bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Invisible Glaciers
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: November 2020

Up in the highest reaches of the Central Andes, along the Sierra Nevada in California, along the European Alps, in some of the most unlikely places, including countries like Turkey, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Romania, Montenegro, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iran, and China, and in some more likely ones such as Mongolia, Russia, Nepal, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Chile, and Canada, lie entire swaths of frozen lands containing enormous quantities of invisible water in a solid state, hidden from sight until the surrounding ecosystems call on these lands to provide summer meltwater. As much as 25% of the surface of the Earth’s land experiences these frozen conditions, and more than 9 million people live in such environments. Even more live immediately below these lands, and yet most of us have never even heard of this frozen realm. The Incas and the Aztecs are known to have used this frozen terrain to store and conserve food. I am not talking about the more obviously glaciated regions with visible white cover on high mountaintops (which also act as water towers and basin regulators), but rather of that strip of land that lies somewhere below the lowest limit of the visible glaciers and somewhere above the timber line. No ice or snow may be immediately visible in this region, but, sure enough, the Earth is storing colossal amounts of ice, protected from the warm ambient temperature, for when the environment needs it most. We can think of this invisible frozen region as a buffer or hydrological ice zone that ecosystems call on for steady water all year round. It’s what glaciologists call the periglacial environment. The term itself is somewhat deceiving. Peri suggests “perimeter” or “surrounding,” so we might guess that the periglacial environment is the area surrounding the glacier, a sort of buffer zone around the visible ice where logically some sort of cryogenic activity (freezing activity) is occurring. Although such activity may indeed be occurring around the fringes of any given glacier, this is not the area known as the periglacial environment. Periglacial environments are much more complex than their name might suggest.
The Industrial Revolution and Its Discontents
Authors: Caradonna Jeremy L.
Published: November 2020

The stock narrative of the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1760–late 1800s) is one of moral and economic progress. Indeed, economic progress is cast as moral progress. The story tends to go something like this: inventors, economists, and statesmen in Western Europe dreamed up a new industrialized world. Fueled by the optimism and scientific know-how of the Enlightenment, a series of heroic men—James Watt, Adam Smith, William Huskisson, and so on— fought back against the stultifying effects of regulated economies, irrational laws and customs, and a traditional guild structure that quashed innovation. By the mid-nineteenth century, they had managed to implement a laissez-faire (“free”) economy that ran on new machines and was centered around modern factories and an urban working class. It was a long and difficult process, but this revolution eventually brought Europeans to a new plateau of civilization. In the end, Europeans lived in a new world based on wage labor, easy mobility, and the consumption of sparkling products. Europe had rescued itself from the pre-industrial misery that had hampered humankind since the dawn of time. Cheap and abundant fossil fuel powered the trains and other steam engines that drove humankind into this brave new future. Later, around the time that Europeans decided that colonial slavery wasn’t such a good idea, they exported this revolution to other parts of the world, so that everyone could participate in freedom and industrialized modernity. They did this, in part, by “opening up markets” in primitive agrarian societies. The net result has been increased human happiness, wealth, and productivity—the attainment of our true potential as a species! Sadly, this saccharine story still sweetens our societal self-image. Indeed, it is deeply ingrained in the collective identity of the industrialized world. The narrative has gotten more complex but remains a la base a triumphalist story.
Bridging Community and Ecosystem Ecology at the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research Site via Collaborations
Authors: Gough Laura
Published: November 2020

My research in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program helped to shape me into the ecologist that I am, working at the interface between communities and ecosystems on a variety of questions. As a university educator and public speaker, I incorporate examples of LTER site-based empirical and theoretical research, as well as cross-site meta-analyses in my teaching and presentations. My awareness of long-term research, in particular the response of North American ecosystems to global change, is heightened by my interactions within the LTER network. Working in the LTER program has provided me with opportunities for collaborations both within the Arctic site and across the network. The LTER program has thus inadvertently provided the framework for all of my current and recently funded research projects. These collaborations assisted in sustaining me through major life events, particularly having children, by helping me maintain my research productivity when my family required more of my time and attention. Currently, I am a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at Arlington. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in botany and ecology, and I also supervise MS and PhD students working in the tundra at the Arctic (ARC) LTER site and locally on urban ecology questions. I earned my PhD in plant biology from Louisiana State University and have been affiliated with ARC site since 1996, when I was hired as a postdoctoral scientist by Gus Shaver on a related grant. Since 1999, when I started my first faculty position, I have been an independently funded researcher affiliated with the ARC site, and for the past few years I have served as a member of the ARC Executive Committee. My research at ARC site is at the interface between the community and the ecosystem. My contributions to site-specific understanding have focused on the factors (abiotic and biotic) that control tundra plant species diversity, including the role of consumer species (Figure 7.1). In addition, I have been involved in a cross-site working group in the LTER network (now called PDTNet: Productivity-Diversity-Traits Network) since 1996.
Listening to Nature and Letting Data Be “Trump”
Authors: Tilman David
Published: November 2020

