Using the Campus Environment as a Classroom

University campuses are multi-purpose spaces, with public institution campuses typically hosting a suite of functions serving local communities, including access to libraries and scholarship, adult learning programs, and episodic events such as public health campaigns and tax preparation support. University campuses also provide excellent spaces for activities that enhance and support their educational mission, including open space that can be used for course-based research, inquiry-led projects, methods training in the social and natural sciences, and artistic work. Here, I explain how I have used the UMaine Farmington campus to teach inquiry-based environmental science while providing campus-based service-learning to the community garden and the campus forest. I also detail how campus-based environmental research was successfully conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic

Supporting the First Year Transition Through Experiential Learning

In this piece, we describe UMaine Farmington\u27s innovative First Year Fusion program, which merges an experiential pre-semester field week with a shortened half-semester first year seminar. Fusion courses were piloted to provide additional support and programming to first-generation and out-of-state students. We explain the reasons behind developing this program, the benefits to students of participation in Fusion courses, and some initial findings in terms of student success. We also explain how First Year Fusion was adapted to accommodate COVID pandemic disruptions to teaching and travel

Recommendations for Establishing a Market for Invasive Green Crabs in New England

Green crabs are one of the most invasive marine species in the world. Their populations in New England have grown significantly due to climate change, increasing their environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Green crabs are voracious predators of soft shell clams, and have had a detrimental impact on the region’s valuable clam fisheries. They also prey on juvenile lobsters and other shellfish and compete with native crab species for resources. Green crabs burrow into and damage eelgrass beds, which are a vital habitat for many marine species and an important “blue carbon” sink. Due to their rapid rate of reproduction as well as other biological characteristics, green crabs are essentially impossible to eradicate. Attempts to remove them have therefore been largely unsuccessful. A more promising solution to the green crab invasion is to establish markets and incentives for their exploitation. Culinary and bait markets would support continuous harvest of the crabs, keeping their population in check without devoting resources to futile eradication attempts. A green crab fishery would diversify New England’s fisheries and make use of a highly abundant resource that is presently underutilized. Although there are challenges to developing a viable green crab fishery, it is likely the best strategy to combat their environmental impacts while simultaneously benefiting human communities

Metacognitive function and fragmentation in schizophrenia: Relationship to cognition, self-experience and developing treatments

Bleuler suggested that fragmentation of thought, emotion and volition were the unifying feature of the disorders he termed schizophrenia. In this paper we review research seeking to measure some of the aspects of fragmentation related to the experience of the self and others described by Bleuler. We focus on work which uses the concept of metacognition to characterize and quantify alterations or decrements in the processes by which fragments or pieces of information are integrated into a coherent sense of self and others. We describe the rationale and support for one method for quantifying metacognition and its potential to study the fragmentation of a person\u27s sense of themselves, others and the relative place of themselves and others in the larger human community. We summarize research using that method which suggests that deficits in metacognition commonly occur in schizophrenia and are related to basic neurobiological indices of brain functioning. We also present findings indicating that the capacity for metacognition in schizophrenia is positively related to a broad range of aspects of psychological and social functioning when measured concurrently and prospectively. Finally, we discuss the evolution and study of one therapy that targets metacognitive capacity, Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT) and its potential to treat fragmentation and promote recovery

Piecing together fragments: Linguistic cohesion mediates the relationship between executive function and metacognition in schizophrenia

Speech disturbances are prevalent in psychosis. These may arise in part from executive function impairment, as research suggests that inhibition and monitoring are associated with production of cohesive discourse. However, it is not yet understood how linguistic and executive function impairments in psychosis interact with disrupted metacognition, or deficits in the ability to integrate information to form a complex sense of oneself and others and use that synthesis to respond to psychosocial challenges. Whereas discourse studies have historically employed manual hand-coding techniques, automated computational tools can characterize deep semantic structures that may be closely linked with metacognition. In the present study, we examined whether higher executive functioning promotes metacognition by way of altering linguistic cohesion. Ninety-four individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders provided illness narratives and completed an executive function task battery (Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System). We assessed the narratives for linguistic cohesion (Coh-Metrix 3.0) and metacognitive capacity (Metacognition Assessment Scale – Abbreviated). Selected linguistic indices measured the frequency of connections between causal and intentional content (deep cohesion), word and theme overlap (referential cohesion), and unique word usage (lexical diversity). In path analyses using bootstrapped confidence intervals, we found that deep cohesion and lexical diversity independently mediated the relationship between executive functioning and metacognitive capacity. Findings suggest that executive control abilities support integration of mental experiences by way of increasing causal, goal-driven speech and word expression in individuals with schizophrenia. Metacognitive-based therapeutic interventions for psychosis may promote insight and recovery in part by scaffolding use of language that links ideas together

