Student evaluations show bias against female professors

Study finds bias is driven by backlash after students receive first exam grades

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

In a recent study, Whitney Buser, senior academic professional and associate director of Academic Programs in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech, explores the nature and causes of gender bias in student evaluations of teaching (SETs). 

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology

Despite earning more than half of all doctoral degrees conferred in the U.S., women are significantly underrepresented in faculty positions at colleges and universities. This is particularly true in tenure-track and tenured positions, with women making up just over a third of all full professors. Women are also less likely to receive tenure or be promoted to full professor, a situation known as the academic “leaky pipeline,” where women’s representation continues to decline the further they advance in their careers. In male-dominated fields, like economics, the statistics are more drastic: women represent only 17.5% of economics professors but earn 35% of economics graduate degrees.

While various reasons have been suggested as to why women still trail men in academic position and prestige despite increasing levels of educational attainment, one factor may play a surprisingly big role: teaching evaluations.

In a recent study, Whitney Buser, senior academic professional and associate director of Academic Programs in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech, explores the nature and causes of gender bias in student evaluations of teaching (SETs). By drawing on social role theory to inform their hypotheses, Buser and her co-authors investigated whether bias exists at the outset of the semester and whether backlash after grading exacerbates it. Their study, “Evaluation of Women in Economics: Evidence of Gender Bias Following Behavioral Role Violations,” was published in the Springer journal Sex Roles.

“We know from the literature that female instructors fare worse in student evaluations, but with nearly all research on SETs done from end-of-semester evaluations, it’s hard to pinpoint how, when, and why gender bias arises, and how much exists. That was the goal of our study,” Buser said.

Role Expectations and Gender

According to social role theory, gender inequity arises from cultural beliefs and expectations about women and men. Women are overrepresented in low-status caretaking roles, which shapes beliefs and expectations about them being communal — helpful, kind, and concerned with others. Men, however, are overrepresented in high-status provider roles, which reinforces beliefs and expectations about men being ambitious, authoritative, and competent.

Role congruity theory shows that there are negative consequences for individuals who fail to fulfill society’s expectations either by role or by behavior, and it often comes in the form of backlash. Buser hypothesized that students would perceive grade feedback from female faculty more harshly than from male faculty due to role congruency expectations of communality in women, and that this backlash would be apparent in their SETs.

The Experiment and a New Survey

Universities use different methods for conducting teaching evaluations. To allow for direct comparisons across institutions, the researchers created their own standard survey for the study. Participants included nearly 1,200 undergraduate students, all of whom were enrolled in a Principles of Economics course. The students were taught by seven faculty members at five institutions.

The survey comprised criteria used in previous studies to detect gender bias. Students were asked to evaluate their instructors across seven areas using a 5-point scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.”

The first three questions were gender neutral. Students were asked if they would (1) recommend the course, (2) recommend the instructor, and (3) whether they found their instructor interesting. Next, they were asked if they found their instructor to be (4) knowledgeable and (5) challenging, both of which are widely seen as male-like qualities. The final two criteria asked students to evaluate how (6) approachable and (7) caring their instructors are — qualities usually associated with women.

The anonymous surveys were conducted twice. The first survey was administered on the second day of class (Time 1) to assess participants’ early impressions. The second survey (Time 2) was given the day after students received their grades on the first exam, to see how impressions changed after they were given instructor feedback. 

Findings

On the second day of class (Time 1), female instructors were rated significantly lower than male instructors on all three gender-neutral criteria – recommend course, recommend instructor, and interesting – and the male-leaning criteria of challenging. There was no significant difference between male and female instructors observed for the communal qualities of caring and approachable, with women ranking only slightly higher.

Their results showed that between Time 1 and Time 2, male instructors improved on every trait. At Time 2, female instructors were still rated significantly lower than male instructors on all three gender-neutral qualities and both male-leaning qualities. Overall, female instructors stayed mostly stagnant between Time 1 and Time 2 but were rated as significantly less interesting at Time 2. At Time 2, students even rated their male instructors as slightly more caring and approachable than their female counterparts, a reversal from Time 1.

“The gender discrepancy between Time 1 and Time 2 was really driven by male instructors’ evaluations improving over time. This finding indicates that students view male instructors more favorably as time goes on, which was not at all the case for the women,” Buser said. “It was clear that exam grades made the evaluations split apart, even though there was no significant difference in exam grades between female and male instructors. As we predicted, this difference indicated a clear backlash against female faculty.”

Impact

In economics, it is usually only the statistically significant differences that are worth writing about. But in this study, there is reason to care about insignificant differences, because they are often used to make crucial decisions in practice.

For example, when department chairs and administrators look at teaching evaluations in hiring, they might have two candidates with similar scores separated by only a couple of decimal points. They could choose to interview or hire the candidate with slightly higher teaching scores without knowingly making a gender-biased decision, Buser said.

Universities currently have few formal ways of taking SET gender bias into account when it comes to performance evaluation, promotion, and tenure. Addressing the issue could help universities retain female faculty and repair the leaky pipeline.

“We hope this work will highlight the presence of gender bias and encourage the development of more objective teaching evaluation tools that take this dynamic into account,” Buser said. “Eliminating or reducing gender bias in teaching evaluations could have an enormous impact on women and their ability to thrive in academia.”

