Two pieces have just been published about our Urban Homogenization work. The first, by science reporter Maggie Koerth-Baker, provides a layperson's overview of the urban homogenization hypothesis and some of the patterns that initially motivated our proposal.  It will be published on Sunday in the New York Times magazine, and is online here.  The second piece is an article written by Laura Ogden, an anthropologist and one of our collaborators on the project.  Laura's piece addresses the peculiar social and ecological geography of south Florida, and the differences between front yards and back yards.  The article was written for Miami Rail, a local alternative newspaper, but you can read it on the Art Practical website here.

Anna Braswell (PhD student) and I just got back from the American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on tidal freshwater wetlands.  At the upstream most end of estuaries, these ecosystems are influenced by the tides, but are not (or at least haven't been) exposed to salinity.  The rationale for the conference was to better understand what will happen to these ecosystems as sea levels rise and other changes occur upstream within watersheds.  Because these systems are understudied, they invited researchers from salt marsh and riverine systems to widen the exchange of ideas and approaches considered.  Anna presented the results of her MS work on coastal marsh responses to fire and hurricanes, and I gave a talk that synthesized our work on wetland resilience and biogeomorphic feedbacks in desert wetlands and in the Everglades.  I hope our presentations were useful and interesting, but I know for certain that I learned a lot about hydrology, geomorphology, and ecology of these coastward ecosystems.  It was also really neat to see a community forming around shared interests in these ecosystems, and I certainly hope our lab remains engaged in this line of work.  But for now, back to the semester!