The North American tree-ring fire-scar network

Fire regimes in North American forests are diverse and modern fire records are often too short to capture important patterns, trends, feedbacks, and drivers of variability. Tree-ring fire scars provide valuable perspectives on fire regimes, including centuries-long records of fire year, season, frequency, severity, and size. Here, we introduce the newly compiled North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), which contains 2562 sites, >37,000 fire-scarred trees, and covers large parts of North America. We investigate the NAFSN in terms of geography, sample depth, vegetation, topography, climate, and human land use. Fire scars are found in most ecoregions, from boreal forests in northern Alaska and Canada to subtropical forests in southern Florida and Mexico. The network includes 91 tree species, but is dominated by gymnosperms in the genus Pinus. Fire scars are found from sea level to >4000-m elevation and across a range of topographic settings that vary by ecoregion. Multiple regions are densely sampled (e.g., >1000 fire-scarred trees), enabling new spatial analyses such as reconstructions of area burned. To demonstrate the potential of the network, we compared the climate space of the NAFSN to those of modern fires and forests; the NAFSN spans a climate space largely representative of the forested areas in North America, with notable gaps in warmer tropical climates. Modern fires are burning in similar climate spaces as historical fires, but disproportionately in warmer regions compared to the historical record, possibly related to under-sampling of warm subtropical forests or supporting observations of changing fire regimes. The historical influence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous human land use on fire regimes varies in space and time. A 20th century fire deficit associated with human activities is evident in many regions, yet fire regimes characterized by frequent surface fires are still active in some areas (e.g., Mexico and the southeastern United States). These analyses provide a foundation and framework for future studies using the hundreds of thousands of annually- to sub-annually-resolved tree-ring records of fire spanning centuries, which will further advance our understanding of the interactions among fire, climate, topography, vegetation, and humans across North America

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale

Anthropogenic Influences on Fire Regimes and Post-Fire Ecological Communities in an Arizona Sky Island

