Blue Food, Green Diet

“Even though people around the world depend on and enjoy seafood, the potential for these blue foods to benefit people and the environment remains underappreciated”

An international team of experts, including members from NCEAS, discovered that ocean rich diets could be a key strategy to address worldwide nutritional and environmental problems.

Feed for Thought

“Chicken are fed fish from the ocean…and salmon are fed crop products like soy…We got really interested in understanding how these two critically important and dominant foods affect our planet and how they compare... I really didn’t expect chicken and farmed salmon to be so similar.”

An NCEAS study led by director Ben Halpern found that, due to their feed, chicken and farmed salmon have remarkably similar environmental footprints.

Morpho’s Second Wind

“Morpho is a culmination of over a decade of experience at NCEAS honing the working group model to best enable researchers to use synthesis to accelerate discoveries that can inform transformative solutions to pressing environmental problems. We are really excited to launch this Initiative and see the outcomes that emerge from it.”

In it’s second year, the Morpho Initiative will fund 3-6 applied environmental data science projects.

DEIJ Resource of the Month

Championing Inclusive Terminology in Ecology and Evolution
Open Access Paper
Words have meaning and can impart harm or trauma. In this paper, an interdisciplinary team offers actions to identify and replace harmful terminology in ecology.

SciComm Resource of the Month

Establishing your Online Presence
Recorded Webinar
Need to make an academic website but unsure where to start? Check out this recorded workshop by our Science Communication officer Alex Phillips, filled with tips and tricks.

Data Science Resource of the Month

Creating Bump Plots with {ggbump}
Tutorial by Jesse Mostipak
This step by step guide uses National Park data from a Tidy Tuesday dataset to walk you through creating a bump plot, a common data visualization method.

Scientist Spotlight:
Courtney Scarborough, Deputy Director

“Over the years NCEAS’ working groups have produced some of the most impactful science available. I’m proud that the Morpho Initiative can continue this legacy and science in the service of management solutions. I’m especially looking forward to this year’s extra focus on wildfire resilience, which is so important to the sustainability of places we care so deeply about.”

Synthesis Spotlight:
Environmental Data Science Summit

This month, NCEAS hosted the first of five annual Environmental Data Science summits, synthesizing ideas for how to harness diversity in the ecological data science field. 100 people gathered in Santa Barbara to offer their expertise and perspective. The atypical conference focused on workshopping action items for the next year and developing community.

Opportunities at NCEAS

Webinar | Morpho Initiative
Online on March 2, 2023
For those interested in learning more about the Morpho Initiative, including how to submit a proposal, NCEAS is hosting an online webinar on Wednesday March 2, 2023 at 10 AM PST.

Course | coreR at NCEAS
Apply by March 3, 2023
This five day crash course at NCEAS with R as the main programming language covers best data science practices in reproducibility, data visualization, collaboration, and more.

Job | NCEAS LTER Community Engagement Officer
Apply by March 13, 2023
The LTER Network office is hiring a candidate to lead community initiatives across science and management groups (salary ~70-80k). UCSB is an AA/EOE, including disability/vets.

Call for Proposals | Morpho Initiative
Apply by April 5, 2023
The Morpho initiative is funding multiple (3-6) working groups at ~$125,000 on applied environmental data science, including specialized groups on wildfire in the West.

Job | Wildfire in the West Postdoc
Apply by April 5, 2023
NCEAS is hiring a postdoc (salary ~70k) to work with Morpho Initiative groups and conduct independent research on wildfires in the West. UCSB is AA/EOE, including disability/vets.

Papers We’re Reading

Environmental footprints of farmed salmon and chicken bridge the land and sea
Current Biology
NCEAS led research analyzed the ecological impacts of farmed chicken and salmon, finding that roughly 75% of environmental pressure had one source: the feed.

Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations
Nature
The Blue Foods Assessment, which includes NCEAS members, offers four policy suggestions on integrating more ocean-centered diets to advance nutrition and sustainability.

Avoiding critical monitoring thresholds through effective management
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
In the latest from Ocean Tipping Points, an NCEAS partnership project, researchers offer managers a way to minimize monitoring costs and maximize profits.