Collaborations and Moving Past COVID‐19: The Human Ecology and Applied Ecology Sections

Abstract

The Applied Ecology and Human Ecology sections of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) have collaborated for several years, given their overlapping and common interests in the human dimensions of ecology. Starting in 2008, the sections have worked together on combined activities at annual meetings, including field trips, BioBlitzes, collaborative workshops, and mixers (Fig. 1). While each section has its own mission and objectives concerning the integration of human dimensions into ecological scholarship, our combined efforts have led to greater participation among ESA members in selected cities. Going forward, our sections' visions will continue to elevate our collaborative relationship, which is grounded in integrating human dimensions into our activities and scholarship. Photo credit: Gillian Bowser. Human Ecology was first constituted within ESA in 1950 as the Committee for Human Ecology. One of the main roles of the Committee for Human Ecology was to provide advice from ESA to the United Nations on conservation strategies. By the end of the 1950s, Human Ecology was on the brink of being awarded section status, which would have made it one of ESA's first sections, although not as old as Applied Ecology. It is unclear why this formalization never went ahead at the time (for an historical account, see Dyball 2017). Although work of a human ecological nature continued within ESA, it was another 50 years until a Human Ecology section was inaugurated at ESA's 93rd annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2008. The section was conceived of as a home for ecologists concerned with the human dimension of ecological change, including justice and fairness issues. The founding bylaws read: “The objectives of the Section shall be to encourage cross-disciplinary research and publication in areas relating to the interface of humans and the environment and to explicitly encourage linkages between practicing scientists and researchers in the social sciences, arts and humanities” (draft bylaws for the Human Ecology section, passed in 2007). Applied Ecology is one of the oldest sections within ESA and is the second largest section in the society, with 659 members at the end of 2019. Section members focus on combining ecological research with human and society needs and encouraging the application of ecological principles to solutions for practical environmental problems. The Applied Ecology section specifically advocates for active and sustained relationships with and among those specialists who use ecological principles in the resolution of their problems, such as in public policy and administration, law, engineering, education, urban and regional planning, public health, political science, agriculture, and natural resources. Both the Applied Ecology and Human Ecology sections are concerned with the nature of the interactions linking humans, their cultures, and their ecosystems where those interactions are problematic (i.e., they cause unsustainable environmental harm, are unethical, or both). Both promote a biosensitive worldview, within which ecologically literate people can understand, respect, and work to enhance environmental processes and realities and, in so doing, enhance their health and well-being. In that sense, the sections share philosophies regarding sustainable environmental solutions for both people and the planet. Human Ecology's particular concern for justice and fairness sees these problem-solving challenges as inextricably linked to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Applied Ecology section includes concerns for ecosystem services, management of ecosystem services, and the associated organisms. Both embrace the co-production of knowledge with stakeholders or communities, including basic data gathering activities such as BioBlitzes and community participation in research design. The two sections (with the Environmental Justice section) co-hosted BioBlitzes from 2010 to 2015, beginning at the ESA annual meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. BioBlitzes are pre-arranged, day-long community events that typically partner with minority or disadvantaged groups. ESA conference attendees volunteer their time to help these community members gather and identify various organisms (typically plant and invertebrate species) on an urban site of the community's choosing. For example, the Brownfield BioBlitz in Pittsburgh was hosted in partnership with the Liberty Neighborhood, a predominately African American neighborhood that had created several vegetable gardens on abandoned lots. ESA members joined the Applied Ecology, Human Ecology, and Environmental Justice sections, and SEEDS students on a BioBlitz that included participation from the Carnegie Museum and other local institutions. The success of this joint effort led to three more BioBlitzes, each centered in a lower-income neighborhood within the host city of the ESA annual meeting, including Sacramento, California, Austin, Texas, and Baltimore, Maryland (Fig. 2). Starting with the BioBlitz in 2013, citizen science databases such as Project Noah (https://www.projectnoah.org) and iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org) were utilized to create long-term records of the BioBlitz (Figs. 3, 4). Invertebrate and plant specimens collected during the Pittsburgh and Austin BioBlitzes were donated back to the community or partnering organization to provide an accessible record for community members of the species found. In Pittsburgh, each insect was carefully labeled and pinned by a six-year-old community member who hand-printed each label and scientific name! Photo credit: Gillian Bowser. Photo credit: Gillian Bowser. Photo credit: Gillian Bowser. The Applied Ecology section has held multi-section social mixers for at least the last decade. Human Ecology section members were informally invited to join these events from the outset. The first effort, promoted as “Mega Mixah” with a long drawn out “h” at the end, was formally listed in the conference handbook for the ESA annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2013 and included the Applied Ecology and Human Ecology, Environmental Justice, Urban Ecosystem Ecology, and Agroecology sections. The collegial atmosphere, forum for informal exchange of ideas, and networking opportunities proved popular and were thus expanded as the “Section Bash” in Sacramento, California, in 2014. The Mega Mixah was designed to encourage partnership across sections and to bring section members together in a fun, social event. In 2015, the Baltimore Centennial Conference was the largest Mega Mixah held to date. Applied Ecology and Human Ecology banded together to host