Critical pedagogical designs for SETS knowledge co-production: online peer- and problem-based learning by and for early career green infrastructure experts.

Despite a growing understanding of the importance of knowledge co-production for just and sustainable urban transformations, early career green infrastructure experts typically lack opportunities to practice transdisciplinary knowledge co-production approaches within their normal training and professional development. However, using online collaboration technologies combined with peer- and problem-based learning can help address this gap by putting early career green infrastructure experts in charge of organizing their own knowledge co-production activities. Using the case study of an online symposia series focused on social-ecological-technological systems approaches to holistic green infrastructure implementation, we discuss how critical pedagogical designs help create favorable conditions for transdisciplinary knowledge co-production. Our work suggests that the early career position offers a unique standpoint from which to better understand the limitations of current institutional structures of expertise, with a view towards their transformation through collective action. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s42854-023-00051-1.

Analogies for a No-Analog World: Tackling Uncertainties in Reintroduction Planning.

Species reintroductions involve considerable uncertainty, especially in highly altered landscapes. Historical, geographic, and taxonomic analogies can help reduce this uncertainty by enabling conservationists to better assess habitat suitability in proposed reintroduction sites. We illustrate this approach using the example of the California grizzly, an iconic species proposed for reintroduction.

Economic losses or environmental gains? Framing effects on public support for environmental management.

Environmental managers face major challenges related to project implementation and communicating the significance of those projects to the public. Effective communication can mitigate public opposition or increase support for specific projects and increase public and political support for environmental management more generally. In this study, we evaluate which types of benefits or losses environmental managers should communicate and how to frame those attributes to achieve greater public support. To do so, we field a survey experiment that presents the benefits of an invasive species management project, utilizing a two (economic, ecological) by two (gain, loss) factorial design as well as a control message. Ecological messages lead to significantly more support for invasive species management than economic messages, and loss frames are more effective than gain frames. We also find that treatment responses differ across several covariates including political ideology and environmentalism. These results indicate that the public is more concerned with managing invasive species for intrinsic environmental worth than economic benefit and that preventing further environmental degradation is more motivating than promoting additional environmental gains.

New transgenic reporters identify somatosensory neuron subtypes in larval zebrafish.

To analyze somatosensory neuron diversity in larval zebrafish, we identified several enhancers from the zebrafish and pufferfish genomes and used them to create five new reporter transgenes. Sequential deletions of three of these enhancers identified small sequence elements sufficient to drive expression in zebrafish trigeminal and Rohon-Beard (RB) neurons. One of these reporters, using the Fru.p2x3-2 enhancer, highlighted a somatosensory neuron subtype that expressed both the p2rx3a and pkcα genes. Comparison with a previously described trpA1b reporter revealed that it highlighted the same neurons as the Fru.p2x3-2 reporter. To determine whether neurons of this subtype possess characteristic peripheral branching morphologies or central axon projection patterns, we analyzed the morphology of single neurons. Surprisingly, although these analyses revealed diversity in peripheral axon branching and central axon projection, PKCα/p2rx3a/trpA1b-expressing RB cells did not possess obvious characteristic morphological features, suggesting that even within this molecularly defined subtype, individual neurons may possess distinct properties. The new transgenes created in this study will be powerful tools for further characterizing the molecular, morphological, and developmental diversity of larval somatosensory neurons.