ecology
grrlscientist | January 11, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
grrlscientist | January 4, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
razib | January 2, 2009Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer:
We report abundant nanodiamonds in sediments dating to 12.9 ± 0.1 thousand calendar years before the present at multiple locations across North America. Selected area electron diffraction patterns reveal two diamond allotropes in this boundary layer but not above or below that interval. Cubic diamonds form under high temperature-pressure regimes, and n-diamonds also require extraordinary conditions, well outside the range of Earth's typical surficial processes but common to cosmic impacts. N-diamond concentrations range from 10 to…
awild | December 28, 2008This morning I was picking through recent ant literature for a 2008 myrmecological retrospective post when I stumbled on this little gem.
Why do autumn leaves change to such striking colors? Kazuo Yamazaki thinks it's all about the ants:
Therefore, bright autumn leaves may have adaptive significance, attracting myrmecophilous specialist aphids and their attending ants and, thus, reducing herbivory and competition among aphids.
I hereby proclaim Kazuo Yamazaki the first recipient of an award in his own name, the Yamazaki "Going Way Out On A Limb" Award, for creative lateral thinking in…
grrlscientist | December 21, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
edyong | December 20, 2008
Miners used to take canaries into unfamiliar shafts to act as early warning systems for the presence of poisons. Today, climate scientists have their own canaries - amphibians. Amphibians - the frogs, toads and salamanders - are particularly susceptible to environmental changes because of their fondness for water, and their porous absorbent skins. They are usually the first to feel the impact of environmental changes.
And feel it they have. They are one of the most threatened groups of animals and one in three species currently faces extinction. The beautiful golden toad (right) was one of…
clock | December 15, 2008The next Sigma Xi Pizza Lunch -- noon, Wednesday, Dec. 17 -- is a chance to learn more about climate change's expected environmental toll. UNC-Chapel Hill marine biologist and ecologist John Bruno will discuss recent research on links between coral disease outbreaks and warming waters.
The Pizza Lunch speaker series is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all stripes. Feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you would like to see included. RSVPs are required (so we can get a reliable slice count) to cclabby@amsci.org.
Directions to Sigma XI: http://www.…
awild | December 14, 2008Neivamyrmex nigrescens, Arizona
Army ants have a decidedly tropical reputation. The term conjures spectacular images of swarms sweeping across remote Amazonian villages, devouring chickens, cows, and small children unlucky enough to find themselves in the path of the ants. Of course, the habits of real army ants are not nearly so sensational, but they are at least as interesting.
The approximate range of army ants in North America.
Few people are aware that more than a dozen army ant species are found in the United States. Most belong to the genus Neivamyrmex, a diverse group that…
grrlscientist | December 14, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
awild | December 13, 2008From an interview with E. O. Wilson:
[Q:]Are ants better at anything than humans?
[Wilson:] Human beings have not yet made an accommodation with the rest of lifeâwhereas ants, whose history dates back more than 100 million years, have achieved that balance, mostly by specializing among the 14,000 known species in terms of where they live, what they eat, and how they relate to other species. Each, for the most part, has acquired a balance with prey, food, and space, halting population growth before it crashes. Ants have reached some degree of sustainability, while humans have not. We're not…
clock | December 12, 2008CNN reports: Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage:
Up and down the East Coast, residents and naturalists alike have been scratching their heads this autumn over a simple question: Where are all the acorns? Oak trees have shed their leaves, but the usual carpet of acorns is not crunching underfoot. In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.
But closer reading reveals that it is lay people and amateur naturalists who are baffled, while scientists are not. Scientists are well aware…
clock | December 12, 2008Ideas in Ecology and Evolution is a new Open Access journals which is also experimenting with the review process.
Bob O'Hara and commenters go into details. I hope it does not end like Medical Hypotheses: a great source of blog-fodder for snarky bloggers and not much else. We'll keep an eye....
tsmith | December 11, 2008 I've mentioned repeatedly how little we know about Ebola ecology--what the reservoir host(s) are, how it's transmitted to humans (and other species), why it causes outbreaks when it does. We know even less about the Reston subtype of Ebola, which--in contrast to the Zaire, Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Bundibugyo subtypes, originated in Asia and was first found in monkeys imported into the United States for research purposes. It also is different from the other subtypes in that it appears to be only mildly lethal to monkeys, and several asymptomatic human infections have been documented (but…
awild | December 9, 2008Solenopsis invicta - invasive or just disturbed?
Prevailing wisdom holds that imported fire ants marched across the southern United States on the virtue of their fierce nature and superior competitive ability. The fire ant conquest of the south reads like a tale of bravery and intrigue, but according to Walt Tschinkel and Josh King it is also not true.  They have a must-read study in PNAS this week detailing a tight set of field experiments that turns the conventional wisdom upside-down.
King and Tschinkel disturbed various patches of native Florida pine forest by mowing or plowing,…
grrlscientist | December 7, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
clock | December 5, 2008And blogging about! Obligatory readings of the day:
The Evolution of Poisonous Birds:
This research elegantly demonstrates that the evolution of just one character -- in this case, toxicity -- can profoundly affect the evolution of a suite of other characters, ranging from body size and behavioral traits to ecological niche.
Allen's Rule, Phenotypic Plasticity, and The Nature of Evolution:
Within species ... across clines or subspecies ... this raises very significant (and addressable) questions regarding adaptation in the genetic vs. the ontogenetic realms. If Allen's rule is primarily an…
hrynyshyn | December 3, 2008Our SciBlogging colleague William "Stoat' Connolley had to do come climbing down after a recent post tearing a strip off fellow Brit, enviro-activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot turned out to be grossly unfair. Most of the fuss was over Connelley's mistaken impression that Monbiot didn't know what he was talking about, but as anyone familiar with Monbiot knows, he attributes everything and is usually quite accurate when it comes to interpreting whatever piece of climate science he's discussing. But just as important, given recent events, is Connelley's failure to appreciate just…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2008One of the key biological questions about antibiotic resistance is to what extent is the spread of resistance due to the evolution of new resistant strains versus the spread of existing resistant strains. With MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it's been thought that epidemic spread of a few resistant genotypes (strains) is responsible for much of the increase in MRSA, as shown by this image of pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) done on a nationwide collection of MRSA:
(from here)
However, methods such as PFGE lack the genetic resolution to determine if gene transfer is…
grrlscientist | November 30, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
grrlscientist | November 23, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…