My long-term research, which has focused on major ecological mysteries and questions, has provided many unexpected insights into the processes, mechanisms, and feedbacks that determine the structure and functioning of the grassland ecosystems. Many of these insights have emerged from exploring these questions with a combination of well-replicated field experiments, long-term observations, and predictions of theory. A major source of research creativity has been my instinct to pay the deepest attention to any rigorous results that fall outside the realm of current paradigms, concepts, or theoretical predictions, including the predictions of my own theories. I refer to this as “listening to nature” and letting data be “trump.” It is when current ideas fail and “things fall apart” that new hypotheses are generated that are so crucial for the advancement of science. My teaching builds on this approach: trying to have each lecture explore a mystery or paradox, including those with which I am currently grappling, and challenging my students to propose solutions. Perhaps because they are not saturated with the current paradigms of ecology, students and members of the public frequently respond to ecological mysteries with great creativity. I believe that the amazing privilege of having public support for my research obliges me to communicate my findings of relevance to society through public talks, testimony to legislative committees, interviews with the media, and discussion with business leaders. In 1981, when we were writing the initial Cedar Creek Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) proposal, I was a 32-year-old, 6-year-post-PhD associate professor at the University of Minnesota. I had spent most of my career doing mathematical theory and laboratory studies of resource competition between freshwater algae. I had started doing nutrient-addition field experiments in the Cedar Creek grasslands only 3 years earlier and had just finished writing a book on resource competition (Tilman 1982). Hutchinson’s (1961) “paradox of the plankton”—the search for the forces and processes that allowed so many competing species to coexist with each other, whether algae in lakes, herbaceous species in grasslands, or trees in tropical forests—was intriguing.
An Urban Ecological Journey
Authors: Grimm Nancy B.
Published: November 2020

A long-term approach is definitive for my career, which has evolved at a single place over more than 30 years. But the Long-Term Research Ecology (LTER) program, and especially its urban research, has broadened my thinking far beyond the boundaries of the ecosystem science tradition in which I was trained. I have added to my expectations of students that they learn collaboration, use a diversity of approaches, explore existing data, and document and archive their own data. I anticipate that they will find careers in a broader diversity of areas than academia. The urban research in the LTER program has provided an incentive for me to work on communicating with the public, educators, students, and practitioners. I am still learning but am much more motivated than previously to reach out to these communities. Collaboration is standard practice for ecosystem science but the LTER program has expanded the types of scientists with whom I collaborate as well as the extent of my external collaborations. My decision to lead the Central Arizona–Phoenix (CAP) LTER project was therefore life-changing in extending the horizons of my science, mentoring, collaborations, and outreach. Since 1997, when the CAP program began, I have been involved in the LTER program. I was the original principal investigator, and Charles Redman and I were codirectors from 1997 to 2010. In 2010, after successfully renewing the CAP project, I took a 2-year hiatus to work at the National Science Foundation (NSF). I returned in 2012 and am currently the principal investigator and sole director. This has been my only involvement in the LTER program throughout my career, although as an undergraduate, I conducted research at what was to become the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest site. I am trained as a stream ecologist and biogeochemist, and I have been at Arizona State University (ASU) for my entire graduate and postgraduate career. Currently I am a professor, having moved through ranks, first as a non–tenure track research faculty member, then as an “academic professional,” and finally as an associate and then full professor. I lead somewhat of a double life, scientifically.
A Dryland Ecologist’s Mid-Career Retrospective on Long-Term Ecological Research and the Science–Management Interface
Authors: Bestelmeyer Brandon
Published: November 2020

