It can be hard to predict the outcomes of human interference in an ecosystem, even when it’s done with the best of intentions. This paper looks at the unforseen consequences of removing large herbivorous mammals from part of an African savannah, & demonstrates just how complex ecosystem interactions can be.
Continue readingCategory: ecology
egg-eating foxes
Animals may put food away for a rainy day – or at least, for a time when supplies are in short supply. Squirrels do it, storing nuts in hollow trees or holes dug in the leaf litter. How many they find later is another matter! But I didn’t know that foxes are also into caching […]
Continue readinga three-way symbiosis
Here’s a really interesting story that I picked up on while reading ERV’s blog. We hear about 2-way symbioses/mutualisms (fungus+alga & fungus+cyanobacterium in lichens, & the mycorrhizal relationship between plants & fungi) – but here’s something special: a three-way symbiosis between a fungus, a grass – & a virus (Marquez et al., 2008).
Continue readingblack robins & tomtit hybridisation
The black robin (Petroica traversi) is one of the world’s most endangered birds – there are only around 250 or so in existence. But it’s also one of the success stories of NZ’s conservation efforts – brought back from the brink of extinction. However, this has come at a genetic cost to these little black […]
Continue readingcan ducks count?
Of course they can’t – they’re birdbrains! Right?
Continue readingenvironmental change and evolution
I was talking with a senior Bio teacher a few days back & she said it would be good if I could deconstruct some of the questions in 90717 (patterns of evolution), as this was an area where her students seemed to have difficulty. I’m not exactly going to do that here. But one of the […]
Continue readinginterference competition in wolves & coyotes
This post is based on an interesting paper that I’ve had in my blogging folder for a while now. The researchers (Berger & Gese, 2007) looked at the impact of interference competition between wolves and coyotes on the coyotes. The study was based in the Greater Yellowstone Ecological Area, & was possible because wolves were […]
Continue readingtree-hugging wolves?
The university has an e-subscription to the journal Science, so each week we get details of the latest issue via e-mail. I was scrolling through one of the July issues when an article's title caught my eye: Aspens return to Yellowstone, with help from some wolves. Really? I thought. What have wolves got to do […]
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