Connie Barlow is a retired science writer,[1] whose academic papers and related essays and projects are also listed on her Researchgate page.[2]. Her most recent book is The Ghosts of Evolution,[3] published by Basic Books in 2001. Previous books were published by MIT Press and Springer-Verlag. She contributed essays to Wild Earth journal in the 1990s and founded Torreya Guardians in 2005.[4]
During the 90s she was a freelance editor for Columbia University Press (mostly copy- and line- editing, but also some developmental editing of the lead trade natural sciences books) and a ghost writer for one science book published by Basic Books.
In 2007 she initiated a webpage that lists, links, and excerpts the ongoing scholarship (and some news stories) on the topic of assisted migration, focusing on journal publications used by conservation biology researchers and the journals used by forestry researchers.[5] Since 2012, she has been regularly communicating with forestry researchers who are exploring and/or implementing assisted migration of tree species projected to seriously lag in moving poleward as fast as the climate is warming.
In 2021 she collaborated with the wikipedia editor who created a new page titled, Assisted migration of forests in North America. In 2022, she spent several weeks editing, updating, and increasing the informative and visual value of the existing wikipedia page on an endangered tree in the eastern USA: Torreya taxifolia. Outside of wikipedia she is a leading voice in policy and implementation of assisted migration of trees in a time of rapidly changing climate. Inside of wikipedia she uses her vast personal archival collection of documents and academic papers that have been published on the assisted migration topic (and the much smaller group of papers published on genus Torreya and Torreya taxifolia) to flesh out, as objectively as she can, various sections of the latter wikipedia page.
In 2023 she edited and contributed new text that doubled the length of the wikipedia page Endangered Species Act of 1973. She did this to help the public and journalists more easily grasp (and consult references) of the "Challenges and Controversies"(new section head) that emerged in the past half century — as the act turned 50 years old in December 2023.
Because images are important in her own work and understanding, in 2021 she contributed many of the images now in the wikipedia page Assisted migration of forests in North America. In 2022, she added approximately 40 of her own photographs to Wikimedia Commons in the categories of Torreya taxifolia, Torreya californica, and Torreya State Park. She taught the 2022 photographer of a new champion tree, species California torreya, to upload his images to the commons. In 2022 and 2023 she added some text and 8 of her own images to the Sequoia sempervirens page.
In 2022 and 2023 Barlow also made improvements to the wikipedia Asimina triloba (common name Pawpaw) page, based on the scholarship, images, and understandings she already included in her webpages related to ongoing citizen science discoveries of that species.[6] Recognizing the scholarship that draws attention to the likely Indigenous role in post-glacial assisted migration of Asimina triloba as far north as southern Michigan, she assisted further poleward movement of the species and restoration of the Indigenous role in 2022. Barlow sent 732 pawpaw seeds that she collected from two local orchards to an Indigenous botanist, university professor, author, and proponent of TEK (Traditional ecological knowledge), Robin Wall Kimmerer. Owing to Kimmerer's influence, Barlow is now often using a substituted term for the practice of assisted migration. Kimmerer coined that term with a Haudenosaunee colleague: "helping forests walk."
Barlow also has several tree-species playlists on her GhostsofEvolution youtube channel.[7] Most pertain to natural history documentation of trees and possibilities for climate adaptation of each. Species (by common name) include Florida Torreya, Joshua Tree, Coast Redwood, Arizona Cypress, Rocky Mountain conifers. Other playlists pertaining to multiple species are "Climate change and assisted migration" and "Helping forests walk."
Pertaining to her primary topic of assisted migration of Florida torreya, Barlow has been quoted in mainstream media including, New York Times, The Economist, Audubon, Sierra, Orion, Earth Island Journal. (These are excerpted and linked on the "History of Torreya Guardians" page[8] of the Torreya Guardians website.) Her advocacy and action in behalf of Torreya taxifolia assisted migration constituted chapters or large sections of two popular science books: The Journeys of Trees (Zach St. George, 2020) and Rambunctious Garden (Emma Marris, 2013).
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- ^ Barlow, Connie. "Biography and Publications". The Great Story. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ "Connie Barlow". Researchgate. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
- ^ Barlow, Connie (2001). The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners and Other Ecological Anachronisms. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-00551-9.
- ^ "Torreya Guardians". Torreya Guardians. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
- ^ Barlow, Connie. "Assisted Migration (Assisted Colonization, Managed Relocation, Translocation, Helping Forests Walk) and Rewilding of Plants and Animals in an Era of Rapid Climate Change". Torreya Guardians. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ Barlow, Connie. "Pawpaw Ecological Survey in Michigan". Torreya Guardians. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ Barlow, Connie. "Ghostsofevolution channel". youtube. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ "History of Torreya Guardians". Torreya Guardians. Retrieved 22 July 2022.