I am a very amateur musician.  In college at the University of Maine , Steve Peterson and I created the Stairwell String Duo.  This was the best musical time of my life.  Steve and I lost touch for 25 years, but reunited when I moved to Richmond, VA, and is my dearest friend.  The next stage of musical journey was teaching myself to play piano when I was home for X-mas break during graduate school. I knew chords, I knew the notes associated with each piano key, and I started playing chords and improvising in between.  That was another fun stage.  

In my newest stage, I decided to write songs for classes I teach.  This is truly a blast. The latest version of Evolution is here and the latest version of the Biosphere Blues is here . Older versions are below. "Acclimation with you" (Ecology) is here (my favorite)

Below are a few links to my class songs and a few other pieces. Warning- I don't sing that well.
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​Recorded a couple of songs that have meaning for me. They aren't that good.

I just recorded one of my favorite songs with respect to capturing many things that make up a good life (Bob Dylan's Forever Young) here.

One (on guitar) has been my theme song (written by Todd Snider) for years with its chorus (Too much to think about, Too much to figure out, Stuck between hoe and doubt, there is too much to think about). That is exactly how I felt on most days. https://lnkd.in/drzWzyDY

The other is a song I wrote a long time ago on piano, that I retitled "Shadow", is one that might help you understand the challenges of feeling connected and alone that Aspy's have, as well as some of the joys of being alone in a place you feel at home (I was a forestry major). I find that I draw on my understanding of neurodiverse traits and depression a lot with student, - https://lnkd.in/drG6Hn8Q  


Both songs have mistakes in it.. but that is life, isn't it. If anybody listens to them and maybe likes them I will re-record them some day.
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This is a recording of the Evolution song written for evolution class BIO 330 in Spring 2022. This version has two new verses covering sexual selection and Homo sapiens. 
https://youtu.be/KJJXyVP1jVI​
Lyrics
Evolution
An amazing contribution
A dynamic solution
A revolution on how species came to be

Natural selection
A scientific exception
In its explanatory directions (I am changing this to perfection in my next recording)
​Of why change needs to be

Chorus
Genomes are rearranging
So life can keep on changing
As the earth it keeps on aging
We’ll all stay connected on this phylogenetic tree

Adaptation
Through beneficial mutation
Can include Acclimation
And create amazing diversity

Speciation
Sometimes through allopatric separation
Generates adoration
In biologists like you and me

Chorus

Sexual selection
A reason for your rejection
And for a Peacock’s colorful projection
And for circumspection about why you won’t
mate with me

Homo sapiens
Been around for a short duration
Have little genetic variation
And excel at migration

Chorus

Bio 330
It’s a great class to be nerdy
There is no need to be wordy
Just appreciate life’s amazing complexity

Evolution
An amazing contribution
A dynamic solution
A revolution on how you and I came to be
​
Genomes are rearranging
So life can keep on changing
As the earth it keeps on aging
We’ll all stay connected on this phylogenetic tree
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This is a song. "The Biosphere Blues"  written for fun as part of BIO 431 "The Biosphere" at UNCG for Fall semester 2021 and Spring Semester, 2022, and will be slightly rewritten for Fall, 2022. Perhaps the lyrics will evolve and become more profound and maybe more amusing as the next semester progresses. It summed up the class last year.

Listen to it here: youtu.be/GQAx_VYTzmg



Lyrics
H ere are the lyrics for Fall 2022

I got the biosphere blues
The sliver of life on earth is just so thin
And with all the change a coming
I worry it  will all cave in
It's a resilient and dynamic system
but the future of so many species seems grim
 
The CO2 is elevated
And the temperature is getting hot
The seas they are rising
because ice is melting a lot
Hurricanes  are more frequent,
It ain’t no time to buy a yacht
 
The earth’s biomes are so amazing
I mean the Tundra, the Taiga and more
Wetlands, forests and coral reefs
Deserts to the freshwater shore
And, they’re all so connected
So, system models should not be a bore
 
I took BIO 431 
even though classes don’t start until half past noon
I am always trying to catch up with my work
like Wyle E Coyote chasing the road runner in a cartoon
But, the earth biomes are engaging
this course will get my GPA up soon

Yes, I have the Biosphere Blues
We read paper after paper of doom
But, I am still young and idealistic
I'll draw on the energy in the room
And the coolness of the earth's biomes
makes my curiosity bloom

I got the Biosphere blues.

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I taught myself to play the piano over a X-mas break when my parents lived on the North Side in Pittsburgh.  I knew chords from playing guitar. And, I new the notes that each key was associated with from 4th grade piano lessons.  I don't read music. But, I figured out how to play chords and improvise by ear in between the chords. Teaching myself to play the piano is something I am personally really proud of.  The song "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby is a timeless song in too many ways.  It was also fun to teach myself on the piano.  You can hear me play it here: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ9q01la7KY
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A short piano piece that I call "Ode to Lake Jeanette" ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IXkvKZh1Q

