Posted 03 Dec 2015 / 0
National Public Radio “In Worst Attacks, Terrorists Often Have Fraternal Bonds” This is an interesting — albeit brief — piece on a recent “pattern” that has emerged in terror attacks: teams of attackers are often composed of blood relatives. As a good scientist I have to point out that there’s a danger here of over-generalizing Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Data Limitation, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Mismatch theory, Phenotypic Plasticity, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Social Diversity
Posted 20 Oct 2015 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment “A world without parasites: exploring the hidden ecology of infections” I was really excited to read this article because this is an issue that I have thought a fair bit about. As you will know if you have read my posts before, I am not the biggest fan of Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavioral Ecology, Coevolution, Community Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Parasitism, Predation
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 02 Oct 2015 / 0
National Geographic Germination blog “Antibiotic Resistance Getting Worse Globally, But Fixes Could Be Simple” Antibiotic resistance is an interesting problem because it highlights how individual decisions drive international-scale dynamics and then come right back to impact individuals. Unlike other big international tragedies of the commons such as climate change or fisheries collapse, the effects of Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Coevolution, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Social Norms, Web
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 05 Aug 2015 / 0
BMC Ecology “Commonness and ecology, but not bigger brains, predict urban living in birds” What makes this study smart is that it compares the birds that live successfully in urban areas with the birds that actually have the potential to colonize cities. This makes for a much more meaningful comparison than simply comparing urban species Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Behavior, Birds, Brain size, Coevolution, Cognitive Ability, Commensalism, Conservation Biology, Habitat Destruction, Resilience, Urban Ecology
Posted 27 Jul 2015 / 0
Urban Wildlife Podcast “Bangkok Pythons and Gotham Whales” This is a really interesting podcast that focuses on the wildlife of cities. This episode is about huge animals that manage to live in close proximity to cities, specifically in their waterways. The section on reticulated pythons — which can grow up to 23-25 feet long — Read More
A Minor Post, Cetaceans, Coevolution, Commensalism, Conservation Biology, Public Outreach, Radio & Podcasts, Reptiles, Urban Ecology
Posted 17 Jul 2015 / 0
I am not much of an arborist (well, really, I am not an arborist at all!), but I do appreciate trees. Urban trees are especially interesting to me because of their ability to deal with the many insults of the urban environment. I thought that this image — taken where the curb had been peeled Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Competition, Urban Ecology
Posted 24 Jun 2015 / 0
There’s a really interesting article in the upcoming (July 2015) issue of National Geographic entitled “Stalking a Killer“. Using the most recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa as a case study, the article looks at the nature of a variety of unusual and rare diseases caused by filoviruses. Ebola is not a virus that Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Parasitism, Predation
Posted 14 Jan 2015 / 1
I am very pleased to announce that a paper that I worked on with collaborators Jun-Zhou He, Rui-Wu Wang, and Yao-Tang Li has been published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports. The paper, entitled “Asymmetric interaction paired with a super-rational strategy might resolve the tragedy of the commons without requiring recognition or negotiation“, considers how Read More
A Major Post, Altruism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Coevolution, Cooperation, Game Theory, Multilevel Selection, My publications, Phenotypic Plasticity