My association with the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has encouraged a multidisciplinary scientific approach emphasizing broad spatial scales and site-based knowledge. It also provides a solid basis from which to link science and management. In my position as a federal research scientist, I do not teach university classes. When I teach in other venues and advise graduate students, my LTER experiences facilitate my ability to draw connections among disciplines that bear on particular ecological problems. Multidisciplinary breadth alongside site-specific depth afforded by the LTER program is especially useful for communicating to the public. It is important to know a lot about one area (place-based knowledge), in addition to something broader. Collaboration is especially important for scientists working together at an LTER site and is also important for cross- site LTER efforts addressing regional to global problems. Within- group collaboration comes rather easily when there are healthy interpersonal relationships. Cross- site collaboration requires greater effort and network-level leadership. I have been a co–principal investigator of the Jornada Basin site (JRN) of the LTER program since 2006 and a research ecologist with the US Agricultural Research Service, Jornada Experimental Range (JER), since 2003. In both capacities, my research addresses land change in drylands (arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid deserts, grasslands, shrublands, woodlands). Specifically, I work on ecosystem state changes or regime shifts, including subjects such as land degradation and desertification; these may include how land managers perceive and react to state change via mental models, information, and restoration approaches (e.g., Bestelmeyer et al. 2009). My work has been centered at the JRN in the Chihuahuan Desert grasslands of southern New Mexico and also in grasslands and woodlands of Mongolia and Argentina. My activities include those generally associated with academia (research, publishing, grants, and supervising graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) in addition to work that is applied, such as outreach through workshops, trainings, field reviews, and writing to support management or government policy. The trade-off is not teaching university courses, although leading agency workshops and trainings partially fills this niche in my scientific career.
Born and Bred in the Long-Term Ecological Research Network: Perspectives on Network Science and Global Collaborations
Authors: Smith Melinda D.
Published: November 2020

I am a plant community and ecosystem ecologist who has conducted research within the context of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network from the beginning of my scientific career, now almost two decades ago. My research has benefited greatly from site-based research at the Konza Prairie (KNZ) LTER site, as well as from network-level syntheses utilizing data sets and knowledge produced by the collective of LTER sites. My involvement in the KNZ LTER site, in particular, has shown me the strength of conducting site-based research, yet my involvement in synthesis activities within the LTER network and beyond has illuminated the limitations of site-based research for addressing cross-site comparative research. To this end, I have been and continue to be a strong proponent of highly coordinated, multisite experiments, and much of my research is comparative in nature. Being involved in the LTER network from the start of my research career has made me a scientist who is well aware of the benefits and power of collaborative, multidisciplinary research. Because of the benefits and breadth of experiences that I have received from such research endeavors, I encourage my graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to also become involved in such research, and I recognize the positive impact collaborative, multidisciplinary research can have on beginning investigators. I believe that individuals outside of the LTER network (ranging from established principal investigators, to young investigators, to graduate students) are often not fully aware of the benefits of being involved in the LTER network or of the advances in ecological understanding that it has made possible. Thus, there is a need for the LTER network to be more proactive and creative in the ways that it attracts new researchers to get involved in the site-based or network-level research. Ultimately, the LTER network will only benefit from increased involvement by new investigators, who also could serve the role of leading the LTER network in the future. I have been affiliated with the LTER program since beginning as a graduate student at Kansas State University.
Confessions of a Fungal Systematist
Authors: Lodge D. Jean
Published: November 2020

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has not influenced my basic approach to science. The LTER program has reinforced my approach to mentoring, and it has increased my opportunities to mentor students through the LTER-associated Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program. LTER program has greatly enriched my collaborative network and expanded my research in directions that I would not have otherwise pursued; similarly, I have expanded the research and perspectives of my collaborators. My involvement in the LTER program has changed my perspective in reviewing grant proposals and manuscripts. I have been a co–principal investigator or senior personnel at the Luquillo site (LUQ) of the LTER since its inception in 1988. My MS was on fungal population genetics and epidemiology of a plant pathogen, and my PhD work involved a study of the ecology of arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with cottonwood and willow, with a minor in entomology. I was employed as an ecosystem ecologist for the first 9 years of my professional career as a research scientist with the University of Puerto Rico, Center for Energy and Environment Research, which later became the Terrestrial Ecology Division. My early research in the LTER program focused on the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in plant colonization of landslides in collaboration with plant ecologists and physiologists in the “disturbed plant group.” Hurricane Gilbert struck Jamaica in 1988, shortly after I had measured vegetation there, so I returned to Jamaica with a group that was studying migrant bird habitat and helped to remeasure plants. I used this opportunity to design the tree damage protocol that was used in 1989, when Hurricane Hugo struck the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico (the location of LUQ) (Zimmerman et al. 1994). Consequently, I was nicknamed “Hurricane Hattie” by my collaborators at the Coweeta LTER site. Throughout my career, I have used my graduate training in ecology and soil microbial ecology to make important estimates of fungal and bacterial biomass and nutrient immobilization, and to determine what factors control spatial and temporal patterns in fungal distributions, abundance, and diversity (Lodge and Cantrell 1995; Lodge 1997).
Taking the Long View: Growing Up in the Long-Term Ecological Research Program
Authors: Silver Whendee L.
Published: November 2020