Research shows constituents ask female legislators to do more

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

Despite the strides made in electing women to office, women are still grossly underrepresented in all levels of government. Women make up just over a quarter of all members of the 117th Congress (147 of the total 535 seats), which is more than double the number of women serving in Congress 20 years ago (72).

And those who hold elected office often are asked to do more by their constituents, according to a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Politics, found that female legislators are 10% more likely to be contacted by their constituents, and they receive 14% more issue requests per constituent they contact.

“There is a lot of evidence that women do more unpaid work than men. These findings suggest that the same patterns may apply in politics,” said Daniel Butler, professor and associate chair of political science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

To study this issue, Butler — along with Elin Naurin and Patrik Öhberg at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden — worked with one pair of Republican representatives and one pair of Democrat representatives who served a multimember district (like the U.S. Senate). The pairs represented the same set of constituents, belonged to the same political party, were the same race and had similar positions on the bills before their legislature. The key difference between the legislators in each pair was their gender: one man and one woman.

The legislators sent letters to their constituents, asking for input via a survey. Half of the constituents were contacted by their female representative and half were contacted by their male representative.

The survey asked constituents to list the issues that the legislator should work on. Altogether, 1,190 constituents responded with a set of issues important to them. Their responses listed many of the everyday issues that constituents care about, including education, roads and support for small businesses. 

The results showed that the increase in workload is coming on a variety of salient issues, including those that are typically considered “women’s issues” — education and health — as well as other issues — immigration and fiscal/economic matters. Moreover, women were not asked to do less on any issues.

Double-edged sword

According to Butler, previous work shows that female legislators are, on average, more active lawmakers than men. They introduce more bills, speak more during plenary sessions and expend more effort on constituency service, he said.

“It’s possible that female legislators are doing more because they’re being asked to do more by their constituents,” Butler said.

The potential upside of receiving more issue requests is that female legislators may be learning more about their constituents, allowing them to be in a stronger position to present their interests.

Political scientist Dan Butler

The current research does not explain why constituents ask more of their female representatives, but Butler has a few theories.

“Gender stereotypes are one reason that constituents might ask female legislators to do more. Voters may see women as less qualified to handle the male-dominant political work and feel the need to push them harder,” he said.

“Alternatively, voters may see women as being more willing to act on requests they receive or as caring more about others’ well-being. If constituents seek help from legislators who they think are more likely to listen and care, these stereotypes would make them more likely to contact female legislators.”

There is at least one benefit to these findings for female legislators, Butler said.

“The potential upside of receiving more issue requests is that female legislators may be learning more about their constituents, allowing them to be in a stronger position to present their interests,” he said. “However, that must be balanced against the pressures of being asked to do more.”

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JOURNAL

The Journal of Politics

DOI

10.1086/719631 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Constituents Ask Female Legislators to Do More

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2022

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE AN UNDERGRAD

Undergrad publishes theory on immune dysfunction in space

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. -- It’s been known for decades that astronauts’ immune systems become suppressed in space, leaving them vulnerable to disease, but the exact mechanisms of immune dysfunction have remained a mystery – now a Cornell undergraduate has found a potential solution.

A biological and mechanical engineering double major in the College of Engineering, Rocky An ’23 published his theory, “MRTF May be the Missing Link in a Multiscale Mechanobiology Approach toward Macrophage Dysfunction in Space,” Sept. 12 in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

An reviewed the last 20 years of literature on the behavior of macrophages – key cells in the body’s immune response – in space and recent research about how macrophages respond to forces in normal gravity, identifying a transcription factor that could prove to be the missing piece of the puzzle.

“I just kept asking questions about how the data is presented,” An said. “There are these two really important papers, in particular, one a review of how macrophages are suppressed in microgravity, and another about the mechanobiology of macrophages. I was able to connect these two papers, and that's when the idea came to me. I was really excited, as it was kind of a eureka moment for me.”

In space, the lack of gravity changes the shape of the immune cell, and scientists have suspected that changes to the cytoskeleton, the filamented infrastructure of the cell, were involved in immune dysfunction. Recent studies in normal gravity have shown that disturbing the cytoskeleton of macrophages reduces the transport of a particular protein, a transcription factor important for immune response, to the nucleus.

By comparing the studies of cells in microgravity and analyzing the modes of study and associated timescales – whether macrophages were actually studied in space, or on a parabolic airplane, or in a simulation of microgravity in the lab – An was able to point to this protein, Myocardin-Related Transcription Factor (MRTF), as a probable culprit in immune system dysfunction.

“I think it’s a pretty convincing argument that MRTF is a big part of the problem,” An said. “I hope it will inspire future studies that really focus on that one protein and the cytoskeleton, and maybe it could be the first step towards a spaceflight immune treatment.”

The paper suggests that MRTF could be implicated in the stress on the cardiovascular health of astronauts as well. An also points to other factors that may play a role in immune dysfunction and notes that further research is needed to understand how MRTF interacts with the macrophage nucleus in microgravity. 

While An worked independently on the publication, he credits his Cornell professors (including Mingming Wu, professor, and Minglin Ma, associate professor, both of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Brian J. Kirby, the Meinig Family Professor of Engineering; and Donna Cassidy Hanley, senior research associate in the College of Veterinary Medicine, among many other teachers) for modeling an interdisciplinary approach and encouraging inquiry.

