Richard B. Primack

A red-tailed hawk with a broken wing at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth, Mass. John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

November 22, 2023

Digitized records from wildlife centers show the most common ways that humans harm wild animals

Tara K. Miller, University of Virginia and Richard B. Primack, Boston University

Hundreds of wildlife rehabilitation centers across the US and Canada treat sick and injured animals and birds. Digitizing their records is yielding valuable data on human-wildlife encounters.

Native wildflowers, such as these Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) that bloom early in spring are losing access to sunlight as trees leaf out earlier. Katja Schulz/Flickr

March 14, 2023

Climate change threatens spring wildflowers by speeding up the time when trees leaf out above them

Richard B. Primack, Boston University; Benjamin R. Lee, University of Pittsburgh, and Tara K. Miller, University of Virginia

Many beloved wildflowers bloom in early spring, while trees are still bare and the flowers have access to sunlight. Climate change is throwing trees and wildflowers out of sync.

Scientists have used author Henry David Thoreau’s notes to inform studies of climate change in eastern Massachusetts. Tom Stohlman/Flickr

October 26, 2022

By fact‑checking Thoreau’s observations at Walden Pond, we showed how old diaries and specimens can inform modern research

Tara K. Miller, Boston University; Abe Miller-Rushing, National Park Service, and Richard B. Primack, Boston University

Journals, museum collections and other historical sources can provide valuable data for modern ecological studies. But just because a source is old doesn’t make it useful.

A late snowfall could set back the growth of this budding lilac. oddharmonic/Flickr

March 4, 2021

January warm spells, March freezes: How plants manage the shift from winter to spring

Richard B. Primack, Boston University

Trees and shrubs in cold-weather climates rely on certain signals, such as temperature and light, to know when to leaf out and bloom. Climate change is scrambling those signals.

Collecting data on invasive plants, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California. Connar L'Ecuyer/NPS

May 19, 2020

COVID‑19 is eroding scientific field work – and our knowledge of how the world is changing

Richard B. Primack, Boston University and Casey Setash, Colorado State University

The COVID-19 pandemic is interrupting scientific field work across North America, leaving blank spots in important data sets and making it harder to track ecological change.