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has shaped me as a scientist by providing a collaborative environment and the opportunity to take a long-term, large-scale perspective in my research. I share this perspective with students by incorporating the principles, questions, and data from such research into my teaching. Working at an LTER site, and one that is based in Puerto Rico, has allowed me to increase the diversity of my laboratory and our graduate program by facilitating the recruitment of women and minority students. Personal experiences with science and data management in the LTER program, particularly the bad experiences, have helped me to improve as a communicator in the broadest sense. Although being a scientist in the LTER program has contributed to my career in many positive ways, it has also presented challenges to my work–life balance. To maintain its leadership role, the LTER program needs to remain an open network welcoming new scientists, new ideas, and thus new potential for discovery. I grew up, professionally speaking, in the LTER program. In 1989 as a new PhD student, I was strongly encouraged (i.e., told in no uncertain terms!) to explore research opportunities in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico. My mentors had developed a graduate field course in Puerto Rico that I participated in and later helped teach. Puerto Rico was their first venture into the tropics, one that was made easier by the fact that Puerto Rico is part of the United States and provides almost all of the conveniences of home. As one of my professors, Tom Siccama, liked to remark, Puerto Rico was “just like Connecticut, only different!” Puerto Rico was not, however, my first venture into the tropics. I had traveled, studied, and worked in Central and South America and the Pacific since my sophomore year of college and considered myself to be a tropical veteran. I felt at home in tropical rain forests, and had envisioned my PhD research taking place at some remote field site, in a foreign country, far from civilization: just me, my tent, the jungle, and the animals.
Top of the World Collaborations: Lessons from above Treeline
Authors: Suding Katharine N.
Published: November 2020

My involvement at the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site began when I was an undergraduate summer research assistant, and it has extended through a postdoctoral fellowship, a tenured professorship, and now a leadership role in the program. I focus on alpine tundra plant diversity, plant–soil interactions, and how environmental changes may influence community dynamics over time and space. Cross-site synthesis work has been one of the most valuable experiences of my career, enabling me to ask more general questions and produce more influential work than I could have done with a focus at a single site. Such comparative research has allowed me to interact with a fabulous group of scientists that has strongly influenced my professional development. These scientists remain strong role models for me. My experiences in the LTER program have formed my model of education and training, emphasizing experimental and observational approaches, quantitative methods, and data management and sharing. I think it is the best way to approach the difficult and complex ecological questions facing our society today. My involvement in the LTER program started in college, when I decided to study for one semester at the University of Colorado. During that semester, I took a class from Marilyn Walker, who was part of the Niwot Ridge (NWT) LTER program. Marilyn’s class did not go to the tundra or even focus on alpine systems. However, when time came to figure out what to do over the summer, I asked her if I could be her research assistant. She gave me the chance to work at Niwot Ridge (Figure 29.1). I spent the summer before my senior year at 3,500-m elevation, recording point quadrat vegetation data in permanent plots. The snow was late to melt that year, so I spent much of June in the Institute of Alpine and Arctic Research’s loading dock, painting thick black stripes on 2.5-m long PVC poles to be used to measure snow depth. When snow melted enough to allow access on the entrance road, I went up to Niwot Ridge for the first time.
My Evolution as a Long- Term Ecological Research Scientist
Authors: Magnuson John J.
Published: November 2020

My college education as a fish and fishery ecologist provided a solid base for my evolution to a scientist absorbed by the long-term ecology of lakes in the landscape. Graduate students in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program and in my course lectures came to represent more disciplines and became more interdisciplinary, often addressing major ecological questions using long-term data. Viewing the dynamics of a time series and spatial maps became strong approaches in the LTER program for communicating with colleagues and the broader community. The LTER program would have failed without the realization and the broad application of collaboration. That is true, of course, for much of what we do. The LTER program is a great way to participate in and learn from a life of science teaching, research, application, and outreach. My association with the LTER program began in the late 1970s when I was a 41- year-old associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It continued through the remainder of my professional life to the present; I am now an 80-year-old emeritus professor at the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I had been the program director for Ecology in the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for 1 year (1975–1976) and saw the first movements toward such a program. I participated in all three NSF workshops in the late 1970s to consider and plan an LTER program. At the workshops, I represented the perspectives of limnology and our field site at the Trout Lake Station in northern Wisconsin. Ideas being discussed and planned were of great interest to me. I believed that research opportunities at field stations with this long- term approach were important to the ecological sciences and to biological field stations across the country. My colleagues and I at the University of Wisconsin–Madison responded to NSF’s initial call for proposals; we were one of the first six sites to be funded for a proposal entitled “Long-Term Ecological Research on Lake Ecosystems.”
Evolution of an Information Manager
Authors: O’Brien Margaret
Published: November 2020

