Month: September 2016

From VT News

The book “Darwin’s Man in Brazil: The Evolving Science of Fritz Müller,” by David A. West, associate professor emeritus of biological sciences (1962-1998) was published by the University Press of Florida in July 2016.

The book will be introduced to the Virginia Tech community from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on  Sept. 30, in the Fralin Life Science Institute auditorium and atrium. The book launch* will include a panel discussion to highlight the book and West’s story of how he wove together his research and global travels to produce a thorough explanation of Müller’s life and scientific findings. A reception will follow with book sales and signing by members of the panel.

At David West’s death in April 2015, his dream was coming true – the publication of his long-time work on evolutionary biologist and theoretician Fritz Müller (1821–1897). Müller belongs in the cohort of great 19th-century naturalists. West describes the close intellectual kinship between Müller and Darwin and details a lively correspondence that spanned 17 years. Despite the importance and scope of his work, however, Müller is known for relatively few of his discoveries. West remedies this oversight, chronicling the life and work of this extraordinary and overlooked man of science.

According to Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus of Biology Duncan M. Porter, the former senior editor and director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, “Fritz Müller’s importance to Charles Darwin was demonstrated by his son Francis: ‘My father’s correspondence with Fritz Müller was, in its bearing on his work, second in importance only to that with [Joseph] Hooker. He had for Müller a stronger personal regard than that which bound him to his other unseen friends.’  Darwin turned many of Fritz’s fact-filled letters to him into publications. David West was certainly correct when he wrote ‘Fritz Müller was Darwin’s closest intellectual kin.’”

West’s remarkable book goes beyond revealing the importance of Muller’s contributions to the development of evolutionary theory, casting new light on the social and environmental impacts of colonialism in the late 19th century. According to the book’s foreword, written by Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Science Studies Richard Burian, and University of Florida history of science professor, Vasiliki Betty Smocovitis, “Here, West enables us to understand the intersection of human migration, settlement, and environmental change with exploitative practices, such as slavery in the rapidly shifting economy of postcolonial Brazil.”

More about this book.

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Event Sponsors:

Department of Biological Sciences, the Department of Population Health Sciences, the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech, and the Fralin Life Science Institute.

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Story by Lindsay Key, Fralin Life Science Institute

From VT News

Paul Angermeier, professor of fish conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, is co-editor of a new textbook on reintroducing fish and wildlife species into regions where they once thrived but now no longer live.

“The book synthesizes current scientific understanding of reintroduction of animal species,” Angermeier said. “The underlying theme is to meld societal goals, institutional capacity, and scientific knowledge . . . Our goal for ‘Reintroduction of Fish and Wildlife Populations’ was to bridge the technical with widely applicable information.”

The book’s chapters describe the benefits the highlighted species provide and include information on both failures and successes of reintroduction projects.

In the United States, much of the species reintroduction effort occurs in the western states by public agencies on public lands, such as the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. In addition, private organizations such as Trout Unlimited are actively working on restoration projects in many regions.

“This book focuses on those species that have suffered via human interventions,” Angermeier said.

Over-hunting and over-fishing were primary causes of some losses, for example, of the American bison, passenger pigeon, and lake trout. The most pervasive current causes of species decline are human-mediated habitat alteration and destruction as well as the introduction of exotic species.

“Alterations, such as the construction of a dam, often occur too quickly or too dramatically for a species to adapt,” Angermeier said. “Reintroduction becomes feasible when environmental conditions are restored to the point that the original species can once again make a go of it. Purposeful reintroduction is often the only way to get a species back where it ‘belongs.’”

The editors expect that practitioners of wildlife conservation and researchers will use the book in their work and that it also will be a textbook for advanced studies of species reintroduction and conservation biology.

Angermeier serves as assistant leader of the Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and is affiliated with Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Science Institute and Global Change Center. His research focuses on freshwater ecosystems, including the population dynamics of imperiled fishes, habitat associations of stream fishes, ecosystem services provided by watersheds, the use of biotic communities to assess water quality, and ecology of species invasions.

Primary editor David Jachowski, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, was a post-doctoral fellow at Virginia Tech in 2014. The co-editors include Joshua Millspaugh, the William J. Rucker Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Missouri, and Rob Slotow, professor and head of the College of Health Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

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Story by Lynn Davis, CNRE

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From The Washington Post

September 1, 2016: On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers.

Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit — in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind.

Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary — Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville — 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees.

Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote on Facebook, was “like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.”

A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester’s own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying “should not occur.”

In parts of South Carolina, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae. Given the current concerns of West Nile virus and Zika — there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite — Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.

It marked a departure from Dorchester County’s usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.

Local beekeepers felt differently.

“Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, ‘No you can’t do this,’” beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston’s WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.

The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. “Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,” Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, “I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.”

Read the full story at the Washington Post.

Related Stories:

U.S. Beekeepers Fear for Livelihoods (The Guardian)

South Carolina Sprays for Mosquitoes but Accidentally Takes Out Millions of Bees (NPR)

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