ecology
edyong | August 11, 2008Food from countries all over the world owes a lot of its flavour to a fungus. The species in question isn't one of the many edible mushrooms used for cooking, the baker's yeast that gives rise to bread, or the moulds that spread through blue cheese. It's a little known species called Fusarium semitectum and its role has only just been discovered - it's the driving force behind the fiery heat of chillies.
Chillies were one of the first plants from the New World to be domesticated and they have spread all over the world since. Just today, a quarter of the world's population has eaten…
grrlscientist | August 10, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Newton, Ian. The Migration Ecology of Birds. 2008. Academic Press. Hardbound: 976 pages. Price: $74.95 U.S. [Amazon: $67.46]. SUMMARY: An up-to-date, detailed and thorough review of bird migration.
New and…
laelaps | August 5, 2008A female Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). Photographed at the WCS-run Bronx zoo.Nature still holds fascinating secrets that have yet to be discovered. Yesterday saw the announcement of the world's smallest known snake, for instance, but today a discovery of greater magnitude has been announced by the Wildlife Conservation Society. According to a recent census there are approximately 125,000 Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) in two adjacent areas of northern Congo, more than doubling the number thought to be present previously.
This is certainly welcome news, yet we should not let it lull…
laelaps | August 3, 2008When I petsit for friends I get a chance to see what's on television. Most of the it is crap, but I did catch a NOVA special on "The Car of the Future" featuring the Tappet brothers from "Car Talk." It was a pretty interesting show, outlining a number of competing technologies that may (or may not) change the way we get from A to B. What I found most interesting, though, was the disparity between what independent researchers & companies are doing vs. big time auto makers.
I was first struck by this big difference while watching Who Killed the Electric Car? (and, to a lesser extent, one of…
grrlscientist | August 3, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
De Roy, Tui, Mark Jones and Julian Fitter. Albatross: Their World, Their Ways. Due out: Sept. 2008. Firefly Books. Hardbound: 240 pages. Price: $49.95 U.S. [Amazon: $32.97]. SUMMARY: A well-illustrated account on…
grrlscientist | July 30, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, animal migration, ecology, conservation, habitat destruction, global warming, overexploitation
Image: Makoa Farm Horseback Riding Safaris in Tanzania [larger view].
What do salmon, passenger pigeons, American bison and wildebeest have in common? They all are (or were) migratory, and their populations either are declining or have become extinct. In fact, the populations of nearly all migratory animals, from insects to fishes, birds to mammals, are suffering disproportionate population declines that sedentary species are not experiencing. This is hardly…
grrlscientist | July 27, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Huxley, Robert (editor). The Great Naturalists. 2007. Thames and Hudson. Hardbound: 304 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S. [Amazon: $26.37]. SUMMARY: Covers the naturalists from Classical times to the end of the 19th…
edyong | July 25, 2008To a science-fiction filmmaker, the concept of being controlled by unseen forces is creative gold, but for the rest of us, it's a fairly unsettling prospect. But like it or not, it's clear that parasites - creatures that live off (and often control) the bodies of others - are an integral part of the world we live in and carry an influence that far exceeds their small size.
Now, a painstaking survey of the residents of river estuaries shows that parasites do indeed punch above their weight, and they aren't slouches in that department either. Despite their tiny size, their combined mass…
grrlscientist | July 20, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase. If you despair of ever having enough summer reading material, this issue is just for you because you will find that the total page count in these books is 4277 pages!
FEATURED TITLE:
Olsen, Penny. Glimpses of Paradise: The Quest…
chaoticutopia | July 14, 2008A few weeks ago, I headed up into the mountains to find aspen trees and branches for inspiration. I took Magnolia Drive, which rises out of Boulder Canyon and straddles a high ridge before opening out onto the Peak-to-Peak highway running along the continental divide, near Coal Creek Canyon. (The mouth of the latter canyon opens near my home.) So, I had my eyes peeled for trees, but instead I spotted a pair of white-tailed does who were nibbling grass along the roadside:
The deer were so calm when I approached that I was able to take several photographs. I was so taken by the scene, I didn’t…
clock | July 14, 2008How 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 assessments are scarce because of a lack of, and access to, information. However, the wide range of biodiversity and geographical resources that are now freely available on the internet, together with local herbarium data, can provide sufficient information to assess the conservation status of…
clock | July 13, 2008Anne-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 (and those of you who have met her at the Science Blogging Conference may also have a hard time imagining the scene, as she is so nice and gentle) indulging herself in Machete Therapy:
I have discovered the wonders of Machete Therapy. If you have anything bothering you, stressing you out, weighing on your mind, just take on 100 m transects…
laelaps | July 9, 2008Hot on the heels of the ScienceBlogs Book Club comes another special, limited-run blog all about alternative energy called Next Generation Energy.
