Occupational Research and Assessment

Abstract Emerald ash borer (EAB) (Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire), an invasive, phloem‐feeding beetle native to Asia, has killed millions of ash (Fraxinus spp.) trees in North America since it was detected in southeast Michigan in 2002. Consistently high mortality of black ash (Fraxinus nigra) and green ash (F. pennsylvanica) which often occur in riparian forests is a concern given their role in regulating soil moisture and shallow groundwater levels. We monitored and compared hydrologic processes in a riparian forest impacted by EAB invasion and an adjacent unimpacted riparian forest site in southwest Michigan. From 2018 to 2022, we recorded soil moisture, depth to groundwater and meteorological variables at 15‐min intervals throughout the growing season in a canopy gap following EAB‐caused ash mortality and in adjacent, unaffected forest in the Augusta Creek riparian zone. Groundwater contributions to evapotranspiration (ETG) were estimated using a groundwater level fluctuation (WLF) method. Significant differences in volumetric soil moisture content (16%–26% higher in the gap than forest), average depth to water (10 cm in the gap vs. 70 cm below land surface in the forest) and mean daily ETG (0.6 in the gap vs. 3.0 mm per day in the forest) persisted across four growing seasons. Within the gap, prolonged saturation of the near surface may be contributing to a shift from a forested riparian ecosystem to herb and sedge‐dominated wetland. These differences have implications for an array of riparian zone ecosystem services, a concern given the extent of ash mortality already sustained in much of eastern North America.

ABSTRACT Informed by the FaT GiRL Roundtables in FaT GiRL: A Zine for Fat Dykes and the Women Who Want Them, a group of US-based queer and transgender fat activists from diverse races, classes, ages, disabilities, and geographies, some associated with or in community with members of the queer and transgender fat liberation organization, Nolose, discuss fat activism. Activism discussed includes work in burlesque, community organizing, daily interpersonal work, work in higher education, organizing or funding community events, fat culture-making, exercise, and both online and in-person mutual aid and education. Participants raise relationships and events that led them to become fat activists, and talk about challenges in fat activism including the widespread belief that fat people can become thin people, racism and cissexism, internalized oppression, “body positivity” decentering superfat people and people of color and centering smaller white cisgender women. Included is the poem “Impostor Syndrome” by Dr. Sydney Lewis. Participants also talk about opportunities for action, powerful and effective strategies and tactics of fat activists, and possible futures of intersectional radical fat activism; these include mutual aid online organizing, centering Black fat femme people and politics in fat liberation analysis, multiple accessible ways of organizing, and organizing both with cultural and relationship-based work.