Thursday, February 06, 2025

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Announcing the winners of the 5th annual Rising Black Scientists Awards

Cell Press

5th Annual Rising Black Scientist Award Winners — image:
Headshots of the winners of the 5th Annual Rising Black Scientists Awards Jheannelle Johnson, Victor Ekuta, MD, Kenna Gloria Agbugba, & Nyasha Milanzi
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Credit: Cell Press

Four early-career scientists share how they’ve harnessed features of their lives—from music to AI technology—to inspire their career and uplift communities. Each winner receives $10,000 for their science with essays published in the journal Cell

Cell Press, Cell Signaling Technology (CST), and the Elsevier Foundation are proud to announce the winners of the 5th annual Rising Black Scientists Awards: Jheannelle Johnson of Stanford University; Victor Ekuta, MD, of the Morehouse School of Medicine; Kenna Gloria Agbugba of Philander Smith University; and Nyasha Milanzi of Michigan Technological University.

This year saw hundreds of applicants from across the life, health, physical, earth, environmental, and data sciences. Essays from the winners and honorees appear in the journals Cell and iScience on February 06, 2025. The winning essays are:

The awards were originated in 2020 to break down barriers and create opportunities by providing visibility and funds to support talented Black scientists at the undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral levels in the life or medical sciences on their career journey. Now, at the 5th anniversary of the initiative, there have been over 25 scientists recognized, including honorable mentions, across the spectrum of science. Four winners are selected, two in the category of life and health sciences and two in the category of physical, earth and environmental, or data sciences. This year’s winners span the fields of medicine, engineering, and computer science.

“I’m thoroughly impressed by the advocacy and excellence of the winners of this year’s Rising Black Scientists Awards,” says John Pham, editor-in-chief of Cell. “From reading their stories, I’m confident that they will all make important scientific contributions and that they will be agents of positive change. I hope that winning the award will be helpful to them on their journeys, and that their stories will inspire others.”

The awards are conducted in partnership with the Elsevier Foundation and Cell Signaling Technology, whose contributions provide support and funding for the award package. The winning essays are published in the journal Cell, and the winners receive $10,000 to support their science and a $500 travel grant. Because of the volume of outstanding submissions, we also recognize four honorable mentions who receive $500 each. Their essays are published in the interdisciplinary open access journal iScience.

“I’m so inspired by the depth and breadth of topics these essays cover and the personal stories behind them,” says Ylann Schemm, Executive Director, the Elsevier Foundation. “Giving much needed recognition to Black scientists is an integral part of the Elsevier Foundation’s mission to encourage a more inclusive research ecosystem. We consider it essential to celebrate excellence and ambition during these critical early phases of their journeys as scientists.”

“At CST, we believe that actions speak louder than words,” says Margaret Murray, VP of Global Human Resources at CST. “Our support for the Rising Black Scientists Awards demonstrates our dedication to creating meaningful change and building a more inclusive scientific community. We are excited to witness the groundbreaking contributions these young scientists will make.”

Discovering the notes of Alzheimer’s disease

Jheannelle Johnson (@JheannelleJ) is one of the Rising Black Scientists Awards’ winners in the category of life and health sciences. After receiving her bachelor’s at Howard University, she’s now completing a Neurodegeneration Computational Fellowship at Stanford University, where her work centers on understanding cell vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease. She also serves as the development director for the non-profit organization Black in Neuro, whose aim is to empower Black scholars and professionals in neuroscience. In her essay “The sounds of music: Tracing memories and pathways through research and resistance,” she shares how music offered her a window to connect with her grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and this musical connection sparked her journey into studying both the molecular and societal underpinnings of the disease.

“Winning the Rising Black Scientists Award is an incredible honor that I want to share with my community, whose wisdom, guidance, and passion have shaped my journey,” says Johnson. “I am highly grateful to Cell, the Academic Advisory Board, the Cell Press editorial team, and Cell Signaling Technology for allowing me to highlight my work and my mission that drives me daily. It reaffirms my belief in the power of investing in underrepresented communities in science. For me, this award encourages me to continue the mission because not only do our voices matter, but they are essential to shaping the field forward.”