I work in the realm between environmental research and information technology. My academic training provided background in environmental and ecological research. The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s culture of data sharing necessitates understanding formats, structures, and vocabularies required to effectively manage research products. I do not “educate” per se, but I advance the field of data management by mentoring and by training student assistants. Because of the LTER program’s early adoption of data management plans, I am able to review and help write these for researchers. The diverse data of the LTER program are widely regarded, with standardized, complete metadata records, so they are sought after by programmers creating sophisticated software tools. I provide an example of real-world data management for those in informatics research and translate concepts between programmers and environmental researchers. The broad array of tasks means that collaboration among information managers is essential. Collaboration works best when groups are small, problems well defined, and when we already have a similar approach and technology. When I started in the LTER program, cataloging and publishing data represented a novel concept. Now, data management is no longer an afterthought. The LTER program has fostered that. I am not a research scientist; I am a data manager. The role is a bridge between research and information technology, and my role in the LTER program is to increase the visibility and awareness of data science for ecology. For most of the last decade, I have been the information manager for the Santa Barbara Coastal site (SBC) at the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara (Figure 34.1). My primary responsibilities are to facilitate research at SBC and to assemble data packages for cataloging. This means that I work with system administrators on hardware needs and user accounts and with scientific staff to keep time series data up to date. I design data products and metadata systems for sharing within and outside the group, design and maintain dynamic websites, and devise the software to hold the “information management system” together. SBC shares scientists and technical personnel with the Moorea Coral Reef site (MCR).
Exploring the Scientific and Beyond-Science Interactions of Long-Term Ecological Research Scientists
Authors: Flint Courtney G.
Published: November 2020

The essays in this volume are analyzed to assess the degree to which they portray scientific and beyond-science interactions. The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program represents a scientific or intellectual movement based on articulation of the program’s highly respected founders, resource allocation for individual and collective pursuits, use of LTER sites for recruitment, and commonly held themes or foci for research. Interdisciplinary scientific interactions within the LTER program have influenced researchers’ ideas, networks, and productivity but have also presented challenges, particularly for junior participants. Interactions beyond the scientific community focus on one-dimensional flows of information as well as on collaborative, multidirectional partnerships with a variety of stakeholders. This analytical chapter explores social interactions catalyzed by experiences of scientists associated with the LTER program. I analyze the essays by LTER scientists in this volume using a broad, three- tiered structure: (1) the degree to which insights from the essays suggest that the LTER program represents a scientific or intellectual movement within environmental sciences examining ecological dynamics; (2) the extent of interdisciplinary interactions with scientists across broader fields of study, including associated reactions and challenges; and (3) interactions with others beyond science. Findings are examined across different career stages of respondents. Direct quotations are used to illustrate findings and to provide evidence for conclusions based on the LTER scientists’ own words. The LTER program was initiated 34 years ago (Waide [Chapter 2]; Gholz, Marinelli, and Taylor [Chapter 3]). Given the growth of the LTER program, in terms of the number and geographic distribution of sites, as well as the contributions of engaged scientists and students, there is no doubt of the influence of the LTER program on the science of ecology and general understanding of ecosystems around the world (Robertson et al. 2012). In this chapter, I examine the social interactions of scientists in the LTER program through the lenses provided by their essays in this volume to explore three dimensions—interactions within the environmental sciences focused on ecological dynamics, broader interdisciplinary interactions, and interactions with stakeholders beyond science.
The Site of Sunghir: Contents and Chronology
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