Even before enrolling at Cornell, An had contact with the lab of Theodore Clark, professor of microbiology and immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, where An has engaged in research since his freshman year. He also credits his experience on the Cornell iGEM (Genetically Engineered Machines) Project Team, with advising from Jan Lammerding, professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, as helping him develop as a scientist.

“The biggest help has been the professors and the way they’ve taught my classes,” An said. “And then with research in the lab and my project team, there have been a lot of opportunities to learn independently and ask our own questions.”

An also gained valuable experience in summer internships. In 2021, he was chosen as a research associate for NASA’s Space Life Sciences Training Program, where he studied the impact of microgravity on cells and co-authored his first paper, an optimization of a modeling framework for studying cells in microgravity.

An then spent the summer of 2022 as an Amgen Scholar at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute, where he worked in the area of mechanical immunotherapy, exploring therapies that work by manipulating cells’ structure.

“I’ve always been interested in cells, but also the mechanics, how cells react to forces,” An said. “I like this approach because it’s somewhat new, and I think it's very different from what you generally learn in biology, where everything's a series of chemical reactions. I really enjoy the interaction between the two fields.”

Support for An’s publication came from the Cornell Open Access Publication Fund.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology

DOI

10.3389/fcell.2022.997365 

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! 

Endangered mouse study shares no-contact sampling method

A new genetic sampling technique for salt marsh harvest mice and other small mammals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

 

IMAGE: A SALT MARSH HARVEST MOUSE WALKS ACROSS THE BULRUSH AT GRIZZLY ISLAND WILDLIFE AREA IN SAN FRANCISCO. view more 

CREDIT: CODY AYLWARD/UC DAVIS

From species of marmots to moles, shrews and mice, many of the world’s endangered mammals are small. Genetic sampling is important for understanding how to conserve and protect their populations. But finding efficient, noninvasive ways to collect genetic samples from small animals can be challenging.

A study from the University of California, Davis, describes a new, noninvasive genetic survey technique for the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, which lives solely within the tidal marshes of the San Francisco Bay Estuary.

In larger mammals, scientists often collect samples from scat, but the poop of small animals can be so small that it is difficult to detect in the wild.

The new technique, published in the Journal of Mammalogy, uses a combination of bait stations and genetics to sample and identify salt marsh harvest mice, or “salties” as researchers affectionately call them. The species has lost more than 90% of its habitat to development and is also threatened by rising sea levels. That’s why it is imperative that the remaining populations are identified accurately and efficiently, the authors note.

Dine and dash

The technique is simple: Scientists bait boxes with a snack of seeds, millet and oats, and lay down cotton bedding. The mice are free to come and go. A researcher returns a week later to collect the fecal pellets for genetic sampling at the lab. There, a unique species identification test differentiates salt marsh harvest mice samples from those of other rodents that may have used the bait box.

Contrast that process with the more common and intensive method of live trapping: A team of three to five researchers check traps at sunrise and sunset for several consecutive days. To prevent animal drownings, those traps must be placed above the tideline, ruling out several areas of tidal marsh habitat. But with the new, noninvasive technique, mice can leave at any time, allowing researchers to monitor more marshes and more mice, safely and efficiently.   

“Our genetic identification method is simple, inexpensive, and can be adapted to other small mammal systems,” said lead author Cody Aylward, a recent graduate and former doctoral student of the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “I hope someone studying an endangered small animal somewhere reads this study and goes, ‘That’s something I can do.’”

Small wonder

Little is known about salt marsh harvest mice, so the impacts of their potential loss are also unclear. Scientists know the species is unusual in several ways. For example, salties are strong swimmers, can drink seawater and have a unique genetic lineage, as Aylward explains:

“Genetic data says there’s 3.5 million years divergence between them and their closest relative,” he said. “So if we lose them, that’s 3.5 million years of evolutionary history that’s lost.”

Co-authors include principal investigator Mark Statham, Robert Grahn and Benjamin Sacks from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine; Douglas Kelt from the UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology; and Laureen Barthman-Thompson of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The research was funded by the California Department of Water Resources and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

CAPTION

A bait station sits atop the flooded tidal marsh of Corte Madera. This bait station at a Bay Are marsh attracts but does not trap endangered salt marsh harvest mice, allowing scientists to collect scat for genetic sampling without risking harm to the mice or other visiting animals as tide waters rise and fall.

CREDIT

Cody Aylward/UC Davis

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JOURNAL

Journal of Mammalogy

DOI

10.1093/jmammal/gyac070 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

A novel noninvasive genetic survey technique for small mammals

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2022

Amino acid supplement key to reproductive health in dairy cows

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS RESEARCHERS, INCLUDING PHIL CARDOSO (PICTURED), FOUND RUMEN-PROTECTED LYSINE IMPROVES UTERINE HEALTH IN DAIRY COWS DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

URBANA, Ill. – Lysine is an essential amino acid for dairy cows, helping boost milk production when added to the diet at adequate levels. But could lysine benefit cows in other ways? A new University of Illinois study shows rumen-protected lysine can improve uterine health if fed during the transition period.

“Right after calving, the uterus is undergoing a lot of changes. The cow had 100 pounds of calf, placenta, and fluids in there, but by 30-40 days after calving, the uterus has to shrink back down and get ready for the next pregnancy. There are a lot of cells regenerating, and the cow is potentially vulnerable to infection and inflammation at that time,” says Phil Cardoso, associate professor and faculty Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences at U of I.

