Ecology:
The next Sigma Xi Pizza Lunch -- noon, Wednesday, Dec. 17 -- is a chance to learn more about climate change's expected environmental toll. UNC-Chapel Hill marine biologist and ecologist John Bruno will discuss recent research on links between coral...
Posted on December 2, 2008 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
The next Sigma Xi lunch pizza in RTP will be noon MONDAY, Nov. 17. Come hear Rob Dunn, assistant professor of zoology at NC State, talk about "Climate Change and the Neglected Majority." Dunn, among other things, is interested in...
Posted on November 4, 2008 9:03 AM • 0 Comments •
The list is now final. Here are the top 13: #13 Deep-sea corals #12: Yeti Crab #11 Venus's Flower Basket #10: Echinothuriid Sea Urchins #9: Bathynomus, the GIANT ISOPOD!!!! #8 Red Lure Jellyfish #7 Predatory Tunicates #6: Giant Sea Spiders...
Posted on November 3, 2008 12:13 AM • 0 Comments •
About half have already been posted: #27: Brachiopods #26: Pig Butt Worm #25: Crawling Crinoids #24: Tube Worms #23: Dumbo Octopus #22: Xenophyophores #21: Phronima #20: Swimming Sea Cucumbers #19: Black Devil Anglerfish #18: Venus Fly-trap Anemone #17: Tripod fish,...
Posted on October 19, 2008 9:32 PM • 1 Comments •
As the month of September is coming to a close, and the topic of the month in PLoS ONE is bats, we decided to end the focus with a Journal Club. Starting today, and lasting a week, there will be...
Posted on September 30, 2008 11:30 AM • 0 Comments •
Thanks Bill for drawing my attention to iNaturalist which has the makings of an awesome site! What is it? It is essentially a Google Map where people can add pins every time they see an interesting critter: a plant,...
Posted on August 27, 2008 12:13 AM • 7 Comments •
Save the planet? Buy it: Millionaires are purchasing entire ecosystems around the world and turning them into conservation areas. Their goal? To stop environmental catastrophe. But will they know how to do it well? Will they inject some of their...
Posted on August 18, 2008 10:10 PM • 6 Comments •
How free access internet resources benefit biodiversity and conservation research: Trinidad and Tobago's endemic plants and their conservation status: Botanists have been urged to help assess the conservation status of all known plant species. For resource-poor and biodiversity-rich countries such...
Posted on July 14, 2008 8:57 PM • 0 Comments •
Anne-Marie is in Belize, doing some field-work, including chasing jaguars with specially trained dogs (scat-sniffers). Although electricity is rare and sporadic, she manages occasionally to post a quick dispatch on her blog. I wish I was there to see her...
Posted on July 13, 2008 11:30 PM • 1 Comments •
Since I am not an ecologist, when I teach the ecology lecture I 'go by the book' and trust that the textbook will be reasonably accurate. But now, perhaps I should rethink the way I teach about ecological succession...What do...
Posted on April 14, 2008 5:08 AM • 2 Comments •
The wilding of the American West is definitely a controversial idea. Josh Donlan provides links to the details of the proposal and asks the readers to do a quick poll about it - go do it!...
Posted on March 17, 2008 10:45 PM • 0 Comments •
Brendan Bohannan, Richard W. Castenholz, Jessica Green and their students and postdcos at the Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Oregon are currently doing a Journal Club on the PLoS ONE article The Sorcerer II Global Ocean...
Posted on February 20, 2008 6:53 AM • 1 Comments •
There is a lot of stuff one hears about food, sustainability, environment, etc., and it is sometimes hard to figure out what is true and what is not, what is based on science and what is emotion-based mythology. For instance,...
Posted on February 19, 2008 10:32 PM • 12 Comments •
Is there any kid who does not love giraffes? They are just so amazing: tall, leggy, fast and graceful, with prehensile tongues and a need to go through complex calistehnics in order to drink. The favourites at zoos, in natural...
Posted on December 22, 2007 9:36 PM • 4 Comments •
George Folkerts was one of those naturalists of the 'old school', interested in everything and excited about learning and sharing the knowledge throughout his life. He died on Friday, suddenly and unexpectedly, at the end of a typically busy day...