As an ecological disturbance agent, wildfire is highly responsive to spatial and temporal variables. At the landscape scale, the spatiotemporal characteristics of fire are influenced by climate, which is non-stable and subject to oscillations, and by weather, which affects the intensity of burning and the severity of fire effects over short time periods. Like wildfire, vegetation communities and fuels are similarly influenced and modified by climate and weather, which configure not only the type of burning possible at any given time, but also the fire effects produced by burning. Furthermore, ignition sources, both natural and anthropogenic, vary over space and time, whether they are from natural ignitions in response to weather and climate factors, and anthropogenic ignitions, which are much less constrained. Within a given physiographic setting, the spatiotemporal conditions of wildfire can be understood as fire regimes, which can be expressed in terms of typical fire frequency, season of burning, ignition source, duration, fire size, patch size, fire rotation, and return interval. As a dynamic assemblage, vegetation communities, combustible fuels, ignition sources, and fire regimes are arrayed over topographic features at landscape scales. Humans are able to affect various and multiple components of this dynamic assemblage. Humans have the most direct control over ignitions, both in terms of adding ignitions to the weather and climate-modulated background of natural ignitions, or by suppressing anthropogenic ignitions and suppressing fires that do start. Humans can also manipulate vegetation communities and fuel complexes, either promoting or diminishing the chance for fires to burn and spread. Humans have far less control over weather and climate, although the enhanced greenhouse effect is beginning to be expressed in terms of climate change and unusually extreme weather, including weather variables that drive fire growth and spread, including low humidity, high temperatures, and increased winds. The objectives of this dissertation were to: (1) investigate the influences of several waves of human occupation on temporal fire regime characteristics in the Chiricahua Mountains across major topographic settings and forest types, and to detect cessation of widespread, low-intensity wildfire in specific locations; (2) account for the mechanisms by which the U.S. state has managed fires by managing anthropogenic ignitions, which has contributed to long-term deviation in formerly frequent fire regimes; (3) examine the effects from the return of large and severe wildfire following decades of fire prevention and suppression by categorizing the ecological trajectories of montane forests following mixed-severity reburning; and (4) understand how the post-disturbance recovery of burned areas is influenced by the response of shrub species to variations in fire severity, with the post-fire regeneration strategies of shrub species driving differences in patch structure and total cover. Major findings and contributions of this research include identifying distinct anthropogenic influences on temporal fire regime characteristics in several forest types in an Arizona Sky Island, including shortened fire frequencies during times of conflict between Apaches and colonizing forces. We found that periods of conflict with Spanish and later American militaries exerted an influence on fire frequencies, with higher-elevation forests burning more frequently than pre-Apache periods or during episodes of peacetime. We also find that single-tree fires, which are likeliest to express anthropogenic ignitions, do not significantly correspond to multi-year patterns in climate (Appendix A). We found that the U.S. state used Smokey Bear and other wildfire prevention media as a pyropolitical instrument aimed at simultaneously managing people, landscapes, and flammable forests, in the process binding proper fire behavior to notions of citizenship, territory, and ecology. The wildfire prevention campaign, with Smokey Bear as its avatar, was successful because it remained flexible in the face of social, economic, and environmental change within the United States, but the ultimate result of this success is an environmental feedback loop by which fire prevention and suppression produce the need for ever-greater state response (Appendix B). We found that mixed-severity reburning has differential effects on various structural and demographic components of vegetation communities, with trees, shrubs, and regeneration responding differently according to plant functional traits. Although the effects of recent disturbance tend to overwrite prior disturbance, mixed severity fire produces different response in plant communities than single events. Repeated high and moderate severity fire suppress tree regeneration and shift the community to shrub dominance, with recovery in pine-oak vegetation types dominated by resprouting species and by resprouting species in mixed conifer. Unburned areas contain different vegetation communities, with pine-oak forests increasing the proportions of fire-intolerant species typical of mixed conifer, as well as oaks and other potentially shrubby species growing as trees (Appendix C). Finally, we found that the proportion of the landscape dominated by shrub cover and the structure of shrub patches is influenced strongly by fire severity, with high severity burns producing the largest shrub patches as well greater area:stem ratios. Unburned areas have the lowest amount of shrub cover, and shrub patches tend to be single-stemmed, indicating that sufficiently long fire-free periods can produce monopodial trees that would otherwise grow in shrub form. The effects of antecedent disturbance can be seen in shrub patch structure, suggesting that the organizing effects of fire can persist for decades (Appendix D). Together, this body of work underscores the means by which human activities interact with the natural world to produce historic fire regimes, and the ecological communities that arise following long periods of fire regime disruption

The North American tree-ring fire-scar network

Fire regimes in North American forests are diverse and modern fire records are often too short to capture important patterns, trends, feedbacks, and drivers of variability. Tree-ring fire scars provide valuable perspectives on fire regimes, including centuries-long records of fire year, season, frequency, severity, and size. Here, we introduce the newly compiled North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), which contains 2562 sites, \u3e37,000 fire-scarred trees, and covers large parts of North America. We investigate the NAFSN in terms of geography, sample depth, vegetation, topography, climate, and human land use. Fire scars are found in most ecoregions, from boreal forests in northern Alaska and Canada to subtropical forests in southern Florida and Mexico. The network includes 91 tree species, but is dominated by gymnosperms in the genus Pinus. Fire scars are found from sea level to \u3e4000-m elevation and across a range of topographic settings that vary by ecoregion. Multiple regions are densely sampled (e.g., \u3e1000 fire-scarred trees), enabling new spatial analyses such as reconstructions of area burned. To demonstrate the potential of the network, we compared the climate space of the NAFSN to those of modern fires and forests; the NAFSN spans a climate space largely representative of the forested areas in North America, with notable gaps in warmer tropical climates. Modern fires are burning in similar climate spaces as historical fires, but disproportionately in warmer regions compared to the historical record, possibly related to under-sampling of warm subtropical forests or supporting observations of changing fire regimes. The historical influence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous human land use on fire regimes varies in space and time. A 20th century fire deficit associated with human activities is evident in many regions, yet fire regimes characterized by frequent surface fires are still active in some areas (e.g., Mexico and the southeastern United States). These analyses provide a foundation and framework for future studies using the hundreds of thousands of annually- to sub-annually-resolved tree-ring records of fire spanning centuries, which will further advance our understanding of the interactions among fire, climate, topography, vegetation, and humans across North America