The open-air Upper Paleolithic site of Sunghir (Сунгирь; Sungir’) is located along the northeastern edge of the Vladimir urban area, Russia, 192 km north of Moscow (56°10'30"N, 40°30'30"E). It is within the village of Dobrogo, currently absorbed into the city of Vladimir. The site is on the high left bank of the Klyazma River and on the right bank of the Sunghir stream close to where it flows into the river, ~750 m from the former, ~600 m from the latter, and ~50 m above the current level of the Klyazma. At the time of its discovery in 1955, the site was buried under several meters of loess, which were being removed with heavy equipment by the Vladimir Ceramic (or Brick) Works. The archeological material (see Bader 1978) was first unearthed in June 1955 by A.F. Nacharov, operating a power-shovel to remove sediment from the clay pit of the Vladimir Ceramic Works. During the summer, bones and eventually artifacts and hearths were turning up in the bucket of the equipment in a layer 15 to 20 cm thick and 2.8 to 3.2 m below the surface. Nacharov turned the artifacts and some of the bones over to the Vladimir District Regional Museum; the site was then repeatedly inspected by local individuals and V.M. Maslov, with word of the site eventually reaching O.N. Bader. The site was further investigated during the summer of 1956, with the first assessments of the nature and extent of the Paleolithic remains. As a result of the richness of the material, and especially the location of the site—it was the furthest north Paleolithic site known at the time—it was visited by series of specialists and in 1957 systematic long-term excavations were begun under the direction of O.N. Bader (archeology), V.I. Gromov (geology, fauna), and V.N. Sukachev (flora). Systematic excavations then proceeded for sixteen seasons from 1957 to 1977; more limited work has been undertaken recently (Seleznev 2008).
The Sunghir Dental and Alveolar Remains
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

Sunghir 1, 2, and 3 retain most of their maxillary and mandibular teeth, although those of Sunghir 1 are heavily worn and those of Sunghir 2 and especially Sunghir 3 were developing at the times of their deaths. As a result, the two immature individuals provide extensive data on their dental crown discrete morphology and crown metrics, but there are limited data on the third molars of Sunghir 2 and on the premolars and second molars of Sunghir 3 (and none on her third molars beyond their calcification stage; see chapter 6). In addition, although they retain none of their teeth, Sunghir 5 and especially 6 preserve alveolar bone, and they thereby provide limited dentoalveolar data. The Sunghir dentitions and alveoli thus have the potential to provide paleobiological data on their crown configurations, crown dimensions, some root lengths and configurations, in addition to wear patterns. The condition and salient aspects of each are provided first, followed by comparisons of their dimensions and shapes in a Late Pleistocene context. As noted in chapter 4, Sunghir 1 retains 31 of his original 32 teeth, and the one missing tooth, the left I2, was probably lost shortly before death. All of the teeth are heavily worn, thereby limiting morphological and morphometric observations principally to the M3s. But the other teeth provide considerable information regarding their wear patterns. The right I1 consists of worn dentin with a partial thin enamel ring around the labial margin of the crown. The dentin is occlusally flat to convex, the convexity produced mostly by a rounding of the lingual edge of the crown. There is a small area of secondary dentin exposed in the middle of the occlusal dentin. Note that the protruding nature of the tooth is a postmortem artifact, and it probably was originally at the same level as the left I1. There is no unusual wear in the mandibular incisors to match its procumbent state. The left I1 has similar wear, except that it retains more of the thin enamel ring around the lingual side and hence lacks the lingual rounding evident on the right one.
The Body Sizes and Proportions of the Sunghir People
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

Considerations of the body proportions and estimates of body mass and stature of the Sunghir people provide a general baseline for the assessment of a variety of aspects of their paleobiology. They also furnish some indications by themselves. Some of these aspects have been men­tioned with respect to sexual assessment of the adult remains (especially Sunghir 1 and 4; chapter 6), and methodological considerations have been addressed in part in chapter 5. What is presented here is a more detailed assessment of size in terms of body mass estimation and stature, and considerations of body proportions to the extent that they can be evaluated for Sunghir 1, 2 and 3. Body mass estimation was discussed in chapter 5, and it is done here exclusively using the dimension of the weight-bearing femoral articulations and/or metaphyses. It provides insights into trends in overall body size and health, but it is also central to the appropriate scaling of other aspects of morphology, from limb length and strength to brain size. Since the early comments of Boule (1911–1913) and Coon (1962), there has been a series of attempts to evaluate the body proportions (principally using limb segment lengths but also body breadth and trunk length) of Pleistocene humans as indications of both ecogeographical patterning among Late Pleistocene humans and possible reflections of their population dynamics (e.g., Trinkaus 1981, 2007; Walker and Leakey 1993; Ruff 1994; Holliday 1997a, 1997b, 2000, 2006a; Trinkaus and Zilhão 2002; Frelat 2007). The critical problem in assessing body proportions is to determine the independent variable. This must be done a priori, based on biological considerations. Stature estimation presents a variety of difficulties among Late Pleistocene humans, given variation in linear body proportions, but it can provide an indication of overall health, especially given the trends evident through the European Upper Paleolithic (Formicola and Giannecchini 1999; Holt and Formicola 2008). Assessments of body proportions depend in part on body mass estimation, and stature predictions depend on body proportions.
Dietary Inferences for the Sunghir Humans
Authors: Trinkaus Erik , Buzhilova Alexandra P. , Mednikova Maria B. , Dobrovolskaya Maria V.
Published: November 2020

