ecology
voltagegate | June 2, 2008
I finally got around to blogging about this study published in PLoS One a few weeks ago, regarding geophagy in tropical species of bats. The study provides a nice overview of the literature and some of the potential reasons why they (and we) do it.
We all eat dirt, in a sense, through mineral supplements or through the minerals and inorganic nutrients contained in our food, but there is a long history of the consumption of clay by human beings, and some tribes in sub-Saharan Africa continue to visit these "clay licks". Pregnant women in particular will frequent these licks. Scientists…
laelaps | May 27, 2008
I wonder when they're going to stage a similar commercial with Steve Carrell...
Speaking of Harrison Ford, the actor was just elected to the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. Ford was elected to the position because of the attention his character Indiana Jones has brought to the discipline of archaeology. When I was younger part of my desire to become a paleontologist was due to the influence of the Indiana Jones films (I used to wear a brown fedora everywhere. In fact, I just bought a new one), and hopefully the exploits of the fictional character will spark a…
awild | May 22, 2008
Spring is swarm season for honeybees, and the feral population in Tucson is booming. We've got not one but two new colonies nesting in dead trees in our yard. I didn't do anything to attract them, they just moved in on their own.
My feelings about honey bees are mixed.
On one hand, I have many fond memories of working as a beekeeper back when I was in Peace Corps. There's something exhilarating about opening a hive, feeling the vibration of thousands of little wings, the scent of honey and wax thick in the air. Bees are charismatic creatures, and although I worked with them pretty…
awild | May 19, 2008
Lycaena xanthoides - Great Copper
California
A butterfly larva peeks through a hole it has eaten in its Rumex host plant.
chaoticutopia | May 11, 2008Let’s finish this weekend of red, orange, and yellow, with some flowers for Mom. And a honeybee. The blossoms are more pink than red, but the bee definitely has the orange/yellow look going for it.
Moms like bees, right? Consider this: if it wasn’t for the bees, fertilizing everything from almond and cherry trees to rose blossoms, Mother’s Day gifts would be pretty lame--no flower bouquets, no boxes of fancy filled chocolates. See? Moms love bees... at least indirectly.
So, here are some flowers for Mom... with a bee:
Honeybee Pollinating a Prairie Fire Crabapple Blossom
Personally (…
laelaps | May 7, 2008A commercial about global climate change;
And there's one with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, too;
I haven't had much time to poke around the site as yet, but wecansolveit.org is the homepage of the We campaign, an extension of the Alliance for Climate Protection that Al Gore started in 2006. The campaign is primarily hoping to cause a sea change in public understanding about global climate change to bring the public up to date on issues that scientists have known for years. From a FAQ found on the website;
The We campaign is a nationwide effort to engage and mobilize the American people…
laelaps | May 6, 2008According to a report recently published in TIME, developers in Florida have announced their plans to push back the Miami-Dade Urban Development Boundary so that a new Lowe's and some office buildings can be built. Why the county needs another major home-improvement outlet, no one seems to know, but the move to further encroach into the Everglades has already caused a fair amount of muck-slinging.
The Miami-Dade County Commission recently approved plans to build a Lowe's and offices, although it seems that at least some of the members are in bed with developers. One member, Jose "Pepe" Diaz,…
chaoticutopia | May 2, 2008Senator McCain thinks the effort to preserve our horticultural record and a potential treasure trove for medicinal science is a waste of money.
This morning, I went to Senator McCain’s town hall meeting at the Jewish Community Center in Denver. The Rocky Mountain News made it sound as if I was part of some sneaky infiltration:
"The mainstream media has basically given McCain a free ride so far by not asking him tough questions," wrote Michael Huttner, president of ProgressNow. "So it’s important for citizens to ask those questions ourselves."
The group became concerned, however, when the…
laelaps | April 30, 2008The skull of Paranthropus boisei (AKA "Zinj," "Dear Boy," "Nutcracker Man," etc.). From Ungar et al. 2008.Ever since the discovery of the hominds we call Paranthropus robustus in 1938 and Paranthropus boisei in 1959, the dietary habits of these "robust australopithecines" have been controversial. With skulls that seem to have more in common with gorillas than with Homo habilis, another hominid more closely related to us that lived during the same time, it has long been thought that Paranthropus was a dietary specialist. The saggital crest, large and thickly-enameled teeth, and huge jaws of…
voltagegate | April 29, 2008As if coral in the world didn't have enough trouble, increased storm activity/strength is interrupting the reproductive/colonization process in southern Belize:
The team measured the size of more than 520 non-branching corals in two major coral reef areas in southern Belize: the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve, a world heritage site in the second largest barrier reef in the world, and the Port Honduras Marine Reserve. In addition to providing habitat for an array of marine life, non-branching massive corals--robust and shaped like mounds, and sometimes called 'brain corals'--buffer coastal…
voltagegate | April 29, 2008
If I was given three wishes, I have always said that one of them would be to watch the evolution of life at my leisure, being able speeding things up and slowing them down at will. Of all the time periods we've designated, the Ediacaran and the Cambrian periods would be a frame by frame analysis. Were these organisms really that much different from modern organisms, and if so, did their ecology reflect these differences?
