20th Anniversary RISE Symposium bridges connections for students and faculty
Eleven speakers covered a wide variety of topics, and some included results of work completed and on-going at WGEW or SRER.
This fall, sixty-five people attended the 20th Annual RISE, or Research Insights in Semi-Arid Ecosystems, Symposium.
The objectives of the symposium are to share recent results of scientific research in semiarid environments, with an emphasis on work conducted at the USDA-ARS Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) and the University of Arizona Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER), and to encourage collaboration among researchers and students on future research and outreach activities.
The 20th Anniversary included a transition to a new venue and very generous donations totaling $1695 to the student poster contest awards. The Integrated Learning Center room 150 was more spacious and warmer than room 230 Marley Building, and the covered outdoor setting for the poster session was greatly appreciated during the 70 F temperatures. As a result of the generous donations, we increased the awards to undergraduates: from $300 to $500 for Best, and from $100 to $300 for Honorable mention; and for graduate students, we increased the Honorable mention from $200 to $300. These changes make the award amounts the same for undergraduate and graduate students.
Eleven speakers covered a wide variety of topics, and some included results of work completed and on-going at WGEW or SRER. Mitch McClaran started the program with a reflection on how a community of researchers, students, and enthusiasts evolved and how their impact grew since 2004.
These impacts included:
- opportunities for students to present their first poster in a supportive environment
- new faculty were invited speakers and that built connections with others
- many collaborations led to successes in securing research funding and publications, as well as students gaining entrance to graduate programs, and 4) a small group was successful in persuading NEON to resume annual fights of the Airborne Observatory Platform instead of the recent change to 3 of 5 year frequency.
The other talks included updates from the Santa Rita (Brett Blum) and NEON (Abe Karam) that focused on opportunities for researchers to contribute to the design of the expected thinning of mesquite by the Arizona Department of Foresty and Fuel Management, and access to new NEON data and new data tools. Dawn Browning from the Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, NM presented recent work combining drone, flux tower, and web cam data to record the interannual dynamics of vegetation that provides a more quantitative and nuanced understanding of ecological states. Julia Guglielmo from the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance west of Tucson reviewed the many accomplishments in data collection and erosion control since 1995 and ongoing opportunities to contribute to research projects.
Michelle Berry, UA Department of History, author of the recently published book “Cow Talk”, and current year recipient of the UA Outstanding Scholar Award helped us recognize the power of words in building and distinguishing a culture as well as introducing us to the “more-than-human” effects on landscape change, which we commonly refer to as the bio-physical drivers of change. Ashlee Rowe, School of Biology at University of Oklahoma presented a remotely delivered yet thoroughly engrossing journey using videos and molecular animations of the natural history and neural biochemistry of the grasshopper mouse’s ability to block the venom-related pain from their scorpion prey (species she studied and collected on the Santa Rita).