one big mixer that embraced multiple sections including Environmental Justice, Early Career, Education, Urban Ecology, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. The event featured section leaders asking short quiz questions for small prizes. These large events were expensive, not least because they were catered by the conference centers, and the funding format was to split the bill from ESA pro rata to the membership of participating sections. This allowed larger sections, such as Applied Ecology, to cross-subsidize smaller sections, such as Human Ecology and Environmental Justice. Later, the model allowed the participation of new sections, such as Inclusive Ecology and Black Ecologists, to attend even without sufficient funding to contribute. The Mega Mixah tradition continued up to and including Portland, Oregon, in 2017. Here, an unfortunate space allocation onto a long narrow balcony precluded mingling and caused some sections to question its value. For New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2018 and Louisville, Kentucky, in 2019, the Applied and Human Ecology sections held off-site social gatherings (although Inclusive Ecology joined in 2019, as it had selected the same off-site venue). The personal connections, friendships, and serendipitous exchanges of ideas that occur in social spaces were some of the great achievements of the Mega Mixah, and the tradition was revived in 2020. Even though COVID-19 forced the Mega Mixah to become an online social session, it was still well received with more than 100 members participating. Joint Inspire sessions between the Applied and Human Ecology sections have occurred since Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2013 and continued through 2020. The Inspire format is a rapid-fire presentation, comprising 20 slides of largely visual material on 15-second auto-advance. The sessions are quick and lively with six speakers sharing a lot of information in a short period of time. The sections have used them to provide updates on section activities, introduce award winners, and announce officer vacancies. The New Orleans, Louisiana, 2018 Inspire session, “Expanding Ecology: Your ESA sections and chapters focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion,” gave rise to the Human Dimensions Collaborative workshop in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2019. A second Inspire session co-sponsored with the Early Career section produced a published series of short articles in Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution. Such collaborations resulting in scholarship on human dimensions in ecology are envisioned products for future virtual and hybrid meetings (see also Expanding ecology: Your ESA sections and chapters focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion). The Human Dimensions Collaborative workshop in 2018 was a joint session with the Union of Concerned Scientists that brought together the usual participant sections: Applied Ecology, Human Ecology, Policy, Environmental Justice, Communication and Engagement, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Inclusive Ecology, Agroecology, and Urban Ecology. At the close of the 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana, conference, a group of section members discussed the prospect of semi-formalizing the various interactions among participating sections to augment their primary purpose. A Long-Range Planning Grant, applied for in the name of the Human Ecology section, was submitted to initiate that collaboration and seek ESA funds to host a 2019 pre-conference workshop in Louisville, Kentucky. The proposal was written specifically to bring together several ESA sections oriented around the human dimensions of environmental problems and the unjust distribution of their burdens. The grant resulted in a day-long workshop where section delegates participated in a systems-based collaborative visioning processes to see what, if any, common core values and goals they had that they would do well to work on together (Fig. 5). Photo credit: K. Gentner for Human Ecology section. The workshop outcome found agreement that there was great potential for the work of the Human Dimensions Collaborative to inform interdisciplinary research questions, cultivate knowledge-to-practice exchange through professional projects, develop new forms of communications bridges leveraging contemporary technology, foster new funding opportunities, and/or build cross-sector bridges to support diverse career development opportunities for both early and later career scientists (Fig. 5). Specific outcomes, other than reinstating the Mega Mixah, were to continue with jointly organized paper sessions and Inspire sessions and to propose that ESA commits to work with local communities and leave a legacy of improved environmental management in its annual meeting program. The plan was to implement a demonstration at the Salt Lake City, UT, conference in 2020 and then to make activities become regular sessions at the annual meetings starting with Long Beach, California, in 2021 (Fig. 6). Photo credit: K. Gentner for Human Ecology section. Looking forward, future plans for joint activities between the Human Ecology and Applied Ecology sections are to propose joint multi-section organized oral sessions. Topics that these sessions might explore include our new virtual realities and how community connections can be developed and maintained as part of the Applied Ecology and Human Ecology section activities. Topics that can be jointly pooled across sections could help create multi-input presentations on challenges, such as determining the vital connections in ecology from a human dimensions perspective; engaging with communities and leaving a legacy; determining the challenges and opportunities of advising non-tokenistic inclusion; prospecting online access and connection for open democratic access to knowledge and research globally; and networking and mentoring beyond knowledge silos. Collaborating and moving past COVID-19 will require ESA to rethink activities associated with the annual conference and how sections serve their membership. Hands-on activities that include field trips to communities may be less popular, especially as issues of personal health and well-being during a pandemic will outweigh any membership benefits of a field activity. Such decisions will be difficult as at the time of this writing, vaccines are just appearing, and the pandemic continues to restrict public gatherings. What a future conference will look like post-COVID-19 is hard to say. The future vision of sections such as the Applied Ecology and Human Ecology needs to include how to incorporate human dimensions into ecological research, scholarship, and community while operating in virtual spaces.