In addition to the functional, anatomical, and paleopathological reflections of the biology and behavior of the Sunghir humans, it has been possible to make indirect inferences regarding their average dietary profiles. These considerations derive from the mineral compositions of bone samples from Sunghir 1 to 4 (Kozlovskaya 2000d), carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data from the bone collagen of Sunghir 1 to 3 (Richards et al. 2001; Dobrovolskaya et al. 2012), and postcanine buccal microwear for Sunghir 1 to 3 (Pinilla 2012; Pinilla and Trinkaus in press). As noted in chapter 2, the site contained an abundance of large mammal remains, of which the bison, horse, saiga, and especially reindeer remains were undoubtedly brought to the site for human consumption. There was also an abundance of mammoth remains. There has been an ongoing debate as to the extent to which the mammoth remains, found at a number of central and eastern European and Siberian Mid Upper Paleolithic (MUP) sites, reflect human consumption, are largely incidental to the human presence having accumulating along the banks of gullies and streams, and/or were gathered from the landscape for use as raw material and even fuel (e.g., Soffer 1985; Derevianko et al. 2000; Svoboda et al. 2005; Wojtal and Wilczyński 2013). Systematic taphonomic analysis of the Sunghir faunal assemblage has not been undertaken, but Bader (1978) did notice the differential presence of mammoth skeletal elements at Sunghir, suggesting differential transport of body portions presumably for human consumption. Moreover, the mammoth bones were distributed through the cultural layer and apparently did not exist as a bone accumulation on the periphery of the site. At the same time, the faunal profile of the cultural layer contained a diversity of carnivores, of which the cave lions, wolves, and possibly brown bears could have been partially responsible for some of the herbivore remains at the site. It is possible that humans were hunting and eating the bears, given occasional cutmarks on bear bones at other MUP sites (Wojtal 2000; Münzel and Conard 2004).
Our Fragile Infrastructure: Adapting to Global Warming
Authors: Levy Matthys P.
Published: November 2020

This chapter summarizes the history and evolution of various forms of infrastructure and the current state of their technology as a basis for exploring the anticipated effects of global warming on existing infrastructure facilities and for developing a strategy that adapts to these effects. Infrastructure encompasses all of the physical structures that support the functioning of a community or enhance the quality of life of its members. These structures are part of systems that provide the basic services of an industrial society: transportation, energy, water management, communications, and solid waste management. There are numerous other facilities that will also experience the impact of climate change, such as those for flood control, but in this chapter I consider only the major systems. For a thousand years, the world’s average temperature remained relatively constant; in fact, it was very slowly decreasing. Then, at the end of the 19th century, it began to rise dramatically. This change was concurrent with an explosive increase in the world’s population—from less than 1 bil­lion to today’s almost 7 billion. This change spurred rapid industrialization. The insatiable appetite of a growing population for goods and services required the burning of ever-increasing amounts of fossil fuels to support power plants (starting with coal and then oil and gas) as well as ever more complex transportation networks (Randers 2012). Today, our planet’s atmosphere is overburdened by the increasing amounts of CO2 spewing from these plants, and nature’s equilibrium as it existed for millennia has been destroyed. The world’s oceans and plants are no longer able to absorb any more CO2. Concentrations in the atmosphere have reached 400 parts per million (ppm) and are still rising at an annual rate of 2 ppm. As a consequence, we now have a blanket of CO2 in the upper atmosphere that traps heat in the way that the roof of a glass-enclosed greenhouse does, and it raises both the planet’s air and sea temperatures. These are the essential facts of what is popularly called global warming.
Privacy Concerns for Ubiquitous Data Aggregation and Storage
Authors: Rifkind Jarrod M. , Goodman Seymour E.
Published: November 2020

