Coronavirus Disrupts Vital Field Research—Including Disease Transmission Work

Coronavirus Disrupts Vital Field Research—Including Disease Transmission Work

Kathleen Treseder, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, is still figuring that question out. Whereas usually her students would all tromp through the same landscape and look at the same specimens, Treseder says, she will now be asking them “to pick an ecosystem they belong to of their choice”—which could include a local park or one’s own yard. Then, she adds, “I’m going to ask them to study their ecosystem with a series of guided exercises. … I’m recording the lectures and preparing the exercises, so people could be on another continent and still learn from it,” she says. “I want something good to come out of this.