Fourteen Recommendations to Create a More Inclusive Environment for LGBTQ+ Individuals in Academic Biology.

Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and otherwise nonstraight and/or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) have often not felt welcome or represented in the biology community. Additionally, biology can present unique challenges for LGBTQ+ students because of the relationship between certain biology topics and their LGBTQ+ identities. Currently, there is no centralized set of guidelines to make biology learning environments more inclusive for LGBTQ+ individuals. Rooted in prior literature and the collective expertise of the authors who identify as members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community, we present a set of actionable recommendations to help biologists, biology educators, and biology education researchers be more inclusive of individuals with LGBTQ+ identities. These recommendations are intended to increase awareness of LGBTQ+ identities and spark conversations about transforming biology learning spaces and the broader academic biology community to become more inclusive of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Phytophthora Database: A Forensic Database Supporting the Identification and Monitoring of Phytophthora.

Phytophthora spp. represent a serious threat to agricultural and ecological systems. Many novel Phytophthora spp. have been reported in recent years, which is indicative of our limited understanding of the ecology and diversity of Phytophthora spp. in nature. Systematic cataloging of genotypic and phenotypic information on isolates of previously described species serves as a baseline for identification, classification, and risk assessment of new Phytophthora isolates. The Phytophthora Database (PD) was established to catalog such data in a web-accessible and searchable format. To support the identification of new Phytophthora isolates via comparison of their sequences at one or more loci with the corresponding sequences derived from the isolates archived in the PD, we generated and deposited sequence data from more than 1,500 isolates representing the known diversity in the genus. Data search and analysis tools in the PD include BLAST, Phyloviewer (a program for building phylogenetic trees using sequences of selected isolates), and Virtual Gel (a program for generating expected restriction patterns for given sequences). The PD also provides a customized means of storing and sharing data via the web. The PD serves as a model that easily can be adopted to develop databases for other important pathogen groups.

Metal stress and decreased tree growth in response to biosolids application in greenhouse seedlings and in situ Douglas-fir stands.

To assess physiological impacts of biosolids on trees, metal contaminants and phytochelatins were measured in Douglas-fir stands amended with biosolids in 1982. A subsequent greenhouse study compared these same soils to soils amended with fresh wastewater treatment plant biosolids. Biosolids-amended field soils had significantly higher organic matter, lower pH, and elevated metals even after 25 years. In the field study, no beneficial growth effects were detected in biosolids-amended stands and in the greenhouse study both fresh and historic biosolids amendments resulted in lower seedling growth rates. Phytochelatins - bioindicators of intracellular metal stress - were elevated in foliage of biosolids-amended stands, and significantly higher in roots of seedlings grown with fresh biosolids. These results demonstrate that biosolids amendments have short- and long-term negative effects that may counteract the expected tree growth benefits.