By San Diego State University 3/14/2019 California sheephead and spiny lobsters may be helping control sea urchin populations in Southern California kelp forests, where sea otters — a top urchin predator — have long been missing, according to a new San Diego State University (SDSU) study published in the journal Ecology. The research provides new insight into the complex predator-prey relationships…
By University of Freiburg 3/12/2019 The little owl, Athene noctua, is a small nocturnal owl and is classified as an endangered species on the German Red List. In recent years the existing population of little owls has successfully been stabilized in the south-west of Germany, and in some places numbers are even rising. In neighboring northern Switzerland on the other…
In the Santa Ana River floodplain, an endangered plant needs the effects of intense flooding to grow and survive in loose soil
By Notre Dame 3/5/2019 In the United States, the Great Salt Lake in Utah is home to a multimillion dollar brine shrimp industry, which collects and sells the brine shrimp cysts, or eggs, as a food source for prawn farming around the world. However, the GSL and brine shrimp are also a key resource for waterbirds during migration and nesting….
Two Canadian biologists, including Dr. Troy McMullin of the Canadian Museum of Nature, are proposing a better way to assess the conservation value of old-growth forests in North America—using lichens, sensitive bioindicators of environmental change.
By University of Wyoming 3/5/2019 A rare plant found only at two sites in central Wyoming has persisted, in part, because it can recover from relatively low densities and grows at different rates within each location, according to new research led by a University of Wyoming scientist. The desert yellowhead, which grows on fewer than 55 acres in the Beaver…
By University College London 3/4/2019 Alien species are the main driver of recent extinctions in both animals and plants, according to a new study by UCL researchers. They found that since 1500, alien species have been solely responsible for 126 extinctions, 13% of the total number studied. Of 953 global extinctions, 300 happened in some part because of alien species,…
Researchers forecast interactions between two owl species and the quality of their habitat in the Pacific Northwest
By Michigan State University 3/1/2019 African carnivores face numerous threats from humans. So, it’s a fair assumption that the presence of more humans automatically equates to decreases across the board for carnivores. New research led by Michigan State University and published in the current issue of Ecological Applications, however, shows that’s not always the case. The truth is some species…
By University of Göttingen 2/19/2019 Fairy circles are round gaps in arid grassland that are distributed very uniformly over the landscape and only occur along the Namib Desert in southern Africa and in parts of Australia. Various theories circulate about the actual cause of these unusual spatial patterns, ranging from poisonous Euphorbia plants or rising gases, to ants, termites or…
Upcoming research in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Researchers on a remote New Zealand island combine traditional field methods with DNA sequencing to estimate invertebrate biodiversity
By Point Blue Conservation Science 2/21/2019 How wildlife respond to climate change is likely to be complex. To better understand the effects of climate change on the bird community in the Sierra Nevada region, new research published today from Point Blue Conservation Science examines the impacts to birds from a recent extreme drought (2013-2016). The drought resulted in the widespread…
By Princeton University 2/20/2019 Tokita, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), is partially funded by a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. He works with Corina Tarnita, an associate professor in EEB, to create computational models for how social groups — including ants and humans — develop properties like division of labor and social networks. Read more here: https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/02/20/tokita-receives-graduate-student-policy-award-ecological-society-america
By UC Santa Cruz 2/13/2019 Sara Gonzalez, a Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, is among the recipients of the Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Awards from the Ecological Society of America (ESA). This award provides graduate students with the opportunity to receive policy and communication training in Washington, D.C., and meet with lawmakers….
By National Science Foundation 2/6/2019 Scientists find that decades of degradation created ‘resistant’ coral reefs Marine biologist Peter Edmunds was prepared for the worst. Back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes had torn through the Caribbean in September 2017. The scientist and his colleagues weren’t sure what they’d find when they visited fragile coral reefs near the island of St. John after the…
Read more about each award winner and view photos on ESA’s Ecotone blog February 13, 2019 For Immediate Release Contact: Alison Mize, gro.asenull@nosila, (202) 833-8773 ext. 205 The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is honored to announce this year’s Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award (GSPA) recipients. This award provides graduate students with the opportunity to receive…
By THÜNEN INSTITUTE 2/4/2019 Sustainable exploitation of wild fish is possible, but only when fisheries policies are implemented that ensure precautionary catch regulations Due to overcapacities in fishing fleets and insufficiently regulated catches, many fish stocks in the Northeast-Atlantic had reached very low levels by the end of the 20th century. However, an increasing number of stocks has shown signs…
By The University of Oklahoma 2/6/2019 An OU team from the Geographical Ecology Group conducted 54 experiments in both grazed and ungrazed grasslands to determine the salt cravings of insects and the types of insects that crave salt. NORMAN–A University of Oklahoma team from the Geographical Ecology Group has published a new study in the journal Ecology on the nutritional preferences of…
By University of Tasmania 2/7/2019 Monitoring of sea urchins in Port Phillip Bay over a four-year period has revealed that booming urchin populations and the barren grounds they created by overgrazing kelp beds are likely to persist in the long term unless drastic action is taken. High-density populations of the Australian urchin Heliocidaris erythrogrammahave been monitored in Port Phillip Bay since…