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Ecology

  • Illustration showing ozone damage to a leaf. On the left, a healthy bright green leaf is surrounded by several ozone (O₃) symbols, with orange arrows pointing toward the leaf. A large orange arrow points from the green leaf to a second leaf on the right that is brown and discolored, indicating deterioration or injury. The image visually represents exposure to ozone causing leaf damage and browning. The background is a blue gradient.

    Vanderbilt Researchers Find Ozone Influences Growing Season

    Lin Meng’s few short years at Vanderbilt have been productive in advancing understanding of the factors that influence the changing growing seasons of plants. Meng is an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt. She posits that the most widely assumed external factor influencing the growing… Read More

    June 21, 2026

  • Visual representation of the Bortle scale showing varying levels of light pollution, from an 'Excellent Dark Sky Site' with a clear view of the Milky Way to a 'City/Inner City Sky' with bright lights from an urban skyline, illustrating the gradient of light pollution from rural to urban areas.

    VU Graduate Student Uses Satellites to Provide Critical ALAN Data for Public Policy

    By: Alexandria Leeper, Evolutionary Studies Graduate Communications Assistant Imagine you are trying to stargaze. You live in a suburban area where there are little streetlamps, and the darkness of the night envelops most of the sky, making the stars visible. However, you are adjacent to a major city. When you… Read More

    August 9, 2024

  • A group of 5 yeasts showcasing their diversity of forms

    Vanderbilt Researchers Flip the Script on Yeast Ecological Diversity

    By: Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies scientific coordinator Co-first author Abigail LaBella A mere decade or two ago, decoding the genome of every organism in a major branch of the tree of life and deciphering their diets was a pipedream. In a groundbreaking study, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University,… Read More

    April 25, 2024

  • Vanderbilt University

    Evolutionary Studies hosts National Academy Member Sharon Strauss for Earth Day

    By Danielle Bowden, Evolutionary Studies administrative specialist Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt is thrilled to announce Sharon Strauss as our keynote speaker for our Earth Day seminar. This seminar, titled, “Evolution and plasticity of the niche, with implications for species coexistence,” will be held in Buttrick 102 on April 17 at… Read More

    April 2, 2024

  • Time scale of different ecological terms. Ecology is for hours to centuries, historical ecology is for decades to millenia. Paleoecology is millena to millions of years.

    Vanderbilt researchers bring paleoecology into the 21st century

    By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies scientific coordinator Science is an inherently collaborative endeavor. When a respected colleague courteously disagrees with your point of view, it can lead to great new papers, perspectives and collaborations. In that same vein, feedback from editors and reviewers of academic journals is an often-understated driver… Read More

    July 7, 2022