Science as a tool for change

The other award recipient in the category of life and health sciences is neurology resident physician Victor Ekuta (@victorekuta) for his essay “Retooling science: Transforming tools into instruments of equity as a Black physician-scientist.” In it, he describes how science and identity can both be used to heal or harm and how he used these “tools” to serve his community for the better. He is currently a neurology resident at the Morehouse School of Medicine and holds several scholarly appointments, including as a postdoctoral research fellow and Clark Scholar at Penn Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and as Health Equity Scholar with the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). His aim is to specialize in academic neurology as a physician-scientist-advocate.

“Winning this award is not just a personal achievement—it’s a testament to the power of resilience, representation, and the pursuit of equity in science and medicine,” says Ekuta. “It reaffirms that our stories, our voices, and our work as Black scientists matter and have the power to transform tools into instruments of justice. I carry this honor forward with a renewed commitment to advancing brain health equity and uplifting those who come after me.”

Developing AI to help educate

Kenna Gloria Agbugba receives the award in the physical, earth and environmental, or data sciences category. In her essay, “Bridging worlds: A STEM journey from Nigeria to the U.S. and back,” Agbugba shares how she wants to take the skills learned from her research in AI technology to build tools for supporting the advancement of students in her homeland. As a computer science undergraduate at Philander Smith University, she has co-led a team to design an award-winning AI-driven literacy-support prototype to assist students in Detroit and has worked on a National Science Foundation project to develop an intelligent learning support AI-powered iOS app.

“Firstly, I want to thank the God who sees me (El-Roi), my family, and my friends for their unending support, as well as Cell Press for this incredible honor and for celebrating diversity in such a meaningful way,” says Agbugba. “Winning the RBSA is a moment of triumph that validates the resilience and effort I’ve put into my journey in STEM so far, especially during moments of self-doubt—even when applying for this award. I’m so glad I pushed through and applied because this award is more than just a personal milestone; it’s a push forward and an opportunity to inspire others like me to overcome self-doubt, believe in their work, and keep moving forward with resilience.”

Engineering for equitable solutions

Our other recipient in the physical, earth and environmental, or data sciences category is Nyasha Milanzi (@n_milanzi). Trained as an electrical engineer at Ashesi University in Ghana, she has developed affordable, sustainable devices such as an air pollution detectors and solar cookers. She recently defended her master’s thesis at Michigan Technological University, where her research centered on building just energy transitions in underserved communities. In her essay, “Inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists to be champions of equitable change,” she relays her mission of climate action by building cross-disciplinary approaches to address the public health needs of our most vulnerable communities.

“It feels incredible that my essay highlights the equity work my parents championed in making education accessible to young people from marginalized backgrounds—a mission that directly connects to my journey in environmental justice,” says Milzani. “Receiving this award not only recognizes my efforts in the environmental field but also serves as a testament to the invaluable contributions of Black international students to science and engineering. I hope it inspires others to confidently pursue unconventional careers that uplift frontline communities and drive meaningful change.”

Honorable mentions recognized with publication in iScience

In recognition that the remarkable talent of the award applicants is not limited to four winners, an additional four honorable mentions were also selected this year, whose essays appear in iScience. The selected honorees for the life or health sciences category are post-baccalaureate Daphna Fertil of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for her essay “Healing through innovation: Advancing health equity from lab to community” and MD PhD student Darnell K. Adrian Williams Jr. of Albert Einstein College of Medicine for his essay “The Sprained Mind.” The selected honorees for the physical, data, or earth and environmental sciences are PhD student Arona Bender of Duke University for her essay “Beneath the surface: A journey through hidden waters” and undergraduate Efemena Johnson of George Mason University for her essay “From Nigeria to innovation: A vision for inclusive science.”

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Cell Press (@CellPressNews), an imprint of Elsevier, is a leading publisher of scientific research and reviews, with over 50 scientific journals across the life, physical, earth, and health sciences. We seek to support the scientific community and inspire future directions in research with our editorial excellence, commitment to innovation, unparalleled reach and visibility, and passion for advocacy. Visit http://www.cell.com/.

