Somewhere in my education, I distinctly remember a video that explained ecosystem succession moving towards a climax condition. The film depicted the gradual filling of a lake and subsequent encroachment of saplings as the system aged towards its inevitable end as a hardwood forest in the eastern United States. I remember thinking even then, “but where do lakes come from?” I couldn’t work out how there could be a mosaic of habitats if there was a steady progression towards a single endpoint.
Having an 8-year old when Christmas, Easter, or a lost tooth rolls around can be a tricky thing. You obviously don’t want to ruin the magic of these childhood landmarks, but at a certain point it kind of feels like you’re lying to them. Luckily I enjoy a bit of speculative ecology, so here’s my poorly thought-out version of the Easter bunny, or Pasquelatis lagomorphus.
When talking about species conservation, my concern is always around how many individuals should there be in a population of species. What should be our numeric goal in re-establishing a species? Should the endangered anoa become as many as their domestic relative, the water buffalo, of which there are at least 3 million individuals in Indonesia? How about the songbirds? Should each species be as abundant as the chicken?
Many parliamentary debates in Norway cover ground that is familiar to other countries; climate change, the economy, pandemic responses. Yet I’m happy to say there’s one issue that is more unique to this part of the world: what to do with all these wolves. And this last week provided an entertaining yet ultimately sad microcosm of Norway’s wolf debate, reaching its peak with a dog in a bin.
Suppose we study salamanders and want to predict body mass based on their body length. We also want to account for the different conditions at each site we’ve collected our salamanders from. We fit a linear model with a random effect for site as we only have samples from a subset of sites. But when we’re trying to use that model to make some predictions about other salamanders, things get tricky…
The tiny mites on your face – we all have them, yet we barely know anything about them. We talked to Dr. Clanner-Engelshofen, one of the leading experts on facial mites, to find out why they’re so interesting and why you should be happy to have them.
Every year after I am finished with Europe’s largest ecology conference I write a summary of my most memorable thoughts and experiences. Truth be told,
Communicating the importance of restoring biodiversity and fighting against climate change is particularly crucial in a world where facts can be so easily distorted. Misinformation and fake news can be easily spread through social media and other online outlets, but the same outlets could also provide effective means of communication for scientific research. However there’s still a lot of work to be done figuring out how to use these new tools, and today’s paper looks at some of the pitfalls involved.
Perspectives on science, wildlife, travel and all things fascinating on our little blue dot
The Fisheries Blog: Your weekly spot for fun and engaging articles written by fish scientists from around the globe.
Boldly going where no forest ecologist has gone before
Discovering Dynamic Distributions - The virtual lab around Jonas Lembrechts
Don't need to be cool to be kind.
Bridging the gap between researchers, practitioners and policymakers
The Plankton and Policy Research Group at Plymouth University. PI: Dr Abigail McQuatters-Gollop