Cardoso and his team added a rumen-protected lysine product to total mixed ration (TMR) at 0.54% for 28 days pre-calving. After calving, the lysine was added at 0.4% for an additional 28 days. Cows got the lysine additive before or after calving, or both, with an additional control group consuming no supplemental lysine in either time period.

“We found genes involved with producing inflammatory proteins in the uterus were reduced with rumen-protected lysine, especially in cows that consumed the amino acid before and after calving. And genes involved in keeping the uterus clean were more active. Altogether, our results indicate less inflammation in these cows, meaning they can spend less energy defending against infection,” Cardoso says. “It’s just more efficient.”

Along with characterizing gene expression in the uterus, the team looked for evidence of metritis, a uterine infection affecting 30% of U.S. dairy cows after calving. While the overall inflammation status of the uterus improved with lysine supplementation, the researchers didn’t detect a statistical difference in metritis in cows that consumed lysine and those that didn’t.

“Metritis is the clinical presentation of uterine inflammation. It requires a larger degree of challenge from the environment to show up. Perhaps our farm does not present real stress in that regard. We did find a difference in the sub-clinical form, also called subclinical endometritis. When we counted the number of inflammatory cells (PMN) in the uterus, cows receiving rumen-protected lysine had a lower number of cells, indicating less inflammation,” Cardoso says.

The team also tracked the first postpartum follicular growth cycle in the ovaries. Lysine didn’t affect time to first ovulation – that averaged 18 days in milk for all groups – nor the follicular diameter at ovulation.

Cardoso is neither surprised nor disappointed that lysine didn’t affect ovulation. He says the health of the uterus right after calving is more important than producers think.

“When you ask farmers how they assess reproductive progress and fertility, the answer is always pregnancy. Usually farmers are breeding cows around 60 to 70 days after calving, but if it is unsuccessful, it's often because of events like metritis or subclinical endometritis that happen prior to breeding, earlier in the cycle. This research shows rumen-protected lysine can set your cow up for success right after calving so she can achieve a favorable pregnancy later.”

The effects of lysine line up with Cardoso’s earlier work looking at rumen-protected methionine, another limiting amino acid in dairy cows. He showed methionine affected genes related to inflammation and estrogen production, and increased embryo survival.

“Our recommendation is to use both rumen-protected methionine and lysine,” Cardoso says. “We know both amino acids are limiting in dairy cows, but it’s not clear that standard dietary sources – corn or bloodmeal – make it through the rumen to supply cows with the amount they need.”  

Although rumen-protected lysine and methionine products aren’t widely integrated in commercial feeds, Cardoso says nutritionists are starting to recognize their importance in the industry.

“Nutritionists are the ones that come up with what's needed to get results, and they’re becoming aware of rumen-protected amino acid products. But we want to educate farmers, too, so they’ll be able to start the conversation with nutritionists. Asking, ‘Hey, is this something that could help me?’”

The study, “Effect of feeding rumen-protected lysine through the transition period on postpartum uterine health of dairy cows,” is published in the Journal of Dairy Science [DOI: 10.3168/jds.2022-21934]. Authors include Anne Guadagnin, Laura Fehlberg, Brittney Thomas, Yusuke Sugimoto, Izuru Shinzato, and Phil Cardoso. The project was funded in part by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The Department of Animal Sciences is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Dairy Science

DOI

10.3168/jds.2022-21934 

Genomic analysis reveals true origin of South America’s canids

The continent’s diverse species all evolved rapidly from a single ancestral population, study shows

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

 

IMAGE: THE MANED WOLF, THE TALLEST AND LONGEST-LEGGED CANID IN SOUTH AMERICA, IS MOST CLOSELY RELATED TO THE SHORTEST, THE BUSH DOG, RESEARCHERS FOUND. view more 

CREDIT: ROGÉRIO CUNHA DE PAULA

South America has more canid species than any place on Earth, and a surprising new UCLA-led genomic analysis shows that all these doglike animals evolved from a single species that entered the continent just 3.5 million to 4 million years ago. Scientists had long assumed that these diverse species sprang from multiple ancestors.

Even more surprising? The tallest and shortest species are the most closely related.

Some of the key genetic mutations that led to the rapid emergence of extreme variations in the height, size and diet of South American canids have been introduced artificially through selective breeding over the past few thousand years to produce the staggering diversity seen in a more familiar canid: the domestic dog.

The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows how quickly new carnivore species can evolve and spread in environments lacking competition and offers guidance for the conservation of threatened and endangered South American canids.

Ten species within the dog and wolf family, known as canids, live in South America today. Seven are foxes and three are more unusual: the short-eared dog, bush dog and maned wolf.

For years, scientists had a theory about how South America had become home to so many types of canids. The continent had very few placental mammals, and no ancestral canids, until the volcanic strip of land known as the Isthmus of Panama rose above level sea some 3 million years ago, allowing the free movement of animals between continents. That’s a short window for so many species to evolve from a single ancestor, so scientists assumed that multiple canid species had entered through the isthmus at different times, giving rise to existing and now-extinct species.

