Marko Spasojevic

Vice chancellor for sustainability visits the Mountain Research Station and Niwot Ridge CU Boulder’s Andrew Mayock recently toured the Mountain Research Station, a high-altitude climate station and the Tundra Lab at Niwot Ridge. INSTAAR faculty

🙏🏽 A big thank you to Andrew Mayock, @colorado.edu's VC for Sustainability. He recently toured the Mountain Research Station & the Tundra Lab at Niwot Ridge, meeting with INSTAAR faculty & discussing future collaborations.

Read our story about his visit: www.colorado.edu/instaar/2025...

We begin reviewing applications next week!

YouTube video by Spasojevic Ecology Lab Lake Perris State Recreation Area - Camera Trap Highlights

Latest camera trap video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDd9...

Nitrogen Availability and Changes in Precipitation Alter Microbially Mediated NO and N2O Emissions From a Pinyon–Juniper Dryland Climate change is altering precipitation regimes that control nitrogen (N) cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. In ecosystems exposed to frequent drought, N can accumulate in soils as they dry, stimula...

In new work by Sharon, we studied whether changes in #soil N in response to shifts in precipitation may favor tradeoffs between AOA and AOB nitrifiers and the emission of NO and #N2O 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hell yeah. Hold the line. This is what we need people to do.

Slow things down, don’t comply in advance so the courts have time to stop them. It’s starting to work.

How I've been thinking about all of the rapid horrible changes in the United States I'm not telling you how to think or feel, but maybe letting you know where I'm at might be useful.

I've been seen lots of feckless despair and detachedness among scientists in the US at the moment. How we might live up to this critical moment when things seem the worst.

scienceforeveryone.science/p/how-ive-be... 🧪

Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders The US National Science Foundation has unfrozen grant funding, but it continues to scrutinize research projects, sowing turmoil.

The criteria for flagging grants: “broadening participation” language, foreign assistance, climate science, domestic energy, and “discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI”.

“To see ‘women’ and ‘woman’ and ‘people of colour’— that was a gut punch,"
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

MESSAGE to the NSF PI Community, On Friday, January 31, 2025, a Federal Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) directing Federal grant-making agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), to “...not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate... awards and obligations to provide federal financial assistance to the States, and... not impede the States’ access to such awards and obligations, except on the basis of the applicable authorizing statutes, regulations, and terms.” Although the language of the TRO is directed at State institutions, the Department of Justice has determined that it applies to all NSF award recipients. You can review the TRO here. In order to comply with the TRO, the NSF Award Cash Management Service (ACM$) system is available for awardees to request payments as of 12:00pm EST, February 2, 2025. This message is also available on the Executive Order Implementation webpage. Please check back regularly as we add frequently asked questions (FAQs) based on community feedback. Sethuraman Panchanathan Director

NSF FUNDING FREEZE UPDATE

I received this email from the NSF about 45 minutes ago. Attached are the links.

I believe this should restore trainee funding but await confirmation on that.

nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/TRO-NY...

new.nsf.gov/executive-or...

I honestly believe our most powerful position in a toxic time that feeds on cynicism, apathy,& despair is to genuinely care and act for a better world.

Cynicism is our enemy. We should check it, incl. on the left. It’s not intellectually superior. It’s the virus they’re trying to infect us with. NO

Also worth keeping in mind: every program director, program officer, and other NSF staff I've ever interacted with are kind, thoughtful, & professional. They are working through a challenging situation & deserve kindness on the other side of this. Direct anger & frustration at leadership, not them

This is causing major issues for us at the HJ Andrews LTER. Possible disruptions to >40 years of data on water, tree growth and survival, ecosystem response to fire. As well as three long-term employees whose livelihoods are now uncertain.

A) I’m not talking about our society in general but our scientific societies: ESA, AGU, AAAS where I would hope science is a priority.
B) the director of NSF is still complying with the EO to freeze funding even though the courts halted it - i.e. PRFBs are not getting paid. This isn’t alarmism

Where are our leaders? Why aren’t our societies having a joint press conference on the steps of NSF? Why aren’t they organizing a march on NSF? Why aren’t they sending us call scripts?

What are ESA and AGU doing? As far as I can tell, nothing

Yes, this administration is dangerous and cruel, but they are also shockingly dim and incompetent.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Make everything as hard as possible. Resist every demand. Refuse entry without a warrant. Don’t take the buyout. Their problem solving skills are 📉

Lots! Recently, our @uslter.bsky.social Synthesis Working Group published a synthesis paper in an #EcologyLetters Very Long-Term Data special issue! We explored a new area of research, looking at Community-Level synchrony in woody plant reproduction. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Award, Fellowship and Grants Opportunities Award, Fellowship and Grant Opportunities Below is a list of some of the ongoing award, fellowship and grant opportunities that we thought our members might be interested in. Use the hyperlinks to ju...

We have a great list of ongoing award, fellowship and grant opportunities that we thought our members might be interested in. 🌍 #conservation #MarineLife #ecology
Check it out here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
#conservation #funding #fellowships #awards

The Oath of Office taken by me and my colleagues at the NSF -

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; …”

Patriotic names will confuse them (Advancing American Freedom committee). Obtuse names will confuse them more (Chewbacca's student excellence committee). We can sit and do nothing, or we can act. Every small action that slows them down adds up. Think of other ways to make it harder for them.

