The ESA podcasts page has been revamped! Check out the new look for your favorite ESA podcasts on the new ESA podcasts page. Or, if you’re an ESA podcast newbie, here’s the rundown of the three series: Beyond the Frontier features interviews with the authors publishing in the ESA journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The authors to discuss…
A paper out online in the August issue of Ecology Letters presents a new index for estimating biodiversity. John Harte of UC Berkeley and his colleagues have developed a method that they say yields more precise measures of biodiversity than classic indices, such as Simpson’s and Shannon’s diversity indices. In an argument similar (but reversed) to that for quantum physics,…
Elephants have changed the ecology of Amboseli and other national parks in Kenya. Credit: David Western Research in PLoS ONE today shows that animals in Kenya’s national parks are declining at the same rate as the same species outside the parks. This means, potentially, that the protection of animals in safe spaces may not lead to their recovery or success….
As plants become starved for CO2, rock weathering diminishes. Credit: study coauthor David Beerling Earth is currently in an ice age. (People, especially climate change naysayers, sometimes forget that.) The growth of the Antarctic ice sheet began about 25 million years ago, and by about 3 million years ago we had a full-blown ice age. What has remained a mystery…
People love living on the coast, and one of the most destructive human infrastructure practices is replacing natural shorelines with human-made seawalls. These walls are often tall, flat, and featureless, making them bad habitat for shore animals and plants. Biodiversity in these areas, of course, declines. In a paper published online today in Oecologia, Gee Chapman and D.J. Blockley did…
Some existing projections of global warming predict that by the year 2100, global sea levels will have risen by one meter due to polar ice cap melting and water expansion caused by rising temperatures. In a paper this week in Nature Geoscience, however, researchers determined that given our current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, our seas should actually be 25…
Geoengineering is the idea that humans can slow, stop or reverse the effects of climate change by altering the composition of Earth’s atmosphere and biosphere. While controversial, these methods, including reducing sun exposure by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or using giant mirrors to reflect the sun’s rays, were identified as a high-priority area for research by the G8-5 nations….
Ecologists have discovered yet another astonishing way that plants defy all manner of physical obstacles to get what they need. Researchers have discovered alpine plant roots that grow upwards, against gravity, and out of the soil…into the snow. A group of researchers centered at VU University in Amsterdam discovered the plant roots high in the mountains of southern Russia. The…
In 2001, the National Fire Plan was enacted by Congress, providing funding and support for local and regional governments to prepare for and mitigate wildfires. Now, a study led by Tania Schoennagel of the University of Colorado has attempted to assess the major results of the NFP in the Western United States around urban areas. Surprisingly, her results show that…
Scientists at the Smithsonian have identified the birds that caused US Airways Flight 1549 to crash into the Hudson River on Jan 15. The birds were identified as migratory Canada geese. The researchers reported their results online today in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and held a press briefing at the Smithsonian. Working out of the Smithsonian National Zoo’s…
Seed plants rely heavily on animals to disperse their seeds. These dispersers are crucial to the survival and fitness of plants – the pattern of dispersal can determine survivorship at the individual level, population dynamics at the community level and eventual evolution at the species level. From bats to mice to robins and monkeys, mammals and birds make up the…
Degradation of coral reefs due to such threats as pollution, climate warming, disease, overfishing and tourism has made them a poster child for destruction of diverse, wild ecosystems suffering at the hands of human-made problems. There is a little bit of good news, though, according to researchers publishing in the June issue of Ecology. Seaweed, which can suffocate corals on…