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The Hamilton in NYC program continued its exploration of urban ecology on Feb. 7 with a guest presentation from Andrea Townsend, Hamilton assistant professor of biology. Townsend, whose research deals with urban bird ecology, gave a talk titled "The Urban Exploiter: what makes an urban animal?"

The Hamilton in NYC Program is off to a busy and exciting start. On Jan. 31, the group met with David Maddox, founder and director of the Nature of Cities, “an international platform to share diverse, transformative ideas about cities as ecosystems of people, nature, and infrastructure.”

Each fall, the Hamilton Adirondack Program showcases an important voice in and for the Adirondacks as the program’s plenary speaker. This year that speaker was Jerry Jenkins, an ecologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and author of several books about the region, including The Adirondack Atlas, Climate Change in the Adirondacks, and his forthcoming Woody Plants of the Northern Forest: A Photographic Guide.

Junior Matt Lebowitz just returned from his semester-long study of political ecology and wildlife conservation in Tanzania. His final blog post follows.

For the 30th consecutive year the ecology class Biology 237 traveled to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondack high peaks to examine the response of trees to elevational and climatic gradients. The day was a spectacularly clear and beautiful, with intense fall colors in the foliage.

For the 29th year in a row, the ecology class (Bio. 237) went up Whiteface Mountain to look at how and why the composition and structure of the forest changes with elevation. The 23 students on the Oct. 7 trip were led by Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch and Ernest Williams, the William R. Kenan Professor of Biology.

For the 28th consecutive year, the Ecology course (Bio. 237) traipsed to the top of Whiteface Mountain. This year's class was so large that it was split into two separate trips. As usual, the weather for this trip was unpredictable. The first trip took place on Sept. 25 with Prof. Bill Pfitsch and found warmth, blue skies and grand vistas. The second trip, led by Prof. Ernest Williams on Oct. 2, encountered dense overcast skies, rain and chilly temperatures.

Members of Hamilton's ecology class, Biology 237, made the annual trek to Whiteface Mountain to study responses of the vegetation to environmental conditions on Sept. 26. The high Adirondacks were at peak color, so the trip was a great success aesthetically as well as scientifically.

The Ecology class made its annual trip up Whiteface Mountain on Sunday, Sept. 27. Despite low cloud cover, the group was able to study changes in forest composition and size at different elevations, the dwarfed trees (krummholtz) near the mountain top, and the vegetation of the alpine zone. The class is taught jointly by Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch and Ernest Williams, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Biology.