To learn how these species were related and how long ago and by what genetic mechanisms they diverged, UCLA doctoral student Daniel Chavez, now a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University, and UCLA evolutionary biology professor Robert Wayne sequenced 31 genomes encompassing all 10 extant South American canid species. They traced the evolutionary relationships between the species by studying the locations, quantity and types of genetic mutations among them.

Surprisingly, the genetic data pointed to a single ancestral canid population that arrived between 3.5 million and 3.9 million years ago — before the isthmus had fully risen — and comprised approximately 11,600 individuals. The researchers said those ancestors must have made their way south through the newly developing Panama corridor, then just a narrow strip of savannah that generally was not navigable by large populations.

“We found that all extant canids came from a single invasion that entered South America east of the Andes,” Chavez said. “By 1 million years ago, there were already a lot of canid species, but they weren’t very genetically distinct because of gene flow, which happens when populations can interbreed easily.”

These species soon spread all over South America, including the thin strip of land west of the Andes, adapting to different environments and becoming more genetically distinct. Today’s 10 species, the researchers found, all emerged between 1 million and 3 million years ago.

They also discovered that the maned wolf, the tallest and most long-legged canid in South America and the only one that eats mostly fruit, and the shortest, the bush dog, which depends even more on meat than wolves and African wild dogs, are the most closely related. Changes in the gene that regulates leg length are responsible for the height difference.

“There were also many other now-extinct species of hypercarnivores related to the bush dog,” Chavez said. “Maybe they were bigger in size, so to compete, the ancestors of the bush dog got smaller while the maned wolf got taller and eventually stopped competing for meat.”

Such rapid and extreme speciation through natural selection resembles the vast differentiation among domestic dogs, which occurred quickly through artificial selection by humans.

“South American canids are the domestic dog of the wild animal kingdom in that they vary hugely in leg length and diet, and these changes happened very fast, on the order of 1 to 2 million years,” Wayne said. “It’s a natural parallel to what we’ve done to dogs. This all happened because South America was empty of this kind of carnivore. There was lots of prey and no large or medium-sized carnivores to compete with. In this empty niche, nature allowed such fast radiation.”

The findings have also illuminated relationships between the species and identified genes that can help efforts to save species threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

“Darwin’s fox, which currently survives only on one island off the coast of Chile and very small regions on the mainland, is a good example of the need for conservation,” Wayne said. “We’ve proved at genome level great differences in variation among species, with the most endangered having very low levels of variation and genes that can be harmful. We can rescue small populations through thoughtful captive breeding programs.”

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Penn State shares $25M DOE grant to study climate change impacts and adaptation

Grant and Award Announcement

PENN STATE

Penn State was named a collaborating institution in a $66 million U.S. Department of Energy Urban Integrated Field (Urban IFL) Program designed to study the impacts of climate change on American cities. The program will study the impacts of climate change in three major U.S. cities — Baltimore, Chicago and Austin — and involves more than 20 institutions nationwide. Penn State, along with eight other organizations, will support the Baltimore project, which is being led by Johns Hopkins University.  

The principal investigator for the Penn State $6.4 million portion of the project is Kenneth Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science. The Penn State team includes 21 faculty members from seven different colleges and 12 different departments. 

“This is the most ambitious and interdisciplinary project I have ever joined,” said Davis. “I feel like my entire career has been preparing me for this project. This goal of this project — making climate science work for cities — is critically important. It will be a tremendous challenge, but it is a challenge that we need to address.”  

As stated in the DOE announcement, the goal of the program is to improve climate change predictions for cities, including working with cities to help them create strategies for adapting to and mitigating these changes. The urban cities involved in the studies include diverse demographic characteristics; a range of climate-induced pressures on people and infrastructures; and varied geographic settings. Understanding how climate change will impact urban systems and infrastructure is key to building resilient cities powered by clean energy, helping achieve President Joe Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.  

Davis said a key area of strength that Penn State brings to the project is measurement and modeling of the urban atmospheric boundary layer — the portion of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface, which is crucial to the climate and air quality experienced on the planet.

“People live in the atmospheric boundary layer," said Davis. "Predicting urban heat waves and air pollution episodes in the city requires that we understand how this lower layer of the atmosphere is modified by the city itself, and how it changes from neighborhood to neighborhood. That level of understanding is beyond the reach of today’s climate models. We aim to put it within the reach.” 

Additionally, Penn State reachers' expertise in the interplay among buildings, climate and human health represents a major contribution to the research effort.  

“Resilient, safe and efficient buildings are key to adapting to the hazards of climate change, and to minimizing our emissions of air pollution and greenhouse gases,” Davis said. 

The Penn State team is composed of faculty from the colleges of Medicine, Arts and Architecture, Earth and Mineral Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, and Engineering; the School of Public Policy; and the School of Science, Engineering, and Technology at Penn State Harrisburg. 

“This award brings significant opportunity for Penn State research to showcase and leverage our strong, disciplinary and interdisciplinary capabilities in engineering, architecture, and the environment, and to contribute our expertise to tackling global challenges,” said Lora Weiss, senior vice president for Research, “bringing us closer to solutions for environmental crises, especially in regions where burdens of air and water pollution create disparities in the quality of living.”  

The DOE project will create Urban Integrated Field Laboratories that will expand the understanding of climate and weather events and their impact on these urban systems that include diverse demographic characteristics; a range of climate-induced pressures on people and infrastructures; and varied geographic settings.  

