National Geographic News “Is Pollution Weakening Polar Bears’ Ability to Mate?” This sounds like fodder for a late-night television laugh line, but this is a pretty scary example of how bioaccumulation of toxins can have important conservation consequences. From a conservation perspective, there is nothing worse than a ubiquitous pollutant reducing the ability of a Read More
A Minor Post, Pollution, Sex and Reproduction, WebThe first season of my new video series, The WmD Project, will be focused on the foundational questions of ecology and evolution. As such I have been doing a little bit of research into these “big questions”, in particular as they were conceived of by the twin muses of this project, Alfred Russel Wallace and Read More
A Major Post, Ecology, Evolution, The WmD ProjectMy review of the Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology was just published in the Quarterly Review of Biology. It is a short review so I only give a very brief synopsis of this book, which is pretty remarkable in its scope but also pretty inconsistent in its delivery. I am excited to have this on my Read More
A Major Post, Ecological Modeling, My publicationsNPR Morning Edition “In Time Of Drought, Arizona’s Alfalfa Exports Are Criticized” There are so many interesting aspects to this story. First and foremost, it illustrates that “tragedies of the common” are entirely, well — common — in modern economies. The rules of resource use dictate whether that resource will be over-exploited: if there are Read More
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Cooperation, Deserts, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Water SupplyAbout five years ago I developed my Evolution course, which is aimed at my non-majors art and design students. I have not taught this course in more than two years, and as it has sat on the shelf I have been able to get that critical distance necessary to make the course better. So coming Read More
A Major Post, Assessment Methods, Competition, Conferences, Cooperation, Cooperative Breeding, EvoDevo, Evolution Education, Higher Education, Mutualism, Niche Partitioning, Parasitism, Society for the Study of EvolutionMy first session of the day was spent entirely in a Symbiosis session. I am fascinated by symbiosis, particularly mutualistic symbiosis, so I am always looking for cool new stories to help illustrate the concept for my students. This session featured a lot of talks on microbial symbionts, which are also of interest to me. The Read More
A Major Post, Coevolution, Conferences, Film & Video, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Mating systems, Microbial Ecology, Mutualism, Parasitism, Phylogenetics, Predation, Science in Art & Design, Sexual Selection, Society for the Study of EvolutionPatrick McLaughlin showed work on Bioko Island suggesting that frogs there may be protected from the ill effects of chytrid infection by the presence of bacterial symbionts. These symbionts produce metabolites that lower rates of parasitic infection, suggesting that symbionts might be used to protect amphibian populations worldwide. It also suggests a mechanism by which Read More
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Coevolution, Competition, Conferences, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Invasive Species, Mutualism, Parasitism, Society for the Study of EvolutionThe interactions in ecological communities can be structured in a variety of ways, and recently there has been a push to categorize these networks along the spectrum between modular (smaller clusters of more specialized interactions) and nested (unclustered networks with more generalist species). Theoretically it is understood that the nested communities are more stable, so Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Conferences, Mutualism, Mutualistic Networks, Society for the Study of EvolutionMary McKenna of Howard University presented work that suggested that thyme plants may be facultative mutualists when associated with various legume species. In work done at the Blandy Experimental Farm, her students have demonstrated that legumes growing in the presence of thyme plants form more root nodules in association with their nitrogen-fixing bacterial symbionts. This effect occurs Read More
A Minor Post, Competition, Conferences, Mutualism, Parasitism, Society for the Study of EvolutionErin McKenney of Duke University talked about three lemur species with different diets: a frugivore (fruit-eater), a generalist, and a folivore (leaf-eater). Not surprisingly their gut morphologies and passing times vary with their diet, but McKenney showed that they also have unique trajectories as infants are colonized by symbiotic bacteria of different types.
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Conferences, Mutualism, Primates, Society for the Study of Evolution