Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0
Steady State The Daly News “Real Dichotomies Are Not Made ‘False’ by Soft Science or Political Pandering” What’s really valuable here is the clarification of what is cultural construction (‘there does not have to be a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection’) and what is scientific reality (‘there is actually an empirically-demonstrable conflict between Read More
A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Conservation Biology, Economics, Ethics, Sustainability, Web
Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Functional diversity within the simple gut microbiota of the honey bee“
A Minor Post, Articles, Coevolution, Mutualism
Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Deer, predators, and the emergence of Lyme disease“
A Minor Post, Articles, Parasitism
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
Today I had the pleasure of accompanying my daughter’s fourth grade class to the “Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Beyond making sure that all students returned home safely, I was also interested in how this exhibit explained bioluminescence as an evolved adaptation. When I teach Evolution, one Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Coevolution, Competition, Convergence, Cooperation, Evolution, Interactions, Marine Ecosystems, Museum design, Museums & Zoos, Mutualism, Phylogenetics, Predation, Sex and Reproduction, Terrestrial
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
Science “Fear of Predation Slows Plant-Litter Decomposition” Nature News “Stressed grasshoppers slow plant decay” More interesting community-level feedback between predators and their prey!
A Minor Post, Decomposition, Phenotypic Plasticity, Predation
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
PLos One “Shorter Food Chain Length in Ancient Lakes: Evidence from a Global Synthesis” What I wonder is: what is the mechanism by which these communities evolve away from their initial “short-and-wide” configuration?
A Minor Post, Articles, Community Ecology, Predation
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
PLoS One “A Comparison of the Effects of Random and Selective Mass Extinctions on Erosion of Evolutionary History in Communities of Digital Organisms“
A Minor Post, Community Ecology, Evolutionary Modeling, Extinction
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
PLoS One “Effects of Trophic Skewing of Species Richness on Ecosystem Functioning in a Diverse Marine Community“
A Minor Post, Articles, Community Ecology
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
Science Now “Pumas Leave Table Scraps” This is an interesting story because it suggests that Pumas maintain strong ecological interaction strengths with not just their prey but also all these commensal species. This finding makes it a lot harder to discount top predators as simply consumers whose only role is in depleting prey populations: for Read More
A Minor Post, Commensalism, Community Ecology, Predation, Web
Posted 18 Jun 2012 / 0
Science “Fears of Damage to Great Barrier Reef Delay Mine“
A Minor Post, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Habitat Destruction, Sustainable Energy
