- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In a paper titled “Use Antimicrobials Wisely,” published in the current edition of Nature, a nine-member international research team, including Carroll, advocates that the United Nations reframe its action on antimicrobial resistance.
The United Nations is meeting in New York on Sept. 21 to discuss the global antimicrobial drug resistance (AMR) crisis.
“We're concerned about what will happen if the proposed UN solutions focus mainly on incentives for new drug development, at a time when the drug industry itself is abandoning those efforts against infectious disease due to AMR,” said Carroll, who co-leads the international group on resistance to pesticides and antimicrobial drugs. He founded and directs the Institute for Contemporary Evolution, Davis, and is a member of the Sharon Lawler lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The paper, published in the Comment section, is the first product from a two-year working group sponsored by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Annapolis, Maryland. “We are taking a similar socio-environmental approach in our concurrent work on pesticide stewardship,” Carroll said.
“While new drugs have a role, we think it's more important for society to learn how to steward pathogen susceptibility, so we develop that theme in the paper,” Carroll said. “And because we also depend on microbes for digestion, immunity, and general health, and microbes support ecosystem functioning through nutrient cycles and the maintenance of soil and water quality, we further argue that our AM drug habits and waste streams threaten both personal and planetary health. “
Lead authors of the paper are Peter Jorgensen of Stockholm, Sweden, and Didier Wernli of Geneva Switzerland. Jørgensen, who spent part of his Danish graduate program working with Carroll in Davis, is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm.
Carroll described AMR as more than a medical dilemma—it's a socio-ecological problem. “The vulnerability of pathogens to antimicrobial drugs is a communal resource, readily threatened by overuse, to be lost as a classic 'tragedy of the commons.' There is a lot of contemporary theory for social resilience in the face of socio-ecological challenges, and– linking to entomology– the early success of the pioneering management of Bt crop pest resistance evolution is an encouraging precedent.”
In its planetary health approach, the group seeks to be “more cognizant not only of preserving drug susceptibility in pathogenic microbes, but also protecting from wholesale destruction the community of microbes on which we depend for life,” Carroll said.
In the paper, the scientists pointed out that “Resistance affects animal and environmental health as well as human health, and so requires coordinated action across economic sectors. No single concern exemplifies this better than the high rate of antibiotic use in agriculture (largely as growth promoters or disease prevention).” They wrote that in the United States, 70 to 80 percent of all anti-microbials consumed are given to livestock.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Two categories of evolutionary challenges result from escalating human impacts on the planet," Carroll says. "The first arises from cancers, pathogens and pests evolving too quickly, and the second from the inability of many valued species to adapt quickly enough."
Carroll says that applied evolutionary biology offers strategies to address these global challenges that threaten human health, food security and biodiversity and natural resources.
He will highlight both progress and gaps in evolutionary methods across the life sciences that either "target the rate and director of evolution or reduce the mismatch between organisms and human-altered environments."
"Refining and applying these underused tools will be vial for meeting current and future targets for sustainable development."
Carroll does research on patterns of ongoing evolution in wild and anthropogenic environments. He is well-known for his studies on evolutionary changes in soapberry bugs in response to plant introductions. His expertise includes behavioral and evolutionary aspects of adaptation to contemporary environmental change in insects and other organisms.
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See latest research on evolutionary biology techniques
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Carroll will discuss “An Approach to Conservation that Reconciles Past, Present and Future Landscapes in Nature” at The Club, located at 595 Market St., second floor. This is part of the ongoing forum topic, “Science of Conservation and Biodiversity in the 21st century.”
Biologists are now considering the “conciliation approach,” said spokesperson Chisako Ress, chair of the Science & Technology Member-Led Forum. “This approach recognizes that mutual adaption of native and non-native species is changing best practices for promoting biodiversity. Dr. Carroll investigates how organisms respond to human-caused environmental change. He advocates for interdisciplinary solutions to problems of environmental conservation.”
A networking reception begins at 5:30 p.m., followed by the program at 6. The cost is $20 for non-members; $8 for members, and $7 for students (with valid ID). Registration is available through the website, http://www.commonwealthclub.org/ or by telephoning (415) 597-6705.
Ress said non-club-members can enjoy the program at the discounted rate of $8 (rather than $20), using the coupon code listed below:
Thursday, Jan. 30, 6 p.m. - Dr. Scott Carroll: Conciliation Biology: An Approach to Conservation that Reconciles Past, Present and Future Landscapes in Nature. Coupon Code: friendsforcarroll. For program detail and registration, please see: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-01-30/scott-carroll-conciliation-biology
Carroll, who directs the Institute for Contemporary Evolution, does research on patterns of ongoing evolution in wild and anthropogenic environments. His studies on evolutionary changes in soapberry bugs in response to plant introductions are seminal contributions to our understanding of diversification.
The UC Davis evolutionary ecologist is the co-editor of the book, Conservation Biology: Evolution in Action (Oxford University Press, 2008). with Charles Fox, professor of insect genetics, behavior and evolutionary ecology, University of Kentucky.
Carroll co-authored a research paper that was selected in 2013 as one of the top 100 most influential papers ever published by the worldwide British Ecological Society, headquartered in London. The 13-page article, “Adaptive Versus Non-Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity and the Potential for Contemporary Adaptation in New Environments,” published in April 2007 (Volume 21) in the British Ecological Society’s journal, Functional Ecology.
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. It brings more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy to 20,000 members. Its mission: to be the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues important to the membership, community and nation.
Founded in 1903, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor Alec Baldwin and author Christopher Hitchens in recent years. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have all given landmark speeches at The Club.
For members outside the Bay Area, the Club's weekly radio broadcast — the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 — is carried across the nation on public and commercial radio stations. The website archive features audio and video of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history.
Two UC Speakers Pending
Two more UC speakers, butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology and forest ecologist Joe McBride of UC Berkeley, are booked for talks at the Commonwealth Club. Ress said non-club-members can enjoy the programs at the discounted rate of $8 (rather than $20), using the coupon codes listed below:
Monday, March 24, Noon - Arthur M. Shapiro, UC Davis: Ecological Communities and the March of Time. Coupon Code: friendsforshapiro. For program detail and registration, please see: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-03-24/arthur-m-shapiro-ecological-communities-and-march-time
Wednesday, April 9, Noon - Joe R. McBride, UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management: The History, Ecology and Future of Eucalyptus Plantations in the Bay Area. Coupon Code: friendsformcbridge. For program detail and registration, please see: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-04-09/joe-r-mcbride-history-ecology-and-future-eucalyptus-plantations-bay-area