Posted on December 17, 2007 11:14 AM • 1 Comments •
When I first read about a new paper about the behavior and ecology of maned wolves, I immediately thought of the blogger most uniquely qualified to write about it. Anne-Marie's research is on maned wolves and in her latest post...
Posted on November 29, 2007 1:54 PM • 1 Comments •
That is, if you are a shrew and do not want to be just a dead data-point for some ingenious young ecologists....who at least clean up the tricky trash left by drunk drivers....
Posted on November 26, 2007 9:00 AM • 1 Comments •
Another thing I will also have to miss - the Inaugural Event of the 2007-2008 Pizza Lunch Season of the Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC), on October 24th at Sigma Xi Center (the same place where we'll have the...
Posted on October 9, 2007 6:09 PM • 0 Comments •
Sarah Wallace, Matt Ford, ScienceGoGo and Jason Stajich comment on the fungus that gets its energy from radiation. I've heard of Deinococcus radiodurans before, but this is a fungus! Well, if there is an energy source to tap into, even...
Posted on September 24, 2007 1:54 PM • 4 Comments •
Remember? Today is the Rock Flipping day! It's so dry and hot here, it is even dry and hot under the rocks in the woods. It took my daughter and me a long time flipping rocks to detect any sign...
Posted on September 2, 2007 4:43 PM • 6 Comments •
The textbook example of commensalism was always the interaction between trees and the birds who make nests in those trees - it was always assumed that the birds gain from this relationships, while the trees are not in any way...
Posted on August 1, 2007 4:54 PM • 0 Comments •
A very interesting new paper was published today in PLoS Biology: Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects by Thomas Alerstam, Mikael Rosen, Johan Backman, Per G. P. Ericson and Olof Hellgren: Analysing the variation in flight speed...
Posted on July 17, 2007 11:47 PM • 1 Comments •
You really don't want to be an enemy of the aphids - two papers today! The first is quite straightforward: Aphids Make 'Chemical Weapons' To Fight Off Killer Ladybirds: Cabbage aphids have developed an internal chemical defence system which enables...
Posted on July 12, 2007 12:59 AM • 0 Comments •
An interesting paper came out last week in PLoS-Biology: Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds by Walter Jetz, David S. Wilcove and Andrew P. Dobson. You can view some bloggers' responses on The...
Posted on June 14, 2007 3:24 PM • 2 Comments •
Ruchira Paul alerted me to this article about a scientific fight between Robert J. Baker of Texas Tech University (who I never heard of) who alleges that the evacuation of humans from the area allowed animals to come in and...
Posted on June 8, 2007 7:11 PM • 7 Comments •
Tatjana Jovanovic is a fellow escapee from Serbia and a fellow biologist. She got her MS in Biology at the University of Belgrade and has collected enough data before emigrating to be able to immediately get a PhD if someone...
Posted on May 6, 2007 11:55 AM • 0 Comments •
Talking about the hermetic cabal of scientists who never let any outsiders in.... Climate change fruitful for fungi: A remarkable father-and-son research project has revealed how rising temperatures are affecting fungi in southern England. Fungus enthusiast Edward Gange amassed 52,000...
Posted on April 8, 2007 3:01 PM • 0 Comments •
In today's issue of Science, there is a study showing that hunting of sharks, by eliminating the main predator of rays, leads to a decline in the ray's - and ours - food: the scallops: A team of Canadian and...
Posted on March 30, 2007 1:29 PM • 3 Comments •
During the National Wildlife Week (April 21th - 29th), if you can, please participate in the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz: Pick a neat little area that you are relatively familiar with and is small enough that you or the group...
Posted on March 26, 2007 9:35 AM • 0 Comments •
Today is a big day on Plos-Biology for the Oceanic Microbial Diversity Genomics. Last night they published not one, not two, but three big papers chockfull of data. Accompani\ying them are not one, not two, not three, not even four,...