Cell Signaling Technology (CST) is a different kind of life sciences company—one founded, owned, and run by active research scientists, with the highest standards of product and service quality, technological innovation, and scientific rigor. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Danvers, Massachusetts, USA, CST employs over 600 people worldwide. We consistently provide fellow scientists around the globe with best-in-class products and services to fuel their quests for discovery. CST is a company of caring people driven by a devotion to facilitating good science—a company committed to doing the right thing for our customers, our communities, and our planet. cellsignal.com

The Elsevier Foundation contributes over $1.5 million a year to non-profit organizations through partnerships which incubate new approaches, highlight inequities, and catalyze change toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Funded by Elsevier, a global information analytics company specializing in science and health, the Elsevier Foundation is part of Elsevier’s wider corporate responsibility program. By leveraging Elsevier’s networks and unique insights in content, data, and analytics, the Elsevier Foundation is able to expand its impact in gender, health, climate action, and reduced inequalities. Since 2005, the Elsevier Foundation has contributed over $16 million in grants to over 100 partners in 70 countries around the world. In addition, the Elsevier Foundation offers a special fund to support disaster relief, matching employees’ donations and volunteering to enable employees to work closely with Foundation partners and support their communities.

Your voice matters: AMI teams up with the Minoritized Life Scientists Future Forum this March

Applied Microbiology International

Applied Microbiology International has announced that it is partnering with the Minoritised Life Scientists Future Forum (MLSFF) conference, which takes place at the end of March.

Life scientists across the UK are invited to MLSFF, taking place from 31st March to 2nd April 2025 at the ICC Birmingham. This groundbreaking event is the first of its kind in Europe, and is designed to foster an inclusive and collaborative space for scientists from minoritised and underrepresented backgrounds.

The MLSFF conference is dedicated to amplifying voices across all STEM disciplines. It is a space that celebrates diversity and intersectionality, welcoming individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, including but not limited to ethnic minorities, disabilities, neurodiversity, low-income or widening participation backgrounds, mature students, LGBTQ+, and anyone who feels they can contribute to or benefit from this space.

MLSFF has announced that one of its keynote speakers will be AMI Trustee, Professor Emmanuel Adukwu, who is Deputy Head of the School of Applied Sciences at UWE Bristol. He is a key member of the ‘Black in Biomedical Research’ Advisory Group (BBRAG), which was established to address the underrepresentation of Black heritage researchers in the UK biomedical sector, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council (MRC).

MLSFF offers a mentorship scheme, volunteering opportunities, workshops and networking, as well as inspiring speakers and the chance to meet industry professionals and university representatives offering career advice, mentorship, and recruitment.

This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with students, early-career professionals, industry, and academics from diverse backgrounds, joining a vibrant community of collaboration, empowerment, and innovation.

Contributions are welcome from all life science fields, including engineering and data science. If your discipline is not listed on the website, you can specify yours. Abstract submissions are open to all students (from college, undergraduate to postgraduate) and staff members.

There are numerous routes to free attendance through the MLSFF registration grant and the MLSFF travel grant. Financial support is offered for those who need it to attend the conference.

For more details and to sign up, visit the conference website.

About Applied Microbiology International

Applied Microbiology International (AMI) is the oldest microbiology society in the UK and with more than half of its membership outside the UK, is truly global, serving microbiologists based in universities, private industry and research institutes around the world.
AMI provides funding to encourage research and broad participation at its events and to ensure diverse voices are around the table working together to solve the sustainability development goals it has chosen to support.
AMI publishes leading industry magazine, The Microbiologist, and in partnership with Oxford University Press, publishes three internationally acclaimed journals. It gives a voice to applied microbiologists around the world, amplifying their collective influence and informing international, evidence-based, decision making.

Decades-long study shows that this endangered Florida butterfly benefits from hurricanes

Florida Museum of Natural History

image:
Scientists recently found that the endangered Schaus' swallowtail butterfly is positively influenced by something unexpected — hurricanes.
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Credit: Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

Sometimes, nature’s surprises come with wings. In a new study, scientists pulled from a 35-year dataset to examine long-term population trends of the federally endangered Schaus’ swallowtail butterfly (Heraclides ponceana). They found that the swallowtail’s population size was positively influenced by something unexpected — hurricanes.

“This study is among the longest-running for a tropical butterfly, and it has been a privilege to get to work with such an amazing dataset,” said Sarah Steele Cabrera, a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida and lead author of the study.

Schaus’ swallowtail is endemic to south Florida and one of the rarest butterflies in the United States. It was among the first insects placed on the U.S. endangered species list, and since the 1980s, researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History have been keeping tabs on those living in the Florida Keys.