“Understanding the risks of climate change and extreme weather means understanding the direct and indirect effects on people, their homes, their businesses, and the communities they live in,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “The Urban Integrated Field Labs will strengthen DOE leadership in climate modeling and drive scientific breakthroughs to inform the development of resilience technology that can protect America’s diverse communities.”   

Bruce Logan, director of Penn State’s Institute of Energy & the Environment (IEE), said, “The IFL program will leverage our environmental and engineering strengths and will bring advancements and knowledge regarding the real-time impact of climate change in our communities. Increasing our knowledge of the impact of climate and weather events on urban systems will provide key information about potential solutions and needed resiliency in these areas.” 

According to Benjamin Zaitchik, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, the Baltimore Social Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) is a people-centered, transdisciplinary IFL.  

“The BSEC begins with community priorities of human health and safety, affordable energy, transportation equity and others. It also includes clean waterways, decarbonization and functioning infrastructure,” Zaitchik said. “Our team committed early on to design observation networks and models that will deliver the climate science capable of supporting those priorities. The guiding objective of the BSEC process is to produce the urban climate science needed to inform community-guided ‘potential equitable pathways’ for climate action. In doing so, we address a number of fundamental urban science questions from across natural science and social science disciplines.” 

In addition to Penn State and Johns Hopkins University, the BSEC includes Morgan State University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Virginia, Drexel University, City University of New York, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, National Renewable Energy Lab, and Oak Ridge National Lab.  

India’s troubled history of monsoon droughts of the last millennium revealed by stalagmites and historical documentary sources

Peer-Reviewed Publication

XI'AN JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

Western India was struck by the “Deccan famine” between 1630 and 1632 as crops failed after three consecutive years of Indian monsoon failures. While traveling through the region, Peter Mundy, an English merchant with the East India Company, vividly described the traumatic scenes of starvation, mass mortality, and even cannibalism in his travelog. In fact, such scenes of catastrophic drought-induced famines are widely noted in historical documentary sources suggesting that the Indian subcontinent has frequently experienced multi-year to decade-long severe droughts unlike any observed in the last 150 years when the reliable measurements of monsoon rainfall became available. Nonetheless, the historical accounts are scattered, subjective, and their veracity cannot be always confirmed. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, an international team of researchers has developed a new record of the past Indian monsoon drought history that spans much of the past millennium. “Our monsoon drought history is in striking synchrony with the historical evidence of droughts and provides important climatic context against which the key geopolitical and societal changes can now be assessed” noted Dr. Gayatri Kathayat, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at the Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) in China.

The team built their monsoon record by analyzing the oxygen isotopes in stalagmites from a remote cave in northeast India. All the analyses were conducted in the Institute of Global Climate Change at XJTU led by Professor Hai Cheng, a leading expert in the radiometric dating of cave formations and a senior author of this study. Hai Cheng noted that “this is the first ultra-high-resolution record of its kind from India that allows a direct comparison with the available historical documentary sources of droughts due to its unprecedented dating accuracy”. The new study suggests plausible links between the multi-year droughts and significant societal and geopolitical changes in India during the past millennium. The paleoclimate data reveal that the most severe weakening of the Indian monsoon during the past millennium occurred between the 1780s and 1810s, which is strongly corroborated by the available historical accounts from this period that describe at least 11 famines, six of which, including the dreaded Chalisa and Doji Bara or Skull Famines, occurred between ~1782 and 1792 CE with a combined estimated death toll in the excess of 11 million. Another multi-decadal period of frequent droughts from the 1590s to 1630s detected from the stalagmite record coincided with the collapse of the Guge kingdom in western Tibet and the abandonment of Fatehpur Sikri in north India—one of the largest cities of its time that briefly served as the capital of the Mughal Empire (c. 1571 to 1585 CE) before it was completely abandoned by 1610 possibly in response to crippling droughts that affected the city's water supply infrastructure

“Our study shows that protracted droughts, that is those lasting at least 3 years or longer, tend to occur in clusters within decades-long intervals of weaker monsoon rainfall that are separated by centuries-long periods of relatively stable climatic conditions—much like the conditions during the last 150 years where such protracted droughts are essentially absent” noted Professor Ashish Sinha of California State University Dominguez Hills. The research team cautioned that “the lack of multi-year consecutive monsoon failures during the instrumental era may provide a false sense of comfort that protracted droughts are not intrinsic aspects of Indian monsoon variability. “Unfortunately, this seemingly reassuring, but myopic view currently informs the region’s water resource infrastructure policies. If such protracted droughts were to reoccur in the future, they can easily overwhelm the adaptive capabilities of modern societies unless a longer-term and holistic understanding of monsoon variability is incorporated into the region’s drought management and mitigation planning” noted Dr. Kathayat.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

ARTICLE TITLE

Protracted Indian monsoon droughts of the past millennium and their societal impacts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2022

Heated plot experiments reveal link between warmer early winters and lower crop yields

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHN INNES CENTRE

 

IMAGE: INNOVATIVE EXPERIMENTS USING TEMPERATURE-CONTROLLED FIELD PLOTS HAVE HELPED TO EXPLAIN THE LINK BETWEEN EARLY WINTER TEMPERATURES AND YIELD IN SOME OF OUR MOST MARKETABLE ARABLE CROPS. view more 

CREDIT: PHIL ROBINSON - JOHN INNES CENTRE

Innovative experiments using temperature-controlled field plots have helped to explain the link between early winter temperatures and yield in some of our most marketable arable crops. 

