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Evolution@Vanderbilt

Lin Meng

Illustration showing ozone damage to a leaf. On the left, a healthy bright green leaf is surrounded by several ozone (O₃) symbols, with orange arrows pointing toward the leaf. A large orange arrow points from the green leaf to a second leaf on the right that is brown and discolored, indicating deterioration or injury. The image visually represents exposure to ozone causing leaf damage and browning. The background is a blue gradient.

Vanderbilt Researchers Find Ozone Influences Growing Season

Jun. 21, 2026—Lin Meng’s few short years at Vanderbilt have been productive in advancing understanding of the factors that influence the changing growing seasons of plants. Meng is an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt. She posits that the most widely assumed external factor influencing the growing season of plants is global warming driven...

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US Map of artificial light at night

City Lights Are Rewriting the Calendar: Vanderbilt Researchers Show Artificial Light Extends Urban Growing Seasons

Sep. 23, 2025 51ÎÛÂþ—By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies scientific coordinator City lights are rewriting the calendar. A new global study from Vanderbilt researchers Lin Meng and Huidong Li shows that artificial light at night is more powerful than temperature in extending urban growing seasons — keeping trees greener longer, with consequences for carbon cycling, frost risk, and even...

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Visual representation of the Bortle scale showing varying levels of light pollution, from an 'Excellent Dark Sky Site' with a clear view of the Milky Way to a 'City/Inner City Sky' with bright lights from an urban skyline, illustrating the gradient of light pollution from rural to urban areas.

VU Graduate Student Uses Satellites to Provide Critical ALAN Data for Public Policy

Aug. 9, 2024—By: Alexandria Leeper, Evolutionary Studies Graduate Communications Assistant Imagine you are trying to stargaze. You live in a suburban area where there are little streetlamps, and the darkness of the night envelops most of the sky, making the stars visible. However, you are adjacent to a major city. When you turn your gaze towards that...

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