In 1985, Thomas Emmel, founding director of the McGuire Center, former curator and posthumous co-author of the study, established a Schaus’ swallowtail monitoring program on Elliott Key, a remote 7.5-mile-long island within Biscayne National Park. Using a strip of land originally cleared for highway construction that spans the length of the island, field scientists surveyed butterfly populations every spring, bearing the relentless heat, humidity and mosquitoes. Their dedication yielded worthwhile results.

Long-term data is necessary to fully understand the lives of insects

The ebb and flow of population trends are nearly impossible to capture in a snapshot, which is why short-term studies don’t always tell a complete story. Long-term data is important to help determine the best actions needed to conserve a species.

Many invertebrates are understudied and lack long-term datasets, making it difficult to understand population trends and conservation needs. Tropical butterflies, in particular, remain poorly understood.

“You might have a drought in one year and abundant rain in the other year, and that can cause dramatic shifts in both occupancy and abundance, especially in insects, which produce a lot of offspring and respond relatively quickly. So, the benefit of having a long-term study is you can help minimize that noise in the system,” said Jaret Daniels, senior author of the study and curator at the museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity.

Insects have relatively complex life histories, further complicating the situation. Each stage of an insect’s life can fulfill a different ecological role. They live in different places, eat different things and are eaten by different things. What benefits the insect in its larval stage may be harmful as an adult. With such complex needs, making conservation decisions can be difficult if you don’t have all the information you need. That is why databases like iDigBio and GBIF, which provide access to historical data, are so important.

These butterflies haven’t just adapted to hurricanes, they also benefit from them

Steele Cabrera was looking over the Schaus’ swallowtail dataset to see how the population had fared over the last few decades. Upon first inspection, there wasn’t any noticeable trend she could pick out. The number of Schaus’ swallowtails on Elliott Key appeared sporadic, jumping up and down with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Alongside co-lead author Michael Belitz, she began looking at weather variables to see if anything might line up. After looking at maximum wind speeds, the pattern finally become clear. “The trend of increased Schaus’ swallowtail populations after strong hurricanes was immediately apparent. We were really excited since the data backed up what we had seen in the field,” Steele Cabrera said.

When a hurricane blows through the Florida Keys, strong winds strip trees of their leaves, and storm surge floods the land with seawater. “The immediate impacts are detrimental for the butterfly,” said Steele Cabrera. Like clockwork, however, Schaus’ swallowtails seem to bounce back better than before in the following years.

Akin to many other insects, Schaus’ swallowtails are specialists, meaning they require specific plant species on which to lay their eggs and feed. Their survival relies on two known larval host plants: torchwood and wild lime (Amyris elemifera and Zanthoxylum fagara).

Both are fragrant and belong to the citrus family, ranging from large shrubs to small trees. They occupy the forest’s understory, and after a hurricane, they explode with fresh leaf shoots, which are the preferred food of Schaus’ swallowtail caterpillars. The caterpillars can technically feed on older leaves too, but fresh foliage is much more tender and easier to digest. Mature leaves can be tough and even inedible for smaller caterpillars.

“Schaus’ swallowtail and its host plants live in dense forests where not a lot of light reaches the ground,” said Steele Cabrera. After the hurricanes temporarily knock out their bigger, taller competitors, the host plants flourish. Large trees are toppled or stripped of their leaves and shorn of branches. When additional sunlight hits the forest floor, it triggers the rapid growth of new leaves, replacing foliage lost in the storm. All that new growth, in turn, means more butterflies.

Habitat loss, climate change and sea level rise threaten endemic species

Historically, Schaus’ swallowtails were much more abundant and were distributed throughout the Keys and parts of the Florida mainland. But habitat loss and urban development have severely impacted the butterflies, forcing them out to small areas of protected land and causing their populations to dwindle.

“The development of greater Miami and Homestead took out potentially viable tropical hardwood hammock habitat. There are some small pockets of it left, but nothing contiguous enough to withstand or support a population of this butterfly,” Daniels said. Had it not been acquired by the National Park Service, Elliott Key would have likely seen the same fate.

The butterflies are now thriving on protected land, but a new, far more daunting challenge lies ahead—one that threatens both humans and butterflies. While they benefit from some periodic disturbance, larger storms might be too much of a good thing.

