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Despite considerable efforts to enhance participation of underrepresented demographics, participation of scholars of color in STEM remains stagnant. In contrast to other academic disciplines, the experiences of STEM scholars of color are relatively unvoiced, which hinders examination of the factors that reduce participation and retention. Social science and education research reveal the importance of intersectional strategies to address institutional and cultural practices that reduce diverse participation. Institutional change requires the support of the STEM workforce. I summarize important issues that influence recruitment and retention and offer strategies that can improve recruitment and retention of faculty of color. Broad awareness among STEM practitioners of the relationship between race and the biases that reduce recruitment and retention of underrepresented scholars can support STEM diversity initiatives.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines suffer from chronically low participation of women and underrepresented minorities. Diversity enhancement initiatives frequently attempt to mitigate skill deficits such as math skills in an attempt to improve preparedness of these students. However, such interventions do not address cultural or social barriers that contribute to the isolation and marginalization that discourage continued participation in STEM. Science exists and is developed within social constructs.; because of this, cultural conflicts can occur pertaining to contrasting cultural belief systems between educators and students, or to socially-biased perspectives that are embedded in disciplinary values. These conflicts are implicated in the low recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in STEM. To address the relationship between culture and STEM diversity, I present a case study that examines the role of culturally-biased views of nature on the lack of diverse participation in ecology and environmental biology. I conclude by advocating the use of inclusive, culturally-sensitive teaching practices that can improve the climate for underrepresented students and increase diverse recruitment and retention in STEM.

Developing the ecological scientist mindset among underrepresented students in ecology fields (Bowser and Cid, this Forum) provides timely and compelling strategies to broaden inclusion in ecology and environmental biology. Chronic underrepresentation of minorities in ecology and environmental disciplines (EE) is a crisis that is surprising to many, and even more surprising that, for African-Americans, this underrepresentation is more severe compared to other STEM disciplines. It is beyond irony that a discipline that values diversity as a cornerstone of ecological practice continues to struggle to achieve diversity in the ranks of its practitioners.

1 Spatiotemporal responses to habitat conditions are important components of plant population and community dynamics. Plant stage or size is a common predictor of plant performance for a range of ecological conditions, including responses to neighbours. Plant response to local conditions varies from seedling establishment through to senescence, with strong implications for population regulation. 2 I investigated size-dependent responses to near adult neighbours among a uniquely quantitative sample of mapped juvenile and adult bur-sage (Ambrosia dumosa), a common shrub in the Colorado Desert of California. 3 Analyses of juvenile establishment and survival for two 5-year census periods from 1984 to 1989 and 1989 to 1994 determined that germination and survival was greater for juveniles located under adults compared with away from adults. However, analyses of neighbour effects on growth of plants from the 1984 cohort showed that near adult neighbours improved juvenile growth over the 10-year interval from 1984 to 1994, but reduced adult growth. 4 A size-dependent, ontogenetic shift occurs because neighbouring adult plants significantly improve the demographic performance of juveniles, but diminish that of larger established plants. 5 The ontogenetic niche shift may be a useful framework to describe such differential responses of juvenile and adult plants. The utility of this framework is that responses to spatial and temporal variability in the environment are clearly demonstrated through ontogenetic constraints on plant performance, which provide an alternative mechanism of coexistence within and between species.

Natural history, loosely defined as the observational study of organisms in the habitats where they occur, is recognized at the roots of ecology. Although the centrality of natural history in ecology has shifted over time, natural history is currently in resurgence: many again consider it to be the foundation of ecological and evolutionary inquiry and advocate the value of organism-centered approaches to address contemporary ecological challenges. Educators identify natural history as the foundational entryway into the practice of ecology, for example in the Ecological Society of America’s Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework. A strong natural history foundation can help generate testable hypotheses to refine mechanistic understanding of the drivers regulating species distributions and abundances and to inform restoration and conservation efforts. Given the resurgence of natural history as the foundation for ecological knowledge and practice, it is important to recognize that natural history has a long history of racism that has impacted ecological thought and priorities. This history shapes not only who conducts ecological science but also foundational ecological concepts. For example, natural history’s emphasis on pristine nature untouched by humans disregards or appropriates stewardship and knowledge of most of the world’s population. Because of the legacy of chattel slavery, this exclusion is particularly strong for people of African descent. This exclusion narrows ecological inquiry, limits the capacity to find solutions to ecological problems, and risks interventions that perpetuate the relation between eugenics, ecological knowledge, and natural systems. If ecology is to become an inclusive, responsive, and resilient discipline, this knowledge gap must be addressed. We here present the colonial and racist underpinnings of natural history and offer strategies to expand inclusion in the study of nature. Natural history was steeped in racism, providing a hierarchy of cultures and a taxonomy of races. Complementing growing interest in traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge, we focus on Black ecological knowledge, for example in the study of “maroon ecologies.” Addressing the racist history of natural history is necessary for removing structural and racist barriers to diverse participation and expanding ecological knowledge bases in service of better and more just science.