Laboratory and in-field technology enabled the team of researchers from the John Innes Centre to simulate full growing seasons and establish that chilling is important in late November/early December because it promotes growth during early floral development of the crop. 

They showed that oilseed rape plants can undergo a developmental phase known as flower bud dormancy if the winter temperature is too warm. This physiological process occurs as the microscopic, newly formed buds lie inactive waiting for low temperatures to signal growth and is well understood in perennial plants which grow year after year. 

This development stage was not known to exist in annual crops; those that complete their life cycle in one growing season.  

Oilseed rape plants that were chilled at this key developmental stage developed faster and were higher yielding, producing more seeds per pod. Conversely plants grown in warmer conditions grew slowly and were lower yielding. 

Professor Steve Penfield, a group leader at the John Innes Centre said: “It was surprising to find that winter annuals have this flower bud dormancy - no one has ever suggested that this mechanism is important to flowering time control in annual plants. Our experiments further show that if flower buds experience warmer than average temperatures then growth slows down and plants produce aberrant flowers and low yield. Conversely, we know that if plants get chilled at this stage this promotes faster growth and higher yield.” 

Previous studies have shown a strong correlation between late November-early December temperatures and yield in crops such as oilseed rape, which are winter annuals, planted in the autumn and harvested the following summer.  

Colder temperatures during this weather window are linked to higher yields, while warmer temperatures result in lower yields. The differences in conditions during this important weather window account for a variation of up to 25% of total yield. 

Understanding the reasons behind the statistical correlations between climate and yield is important for predicting the impact of climate change on crop production and could be used to develop strategies to adapt the crop to produce higher yields with warmer winters. 

First author of the paper Dr Carmel O’Neil said: “We want to understand the effect of climate change on the UK crop yields. To predict these effects and respond to them we must understand all the processes by which varying weather affects yield. And that is what we have done here in this study – proving experimentally what we have seen previously in correlated studies.” 

In what is believed to be a unique set of experiments, the researchers used indoor Controlled Environment Rooms programmed to simulate a winter annual growing season based on weather data collected from a farm.  

Following the indoor, laboratory-controlled trial the team moved the experiment to a field trial, using a heated field plot system outdoors at the John Innes Centre’s field trials and experimentation site, Church Farm. 

The results from both the laboratory and the field trials were the same, warmer conditions led to slower growth and reduced yield. 

Using molecular techniques, the team analysed the genes expressed in the bud tissues of the oilseed rape plants which were affected by temperature changes. This showed that a previously well-known chilling response gene called FLC was mediating plants’ bud dormancy response to winter temperatures. 

Professor Penfield added: “We had seen this correlation between chilling and yield in the data, but until now we could not say that chilling was linked to the physiology of the crop - it is not for example that chilling just kills some disease or pest - although it might do that as well. But we now know why chilling influences yields and it is down to physical effect on the growth rate of the plants.” 

Previous research has identified the importance of temperature on a plant biological developmental process called vernalisation which in oilseed rape occurs in October.  

By identifying that there is a second temperature sensitive process, bud dormancy, that occurs later in the growing season researchers and breeders can help us better respond to the challenge of climate change. One strategy under consideration is to identify varieties which are less temperature sensitive. 

Winter warming controls flowering time via bud dormancy activation and affects yield in a winter annual crop appears in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). 

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2204355119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Winter warming controls flowering time via bud dormancy activation and affects yield in a winter annual crop

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2022

A better understanding of crop yields under climate change

Research solves long-standing mystery of how water impacts agricultural production

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HARVARD JOHN A. PAULSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES

You don’t need a PhD in agriculture to know that water is critical to crop production. But for years, people like Jonathan Proctor, who has a PhD in Agriculture and Resource Economics from the University of California Berkeley, have been trying to explain why the importance of water isn’t showing up in statistical models of crop yield. 

“Studies analyzing how crop yields respond to temperature and rainfall tend to find that temperature matters much more than water, even though we understand from plant physiology that temperature and water supply are both really important for crops,” said Proctor, a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Peter Huybers’ group at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “Solving this puzzle is critical for quantifying how climate change will affect global crop yields.”

The research team had a hypothesis: What if the models were measuring the wrong type of water? Rather than measuring precipitation, as previous studies had done, the Harvard team used satellites to measure soil moisture around the root zone for maize, soybeans, millet, and sorghum growing around the world. 

The team found that models using soil moisture explain 30% to 120% more of the year-to-year variation in yield across crops than models that rely on rainfall. 

“Rainfall and soil moisture can differ pretty dramatically due to evaporation, infiltration and runoff,” said Proctor. “What falls from the sky is not necessarily what’s in the soil for the crops to drink — and we find that what’s in the soil for the crops to drink is what actually matters for their yield.” 

Using satellite-derived observations of soil moisture together with a statistical approach, the team was able to better separate and understand the individual influences of temperature and water supply on yield, which are often confused because heat and dryness are strongly correlated. 

Specifically, the team found extreme heat to be less damaging to crop yields than previous models estimated, which lowered projected damages from warming. But the team also found heightened sensitivity to drought and flooding.  

“When it comes to predicting agricultural productivity in a changing climate, we need to consider how temperature and water availability will evolve together,” said Huybers, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at SEAS and Earth and Planetary Sciences.  