The blog will be another active group discussion, with multiple authors (from Sb and beyond) throwing in on energy technologies and policy. The first topic gets right to the point, asking what the most viable energy solution might be as we are further mired in the energy crisis. The blog will only have a limited run, though, starting today and going through October 9, so be sure to keep up on what will surely be a lively discussion.
laelaps | June 30, 2008
Last week Ed blogged about a new PLoS paper implicating canine distemper, parasites, and climate changes in the severe reductions in lion some lion populations seen during the last 15 years in Africa. Coincidentally, the PBS show Nature featured a special last night called "Vanishing Lions" about similar problems, with the interactions between lions and humans in Kenya dominated the film;
In many places lions are being ecologically strangled to death. With their ranges restricted to parks (lions who wander outside and kill livestock are killed), lions in some parts of Africa are facing…
tsmith | June 28, 2008 Balance is a tricky thing to find in area, and medicine is notorious for its trade-offs. A drug that may make you well in the long run may also have side effects that make taking the medicine difficult. Even drugs that we often think of as typically innocuous, such as antibiotics, can have an enormous cost associated with their use, both at the individual and the population level. Sachs covers our love-hate relationship with antibiotics and germs in general in her book, Good Germs, Bad Germs. More after the jump...
Sachs opens her book with a dramatic example of the cost of our "war"…
edyong | June 24, 2008In 1994, a third of the lions in the Serengeti were killed off by a massive epidemic of canine distemper virus (CDV), an often fatal infection that affects a wide range of carnivorous mammals. Seven years later, a similar epidemic slashed the lion population in the nearby Ngorongoro Crater. While CDV was undoubtedly involved, the scale of the deaths was unprecedented. What was it about the 1994 and 2001 epidemics that claimed so many lives?
Now, a team of scientific detectives led by Linda Munson from the University of California Davis, have solved the mystery. It turns out that the lions'…
laelaps | June 23, 2008A female Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) photographed last year at the Bronx Zoo.That's the question posed in the cover story of the latest issue of National Geographic. On July 22, 2007 five mountain gorillas (Gorilla berengei berengei) were murdered at Virunga, the population made famous by the work of Dian Fossey and her book Gorillas in the Mist. Combined with an earlier attack in the area seven gorillas were executed for unknown reasons within the space of two months, the presence of several warring Congolese militia factions in the area providing an overabundance of suspects but a…
voltagegate | June 16, 2008Yet another great Monday morning read from Wayne (even if it was posted over the weekend): an explanation of the thigmonastic response, leaf folding in plants, and the differences between movement in animals and movement in plants.
laelaps | June 9, 2008Last fall I was saddened to learn that the Yangtze River dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) is probably extinct. Today it was announced that the Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), last seen in the 1950's, is most likely extinct as well. The Endangered Species Protection Act came too late for these marine mammals (the last sighting was in 1952 and the seals were listed as endangered in 1967), and it is possible that they were entirely extinct before they even received protected status.
The two extant species of monk seal, the Hawaiian (Monachus schauinslandi) and Mediterranean (Monachus…
voltagegate | June 9, 2008Critterthink, the blog of the Center for Native Ecosystems in Denver, CO has posted a guide to the 2008 Farm Bill from a conservation perspective, highlighting what they call the good, the bad and the ugly. If you haven't had time to review the bill yourself, take advantage of the hard work these folks put into breaking it down for us.
The Farm Bill is an omnibus bill passed every few years, setting a policy toolkit for agriculture in the US. It has massive implications for industry, food, foreign policy and, for our purposes, conservation and the environment.
Here are a few things that stuck…