Big fish, little fish, hump-shaped foraging curves, and the landscape of fear. by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer IN LIFE, much depends on context. The benefits accruing from the pursuit of liberty, lunch, and other forms of happiness, are tempered by the presence of risk. This is as true for small fishes as for anyone. In Lake Erie, young yellow…
A guest post by Heather Lessig, a ConservationCorridor moderator and research technician in Nick Haddad’s lab at NC State LANDSCAPE corridors are among the most important conservation strategies in the face of global changes such as habitat fragmentation, habitat destruction, and climate change. Corridors are habitats that are typically long relative to their width, and they connect fragmented patches of…
Meretsky and colleagues propose a national conservation-support program to help knit together state level efforts and larger federal programs, such as the recently established Landscape Conservation Cooperatives delineated here, and prevent species from falling through the gaps.
Josh Miller is one among a small cadre of ecologists looking at living ecosystems through the relics of their dead. by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Flags mark bone locations as field assistant Jared Singer maps a carcass near a lake in Yellowstone National Park. Credit, Joshua Miller. ________________ JOSH Miller likes to call himself a conservation paleobiologist. It’s a…
The UM-Baltimore County ecologist talks about geographical context in field research and why he thinks the value of nature is more than the sum of it’s services. by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Listen to the podcast on the Field Talk page, or download it from iTunes. Ellis collaborated with Laura Martin and Bernd Blossey of Cornell University on the Frontiers…
A Colombian coal mine opens a treasure chest of fossils. By Liza Lester IT was large, that much was obvious. When Edwin Cadena first saw the fossil in 2005, he thought he might be uncovering another specimen of Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the ancient snake he and his colleagues discovered in 2004 on a Smithsonian expedition lead by Carlos Jaramillo, Jason Head,…
by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer This fall has seen the endgame of the US Justice Department’s civil case against British Petroleum and eight partners in the matter of the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout, likely to be settled soon, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Justice Department is suing under the Clean Water Act for damages from the…
WE live in a human-dominated world. For many of our fellow creatures, this means a fragmented world, as human conduits to friends, family, and resources sever corridors that link the natural world. The latest installment in ESA’s Issues in Ecology series takes on models and methods for reconnecting wildlife habitat in restoration and conservation planning and management.
by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer “Help!” 1969. Cleveland State University Library Special Collections. Cleveland Press Collection. Bill Roberts Editorial Cartoon Collection. Roberts0706. By 1969, there had long been no fish left in the Cuyahoga to plead for help, according to a Time magazine article that ran that August, and commented, memorably, “Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases,…
New America Foundation fellows say no. Terence says, not so fast— By Terence Houston, Policy Analyst, and Liza Lester, Communications Officer In the thick of Presidential debate season, with November 6th bearing down upon us, DC think tank the New America Foundation teamed up with Slate Magazine and Arizona State University to “Delve into ‘12” and ask a panel of…
On the market for scientific jobs, male applicants enjoy a substantial advantage, say Yale University researchers. by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer A SUBTLE but persistent bias dogs women entering into scientific professions. A recent study in PNAS found that faculty, regardless of gender, favor male applicants over female applicants for entry level lab management positions. Though they found female…
by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum, evolved in the old world, but has been very successful in the new, with a talent for colonizing disturbed rangeland. It fuels early season range fires. Credit, Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé “Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz,” 1885. http://www.biolib.de/ Bats & Birds (& Ants) The Nature Conservancy has built a…