PLoS One published a paper today that attempts to make my pipe dream a reality by taking the well known geological snapshots of Cambrian life, the Chengjiang and Burgess…
laelaps | April 29, 2008Today I've got a human osteology exam, so while I'm trying to make sure I know all my processes, foramina, and sutures things are going to be a bit light here. Still, I've got a few items of interest to unload here before trying to cram more of White's Human Osteology into my brain;
The next edition of the Boneyard is coming up this Saturday and will appear at Familiarity Breeds Content. Get your submissions in to me or Nick soon! Two weeks after that the carnival will be back here with a special edition where participants will have a chance to win some paleontology books from my own library…
laelaps | April 25, 2008It's Friday night, which may mean that you're headed out for dinner, to hit the bars with from friends, or otherwise celebrate the beginning of the weekend. While you're out, though, some of your appliances are still going to be drawing power even when you think you've turned them off. The fact that many of us own "vampire appliances" like TVs, microwaves, and air conditions is well known, but what can you do about it? Wait around for appliance companies to make their products better at saving energy?
I don't know about you, but even if appliance companies started making energy-saving…
voltagegate | April 25, 2008
Two waterways meet in a surreal junction at Vale Summit, a small low streambed in the Appalachian forests of Maryland, surrounded by high sandy banks and the faint sound of passing traffic.
Bright orange coal mine drainage from the Hoffman tunnel washes iron oxides and sulfates over rocks and tree limbs and completely distorts the little brown flow of Braddock Run, a smaller, slower but rich stream, providing a home to benthic invertebrates and young fish that the drainage cannot.
Braddock Run exhibits all the attributes of a healthy stream: neutral pH, low iron levels and a diverse scatter…
voltagegate | April 24, 2008Ed has a great review of a recent paper in Nature presenting new research that describes just how extensive the damage done by the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia. The culprit of the outbreak is most likely climate change since sudden drops in temperature common in northern areas like BC have historically been a check on the beetle's population; in recent years, the winters have been less intense and the beetle populations have benefited from the extension.
It immediately reminded me of the extinction-themed AAAS session I attended and blogged about last year, where ecologist Jim…
grrlscientist | April 23, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, evolution, speciation, Pod Mrcaru lizard, Podarcis sicula, reptiles
Pod Mrcaru lizard, Podarcis sicula.
Image: Anthony Herrel (University of Antwerp) [larger view]
Evolution has long been thought to occur slowly, due to small and gradual genetic changes that accumulate over millions of years until eventually, a new species arises. However, recent research has been calling this assumption into question. According to a study that was just published by an international team of scientists, dramatic physical changes can occur very rapidly -- on the order of just 30…
laelaps | April 22, 2008Happy Earth Day, everyone. I doubt my own ability to come up with something especially meaningful and poignant today, so instead I will refer you to two of my favorite quites from Carl Sagan and Aldo Leopold.
It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder…
awild | April 18, 2008
Araeoschizus sp. Ant Beetle (Tenebrionidae)
California
Araeoschizus is a small genus of darkling beetle that both resembles ants and lives close to ant nests. It occurs in the arid western regions of North America. Not much is known about the nature of the association of these beetles with the ants, but they may subsist on the refuse of harvester ant colonies.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, twin flash diffused through tracing paper
Beetles collected by Kojun Kanda.
awild | April 15, 2008
Forelius mccooki (small ants) & Pogonomyrmex desertorum
Tucson, Arizona
In last August's National Geographic, photographer Mark Moffett has a controversial photo essay depicting a large, motionless harvester ant being worked over by smaller Dorymyrmex workers. Moffett's interpretation of the behavior is this:
While observing seed-harvester ants on the desert flats west of Portal, Arizona, I noticed workers would approach a nest of a tiny, unnamed species of the genus Dorymyrmex. A harvester would rise up on her legs with abdomen lifted and jaws agape, seemingly frozen in place. Soon…
awild | April 14, 2008
I can't imagine a more unpleasant way to go. This poor oleander aphid (Aphis nerii) has its innards sucked out by a hoverfly larva.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
MT-24EX flash diffused through tracing paper
levels adjusted in Photoshop.