Long‐term species persistence in plant communities is contingent in part on the conditions that favor establishment and early survival. In stressful habitats, facilitated seedling establishment can enhance species richness by providing a safe‐site for species unable to establish in open microsites. However, the indirect effects of seedling competition may drive persistence in locations where seedlings occur in high density. This under‐examined dynamic can influence community recovery to stress by favoring competitively dominant species, in particular when stress increases local seedling density in favorable microsites. We present the results of a response surface experiment that examines growth responses among seedlings of Ambrosia dumosa, Eriogonum fasciculatum, and Larrea tridentata that were planted at three densities and four relative frequencies. These species co‐occur at an extensively monitored reference community located in the Colorado Desert, California, USA, where extensive drought caused unprecedented mortality that will require novel recruitment for the community to reach pre‐disturbance composition. Significant, non‐hierarchical competitive responses show that seedling survival is contingent on the species identity and density of neighboring seedlings. This result supports non‐hierarchical competition among these common species. Ambrosia and Eriogonum had faster growth rates than Larrea, but also experienced larger reductions in growth from competition than Larrea. Although drought may intensify seedling competition in favorable locations, the context dependency of competitive outcomes may permit coexistence.

A profusion of fruit forms implies that seed dispersal plays a central role in plant ecology, yet the chance that an individual seed will ultimately produce a reproductive adult is low to infinitesimal. Extremely high variance in survival implies that variations in fruit production or transitions from seed to seedling will contribute little to population growth. The key issue is that variance in survival of plant life-history stages, and therefore the importance of dispersal, differs greatly among and within plant communities. In stable communities of a few species of long-lived plants, variances in seed and seedling survival are immense, so seed-to-seedling transitions have little influence on overall population dynamics. However, when seedlings in different circumstances have very different chances of survival—in ecological succession, for example, or when dispersed seeds escape density-dependent mortality near parent trees—the biased survival of dispersed seeds or seedlings in some places rather than others results in pervasive demographic impacts.

1. Recent elevated temperatures and prolonged droughts in many already water-limited regions throughout the world, including the southwestern United States, are likely to intensify according to future climate-model projections. This warming and drying can negatively affect perennial vegetation and lead to the degradation of ecosystem properties. 2. To better understand these detrimental effects, we formulate a conceptual model of dryland ecosystem vulnerability to climate change that integrates hypotheses on how plant species will respond to increases in temperature and drought, including how plant responses to climate are modified by landscape, soil and plant attributes that are integral to water availability and use. We test the model through a synthesis of fifty years of repeat measurements of perennial plant species cover in large permanent plots across the Mojave Desert, one of the most water-limited ecosystems in North America. 3. Plant species ranged in their sensitivity to precipitation in different seasons, capacity to increase in cover with high precipitation and resistance to decrease in cover with low precipitation. 4. Our model successfully explains how plant responses to climate are modified by biophysical attributes in the Mojave Desert. For example, deep-rooted plants were not as vulnerable to drought on soils that allowed for deep-water percolation, whereas shallow-rooted plants were better buffered from drought on soils that promoted water retention near the surface. 5. Synthesis. Our results emphasize the importance of understanding climate–vegetation relationships in the context of biophysical attributes that influence water availability and provide an important forecast of climate-change effects, including plant mortality and land degradation in dryland regions throughout the world.

I present results from analyses of 20 years of spatiotemporal dynamics in a desert perennial community. Plants were identified and mapped in a 1-ha permanent plot in Joshua Tree National Park (California, USA) in 1984. Plant size, mortality, and new seedlings were censused every five years through 2004. Two species, Ambrosia dumosa and Tetracoccus hallii, were dominant based on their relative abundance and ubiquitous distributions. Spatial analysis for distance indices (SADIE) identified regions of significantly high (patches) or low (gaps) densities. I used SADIE to test for (1) transience in the distribution of patches and gaps within species over time and (2) changes in juvenile—adult associations with conspecific adults and adults of the two dominant species over time. Plant performance was quantified in patches and gaps to determine plant responsiveness to local spatial associations. Species identity was found to influence associations between juveniles and adults. Juveniles of all species showed significant positive spatial associations with the dominant A. dumosa but not with T. hallii. The broad distribution of A. dumosa may increase the spatial extent of non-dominant species that are facilitated by this dominant. The spatial location of patches and gaps was generally consistent over time for adults but not juveniles. Observed variability in the locations of juvenile patches and gaps suggested that suitable locations for establishment were broad relative to occupied regions of the habitat, and that conditions for seed germination were independent of conditions for seedling survival. A dramatic change in spatial distributions and associations within and between species occurred after a major drought that influenced data from the final census. Positive associations between juveniles and adults of all species were found independent of previous associations and most species distributions contracted to areas that were previously characterized by low density. By linking performance to spatial distribution, results from this study offer a spatial context for plant—plant interactions within and among species. Community composition could be influenced both by individual species tolerances of abiotic conditions and by the competitive or facilitative interactions individuals exert over neighbors.