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Drew Harvell, professor emerita of marine ecology, pauses to admire eelgrass, a cold water species of seagrass, at low tide in False Bay, San Juan Island, Washington.

News

Marine herbivores chomp eelgrass, making it susceptible to wasting

Cornell plant and computer science experts joined forces to show how herbivores like sea snails can promote the spread of seagrass wasting disease. Grazing by small herbivores was associated with a 29% increase in the prevalence of disease.

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Animals
  • Plants
researcher in seagrass

News

Seagrasses filter human pathogens in marine waters

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biology
  • Environment
Ivy on Bradfield Hall

News

Twelve faculty members elected AAAS fellows

Twelve Cornell and Weill Cornell Medicine faculty members – six of whom are also Cornell alumni – have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society.

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Breeding and Genetics Section
A woman stands in a dark room with her hand in the water of a large aquarium in the room

News

Drew Harvell named US Science Envoy by State Department

Drew Harvell, professor emerita of ecology and evolutionary biology who studies sustainable marine biodiversity, is one of seven U.S. researchers named 2023 U.S. Science Envoys by the Department of State.

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
lesions on eelgrass in an underwater meadow

News

AI reveals scale of eelgrass vulnerability to warming, disease

A combination of ecological field methods and AI has helped an interdisciplinary research group detect eelgrass wasting disease from San Diego to southern Alaska, and determine that it’s caused by warmer-than-normal water temperatures.

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biology
  • Climate Change
taffed seagrass plants at low tide

News

Climate-driven disease compromises seagrass health
In an oceanic omen for climate change’s intensifying effects, Cornell-led research shows that seagrass suffers from a wasting disease and root-system deterioration.
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Water
  • Disease
Olivia Graham examines a seagrass meadow at low tide on the San Juan Islands

News

NSF grants $2.5M for seagrass, marine ecosystem research
To seek solutions, the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences and Environmental Biology awarded a four-year, $2.5 million grant to Drew Harvell, professor emeritus in ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of...
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biology
Purple and pink sea star underwater

News

Biologist helps place starfish on critically endangered list
Citing a 90% decline in the species’ global population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on Dec. 10 officially placed the sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) on the group’s Red List of Threatened Species...
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Fish
An inlet of water with an island behind it

News

Doctoral student contributes to global ocean-predator study
The multiyear study showed how – as persistent global warming heats the oceans – rising temperatures can reconfigure entire communities of marine predators and impact creatures lower on the food chain. The study was led by the Marine Global...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Plants
  • Water
Five students and one teacher sitting on a rock next to the ocean and looking at a starfish

News

Cornell Atkinson: a decade of collaborative sustainability
Atkinson, a successful financier and CALS graduate, had just been selected to join CALS’ Advisory Council. At the time, an explosion of new research made it “inevitable,” Atkinson said, that Cornell would need to respond to climate change, and...
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Global Development Section
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
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Field Note

Hunting eelgrass disease in the San Juan Islands
During summer 2020, Drew Harvell, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, postdoc Lillian Aoki and Ph.D. student Olivia Graham traveled to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state to study the pathogenic causes of seagrass...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Disease
  • Plants

News

Seven CALS faculty, staff members receive SUNY Chancellor's Awards

Seven CALS faculty and professional staff members have been selected for the 2019-20 State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence. Visit the Cornell Chronicle, for the complete list of all sixteen faculty and...

  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
A red CALS banner hanging from a light post surrounded by a pink blooming tree

News

Outstanding CALS students, faculty and staff honored with annual Dean’s Awards
More than 40 students and over a dozen faculty and staff were selected for their outstanding achievements in academics, teaching, advising and professional service. Because of restrictions to in-person campus events this spring, Dean Boor...
  • Animal Science
  • Computational Biology
  • Global Development Section

News

Cornell scientists amplify ‘green’ research at AAAS

Researchers – including nearly a dozen from Cornell – met in seminar rooms, ballrooms, hallways, coffee shops, lunch counters and the exposition hall. Drew Harvell, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, spoke at a Feb...

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Fish
Healthy colorful coral under water

News

Sea fan corals face new threat in warming ocean: copper
In a Cornell-led study, published Oct. 19 in the journal Ecological Applications, scientists report evidence of metal pollution creating danger for the soft coral sea fans. “We know warming oceans pose an existential threat to coral reefs around...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biology
  • Ecosystems
Various orange, purple and blue coral with gold fish swimming around them in the ocean

News

Disease trends in sea creatures herald oceanic changes
The findings, published Oct. 9 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that long-term changes in diseases coincide with recent decades of widespread environmental change. Understanding oceanic trends is important for evaluating today’s...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Organisms
  • Disease
A blue ocean with fish swimming in a school far in the distance and multi-colored coral in the foreground with a plastic back wrapped around it

Spotlight

A sea of troubles: Marine ecosystems send an SOS
Marine ecologist Drew Harvell was a University of Washington doctoral student in zoology in 1982 when she went on a research trip off Panama’s western coast with one of the world’s foremost experts in the biology of coral reefs. Then twenty-six...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Animals
  • Biology
Before and after photo showing decline of large sunflower sea stars

News

Once-abundant sea stars imperiled by disease along West Coast
Warming oceans and an infectious wasting disease has devastated populations of large sunflower sea stars once abundant along the West Coast of North America, according to new research in Science Advances.
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Animals