Ecology & Zoology

During the 1990’s there was a lot of discussion (yelling?) over the question of whether or not Dinosaurs were endothermic, that is, warm blooded. In the regular media there is still a pretty solid…

A team of scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has reported a rapid recovery of coral reefs in areas of Indonesia, following the tsunami that devastated coastal…

First, a neat little toy:  build your own squid! I won't give anything else away... Second, in the spirit of ending the old year and beginning the new, I like this synopsis of the best science…

The 12th edition of Berry Go Round, the botanical blog carnival, is now online at Foothills Fancies.  Lots of good reading to be had.

There's a discussion going on over at Wikipedia regarding the naming convention for articles about plants.  In general, article titles are supposed to be the "most common" name for the thing in…

As I discussed in my last post, the principle of limiting similarity suggests that species that can coexist must be somewhat different in their requirements for survival.  This

In a closed system (and the biosphere as a whole is a closed system) the only way to generate additional species is through evolution.  While the evolution of new species is a necessary…

If you set out to answer questions about species diversity, there are two questions you need to consider - how is diversity generated, and how is diversity maintained? The simplest measure of…

One night each year, tiny magic reindeer pull Santa and his toy-filled sleigh around the world. Their names are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and maybe Rudolph (or…

If you set out to answer questions about species diversity, there are two questions you need to consider - how is diversity generated, and how is diversity maintained? The simplest measure of…