Field Talk » Field Talk

Seasonality and climate change

liza — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:29:22 +0000

Rising temperatures as a result of climate change promise to alter the behaviors of temperature-sensitive organisms. But climate change is also affecting the timing of seasons, which can throw off the alarm clock for critical behaviors, such as breeding. In this edition of Field Talk, we speak with Shaye Wolf, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. Her research, published in the March issue of Ecology, tracks the reproductive behaviors of a small seabird, Cassin’s Auklet, on islands from Alaska to Mexico. She explains that climate change affects different populations in different ways, but could have dire consequences for those that rely heavily on consistent seasonality.

The Sacrificial Sibling Hypothesis

liza — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:00:13 +0000

The success of an animal or plant is determined by how many offspring it produces. But in some cases, not all offspring are created equal. In the February edition of Field Talk, Jaboury Ghazoul of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, describes how some species of trees invest resources in seeds that cannot produce viable offspring. His paper in the February issue of Ecology shows that when seed predators are abundant, investment in decoy seeds – or “sacrificial siblings” – can increase a plant’s chances of producing successful progeny.

Lizard Evolution and the Ants In Your Pants Dance

liza — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:29:52 +0000

Invasive red fire ants from South America have become a major pest in southwestern U.S., bringing their stinging venom and crop-destroying ways. In this edition of Field Talk, we catch up with Tracy Langkilde, assistant professor of biology at Penn State University, who studies one of the ants’ seemingly unlikely targets: eastern fence lizards. The lizards have evolved a novel twitching response that flicks attacking ants off their bodies. But in her paper in the January issue of Ecology, Dr. Langkilde explains that since native ants don’t normally attack lizards, this behavior must have evolved in a very short time.

Candy canes as plant defenses

liza — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:47:15 +0000

What would make a plant want to stop growing towards the sun and instead grow downward? Michael Wise of the University of Virginia studies a species of goldenrod that grows toward the ground for part of the spring months, creating a morphology that looks a lot like a candy cane. He explains that this “candy-cane” morphology could increase the plant’s defenses against herbivores. The origin and evolution of such a defense, however, is a mystery when so few plants disguise themselves by this morphology, which he likens to an animal ducking to escape a threat. Read more about Wise’s research in the December issue of Ecology (www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/08-0277.1).

Dead Zones as Safe Havens

liza — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:39:18 +0000

Andrew Altieri, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University, joins us in this month’s episode of Field Talk to discuss his work examining hypoxic marine systems, known as dead zones. Altieri studies a community of clams and mussels – collectively known as bivalves – in Narragansett Bay, off the coast of Providence, Rhode Island. His paper in the October issue of Ecology shows that one species of bivalve, the quahog, can benefit from reduced oxygen content in the water. The resulting boom in quahog populations has important implications for ecosystem services.