Cesar Estien

University of California, Berkeley | UCB · Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

Amid a growing disciplinary commitment to inclusion in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), it is critical to consider how the use of scientific language can harm members of our research community. Here, we outline a path for identifying and revising harmful terminology to foster inclusion in EEB.

Legacy effects describe the persistent, long-term impacts on an ecosystem following the removal of an abiotic or biotic feature. Redlining, a policy that codified racial segregation and disinvestment in minoritized neighborhoods, has produced legacy effects with profound impacts on urban ecosystem structure and health. These legacies have detriment...

Contributory science—including citizen and community science—allows scientists to leverage participant‐generated data while providing an opportunity for engaging with local community members. Data yielded by participant‐generated biodiversity platforms allow professional scientists to answer ecological and evolutionary questions across both geograp...

Coloration in wildlife serves numerous biological purposes, including sexual selection signaling, thermoregulation, and camouflage. However, the physical appearance of wildlife also influences the ways in which humans interact with them. Wildlife conservation has largely revolved around humans’ propensity to favor charismatic megafauna, but human p...

Historical policies have been shown to underpin environmental quality. In the 1930s, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) developed the most comprehensive archive of neighborhoods that would have been redlined by local lenders and the Federal Housing Administration, often applying racist criteria. Our study explored how redlining is ass...

Legacy effects describe the persistent, long-term impacts on an ecosystem following the removal of an abiotic or biotic feature. Redlining, a policy that codified racial segregation and disinvestment in minoritized neighborhoods, has produced legacy effects with profound impacts on urban ecosystem structure and health. These legacies have detriment...

Coloration in wildlife serves numerous biological purposes, including sexual selection signaling, thermoregulation, and camouflage. However, the physical appearance of wildlife also influences the ways in which humans interact with them. Wildlife conservation has largely revolved around humans' propensity to favor charismatic megafauna, but human p...

Homes are intimate spaces where many bodies come together in space and time to deeply learn and understand the many processes that have created one another. Ecology, the study of the relationship between organisms and their environment, is based on the study of a home. Yet, ecologists are trained in patriarchal, heteronormative, and otherwise Weste...

Dominance hierarchies can provide many benefits to individuals, such as access to resources or mates, depending on their ranks. In some species, rank can emerge as a product of a group’s history of social interactions. However, it can be difficult to determine whether social history is critical to rank in observation-based studies. Here, we investi...

Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized negative consequences of human-wildlife conflict. For instance, many avian species heavily de...

Navigating the graduate school application process is often challenging, requiring intricate knowledge of academia and graduate institutional structures. This “Hidden Curriculum of Academia” includes what different graduate degrees offer, how to connect with a faculty member of interest, and the skills needed to submit a “competitive” application....

For graduate students, securing prestigious fellowships provides incredible benefits such as increased job opportunities and likelihood of receiving awards. These benefits can be particularly life-changing for a graduate student who may come from a marginalized background. However, the inequity in fellowship distribution hinders the success of grad...

Navigating the graduate school application process is often challenging, requiring intricate knowledge of academia and graduate institutional structures. This “Hidden Curriculum of Academia” includes what different graduate degrees offer, how to connect with a faculty member of interest, and the skills needed to submit a “competitive” application....

Dominance hierarchies direct and structure aggression in a myriad of species. Recent computational approaches have been able to detect additional aggression patterns within animal dominance hierarchies based on relative rank differences between individuals. Within species, distinct groups can follow different social dominance patterns, indicating t...

For graduate students, securing fellowships provides opportunities to progress in research and be involved in professional endeavors. However, the inequity in fellowship distribution hinders the success of graduate students, especially those who are racially oppressed. The majority of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship P...

Dominance hierarchies can provide many benefits to individuals depending on their ranks. Individuals can establish rank in these hierarchies from outcomes based on individual characteristics to outcomes based on social interactions and memory, and these drivers are not mutually exclusive. Generally, researchers evaluate the basis of rank by employi...

Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized negative consequences of human-wildlife conflict. For instance, many avian species heavily de...

Gaps in accessibility force students from historically marginalized backgrounds to navigate academic spaces, such as conferences, with minimal support. However, the large shift to virtual platforms has opened up a path toward inclusivity by offering more flexible involvement options and new opportunities for students to engage with research profess...

Ecological conferences provide a unique opportunity for scientists in the field of ecology to develop meaningful connections and exchange research in a rapid, multi‐day, in‐person format. For students and early‐career researchers, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, in‐person conferences are challenging to attend due to the burdens...

Fertilization success within broadcast spawning species is largely dependent on environmental conditions. Previous research has shown that high levels of suspended particles can limit sperm availability in marine broadcast spawners; however, few studies have explored the effects of microplastics on this group of organisms. Purple sea urchins (Arbac...