Zoologist Helen Hess presented the paper, “The Roles of Facultative and Obligate Cleaners on a Caribbean Coral Reef” with Max Overstrom-Coleman ’03, Alison Fundis ’03 and Chris Petersen to the Western Society of Naturalists meeting and the Bowdoin Marine Science Symposium. Marine ecologist Chris Petersen co-authored three papers for the Bulletin of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory as well as the following 2006 papers: with George W. Kidder III and Robert L. Preston, “Energetics of Osmoregulation: II. Water flux and Osmoregulatory work in the euryhaline fish, Fundulus heteroclitus” in the Journal of Experimental Zoology. 305A:318-327, and with Kidder and Preston, “Energetics of Osmoregulation: I. Oxygen consumption by Fundulus heteroclitus” in the Journal of Experimental Zoology. 305A:309-317. Petersen also serves on the town of Bar Harbor Marine Resource Committee and continues to be an associate editor for American Naturalist. In March, COA botanist Nishanta Rajakaruna ’94 gave a talk on “Plants on Extreme Soils: Models for Studies in Evolutionary and Applied Ecology” at Colby College. Nishi is a member of the steering committee for the Callahan Mine of the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine and an advisor to the Pine Mountain Geobotanical Preserve recently established by the Island Heritage Trust of Deer Isle, Maine. Glen Mittelhauser ’89 of the Humboldt Center and COA students Kathleen Tompkins ’08 and Peter G. Pavicevic ’07 published “Phytoremediation: An affordable green technology for the clean-up of metal contaminated sites in Sri Lanka” in Ceylon Journal of Science 35:25–39, 2006. At the Fifth International Conference on Serpentine Ecology in Siena, Italy in May, Nishi was first author with David D. Ackerly on the paper, “Understanding Community Assembly on Serpentine: A Study of Functional Traits Relating to Serpentine Tolerance” and co-authored another paper. Three other COA papers were presented there and Nishi became chief organizer of the sixth conference, to be held at COA in 2008. Nishi also helped to bring two grants to the college to pursue botanical work in and around Acadia National Park. The National Park Service funded the collaborative proposal, “Assessment of Natural Resources and Watershed Conditions in and Adjacent to Acadia National Park,” written by Vaux, Nelson, Mittelhauser ’89 and Kopp, for $49,987. Nishi also received a $5,000 L.L. Bean Acadia Research Fellowship to conduct ecological and physiological studies to inform rare plant monitoring and management protocols. Vertebrate biologist Stephen Ressel gave the paper, “Arizona Reptiles and Amphibians Revisited” to the Maine Herpetological Society and “Snakes of Maine and Beyond” to the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary. At the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco last April, Bonnie Tai presented the paper: “Critical Exploration and the Learning and Teaching of Science” on the first year of the Carnegie-funded professional development project, “From Cell to System.” In June, economist Davis Taylor and Eric Dodge presented the paper, “Watersheds as Units of Analysis and Planning for Local Sustainable Economic Development: Do They Make Any Sense?” at the International Conference on Rivers and Civilization: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Major River Systems, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
COA faculty members Rich Borden, Ken Cline and Isabel Mancinelli, along with Union River Watershed coordinator Travis Hussey ’00 and GIS director Gordon Longsworth ’90 have co-authored an article on the Center for Applied Human Ecology’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education-funded watershed project for the fall 2006 issue of Human Ecology Review under the title “A River Runs Through It: A College-Community Collaboration for Watershedbased Regional Planning and Education.”
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