fieldtalk

Making room for prairie STRIPs in Iowa’s cornbelt

A Field Talk interview with Lisa Schulte Moore (Land Sharing/Sparing #1) digs into how integrating STRIPs of prairie into conventional row crops helps farms, waterways, and wildlife.

Broadleaf trees and tamarack burn gold with fall color against the ever-green of conifers on the Teklanika River in the northeast corner of Denali National Park & Preserve.

Changing climate, changing landscape: monitoring the vast wilderness of interior Alaska

First ten-years of data from an ongoing monitoring effort sets a baseline for modeling and forestry management in Denali National Park and Preserve — listen to the Field Talk podcast with park service ecologist Carl Roland.

Erle C Ellis, and Navin Ramankutty. 2008. Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6: 439–447. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/070062

Where the ecologists are: a Field Talk podcast with Erle Ellis

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…

Jesse Nippert in the tall grass at Konza Prairie Biological Station

Tallgrass prairie: the invasion of the woody shrubs

As a Kansas boy, Jesse Nippert spent his youth wanting to escape the state, but found himself drawn inexorably back. Underlying the sea of grass is an interplay of water, fire, competition and consumption as enchanting as any ecosystem—and the balance of forces is shifting.

Immersed in the clouds: Interview with tropical cloud forest researcher

There is a world within the canopy of a tropical cloud forest that not many people get to see. In this unique ecosystem—maintained by the exceptionally wet microclimate of cloud cover—orchids, moss, lichens and other epiphytes grow in every crease and pocket of the supporting tree branches. Here, hundreds of species of birds, along with monkeys and other mammals navigate…

Field Talk: Termites enrich the soil in East Africa

Vertebrate fertilizer is not the only source of nutrients in the soils of East African savannahs, at least according to a study recently published in the journal Ecology. Alison Brody from the University of Vermont and colleagues found that termites actually had more of an effect on the fruiting success of Acacia trees in Kenya than did dung and urine deposition from ungulate herbivores, such as zebras and gazelles.