“In comparison to temperature, changes in water availability will be more regional and seasonal, such that regional planning and management strategies come more to the fore in coping with climate change.”  

The team plans to use this improved understanding of how soil moisture and temperature influence global agricultural productivity to explore how climate change may affect other aspects of human wellbeing, such as migration decisions or the stability of food supplies.

The paper was published in Nature Food. 

The research was co-authored by Angela Rigden and Duo Chan.

It was supported by the Harvard Google Data+Climate Project.

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JOURNAL

Nature Food

ETHIOPIAN WAR OF AGGRESSION

Eritrea mobilizes its soldiers, raising Tigray fears

Associated Press
Sun, September 18, 2022 

Eritrea, which backed Ethiopia in the conflict in Tigray, makes moves after fighting reignited in the region

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Eritrea is mobilizing its armed forces and appears to be sending them to Ethiopia to aid its neighbor’s war in the Tigray region, according to activists and international authorities.

Britain and Canada issued travel advisories asking their citizens in Eritrea to be vigilant.

Eritrean rights activist Meron Estefanos told The Associated Press that her cousin was called up “and is somewhere in Ethiopia fighting and we don’t know if he is alive or not.”

People shop at Sholla Market, the day before the Ethiopian New Year,

 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. (AP Photo)

“It’s just a sad war, like our region has not seen enough blood for generations,” said Meron, director of the Eritrean Initiative on Refugee Rights.

Eyewitnesses in Eritrea said that people including students and public servants are being rounded up across the nation.

Eritrea, one of the most isolated countries in the world, mandates military service for all its citizens between the ages of 18 and 40. Rights groups say the practice, which lasts indefinitely in most cases, is driving thousands of Eritrean youths into exile. Eritreans make up a large number of the migrants attempting to cross to Europe, often dangerously by sea.

It was not possible to get comment from Eritrean authorities.

Eritrean forces fought on the side of Ethiopian federal troops in the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which shares a border with Eritrea, when that conflict broke out in November 2020. Eritrean forces were implicated in some of the worst atrocities committed in the war — charges they deny.

Tigray authorities now assert that Eritreans are again entering the war that reignited in August after a lull in fighting earlier this year.

The conflict is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people and left millions without basic services for well over a year.

Inside Tigray, millions of residents are still largely cut off from the world. Communications and banking services are severed, and their restoration has been a key demand in mediation efforts.

Eritrea's mass mobilisation amid Ethiopia civil war

BBC News Tigrinya - .
Mon, September 19, 2022 

Eritrea has been criticised for its compulsory and decades-long military service

 (file photo)

Eritrea is mobilising military reservists to bolster the army, which has been aiding neighbouring Ethiopia in its fight against rebel forces.

Security forces in many areas have been stopping people to check if they are exempt from military conscription.

Groups of men were crying as they bid farewell to relatives, witnesses say.

Many in the capital, Asmara, were given notice on Thursday and moved to the border with Ethiopia's Tigray region, within hours, sources told the BBC.

Reservists up to the age of 55 have been called up, they said.

Eritrea has compulsory, decades-long military service, which has been widely criticised by human-rights groups, but analysts say the latest mobilisation efforts are linked to the civil war in northern Ethiopia - a conflict that recently flared up again after five months of relative peace.

Eritrea: 'We won independence but still await freedom'

Witnesses told BBC News Tigrinya that mobilisation notices were distributed on Thursday in the capital, the second-largest city, Keren, the western town of Tessenai and other areas.

They called on reservists to report to their respective head offices, while also advising that they should carry their own supplies, including blankets and water containers.

Mothers, children and wives were crying as they bid farewell to their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands, sources told the BBC.

Those who do not heed the call-up have been warned of severe consequences, but some are reportedly ignoring it.

Eritrea has been fighting alongside Ethiopia's central government troops since the civil war broke out in Tigray in late 2020.

Hundreds of thousands have been killed and million displaced by the war and many more remain desperate for food, according to aid organisations.

Several human rights organisations have accused Eritrean soldiers of committing atrocities in Ethiopia, but these claims have been denied by Eritrean officials.

The US has imposed sanctions on the Eritrean Defence Forces and the ruling PFDJ party in response to their involvement in the conflict.

President Isaias Afwerki has ruled Eritrea since the country broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, but between 1998-2000 the two nations fought a brutal and costly war over a contested border area.

A 20-year military stalemate ensued until Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia's prime minister in 2018. The peace deal won Mr Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize a year later.

President Isaias Afwerki (left) welcomed Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to Asmara in 2018

The two leaders later united against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a common foe, whose elites dominated Ethiopia for three decades before Mr Abiy came to power.

The Ethiopian government accuses TPLF leaders, who control the northern Tigray region, of plotting to destabilise the country, while Mr Isaias sees them as a sworn enemy.

Eritrea is isolated diplomatically and is a highly militarised state which controls almost all aspects of people's lives.

The repression has led to many young people fleeing the country.

During Mr Isaias' rule, apart from fighting Ethiopia, Eritrea has found itself at war with all its neighbours at some point - Yemen in 1995, Sudan in 1996 and Djibouti in 2008.

Update 19 September 2022: Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel has since said that a "tiny number" of reservists had been called up, denying that the entire population had been mobilised.

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