Team science: A syllabus for success on big projects.

Interdisciplinary teams are on the rise as scientists attempt to address complex environmental issues. While the benefits of team science approaches are clear, researchers often struggle with its implementation, particularly for new team members. The challenges of large projects often weigh on the most vulnerable members of a team: trainees, including undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral researchers. Trainees on big projects have to navigate their role on the team, with learning project policies, procedures, and goals, all while also training in key scientific tasks such as co-authoring papers. To address these challenges, we created and participated in a project-specific, graduate-level team science course. The purposes of this course were to: (1) introduce students to the goals of the project, (2) build trainees' understanding of how big projects operate, and (3) allow trainees to explore how their research interests dovetailed with the overall project. Additionally, trainees received training regarding: (1) diversity, equity & inclusion, (2) giving and receiving feedback, and (3) effective communication. Onboarding through the team science course cultivated psychological safety and a collaborative student community across disciplines and institutions. Thus, we recommend a team science course for onboarding students to big projects to help students establish the skills necessary for collaborative research. Project-based team science classes can benefit student advancement, enhance the productivity of the project, and accelerate the discovery of solutions to ecological issues by building community, establishing a shared project vocabulary, and building a workforce with collaborative skills to better answer ecological research questions.

Trace metals in Northern New England streams: Evaluating the role of road salt across broad spatial scales with synoptic snapshots.

Mobilization of trace metals from soils to surface waters can impact both human and ecosystem health. This study resamples a water sample archive to explore the spatial pattern of streamwater total concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc and their associations with biogeochemical controls in northern New England. Road deicing appears to result in elevated trace metal concentrations, as trace metal concentrations are strongly related to sodium concentrations and are most elevated when the sodium: chloride ratio is near 1.0 (~halite). Our results are consistent with previous laboratory and field studies that indicate cation exchange as a metal mobilization mechanism when road salt is applied to soils containing metals. This study also documents associations among sodium, chloride, dissolved organic carbon, iron, and metal concentrations, suggesting cation exchange mechanisms related to road deicing are not the only mechanisms that increase trace metal concentrations in surface waters. In addition to cation exchange, this study considers dissolved organic carbon complexation and oxidation-reduction conditions affecting metal mobility from soils in a salt-rich environment. These observations demonstrate that road deicing has the potential to increase streamwater trace metal concentrations across broad spatial scales and increase risks to human and ecosystem health.

Seasonal influence and cytotoxicity of extracts, fractions and major compounds from Allamanda schottii

The aim of this research was to evaluate the fractions obtained from the leaf, stem and roots of Allamanda schottii Pohl, Apocynaceae, responsible for the cytotoxicity, using several cell lines. Cytotoxicity was correlated with the season the part of the plant, and the major compounds were assessed. The ethanol extracts of leaves, stems and roots obtained at different seasons were evaluated in the human erythromyeloblastoid leukemia cell line (K562). Subsequently the ethanol extracts and dichloromethane fractions collected in winter were evaluated in mouse fibroblast cell line (Mus musculus) (L929), cervix adenocarcinoma (HeLa), human pre-B leukemia (Nalm6), as well as K562 cell line. The compounds plumericin, plumieride and ursolic acid isolated from ethanol extracts of the stems were evaluated in the same cell lines, as well as on breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF-7), and Mus musculus skin melanoma cell line (B16F10). The chromatographic profiles of the dichloromethane fractions were obtained by high performance liquid chromatography. The results revealed that the season during which A. schottii was collected, and the part of the plant analyzed, influence the cytotoxicity on the K562 cells tested. On the other hand the dichloromethane fractions, mainly from the stems and roots, are responsible for the cytoxicity on the cells tested. These results may be associated with the seasonal variation of plumericin in these parts of the plant. This information is in accordance with the HPLC analysis. The results clearly show the potential for the phytotherapeutic use of this species, and suggest that the cytotoxic activity observed may be due to the presence of plumericin, or to minor compounds not yet identified. The seasonal influence on the production of secondary metabolites was verified.