On a patch of Livingston campus once covered in asphalt, Rutgers University-New Brunswick students are planting the beginnings of a forest, one designed not just to grow quickly but to bring people into the work of reforestation. The transformation is part of the Livingston Abandoned Roadway Environmental Restoration project, which replaces an obsolete roadway dating back to […]
Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Graduate Students Help Professor Bring Plant Species Back to Life
Sue Huang is using speculative and critical design to bring long-dead plant species in New Jersey back to life in the collective human consciousness. Her latest work is a collaborative effort founded in both science and the imagination – one that involves graduate students and mixes research, history, software development, visual design and plant biology. […]
Brooke Maslo Named the Inaugural Joanna Burger Endowed Legacy Professor
Brooke Maslo, associate extension specialist in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, has been named the inaugural holder of the Joanna Burger Endowed Legacy Professorship. Maslo assumed the professorship effective April 23. Maslo’s appointment is supported by a gift from Joanna Burger, a Distinguished Professor with appointments in the School […]
New Model Shows How Plants Optimize Photosynthesis From Top to Bottom of Canopy
Plants are remarkably good at adjusting how they capture sunlight and produce food through photosynthesis. A new computer model helps scientists better understand these adjustments by looking at what happens at different heights within a plant canopy, from the sun-drenched leaves at the top to the shaded leaves near the ground. Chi Chen, assistant professor […]
Professor Siobain Duffy and International Team Receive Prestigious UK–US Breakthrough Award for Global Food Security Innovation
At a reception hosted at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. on March 4, Professor Siobain Duffy and her international research team were recognized with the Pioneering UK–US Breakthroughs (PUB) Award, a distinction honoring seven collaborative teams whose work is addressing some of the world’s most urgent challenges. Presented by His Majesty’s Ambassador to the […]
Scientists Develop New Gut Health Measure That Tracks Disease
Scientists have identified a new way to distinguish healthy guts from diseased ones and track how some illnesses progress by measuring how gut bacteria interact with one another. According to a study published in Science, a Rutgers-led team of scientists found that healthy and diseased digestive systems behave like two distinct ecological states, driven not by individual microbes but […]
Teaching Professor Allyson Salisbury Wins ISA Early-Career Scientist Award
Allyson Salisbury, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, is the recipient of the 2025 International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Early-Career Scientist Award. This Award of Distinction recognizes an individual who shows exceptional promise, with high potential to become an internationally recognized scientist. The ISA Awards […]
What Bees Can Tell Us About Conservation and Land Use
A new study has challenged a long-held belief in ecology: that a bee’s body size determines how far it travels and, in turn, how much land around it matters. The authors of the study, published in Ecography, tested this idea—called the “mobility hypothesis”—by analyzing 84 species of wild bees across 165 sites in the northeastern […]
How Nature Can Make Urban Dwellers Healthier
A study by Rutgers ecologist Myla Aronson and colleagues has found “overwhelming” evidence that increasing biodiversity in cities – establishing parks, installing native plants and encouraging sustainable landscaping – can significantly improve human health. Reporting in the science journal People and Nature, Aronson and coauthors described conducting a systematic review of more than 1,500 studies to synthesize […]
Distinguished Professor Joanna Burger Has Endowed a Legacy Professorship at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
The Rutgers University Board of Governors (BOG) voted today, June 17, to establish the Joanna Burger Endowed Legacy Professorship to support faculty in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources who are advancing the study of behavioral ecology in innovative and impactful ways. This legacy professorship is the first for the School of Environmental […]











