voltagegate | April 24, 2007We have submission guidelines and a full game plan for the next couple of weeks.
As of today, there are 50 participants (including the birth of a new blog). Please send me an e-mail and register at the Google group if you are interested in joining us, and the Flickr group if you plan on photoblogging the event.
Jenn has crafted a fine array of buttons for participants and supporters of the Blogger Bioblitz. Check them out, download and help us spread the word while adding a bit of spring flare to your blog or website.
Greg has contacted a friend from Discover Life, who has graciously lent his…
voltagegate | April 24, 2007"Shortsighted men... in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things."
-Theodore Roosevelt
voltagegate | April 22, 2007Well, Heather and I stumbled out of bed this morning around 5:30 (after two alarms, my clock and my cat), sipped some coffee and watched the sun rise. It could have been a typical school day, actually, but this morning we were heading out for our first bioblitz of the week.
We decided to leisurely browse our campus arboretum for a couple hours this morning. It's a marshy, three to four acre forest with ample water sources, including a small bog (below), a sizable creek and a pond. Our soccer field, softball field and football fields are in close proximity, which limits the relative diversity…
voltagegate | April 22, 2007This clip is from State of the Planet, another BBC gem yet to be released in the US. This is perhaps the best presentation of the story of Easter Island there is, and intimately relevant to this day, Earth Day.
voltagegate | April 21, 2007Jenn over at Invasive Species Weblog wrote a brilliant post about corporations that are distributing seeds as a supposedly "green" gesture of peace and love straight out of 1969. Betcha they don't have answers to her questions:
...someone needs to tell Starbucks that "wildflower" is not the beautiful, perfect embodiment of do-gooding they seem to think it is (I tried, but they have yet to respond). What species are these? Where are they native to? Are they potentially invasive?
[...]
But this is an environmental campaign - isn't anyone looking at the big picture? Sowing seeds from who-knows-…
voltagegate | April 21, 2007"To promote conservation, fishers and officials need to view fish as a part of a larger ecological system, rather than simply as a commodity to extract."
-Ann Platt McGinn
voltagegate | April 21, 2007Over 40 bloggers will be stepping outside for National Wildlife Week, April 21 - 29, field guides, binoculars and seines in hand and pack to catalogue all the species they can find in a local area of their choosing.
Early tomorrow morning, I'll be heading out to our campus' arboretum, a small, manageable riparian forest. I'll probably be tackling another area in Western Pennsylvania later in the week. The first post from me should be up be tomorrow afternoon.
We have spent the past month refining the process at our forum. Use the following links to access any information you may need. Also,…
voltagegate | April 20, 2007From Planet Earth, the great struggle on the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetan fox vs. pika:
voltagegate | April 20, 2007Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the clouds were like light piles of cotton; and where the blue sky was visible, it wore a hazy and languid aspect.
-Francis Parkman (Photo: Mongolian grassland)
Perhaps no where else on the planet can you find a better example of the rise and fall of ecosystems and the rise and fall of human cultures than on the North American prairie. So much of American history has taken place on the Great Plains: the emigration of nomadic peoples from Asia, their domination of the Plains and probable partial responsibility for the loss of most of…
voltagegate | April 19, 2007"What right has any citizen of a free country, whatever his foresight and shrewdness, to seize on sources of life for his own behoof that are the common heritage of all; what right has legislature or court to help in the seizure; and striking still more deeply, what right has any generation to wholly consume, much less to waste, those sources of life without which the children or the children's children must starve or freeze?"
-William John McGee
voltagegate | April 18, 2007Today is my one year blogiversary and I will be celebrating by helping the Sierra Student Coalition and other conservation groups on campus celebrate Earth Day 2007 a few days early, to coincide with our new president's inauguration.
The new pres has promised to sign the Talloires Declaration, declaring his dedication to promoting a sustainable campus.
The Bottom Line will have a table at the celebration, handing out our annual Earth Day edition of the paper. I should have pics of the event up later.
This also marks the day I will begin occasionally reposting substantial, non-timely posts…
voltagegate | April 17, 2007"No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal."
-Jacques Yves Cousteau
voltagegate | April 17, 2007Maniola jurtina
Another study was published recently in Ecology that sought to tease out and analyze environmental factors (the other regarded deforestation and albedo), this time with a concentration on species diversity, specifically different native butterfly populations in Britain.
The butterflies were split into two main groups:
...habitat specialists, occupying one or a few localized habitats; [and] habitat generalists, occupying widespread and/or many habitats...
The researchers studied three factors affecting butterfly diversity: the direct and indirect (trophic cascade) effects of…
voltagegate | April 17, 2007The scientists are at it again, conducting horrible experiments on the cutest, sweetest Easter treat: Peeps.
What happens when you put a Peep in a vacuum? How does a Peep react to microwave radiation and temperature extremes? These quacks even justify their research by claiming that Peeps have no hearts.
Have they no souls?
Tip: Jen, Shelley
voltagegate | April 17, 2007Probably when they find a Playstation in the kid's bedroom.
Derek has more.
voltagegate | April 16, 2007No, really. It is. Deep Sea News has the scoop, complete with a nifty marine diversity graph.
voltagegate | April 16, 2007James has a busy month of PhD finalization coming up and won't be able to host Oekologie #5 in May. Fortunately, I have nothing better to do (certainly not finals and graduation - j/k) than host my favorite blog carnival on the planet a few months early.
James will be taking my original spot in August.
So get your entries in now for May's Oekologie. I'm sure it will be themed (isn't it always?).
voltagegate | April 16, 2007There's a great thread at the Google Group where folks are previewing their Bioblitz plans. Check it out to get a sense of what you'll see in the next couple weeks.
Still time to join. Shoot me an e-mail.