres of forests, lakes, and streams amidst the 6 million acres of the Adirondack Park. The course emphasizes hands-on experience with basic field techniques (small mammal trapping, bird point counts, habitat sampling, radiotelemetry, etc.) and small group work organized around the theme of conducting a biological inventory. We also provide hunter education training and certification in Project Wild. The course is led by practicing wildlife biologists and ecologists who volunteer their time to serve as instructors providing great networking opportunities and career perspectives during evening discussion sessions. We usually have 20+ guest instructors from various state and federal agencies, consulting firms, and universities. The November/December 2017 issue of The Wildlife Professional (www.wildlife.org) has a short article on the course which is accessible from the course website. Several chapters of The Wildlife Society offer full or partial scholarships to eligible students, too. Enrollment is capped at 20 students; we accept undergrad or grad students from any college or university, you do not need to be enrolled in a wildlife major to be eligible and we also accept unenrolled students who have already completed a degree and are looking to gain field skills. Please do not reply to this email with questions but contact me at: nefieldcourse@gmail.com.
- ESA Exploring Careers in Ecology has ongoing webinars. Next events are February 10 and March 10. Learn More
- How can planners and urban designers best promote biodiversity at the urban scale? March 10, 2026 at 1:15 PM ET. Hosted by Oxford University Cities have the potential to play a significant role in meeting national conservation and biodiversity goals. However, there is a growing understanding that just quantifying the total area of green spaces in cities is not sufficient - connectiveness between sites of biodiversity is equally important. The built environment and transport infrastructure can act as barriers to this connectivity without us being fully aware. To register and learn more To understand how to better “connect up urban nature’ there is a need to develop more refined tools to identify the optimal connectiveness, size and structural heterogeneity of urban sites to enhance biodiversity.
- March 11 - SCBNA Policy/Ethics Webinar One Health 101: basics of a One Health approach to conservation; Join us for the first session in a new webinar series co-hosted by the SCBNA Policy Committee and PAN Works and focused on One Health! Millenia before One Health was given a name, it was practiced by people whose lives and livelihoods depended on respectful use of natural resources, and in rare places it is still practiced this way. The term “One Health” explicitly recognizes, as has long been known, that the health and wellbeing of people, other animals, and nature is not just related, but interdependent. By definition, the goal of One Health is optimal health for all, which implies tradeoffs among the three domains, but in research, education, policy and practice, those tradeoffs nearly always privilege the health and wellbeing of people in the short term at the expense of other animals and nature. This presentation will set the stage for considering how we might incorporate ethics more explicitly into conservation through the integration of One Health principles. Date/Time: Wednesday, Mar 11th, 2026, from 2-3 PM CDT; Register here
- Recovering America’s Wildlife through 25 Years of State Wildlife Action Plans: The Evolution of Their Science and Implementation. Three-part Series - March 17, April 28, & May 12, 2026, 12 p.m. ET Register here
- Workshop: Trapping wildlife in urban spaces; TWS' Urban Wildlife Working Group will host a virtual workshop, Trapping Wildlife in Uniquely Urban Spaces, on March 23 from 1-3 p.m. ET. Learn tips and share stories. Register here
- ESA will host a Science Communication Workshop for students on March 27 at 12 noon EST. We will be discussing the importance of Science Communication in Ecology, different tools and opportunities for effectively engaging, and much more. Learn More