Information technology has drastically changed the ways in which individuals are accounted for and monitored in societies. Over the past two decades, the United States and other countries worldwide have seen a tremendous increase in the number of individuals with access to the Internet. Data collected by the World Bank shows that 17.5 of every 100 people in the world had access to the Internet in 2006, and this number increased to 23.2 in 2008, 29.5 in 2010, and 32.8 in 2011 (World Bank 2012). According to the latest Cisco traffic report, Internet traffic exceeded 30 exabytes (1018 bytes) per month in 2011 and is expected to reach a zettabyte (1021 bytes) per month by 2015 (Cisco Systems 2011). Activities on the Web are no longer limited to seemingly noncontroversial practices like e-mail. The sheer growth of the Internet as a medium for communication and information sharing as well as the development of large, high-performance data centers have made it easier and less expensive for companies and governments to aggregate large amounts of data generated by individuals. Today, many people’s personal lives can be pieced together relatively easily according to their search histories and the information that they provide on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, technological breakthroughs associated with computing raise important questions regarding information security and the role of privacy in society. As individuals begin using the Internet for e-commerce, e-government, and a variety of other services, data about their activities has been collected and stored by entities in both the public and private sectors. For the private sector, consumer activities on the Internet provide lucrative information about user spending habits that can then be used to generate targeted advertisements. Companies have developed business models that rely on the sale of such information to third-party entities, whether they are other companies or the federal government. As for the public sector, data collection occurs through any exchange a government may have with its citizens.
How to Feed Ourselves—Could This Be the Biggest Question of the 21st Century?
Authors: Lappé Frances Moore
Published: November 2020

Not all scientific controversies are fought in the laboratory: Today much of our planet is the testing ground in a scientific controversy touching virtually every human being on Earth. It centers on the path we choose to feed ourselves, a choice that will create ripples ranging from the extent of hunger and the severity of climate change to how many species remain at century’s end. And that path will be shaped by what social philosopher Erich Fromm (1973) called a “frame of orientation”—the core assumptions, often beneath conscious awareness, through which we each view our world. For human beings, these frames function as filters, determining what we see and what we do not see. Today, two quite different ways of seeing the global food challenge are emerging as scientists, farmers, and engaged citizens struggle to answer the question: How will we feed ourselves? Here I contrast the frames, the first and dominant one—promoted in most US agricultural universities and by farm-related corporations—I call “productivist” because the frame defines the challenge of conquering today’s hunger and meeting growing demand largely as that of producing more food. Limiting the human population is also seen as critical. The second lens is my own and that of a growing number of food and farming experts worldwide. It is sometimes described as “ecological” or “sustainable.” But such terms might mislead by suggesting a worldview focusing principally, or exclusively, on the environment. So I prefer to call the lens “relational,” suggesting a way of seeing that embraces both the ecological and social dimensions of the food system. Its focus is not primarily on the quantities produced but the qualities of relationships within both human and nonhuman aspects of food systems, as it asks whether these relationships enhance life. I first present the productivist frame and then the relational. Worldwide, our “food system is working for the majority of people,” notes the UK think-tank Foresight (2011, p. 36). Yields of major food crops have grown markedly.
Chemicals Policy in the United States—The Need for New Directions
Authors: Tickner Joel A.
Published: November 2020

The system for regulating toxic substances in the United States is broken. It is disjointed and reactionary, lacking in information, authority, and primary prevention. The case study of bisphenol A (BPA) demonstrates a myriad of limitations with the way we evaluate, regulate, and manage toxic substances in society. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the current U.S. system for regulating toxic chemicals and to identify limits in that approach with particular emphasis on BPA. It provides an overview of some of the drivers shaping new approaches to chemicals regulation and management and a framework for designing more precautionary and solutions-stimulating policies in the future. The U.S. system for regulating toxic chemicals in production systems and products is relatively complex. Different types of chemicals are regulated in various ways in the U.S. system, depending on how that chemical is being used. For example, cosmetics, chemicals used in food applications, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act, and each of these types of chemical applications is regulated differently under the Act. For chemicals used in cosmetic products, the FDA has no premarket authority and can regulate a chemical ingredient only if it is mis­branded or adulterates the product. In the case of new food contact substances and uses of them (indirect food additives including chemicals that might leach out of packaging such as bottles), manufacturers are required to submit notifications, including safety data, to the FDA, except when a substance is previously regulated or considered “generally recognized as safe” because earlier evidence on that material did not indicate concerns. At the FDA, the highest evidentiary burdens are for medical devices and pharmaceuticals that have strong premarket testing requirements to ensure safety and efficacy. Chemicals in many consumer products, such as toys, are regulated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.