{"id":5625,"date":"2011-08-05T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=5625"},"modified":"2011-08-05T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T13:00:37","slug":"record-drought-in-the-u-s-cod-fishery-recovery-and-bjorks-ode-to-e-o-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/08\/05\/record-drought-in-the-u-s-cod-fishery-recovery-and-bjorks-ode-to-e-o-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Record drought in the U.S., cod fishery recovery and Bjork\u2019s ode to E.O. Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is the last post I will contribute as moderator of ESA\u2019s blog <\/em>EcoTone\u2014it has been a wonderful, educational experience to explore the connectivity and complexity of life processes and to meet the scientists who have helped to further this cross-disciplinary research. I hope you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them! Please continue to visit the blog frequently for new posts, and remember that guest submissions are always welcome at esablog@esa.org. See the end of this post for a few highlighted <\/em>EcoTone articles published since January 2010. <\/em><\/p>\n

Detrimental drought:<\/strong> According to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>, Texas and other southern states are experiencing record-breaking, \u201cexceptional\u201d drought.\u00a0 And as a recent Reuters<\/em> article pointed out, these conditions are leading to wildlife hardships. In Austin, for example, the world\u2019s largest urban bat colony has been departing from under the Congress Bridge earlier than usual to search for prey. \u201cThe drought has killed off crops in Texas, and that in turn has killed off those delicious pests the Mexican free-tailed bats consider dinner,\u201d wrote Karen Brooks. As a result, the bats are emerging before sunset\u2014providing ample viewing time for bat-watchers but indicating the bats are exerting greater energy to feed. \u201cAn extended drought could be a double whammy for central Texas farmers, who depend on the bats to remove some 1,000 tons of insects and pests from the air each night,\u201d wrote Brooks. Read more<\/a> at \u201c1.5 million bats in Texas city left hungrier by drought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conserving water in the West:<\/strong> Many U.S. residents are aware that turning lights off after leaving a room conserves energy; however, people may not be as aware that conserving water is also conserving energy. As Daniel Glick reported in a Scientific American<\/em> article, \u201cNationally, energy production sucks more water from freshwater sources than any other sector except agriculture. It takes water to create the power we use to drive our cars, transport our groceries, and run our toaster ovens. Virtually every source of electricity in a typical American home or manufacturing plant\u2014whether it comes from hydroelectricity, coal, natural gas, nuclear, biofuels, or even concentrated solar\u2014also requires water. Lots of water.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cHow Saving Energy Means Conserving Water in U.S. West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slow recovery:<\/strong> Researchers from Dalhousie University have reported<\/a> that, after nearly two decades, cod and haddock fisheries off the coast of Nova Scotia are showing signs of recovery. After the fisheries collapsed due to overconsumption, the Canadian government closed this area in 1993 and has just started to see the ecosystem begin to stabilize. As Hannah Waters concluded in a Scientific American<\/em> article, this is just one example of a potential full-recovery. \u201cOther similar fishery collapses have not recovered because invasive species, such as jellies, have rolled in to take advantage of the mess,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe cod\u2019s recovery is hopeful but it\u2019s safest to treat it as an outlier.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cCollapsed cod fishery shows signs of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bj<\/strong>\u00f6rk\u2019s Biophilia:<\/strong> According to David Robson of New Scientist<\/em>\u2019s blog Culture Lab<\/em>, pop singer Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s latest album, set to be released in September, was preceded by a theatrical, science-oriented performance in Manchester. The album\u2014named Biophilia<\/em> in honor of E.O Wilson\u2019s theory<\/a> of the evolutionary connection of humans to their natural environment\u2014revolves around the wonder of science. The performance, as described by Robson, featured \u201c\u2026songs about plate tectonics, galaxy formation, crystallisation, DNA and heredity, equilibrium, gravity and dark matter. Then there were the novel instruments, including four harps driven by 10-foot pendulums and a gigantic Tesla coil that sparked in time to the music.\u201d Bj\u00f6rk explained the intersection of nature and electronics in a BBC<\/em> News<\/em> article<\/a>: \u201cAlgorithms from nature can be fed into software to create a musical pattern which is then manipulated through the [iPod] touch-screen.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cSparks fly at Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s new show Biophilia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viper mimicry:<\/strong> Researchers from the University of Jyvaskyla described the benefits of mimicking a viper\u2019s head and pattern on scales: Birds tend to avoid these cues. That is, Janne Valkonen and colleagues tracked bird predation on fake snakes that resembled one physical trait, or no traits, of the horned viper among others. The researchers found that birds both avoided snakes with triangular-shaped heads and those with zig-zag patterns more frequently than featureless snakes. As Ed Yong from Not Exactly Rocket Science<\/em> added, \u201cValkonen even thinks that some caterpillars rely on the same trick. The larvae of many swallowtails and hawkmoths react to danger by hiding their heads and flaring their abdomens into a triangular shape, complete with eye spots and jerky \u2018striking\u2019 movements. Where there was once a tasty grub, there is suddenly the head of a viper sticking out of some foliage.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cHarmless snakes avoid danger by mimicking the triangular heads of vipers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, bees help make raspberries<\/a> in Kenya, rare photos of the smalltooth sandtiger shark<\/a>, strange lichens<\/a> in Colorado, largest fungus<\/a> yet discovered, describing the dik-dik<\/a>, close-ups of hummingbird flight<\/a>, the microbes<\/a> of the Gulf oil spill, bat-attracting vines<\/a>, cleaning up a West Virginia watershed<\/a> and \u201cWhich microbe are you<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie\u2019s favorite posts since January 2010 (in alphabetical order):<\/p>\n

An ant\u2019s eye view of sand<\/a>
\nBallistics experts of the bug world<\/a>
\nBiodiversity is a delicate recipe<\/a>
\nEcology influencing art<\/a>
\nFire ant decapitating flies take hold in Florida, one head at a time<\/a>
\nIf you give a mouse an acorn\u2026<\/a>
\nScience in a culture of news grazers<\/a>
\nShrew poo and worm goo are science too<\/a>
\nTaking a shot at photographing science<\/a>
\nThe health benefits of spending time in the great outdoors<\/a>
\nThe sharp shooters of marine life<\/a>
\nThe story of the fig and its wasp<\/a>
\nTwo surprising critters living in the tiny world of moist soil<\/a>
\nUnseen and unforeseen, measuring nanomaterials in the environment<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Valerie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the last post I will contribute as moderator of ESA\u2019s blog EcoTone\u2014it has been a wonderful, educational experience to explore the connectivity and complexity of life processes and to meet the scientists who have helped to further this cross-disciplinary research. I hope you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them! Please continue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,287,381,538,35,1123,1112,937,1150,486,364,74],"class_list":["post-5625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-bats","tag-biodiversity","tag-drought","tag-ecology","tag-fisheries","tag-marine-life","tag-microbes","tag-patterns","tag-predation","tag-prey","tag-snakes","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}