Posted on March 14, 2007 9:42 AM • 0 Comments •
The latest issue of Conservation Magazine has picked several 'people to watch in 2007', including Randy Olson and Martin Wikelski. Who do you think are 'people to watch in 2007'?...
Posted on February 16, 2007 12:37 AM • 1 Comments •
Basic Concepts, Ecology: Know Your Biomes I...
Posted on February 7, 2007 4:45 PM • 0 Comments •
Russ, correctly, points out that the new UN report on Climate Change says not a word about the impact global warming will have on ecosystems, plants and animals (including the human animal)....
Posted on February 3, 2007 3:43 PM • 2 Comments •
I love seafood, but I eat it quite rarely. About a third of my old Department did fisheries and aquaculture science so I've seen many seminars and Thesis defenses on the topic and am quite aware of the problems with...
Posted on January 29, 2007 1:24 PM • 2 Comments •
Tenth in the series of mini-lecture notes for the speed-class BIO101 for adults. Find errors. Suggest improvements. (May 21, 2006)...
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Posted on January 4, 2007 10:53 AM • 0 Comments •
Food From Cloned Animals Safe? FDA Says Yes, But Asks Suppliers To Hold Off For Now: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued three documents on the safety of animal cloning -- a draft risk assessment; a proposed...
Posted on January 1, 2007 12:59 PM • 2 Comments •
The new ecology carnival now has detailed submission instructions. You have about three weeks to dig out your best ecology post from the past or write new one and send (up to two posts) to the first host, The Infinite...
Posted on December 20, 2006 12:49 PM • 0 Comments •
Apparently, I am not the only one to see a hummingbird in Chapel Hill of a species that should not be found around here. While I am quite confident that the visitor to my porch was a female Blue-throated Hummingbird,...
Posted on December 19, 2006 2:53 PM • 5 Comments •
The first edition of Oekologie will be on January 15th on Infinite Sphere. Send your best serious ecological science posts the day before to be included in the new carnival. Last week, RPM of evolgen asked his readers to find...
Posted on December 18, 2006 12:36 AM • 0 Comments •
Oekologie is a new blog carnival focused on ecology and environmental science. While Carnival of the Green is focused more towards conservation issues and sustainability, this carnival is going to focus on the science behind it. It will appear monthly...
Posted on December 13, 2006 9:13 PM • 0 Comments •
Did mammoths scratch themselves against rocks? Parkman believes, and he has a growing body of evidence to prove that mammoths and other large Ice Age creatures once used these very rocks near Duncan's Landing, along the Sonoma Coast State Beach,...
Posted on December 8, 2006 6:38 PM • 0 Comments •
Interspecific Communicative and Coordinated Hunting between Groupers and Giant Moray Eels in the Red Sea: The article offers a description and accompanying videos, such as the one showing a grouper and eel swimming side by side as if they are...
Posted on December 7, 2006 4:13 PM • 1 Comments •
Amanda just reviewed Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma and also recently wrote a post on the same topic while under the influence of the book. I agree with her 100%, so go and read both posts. I have read...
Posted on December 7, 2006 1:55 PM • 8 Comments •
A paper just got published in PLoS - Biology - "A Human Taste for Rarity Spells Disaster for Endangered Species" - describes how high monetary value of rare species leads to a vicious spiral in which each capture reduces the...
Posted on November 29, 2006 4:29 PM • 1 Comments •
Imagine an ecosystem in which all the players are groups defined by their religion: fundies, liberal believers, apathetics, atheists, etc. Then, use the ecological and evolutionary priniciples, e.g., competitive exclusion, niche-construction, arms-races, parasitism, camouflage, symbiosis, etc. to model the interactions...
Posted on November 19, 2006 11:04 AM • 2 Comments •
Since this is another one of the recurring themes on my blog, I decided to republish all of my old posts on the topic together under the fold. Since my move here to the new blog, I have continued to...
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Posted on October 18, 2006 11:00 AM • 6 Comments •
In these days of global warming it is important to realize how important temperature is in regulation of a variety of biological processes. Here is today's sampler of examples.