“This is a challenging organism when it comes to climate change,” Daniels said. “With storm intensity potentially increasing, it's very worrisome that one major storm, another Hurricane Andrew, could really devastate this butterfly.”

Other species in the Keys have already succumbed to increasingly powerful storms and encroaching seas. The Key Largo tree cactus recently claimed the grim title of the first species in the United States to become locally extinct due to sea level rise.

As a precautionary measure, researchers have begun reintroducing Schaus’ swallowtail to unoccupied conservation lands, with the aim of establishing self-sustaining populations as part of a five-year draft recovery plan. The more spread out the population is, the less likely it is for the species to be wiped out by a single storm.

The study was published in the journal Biological Conservation.

Journal

Biological Conservation

Article Title

Long-term population dynamics of an endangered butterfly are influenced by hurricane-mediated disturbance

POSTMODERN DRUIDISM

New agroforestry maps plot environmental, social, and economic benefits of trees

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

Environmental, social, and economic benefits of agroforestry — image:
A new University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study integrates social, economic, and environmental factors in a new mapping tool that plots suitability for agroforestry practices, like the alley cropping system shown here, across the landscape. The researchers have made the decision support tool available for policymakers and land managers.
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Credit: Sarah Castle, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

URBANA, Ill. --- There’s a longstanding attitude in many farming communities that trees and agriculture don’t mix. But agroforestry — the intentional integration of trees and shrubs in agricultural systems, such as planting trees as windbreaks, integrating trees on pastures, or growing tree crops intercropped with annual crops — can provide a multitude of benefits to both farmers and landscapes. So far, in the U.S. Midwest, these benefits have gone unrealized, with vanishingly small adoption rates.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers say strategic plans that integrate environmental, social, and economic considerations are needed to expand agroforestry throughout the Midwest. Their new study in Environmental Research Letters provides a foundation.

“There has been a lot of research on the agronomy and ecology side of agroforestry, including the environmental benefits these practices can offer. But we don't know a lot about the social and economic impacts. It turns out those factors dramatically shift our priorities for targeting agroforestry in certain areas,” said lead study author Sarah Castle, who completed the analysis during her doctoral studies in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois. Castle is now a postdoc at Yale School of the Environment and a visiting scholar at Illinois.

Castle’s goal, along with co-authors Chloe Wardropper, assistant professor in NRES, and Daniel Miller, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, was to create a tool to target agroforestry where it would provide the greatest environmental benefits while also being economically viable, socially acceptable, and suited to areas where agroforestry-relevant trees are most likely to thrive.

Mapping social attitudes and economic feasibility together with environmental data is no easy task, but the researchers did just that.

“We took all of these different data layers, normalized them so they were comparable, and combined them very intentionally to conduct a holistic assessment. One of the most helpful parts of that process was conducting key informant interviews,” Castle said. “We talked to people at Illinois Extension, USDA’s National Agroforestry Center, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Savanna Institute, which is a major player in Midwest agroforestry, to get their feedback on our approach.”

Ultimately, Wardropper says the team developed a map identifying areas where agroforestry could deliver the biggest impacts in terms of soil erosion, water quality, climate, and profitability for lands that are not viable for other crops. They also arrived at a high-level estimate of potential carbon sequestration if agroforestry was adopted on the most suitable land in the Midwest.

“Expanding these practices across just 5% of suitable Midwestern agricultural land could store 43 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year,” Wardropper said. “That’s a major advantage over cover crops, which are estimated to store about 8.4 million tons of CO2e per year on the same lands.”

Crucially, the researchers are making their mapping tool freely available for landowners, conservation scientists, and policymakers.

“The decision support tool we’re releasing allows users to tweak all the parameters for their suitability analysis,” Castle said. “Say you want to run an assessment only on one tree species, or only considering economics, or setting economics as five times more important than environmental factors. Users of the decision support tool can set their parameters based on their specific agroforestry goals and rerun the analysis to create their own maps for Midwest states, counties, and watersheds.”

Wardropper notes that each agroforestry practice has its own set of spatial opportunities, and there may be an appropriate practice for nearly every region.

“There's a divide between the edge-of-field practices like windbreaks and riparian buffers and the whole- or partial-property practices like alley cropping and silvopasture,” she said. “I think it's helpful to remember that adopting agroforestry does not have to be a whole farm transformation.