It is the work that matters, not the name. Make them check every damn committee in existence. Right now, they can Control-F on Diversity and find all our committees. Sow confusion among them while we keep doing the work. If they find your committee, change the name again. The name doesn’t matter.

The name change has worked so far because they are just looking for key words. I suggest we all do the same now. Change your committee to the Advancing American Freedom committee and keep doing the same work. Pick a name that will make it hard for them to find what we are doing.

Let’s take "those" committees as an example. I have served as chair of one for over 5 years now and am involved in many efforts. A few months ago, we changed our name to the Broadening Participation committee because politicians in hostile states were finding links to us and targeting our colleagues

So how is this relevant? They are trying to sow confusion and push things through while we still cling to the old rules. We need to change the way we fight and slow them down until the courts can do their work (assuming they will).

As a veteran, this is something we are taught as the military learned this many times. During the revolutionary war the red coats kept trying to fight by the old rules (line up in formations) while the American used new tactics and won. Similar lessons were learned in Vietnam and Somalia.

Long thread but hear me out. If we keep trying to play by the old rules we lose. We can’t keep turning to the rules and crying foul, hoping they suddenly start following them.

NSF PRFB POSTDOCS:

Pull the remainder of this funding cycle’s stipend, all remaining research funds, and all remaining travel funds (if you have them). Do it before 5PM today. Per instructions from multiple NSF POs.

If you’re not already on the PRFB slack, DM me and I’ll send you an invite

Hey friends! We're seeing a lot of terrible things. We're not able to cover all of them, but we felt this latest one is a really big deal and needs much more awareness. Our summary is this: It's an administrative coup. Trump has ordered tens of billions (maybe up to $3 trillion) of budget halted indefinitely in a blatantly illegal move. He's claiming power to halt and potentially redirect funding that's already been authorized by Congress — a classic authoritarian move. Here's what we know. And we're doing our best to catch up with this story, because it's moving fast. There's a memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget. (That's the same government entity who set-up the DEI "snitch" line, that's now been spammed by tens of thousands of our fellow residents.) In typical Trump-style, the memo gets its facts wrong. It claims in FY2024 the US government spent $10 trillion (actually it was $6.8 trillion). It says money should be used for the administration's priorities — "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve." (Again, it's very fact deficient.) The memo says a pause will begin at 5pm on January 28th where, "Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal." Anyone promised federal grants might have their money at risk, even states. This is Congressional directed spending and Trump is ordering people to not do it. This funding includes universities for education and research programs, nonprofits, local and tribal governments, disaster relief aid, e…

So what can we do? It's been a lot. And the shock approach of this administration is to overwhelm us with nonsense and a state of paralysis. We continue to believe the best thing is to stay grounded and keep yourself sane amidst insanity. At this juncture, three actions we suggest that make sense to us: 1) Urge media to cover this story properly This is not "possibly illegal" — it's "patently illegal." You can read notes on that here. It's not "temporary" — it's "indefinite." There's no timetable for ending it. It's not just a memo — it's an administrative coup. 2) Urge your Representatives to act like this is a big deal If you know us, this isn't a knee-jerk action we suggest. We think this is a strategic because it's Congress that's being violated — their power is being directly undermined. 3) Continue to support ACLU and Democracy Forward These groups have been preparing litigation for some time. Unless Trump revokes this, this will certainly make its way through the courts. Our read is even the biased courts will have trouble swallowing this — so it may end up being shut down. Keep breathing. “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again," Nelson Mandela. Warmly, - Choose Democracy

Hi that was a coup last night in case no one mentioned that to you. The executive branch seized the power of the purse the Constitution gave to Congress, which is a pretty authoritarian / illegal consolidation of powers move. Time to go yell at your reps, the media, etc.

YouTube video by Spasojevic Ecology Lab Forest Camera Trap Highlights - early winter 2025

A few highlights from our camera traps. We pulled the SD cards after a month because of the high winds. 2 SD cars were stollen, 1 was fully corrupted and 1 was partially corrupted. still a few good shots
youtu.be/D9-PLa1j-wo?...

1. Pace yourself. Things are awful, but you cannot sustainably stay in a doom spiral.

2. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Organizers have been in these spaces for years. See what is already happening and how you can help.

3. Don’t feel guilty for taking care of yourself. Step back then rejoin when ready.

INSTAAR’s summer scholarship is open (plus a Q&A with last-year’s cohort) INSTAAR is now accepting applications for the 2025 Summer Scholars cohortEach year, the scholarship provides funding for two CU Boulder graduate students to

📢 Applications are open for INSTAAR's 2025 Summer Scholars program to support grad student research at CU Boulder. This week, we sat down with 2024 recipients NATALIE ARANDA & JED LENETSKY to learn more about their experience www.colorado.edu/instaar/2025...

The antidote for despair is action ❤️

* Dial (202) 224-3121
* Enter zip code
* Leave voicemail
* Say “My name is ___, I’m a constituent in [town]. (If clinician/scientist, say so)

“The NIH freeze harms research and patients and must be lifted immediately.”

Be brief. Staffers tally all calls. Go! ✅