  • My current research focus is on the biogeochemical cycling of mercury in response to different silvicultural practices aimed at restoring longleaf pine ecosystems. With undergraduate students, we are also examining how longleaf pine seedlings respond to various environmental stresses and what that means for restoring longleaf pine stands.  This team includes Martin Tsz-Ki Tsui, Alex Chow, Carl Tretting, Yener Ulus and me. Earlier in my career, I was part of a team that used the mass balance capability of the EcoCELLs to trace the flux of mercury demonstrating that most mercury enters the ecosystem through leaf fall and on direct atmospheric deposition to soils (with Mae Gustin and Steve Lindbergh).  You can see a narrated powerpoint of our May 2022 presentation "How does mercury methylation respond to intensive forest management and the creation of anoxia in floodplain soils?"  here:  https://uncg.box.com/s/m3j1mwdnd49xy0iykx5whruvf9o04eml
 
  • How leaf and plant development affect leaf biochemistry and susceptibility to insects and pathogens.  Using eastern cottonwood as a model system, we (Clive Jones, Bill Smith (Yale) and I) integrated the tremendous work of Phil Larson, Richard Dickson and Jud Isebrands who detailed the synchrony of form and function in eastern cottonwood seedlings, cuttings and trees, including mapping the vasculature system and clearly showing the physiological, biochemical and anatomical changes that occur as a leaf moves through it sink to source transition and then ages.  We used this basic understanding to demonstrate the ability of leaf beetles, caterpillars and aphids to track leaf development age, and we demonstrated how the strength of vascular connections between different leaves strongly influenced whether an undamaged leaf would induce defensive chemicals when another leaf was damaged.  We used  the knowledge of form and function relationships to examine whether environmental stress (using ozone as a model stress), changes plant chemistry and leaf development in such a way that it would change the susceptibility of plants to four different "pests" that feed in different ways and thus change the dynamics of the of insect and fungal pathogen community. We studied a leaf beetle that eats leaf tissue; an aphid that draws phloem fluid, a rust fungus which feeds from living cells, and a leaf spot fungus that only feed after cells have been killed. These data led Clive Jones and I to create what we called a "phytocentric perspective" of plant responses herbivores. I am currently revising a draft paper that describes a link between leaf development with patterns and phenology of leaf production in trees  (indeterminate vs. determinate) to life history and ecological traits of herbivores and pathogens in their community,  such as the likelihood of having insects with multiple generations/yr or those that experience boom or bust outbreaks. A paper that I wrote with an undergraduate at the time (A. Soren Leonard) demonstrated that there can be as much as 10-fold differences in the amount of leaf area missing from herbivory vs. the amount of leaf tissue eaten by herbivores.  Leaves develop by cells expanding, not the addition of new cells. So, if tissue from developing leaves is removed, the size of the hole will grow exponentially as the cells around the hole expand.  This does not occur in older, fully developed leaves.  To me, this was a very important finding about how leaf development process affect interpretations of missing leaf area. But, the plant-herbivore, net ecosystem productivity community has not found it very interesting.
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  • How plants allocate carbon and nutrients to roots, shoots, storage and reproduction in response to environmental stress, We (Kelly McConnaughay and I)  examined the importance of plant development and size dependency in interpreting whether adjustments in resource allocation (e.g., root:shoot ratio; N concentration in tissues) in plants to stressful environments follows the hypotheses of optimal partitioning, ontogenetic drift, or both. We tested whether data that supported optimal partitioning resulted from comparing traits of plants at a common age as opposed to at a common size.  Plants often develop as a function of their size, and not necessarily their age. Therefore, if one compares plant traits at a common time of a control vs. a stressed plant, then one will be measuring plants of different sizes because the control plant is likely to be bigger than the stressed plant. In such cases, any differences demonstrated in plant traits for plants of different sizes could be due to ontogenetic drift (the allometric relationships between different plant parts as a plant gets bigger), and not necessarily due to adaptive strategies of plants in response to stress.
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  • The role of low molecular weight heat shock proteins in protecting plants from heat stress and their evolutionary ecology. We (Scott Heckathorn, Craig Downs, and Tom Sharkey) were the first laboratory to demonstrate that low molecular weight chloroplast heat shock proteins protect photosystem II from heat stress. We started this work by examining the physiological cost to plants of making heat shock proteins, and whether that cost helps shape the pattern and amount of heat shock proteins produced by a single species within populations that are more or less adapted to experience acute heat stress. We also examined whether such differences correlated with the environment in which different species evolved.  We also demonstrated that there is resource cost (particularly N) to making low and high molecular weight heat shock proteins.
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  • How plants and ecosystems respond to rising carbon dioxide levels along with changing precipitation and deposition of nutrients and pollutants associated with climate change.  The Desert FACE (Free-air CO2 enrichment) site,  taught us (the main PIs were me, Stan Smith, Jeff Seemann, Bob Nowak, Jay Arnone, Yiqi Luo, Wexin Cheng, Paul Verburg, Dani Obrist, Tim Ball,  Dave Evans and Dale Johnson) a great deal about how elevated carbon dioxide affects photosynthesis,  ecosystem productivity, carbon cycling and carbon storage, invasive species, soil water and water use efficiency, and the role of the microbial crust that covers the desert floor. Laboratory experiments taught us a lot about closing the carbon cycle, the response of net ecosystem productivity over several years in response to one unusually warmer year, and the full carbon, nutrient and water fluxes and storage of ecosystems in response to elevated carbon dioxide using a nationally unique large mass balance mesocosm facility (EcoCELLs)  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_nYbGfU20c). The EcoCell work on the lagged response of soil respiration to an anomalously warm year was on the cover of Nature in 2008.

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