• Dr. Joan Ehrenfeld presented a paper entitled "Predicting impacts of exotic plant species on ecosystem processes" at the Beijing International Symposium on Biological Invasions, held at the Beijing Botanical Garden June 8-15, 2004.
• Dr. Joan Ehrenfeld will present a paper entitled "Effects of plant species in brackish marshes on microbial diversity and function" at the 7th Intecol International Wetlands Conference in Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 2004.
• Dr. Jason Grabosky will present a poster titled "Testing of Designed Soil Materials for Pavement Support and Urban Tree Establishment" at the Northeastern Branch meeting of the American Society of Agronomy and The Soil Science Society of America . July 2004.

• Dr. Steven Handel was invited to speak at the Wildlife Habitat Council Philadelphia Symposium on Restoring Greenspace: using ecological enhancement at EPA contaminated sites. His talk was titled "Ecological services gained by restoring natural habitats."
• Dr. Karl Kjer gave a talk in June at Nanjing Agricultural University. The talk was entitled "Molecular Systematics; Problems and Solutions."
• Dr. Richard Lathrop presented a talk on New Jersey Landscape Change Research to the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey chapter of The Nature Conservancy at their quarterly meeting, June 10, 2004.
• Dr. Julie Lockwood will present a paper entitled "The interplay of hydrology and fire and its effect on Everglades biodiversity." at the National Science Foundation Long-term Ecological Research Site Coordinating Committee Workshop in Fairbanks, Alaska in August 2004.

• Patricia Ramey, a PhD candidate in Dr. Fred Grassle’s lab, will be attending the International Polychaete conference in Madrid, Spain. She will present a paper titled "Community structure and spatial distribution of soft-sediment macrofauna in relation to environmental factors and functional groups." July 2004.

• Dr. Julie Lockwood will be Symposium Co-Chair for the symposium titled "Slowing Homogenization: Conserving Native Species in an Age of Urban Sprawl."
• Kristi MacDonald, a PhD candidate in Dr. David Ehrenfeld’s lab, is presenting a poster titled "The role of forest proximity and land use in maintaining diversity of breeding songbirds in an urban watershed."

• Joseph Paulin, a graduate student in Dr. David Ehrenfeld’s lab, is presenting a talk titled "Wildlife species expansions in New Jersey: the suburban niche."

• Myla Aronson*, Dr. Steven Handel, and S.E. Clemants will be presenting a paper entitled "Life history correlates of change in plant species distribution in an urban landscape."
• Shannon Galbraith* and Dr. Steven Handel will be presenting a poster entitled "Tradeoffs in urban restorations: successes and failures learned from passive management of an urban lakeshore restoration in New York City."
• Dr. Steven Handel will be presenting a paper entitled "Communications training for ecologists addressing the media."
• Dr. Julie Lockwood  will be an invited symposium participant in a symposium titled "Insights from Exotic Species". She will present a paper entitled "Biotic homogenization and the breakdown of biogeographic barriers.
• Dr. Peter Morin will be presenting a talk on "Microbes, model systems, and the causes and consequences of diversity" in a symposium titled "Is Microbial Ecology Fundamentally Different? New Insights into Patterns and Controls of Microbial Diversity." The symposium was organized by Claire Horner-Devine (Stanford University), Brendan Bohannan (Stanford University), Anna Louise Reysenbach (Portland State), and Peter Morin (Rutgers).

*Shannon Galbraith and Myla Aronson are graduate students in Dr. Handel’s lab.

• Hicks, P.L.** and J. M. Hartman. Can natural colonization successfully restore salt marsh habitat?: a three-year assessment (New Jersey). Ecological Restoration 22(2): 141-143. Polly was asked to submit this article based on her presentation at the 2003 Society for Ecological Restoration annual meeting.
• Lathrop, R.G., and D. Tulloch, C. Hatfield, P. Parks, C. Phillipuk, J. Bognar, R. Pirani, M. Phelps and M. Hoppe. 2004. GIS-based Conservation Values Assessment of the New York-New Jersey Highlands. In: Message from the Tatra: Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing in Mountain Environmental Research. Ed. W. Widacki, A. Bytnerowicz and A. Riebau. Jagiellonian University Press and USDA Forest Service. pp. 201-216.

