This post isn’t quite about ecology. But it’s about a phenomenon that many ecologists have ample experience with. A study out last week in Current Biology found that when people get lost in the wilderness, they actually do walk in circles. Jan Souman of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, and his colleagues set volunteer hikers…

Sorghum grown under acacia and palm trees in Burkina Faso. According to a new study by scientists at the World Forestry Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, we’ve underestimated that amount of trees worldwide that are grown in agricultural areas. Using satellite imagery, the scientists show at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry this week in Nairobi that trees cover more than…

This posted yesterday at The New York Times: permits have been issued to construct an oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to northern Wisconsin, bringing crude oil from the Alberta tar sands. The Alberta Clipper pipeline will run through Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin to Hardisty, Alberta. The State Department issued a permit for the construction of a new pipeline to bring…

The 10th International Congress of Ecology is taking place this week in Brisbane, Australia. This conference happens once every four years and aims to bring together ecologists from all corners of the world. The theme is “Ecology in a Changing Climate – Two hemispheres, one globe.” With the conference being held down under and hosted by the Ecological Society of Australia…

The debate about climate change has focused on one polarizing gas: carbon dioxide. CO2 and its portrayal to the general public is controversial because on one hand, it’s essential for all life, since plants need to breathe too.  But on the other hand it’s a greenhouse gas that traps heat in our atmosphere, and in some instances –such as new…

ESA’s biweekly Policy News, produced by our Policy Analyst Piper Corp, was released on Friday. You can read the full edition here. One theme is the revival of the Sustainable Watershed Planning Act, which was drafted in June but then tabled. Ecologists are becoming increasingly aware that a world potable water shortage may be looming (see remarks by Sandra Postel…

If you haven’t yet taken the time to check out The EEB and Flow blog, make today the day. Marc Cadotte, who has quite recently moved from a postdoc in sunny California to a professorship in chilly Toronto (a metaphor here, maybe?), and his colleagues maintain an excellent blog on all things ecology and evolutionary biology. Their blog posts center…

A stroma, or spore-releasing body, of a killer fungus grows out of the head of a victim ant. Image courtesy David Hughes and with thanks to Science News. As much as Hollywood might want you to think they exist, zombies are fictitious. But a study out today claims that actually, they kind of do exist — if your undead is…

As ESA’s Annual Meeting drew to a close today and the city of Albuquerque breathed a sigh of relief — now there might be places for locals to sit in a restaurant! — the echoes of the meeting were just beginning.  Scientific meetings are a place to bring together scientists from myriad subfields: in the case of ecology, from biogeochemistry…

A greenroof atop Chicago’s city hall. Having a garden on your roof isn’t just nice for a garden party; it can make your city more environmentally friendly. Planting a rooftop garden can offset heat, increase city biodiversity and decrease stormwater runoff, which is why many cities around the world are creating laws to encourage the use of greenroofs. In Berlin,…

Photo courtesy of Julie Naumann. If you’ve been to many national forests, chances are you’ve seen signs like the one to the left: walk on this field and a land mine might explode. In her talk this morning at the ESA Annual Meting, Julie Naumann of the U.S. Army Corps of engineers explained that even if they don’t explode, these…

This post was contributed by ESA’s Director of Public Affairs, Nadine Lymn. While other voices boldly make authoritative assertions over issues that may be deeply nuanced, scientists tend to communicate their considerable knowledge in ways which make them sound wishy-washy at best and completely uncertain at worst.  This was the theme of a symposium session, “Global Sustainability in the Face…