Posted on October 4, 2006 9:31 AM • 0 Comments •
Bird Moms Manipulate Birth Order To Protect Sons: ----------------snip------------------- Since 2002, Badyaev, Oh and their colleagues have been intensively documenting the lives of a population of house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) on the UA campus. Throughout the year, the researchers capture...
Posted on September 20, 2006 5:56 PM • 0 Comments •
Team Describes Unique Desert Cloud Forest: Trees that live in an odd desert forest in Oman have found an unusual way to water themselves by extracting moisture from low-lying clouds, MIT scientists report. In an area that is characterized mostly...
Posted on September 20, 2006 12:53 PM • 1 Comments •
Destructive insects on rise in Alaska: Destructive insects in unprecedented numbers are finding Alaska forests to be a congenial home, said University of Alaska forestry professor Glenn Juday, and climate change could be the welcome mat. Warmer winters kill fewer...
Posted on September 11, 2006 5:03 PM • 2 Comments •
Ecology of Lyme Disease
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Posted on August 30, 2006 10:57 AM • 0 Comments •
One of the several hypotheses floating around over the past several years to explain the phenomenon of repeated wake-up events in hibernating animals although such events are very energy-draining, is the notion that the immune system needs to be rewarmed...
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Posted on August 18, 2006 2:12 PM • 0 Comments •
A nice new study on ecological aspects of circadian rhythms: To a tiny tadpole, life boils down to two basic missions: eat, and avoid being eaten. But there's a trade-off. The more a tadpole eats, the faster it grows big...
Posted on August 10, 2006 12:59 PM • 0 Comments •
As the temperatures rise, different organisms respond differently. Some migrate to higher latitudes or altitudes. Others stay put but change the timing of reproduction and other seasonal activities. As a result, ecosystems get remodeled. So, for instance, insect pollinators and...
Posted on August 10, 2006 11:30 AM • 1 Comments •
This is interesting: Landscapes And Human Behavior: On Arizona State University's (ASU) Polytechnic campus, graduate student families in the cluster of six houses abutting lush lawns and ornamental bushes spend time together talking while their kids play outside. Meanwhile, the...
Posted on August 10, 2006 10:29 AM • 1 Comments •
Friday Weird Sex Blogging: A cute example of a wonderfully evolved reproductive strategy, and not just a way to couple together my two passions - clocks and sex.
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Posted on August 5, 2006 12:02 AM • 7 Comments •
A question from Fred Gould: Density dependence or just food limitation - Does anyone know of studies that can determine if the long length of development and small size of adult Aedes coming from containers in natural situations is due...
Posted on July 22, 2006 9:59 PM • 0 Comments •
Kevin sent three new reports. This is the first one. Next one tomorrow and the third on Monday. All exactly at noon!
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Posted on July 13, 2006 11:59 AM • 0 Comments •
I hope you have heard the Diane Rehm Show on NPR this morning at 10EDT (the first hour of the show). The guest was the presiding Episcopal Bishop-Elect Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church. She...
Posted on June 29, 2006 1:52 PM • 3 Comments •
More adventures of Kevin in China, catching and getting caught by reptiles....
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Posted on June 23, 2006 11:59 AM • 6 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Kevin begins his trek through China, and sees (and photographs) three kinds of natural beauty...
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Posted on June 21, 2006 11:59 AM • 2 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
First installment in a series of reports about herpetology field work in unstudied, remote areas of China, wired in by Kevin Messenger. Pictures of snakes will follow...
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Posted on June 20, 2006 12:39 PM • 17 Comments •
Want this badge? The 32nd edition of the Carnival of the Green is now up on Savvy Vegetarian....
Posted on June 19, 2006 2:56 PM • 0 Comments •
Welcome to the thirty-first edition of the Carnival of the Green. I am still trying to figure out the details of Movable Type after my move here last Friday (and please look around - there are 45 fantastic science...
Posted on June 12, 2006 1:27 AM • 5 Comments • 3 TrackBacks
Want this badge? Carnival of the Green has nothing really to do with the Green Party, but is a blog carnival that focuses on sustainability, ecology and conservation. Next week, June 12th, the carnival will be hosted by me,...
Posted on June 9, 2006 2:59 PM • 0 Comments •