• Lockwood, J.L.  Fire effects on Cape Sable seaside sparrow demography: 2003 final report.  National Park Service, Everglades National Park, Homestead, Florida.
• Moore, J. C., E. L. Berlow, D. C. Coleman, P. C. Ruiter, Q. Dong, A. Hastings, N. C. Johnson, K. S. McCann, K. Melville, P. J. Morin, K. Nadelhoffer, A. D. Rosemond, D. M. Post, J. L. Sabo, K. M. Scow, M. J. Vanni, and D. H. Wall. Detritus, trophic dynamics and biodiversity. Ecology Letters 7:584-600.
• Morin, P. J. and J. W. Fox. Diversity in the deep blue sea. Nature 429: 813-814. (News & Views).
• Heckman, J.R. and J.C. F. Tedrow*. 2004. Greensand as a soil amendment. Better Crops with Plant Food.2:16-17.
• Tedrow, J.C.F.* 2004. Soil Research in Arctic Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica. Cryosols, J.M. Kimble, ed. Springer-Verlag. Pp.5-16
• Li, Y.,*** Xu, M., Zhou, X., and Zhang, Y. 2004. Effect of Root and Aboveground Litter Exclusion on Soil Respiration and Microbial Biomass in Wet Tropical Forests. Soil Biology & Biochemistry (in press).

**Polly Hicks is a graduate student in Dr. Jean Marie Hartman’s lab.

*** Dr. Li was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Ming Xu’s lab.

• Drs. Joan Ehrenfeld and Steven Handel have been appointed to the New Jersey Invasive Species Council as the representative of the academic community by Gov. McGreevey. The Council has begun its work to recommend a Management Plan for the State, including new legislation, regulations, and education programs.
• Dr. Ming Xu served on a proposal review panel for proposals funded by NASA, the DOE and the USDA .

• Dr. Julie Lockwood received $200,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a detailed study of Cape Sable seaside sparrow nest success and causes of nest failure.

• Dr. Jason Grabosky, as President of the Arboricultural Research and Education Academy (AREA)for the International Society of Arboriculture,will be running the AREA research poster and oral presentations during the Society's International Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. August 9-11. During the group's annual business meeting, he will also be awarding the first set of five annual AREA travel awards (500.00) for graduate student paper presentations in the field of Arboriculture/Urban Forestry.
• Dr. Colleen Hatfield was invited to participate in a special symposium "Innovative approaches for studying stream networks at multiple scales" at the North American Benthological Society annual meetings in Vancouver, BC in late May.
• Dr. Karl Kjer has been in China collecting caddisflies for his NSF project with Dr. John Morse. The trip has been successful in collecting over 300,000 specimens in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, which now will need to be sorted and identified.
• Dr. Richard Lathrop participated in a workshop "Promoting Forest Stewardship in the New York-New Jersey Highlands" hosted by the U.S. Forest Service. The workshop was held at Grey Towers, Milford, Pa June 29, 2004.

• Myla Aronson received a $3000 scholarship from the New Jerwey Forestry Foundation.
• Kimberly Mendillo, a graduate student in Dr. Joanna Burger’s lab, was awarded the E. Alexander Bergstrom Memorial Research Award, from the Association of Field Ornithologists, to fund her project on endangered Least Terns.

• Heather Bowman Cutway (advisor Joan Ehrenfeld) defended her dissertation June 21, titled "The effects of urban land use and human disturbance on forested wetland invisibility." Heather has accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Biology Department at Mercer University, Macon, GA. beginning in September.
• Susan Elbin (advisor Joanna Burger) defended her dissertation titled "Mating Strategies in Two Species of Monogamously Breeding Colonial Birds (Scarlet Ibis, Eudocimus ruber and Waldrapp Ibis, Geronticus eremita) in Captivity", on May 17. Susan is continuing her work as Senior Program Officer at the Wildlife Trust in Palisades, NY.
• P. Timon McPhearson (advisor Peter Morin) defended his dissertation, titled "The Complexity Of Cooperation In Ecological Communities", on June 18. Timon begins his new job in the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History in late July.