Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Here’s another classic ecological experiment depicted by the ECOmotion Studios crew, again for the Ecological Society of America‘s centennial. This one uses some of the same narrative approaches as the other shorts in this series, although this one is set to more of a “song” than the others. Narrating an experiment and its rationale is Read More
A Minor Post, Community Ecology, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Ecology, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Science in Art & Design
Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Here’s another fun and informative video from ECOmotion Studios. I thought that it was interesting how this short discussed the connection between decomposers and the eventual supply of oil, although I wonder if many viewers will gain enough information from this short video to fully understand this idea. The basic ideas behind Hairston-Smith-Slobodkin (HSS) are Read More
A Minor Post, Carrying Capacity, Community Ecology, Ecological Society of America, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Predation, Science in Art & Design, Terrestrial
Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Back at the Evolution 2014 meeting I encountered the great “Drift” animated short, which I still use in my evolution course. Well the producers of that short have formed ECOmotion Studios, and they have made a bunch more videos in honor of the Ecological Society of America‘s centennial. This one is a fun “spoken word” jam Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Community Ecology, Competition, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Intertidal Zones, Keystone Species, Methods, Predation, Science in Art & Design
Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Urban Wildlife Podcast “Episode 3: Timbers on a Boston Island” I love this episode because it captures the two major human impacts of urban ecology: the creation of commensal niches for some species while other species are isolated to islands of small remaining habitat. We learn about a variety of organisms from birds to bugs Read More
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Birds, Commensalism, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Mutualism, Parthenogenesis, Radio & Podcasts, Reptiles, Sustainable Urban Design, Urban Ecology
Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution “A deal with Japan on whaling?” Having been a fan of Whale Wars for awhile, and being predisposed to thinking that we ought to protect large, social, cooperative, cognitively-advanced animals, it is a bit hard for me to accept legal whaling of any kind. But as this article points out Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Articles, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Conservation Biology, Cooperation, Economics, Ethics, Public Policy, Social Norms, Sustainable Harvesting
Posted 29 Sep 2015 / 0
The Guardian “Activists occupy British Museum over BP sponsorship” I really like that idea expressed by these activists that BP’s sponsorship of big art exhibits is not philanthropy. They are basically paying to mainstream their own presence, to obscure their true identity as a corporation that profits from threatening the future of our species. A Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Art & Design, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Greenwashing, Habitat Destruction, Pollution, Sustainability, Web
Posted 29 Sep 2015 / 0
I was excited to recently discover that The Evolution Institute, a “think-tank that doesn’t just think” about how to apply evolutionary understanding to human problems, is working to foster a new professional society dedicated to the study of cultural evolution. Dubbed the Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution (SSCE), this emerging society endeavors to Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Archaeology, Behavior, Cooperation, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Environmental Justice, Evolutionary Modeling, Political Science, Professional Societies, Psychology, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Religion, Social Science, Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution, Sociology
Posted 20 Sep 2015 / 0
Urban Wildlife Podcast “Episode 4: Cats and Coyotes” What I really enjoyed about this particular episode of the Urban Wildlife Podcast was the interaction between topics covered. The effects of both cats and coyotes are still largely unknown, even as both animals are fairly common in urban areas. Domesticated cats are pretty easy to track Read More
A Minor Post, Animal Domestication, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Birds, Canids, Coevolution, Conservation Biology, Data Limitation, Felids, Habitat Fragmentation, Methods, Predation, Radio & Podcasts, Temperate Forest, Tracking, Urban Ecology
Posted 08 Sep 2015 / 0
Scientific American News Feed “California Officials Unveil Plans for Wildlife Bridge over Highway” In my Ecology for Architects class we talk a lot about Mountain Lions and how their habitats are fragmented by highways. Radio collar and mortality data suggests that these urban predators need better corridors across highways. Could this grassy bridge be a Read More
A Minor Post, Conservation Biology, Green Design, Habitat Fragmentation, Urban Ecology, Urban Planning, Web
Posted 25 Aug 2015 / 0
Current Biology “Positively Frequency-Dependent Interference Competition Maintains Diversity and Pervades a Natural Population of Cooperative Microbes” This is another great example of how theory that does not consider space is a poor representation of nature. Here, the diversity of a soil bacterium (Myxococcus xanthus) is shown to be potentially explained by positive frequency-dependent selection, the Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Competition, Cooperation, Ecological Modeling, Evolutionary Modeling, Kin Selection, Microbial Ecology, Soil Ecology