“There are a lot of ways a landowner/operator can really tailor agroforestry to the types of benefits that they're looking for. For example, establishing a windbreak in a really windy Plains state can be useful and potentially a lower investment and lower cost, as far as learning new practices, than transitioning to something like alley cropping.”

The study, “Mapping the social-ecological suitability of agroforestry in the US Midwest,” is published in Environmental Research Letters [DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adab09]. The research was supported by a USDA Hatch Award (award number 7003617), a USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Graduate Student Grant (award number GNC22-344), and a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

Journal

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/adab09

Vanilla farmers search for a crop and conservation sweet spot

Game helps vanilla farmers in Madagascar explore the tradeoffs of livelihood, food security and biodiversity

University of California - Davis

Vanilla farmers pilot game — image:
Vanilla farmers in Madagascar pilot the experimental game FallowMe, designed to simulate real-world dilemmas related to vanilla farming and forest conservation.
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Credit: James Herrera, Duke University

Vanilla is vital to the livelihoods of farmers in Madagascar, where the globally popular dessert ingredient is the country’s No. 1 export. A fun, thought-provoking game designed by a team of scientists and played by Malagasy vanilla farmers reveals the challenges of payment programs that incentivize forest conservation in the region, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis.

The study, published in the February issue of the journal Biological Conservation, found that even amid volatile markets and climate uncertainties, farmers highly value their vanilla crops, which are tied not only to their livelihoods but also their cultural identity. Yet they also recognize the importance of a balanced land-use approach.

“Vanilla farmers often cultivate far more than just vanilla,” said lead author Marie Fleming, a Ph.D. student in Ecology in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “They grow within rainfed agroecosystems and deeply understand the value of maintaining a healthy mosaic landscape—one that balances food crops, cash crops, and forests. However, achieving this balance while meeting conservation goals can be challenging as farmers face the pressure to expand croplands.”

FallowMe game

The authors worked with 204 farmers in Madagascar using an experimental tablet-based game called FallowMe. The game, developed by experts at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar; Cornell University; and UC Davis, helped farmers simulate and explore their real-world dilemma: Stick with vanilla, diversify crops, conserve forest, or expand farmland to offset price drops amid a volatile vanilla market.

Such choices are crucial, as 70% of Malagasy farmers face food insecurity. Integrating fruit trees, food crops, and other cash crops within vanilla systems, presents a potential solution for farmers to enhance resilience, yet viable markets to support diverse and seasonal crops are not well established.

The study’s results showed that while farmers highly valued vanilla monocrops, they were indifferent to diversifying the crop. In the game, a drop in the price of vanilla led farmers to diversify their crops and land uses. Paying farmers to conserve also increased forest vegetation, but it decreased crop diversity on the farm.

Payments also had unintended consequences. In the game, some young farmers expanded farmland onto public lands while benefiting from payments on their own plots. Payments also promoted less diverse landscapes composed primarily of vanilla crops and forests rather than integrating other crops that could promote food security.

Beyond payment programs

"While payment schemes can work, they alone cannot address the root causes that threaten both farmer livelihoods and the forests on which they depend,” Fleming said. “We must consider farmers' visions for a balanced landscape and support the most vulnerable populations, such as youth and women, who are most reactive to shocks.”

Felming said she hopes the work provides insights into how these factors can inform policy and the design of pro-conservation payment schemes.

“Addressing these challenges may need to involve enhancing the sustainability of each element of the existing mosaic system simultaneously," she said.

The study sheds light on the importance of market dynamics and the role of payment schemes to help encourage forest conservation among farmers that rely on cash crops like vanilla. It also shows how games can be a low-risk, low-cost tool to better predict and understand various policy interventions.

The research was funded by USAID’s Partnership for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER).

Additional co-authors include Andrew Bell of Cornell University, Henintsoa Rakoto Harison and O. Sarobidy Rakotonarivo of University of Antananarivo, James Herrera and Randall Kramer of Duke University, and A. Bradley Duthie of University of Stirling.

Learn more from lead author Marie Fleming’s blog post: "Can Vanilla Farmers in Madagascar Balance Livelihoods, Food Security and Forest Conservation?"

Caption

Smiles from the on-the-ground research team and community hosts in Madagascar in 2022: UC Davis PhD student and lead author, Marie C. Fleming (center right), research collaborator Henintsoa Rakoto Harison (center left), field assistants from the Regional University Center of the SAVA Region (CURSA), and the host family.

