Renewal and Diversity

Dear BES Community,As we begin 2017, we are grateful for the opportunity to clarify our research outlook. We are hard at work developing a new conceptual model, research questions, hypothesis and experimental plan for the 2018 Renewal Proposal.…

BES Annual Report 2017: Part 3 – Key Activities for the Year

Major Activities. There are a large number of contributors to BES, including senior scientists, post-doctoral researchers, undergraduates, and even high school students. Their activities are presented below, divided into the Core Areas for urban…

BES Annual Report 2017: Part 2 – What Is Our Theoretical Foundation?

A Role for Theory The goals of BES are supported by three major kinds of theories. Theories are unifying frameworks that embrace many models and identify the fundamental postulates and relationships of a broad area of research. Each of the…

BES Annual Report 2017: Part 1 – What Have We Been Up To?

Major Goals of BES The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) conducts research on metropolitan Baltimore as an ecological system. Focus on urban systems is important for several reasons. First, they are a novel ecosystem type which has been neglected…

Ecosystem as Place; Ecosystem as Network

The most frequently cited definition of the ecosystem concept owes its origin to Sir Arthur G. Tansley in 1935 (Pickett and Grove 2009).  It has proven to be a very flexible concept, and can be applied to any scale that includes aggregations…

Emma Rosi-Marshall Becomes Sole Director of BES

Dr. Emma Rosi-Marshall has been co-directing BES with me since 2013.  That year, BES was reviewed by a visiting committee, and the results of that event helped us to shape the renewal process that would culminate with a new proposal in…