Credit

Courtesy Marie Fleming, UC Davis

Vanilla from left to right: flowering, mature green pods, cured black vanilla.

Credit

James Herrera

Journal

Biological Conservation

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110915

Article Title

Impact of price shocks and payments on crop diversification and forest use among Malagasy vanilla farmers

Cracking the Burmese python code: New data zeroes in on game-changing strategies

University of Florida

South Florida invasive species — image:
Anthony Flanagan is one of several python contractors hired by the South Florida Water Management District for the Python Elimination Program. Here is holding a Burmese python he captured along with the nest of eggs he located nearby.
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Credit: Photo courtesy SFWMD

In a groundbreaking study, University of Florida scientists statistically analyzed large amounts of data collected by Burmese python contractors, revealing critical insights about how to most efficiently remove the reptiles.

Researchers correlated survey outcomes, including python removals, with survey conditions, using statistical modeling. For example, the researchers examined if factors like time or temperature impacted the chance of removing a python. They also analyzed whether the most surveyed areas aligned with the highest python removals. This allowed the researchers to identify regions where few contractors are catching a lot of pythons, indicating more contractors working in these locations could result in more pythons removed.

“This collaboration among the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), and the contractors increases our ability to detect and remove pythons by providing guidelines for when and where to survey to optimize your chances of finding a python,” said Melissa Miller, an invasion ecologist at UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. “Targeted surveys, guided by these data, can allow us to be more efficient and successful in our efforts to control Burmese pythons.” These data were collected as part of the SFWMD Python Elimination Program between May 2020 and April 2022. The researchers from UF/IFAS analyzed 4,092 surveys from python contractors totaling over 16,000 hours of effort.

Researchers identified two regions where python removals could likely be increased with more surveys. These regions occurred toward the western edge of Big Cypress National Preserve along the Tamiami Trail and a stormwater treatment area in Palm Beach County. Additionally, researchers identified optimal conditions that improve survey outcomes, providing specific guidelines for contractors.

Based on their findings, researchers developed key recommendations to enhance python removal efforts:

· Surveys are most successful and efficient during the wet season from May to October.

· A drop in barometric pressure from the previous day, increases the likelihood of successful surveys.

· The most efficient survey period is between 8 pm to 2 am.

· Aquatic vehicles, including motorboats, canoes, kayaks, and airboats, enhance survey effectiveness.

· Nighttime surveys generally yield better results than daytime surveys, except during extreme cold events, such as mean daily air temperatures of 50 degrees Fahrenheit or lower.

Scientists see this as a pivotal point in research that now provides guidelines supported by data for successful detection and removal efforts from this point forward and all thanks to citizen science, researchers said.

“Pythons disrupt food webs, altering predator-prey dynamics and reducing populations of key native species. By refining removal strategies, we’re working to give native wildlife a chance to adapt and persist," said Alex Romer, a quantitative ecologist at UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center and corresponding author on the paper.

Published in Scientific Reports, the study highlights effective python management strategies and demonstrates how researchers, natural resource managers and residents can collaborate to improve wildlife conservation.

"Managing pythons is an enormous effort, undertaken by Floridians deeply invested in restoring the intricate ecological processes that define the Everglades,” said Romer. "This work is about safeguarding one of the world’s most unique ecosystems—not just for today, but for generations to come."

Anthony Flanagan displays a next of eggs he located while searching for Burmese pythons.

Credit

Photo courtesy SFWMD

Megan De Angelis and Kyles Findley show two of the Burmese pythons captured during the Python Elimination Program led by SFWMD.

Credit

Photo courtesy Kevin Pavlidis

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-84641-4

Article Title

Optimizing survey conditions for Burmese python detection and removal using community science data

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Thursday, February 06, 2025

Your voice matters: AMI teams up with the Minoritized Life Scientists Future Forum this March

Decades-long study shows that this endangered Florida butterfly benefits from hurricanes

Journal

Article Title

New agroforestry maps plot environmental, social, and economic benefits of trees

Journal

DOI

Vanilla farmers search for a crop and conservation sweet spot

FallowMe game

Beyond payment programs

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Megan De Angelis and Kyles Findley show two of the Burmese pythons captured during the Python Elimination Program led by SFWMD.

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