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- June 21, 2011
- 01:09 PM
- 273 views
The oceans rise, even as they decline... so long, fish!
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
Two interesting, alarming reports this week about what's happening (no small thanks to us) to the dominant habitat on this watery planet. First, that habitat is becoming even more dominant: a paper...
... Read more »
Kemp, A., Horton, B., Donnelly, J., Mann, M., Vermeer, M., & Rahmstorf, S. (2011) Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015619108
- June 21, 2011
- 12:28 PM
- 214 views
The oceans rise, even as they decline... so long, fish!
by Madhusudan Katti in a leafwarbler's gleanings
Two interesting, alarming reports this week about what's happening (no small thanks to us) to the dominant habitat on this watery planet. First, that habitat is becoming even more dominant: a paper in PNAS meticulously reconstructs global sea-levels over the past two millenia to show that the oceans have been steadily rising, in concert with climatic changes, and that their rise has accelerated in recent years. This figure ought to worry you:
via realclimate.org
Meanwhile, though........ Read more »
Kemp, A., Horton, B., Donnelly, J., Mann, M., Vermeer, M., & Rahmstorf, S. (2011) Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015619108
- June 21, 2011
- 12:28 PM
- 238 views
The oceans rise, even as they decline... so long, fish!
by Madhusudan Katti in a leafwarbler's gleanings
Two interesting, alarming reports this week about what's happening (no small thanks to us) to the dominant habitat on this watery planet. First, that habitat is becoming even more dominant: a paper in PNAS meticulously reconstructs global sea-levels over the past two millenia to show that the oceans have been steadily rising, in concert with climatic changes, and that their rise has accelerated in recent years. This figure ought to worry you:
via realclimate.org
Meanwhile, though........ Read more »
Kemp, A., Horton, B., Donnelly, J., Mann, M., Vermeer, M., & Rahmstorf, S. (2011) Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015619108
- December 2, 2010
- 07:02 PM
- 351 views
Arsenic and Old Lace
by Madhusudan Katti in a leafwarbler's gleanings
As you may very well have heard by now, NASA made a bit of a splash today in the mainstream media and especially the science (and sci-fi too, of course) blogosphere / twitterverse through its press conference about a fascinating biological discovery with potential astrobiological significance. An "alien" life-form that incorporates Arsenic (which normally kills our kind of life-form) instead of Phosphorus in the "backbone" of its very DNA. Actually its a bacterium from ........ Read more »
Wolfe-Simon, F., Blum, J.S., Kulp, T.R., Gordon. G.W., Hoeft, S.E., Pett-Ridge, J., Stolz, J.F., Webb, S.M., Weber, P.K., Davies, P.C.W., Anbar, A.D., and, Oremland, R.S. (2010) A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus. Science. info:/
- August 23, 2010
- 05:47 AM
- 396 views
Overlooking the familiar in cataloging biodiversity
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
via myrmecos.net
Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. Or, even if we aren't actually contemptuous of the familiar, we often simply ignore it. It is not surprising, then—although it should...
... Read more »
Hamm, C. (2010) Multivariate Discrimination and Description of a New Species of Tapinoma from the Western United States . Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 103(1), 20-29. DOI: 10.1603/008.103.0104
- August 23, 2010
- 05:22 AM
- 338 views
Overlooking the familiar in cataloging biodiversity
by Madhusudan Katti in a leafwarbler's gleanings
via myrmecos.net
Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. Or, even if we aren't actually contemptuous of the familiar, we often simply ignore it. It is not surprising, then—although it should be—that Tapinoma sessile, the odorous house ant of North America, the very same little brown one that is pictured above, and that you may well have swept off your kitchen counter today, remains relatively poorly studied! It is so widespread and common across a variety of habitats in ........ Read more »
Hamm, C. (2010) Multivariate Discrimination and Description of a New Species of Tapinoma from the Western United States . Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 103(1), 20-29. DOI: 10.1603/008.103.0104
- June 3, 2010
- 04:39 AM
- 398 views
Where in the world is the Yellow-billed Magpie? Help us find out this weekend!
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
See and download the full gallery on posterous
What a handsome corvid, the Yellow-billed Magpie. How curiously restricted, its global range:
This lovely bird is another one I consider...
... Read more »
Reynolds, M. (1995) Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli). The Birds of North America Online. DOI: 10.2173/bna.180
- May 21, 2010
- 05:59 PM
- 619 views
Twist it, shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby!
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
You are brightly colored - enough to be considered charismatic even by humans who like to keep you as a pet! You can make fairly loud calls. So how do you communicate with each other? Especially in...
... Read more »
Caldwell, M., Johnston, G., McDaniel, J., & Warkentin, K. (2010) Vibrational Signaling in the Agonistic Interactions of Red-Eyed Treefrogs. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.069
Robertson, J., & Zamudio, K. (2009) Genetic Diversification, Vicariance, and Selection in a Polytypic Frog. Journal of Heredity, 100(6), 715-731. DOI: 10.1093/jhered/esp041
- May 13, 2010
- 04:18 AM
- 366 views
Even waterfowl like the green. Of the $$ kind, that is, it seems.
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
I've noted the so-called "luxury effect" in the distribution of biodiversity in urban areas on this blog before, as seen in the pattern of higher bird diversity in the more affluent areas of...
... Read more »
Ann P. Kinzig, Paige Warren, Chris Martin, Diane Hope, & Madhusudan Katti. (2005) The Effects of Human Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Characteristics on Urban Patterns of Biodiversity. Ecology and Society, 10(1). info:other/
- March 6, 2010
- 04:51 PM
- 422 views
Ooze like an amoeba, float like a bird - wish we could still do that when stressed!
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
Here's another fun weird science story from NPR, about a creature that might be in the dirt in your own backyard:
20100305 Me 03 by Npr
Download now or listen on posterous
Naegleria-NPR.mp3 (1426 KB)
Courtesy of Lillian Fritz-Laylan
Naegleria gruberi grows a pair of flagella when under stress. But unlike a sperm tail, it puts these appendages out front, and swims by breast stroke. The organism is stained to emphasize its anatomy.
If you prefer to read the story rather th........ Read more »
Fritz-Laylin, L., Prochnik, S., Ginger, M., Dacks, J., Carpenter, M., Field, M., Kuo, A., Paredez, A., Chapman, J., & Pham, J. (2010) The Genome of Naegleria gruberi Illuminates Early Eukaryotic Versatility. Cell, 140(5), 631-642. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2010.01.032
- September 20, 2009
- 08:16 PM
- 760 views
A punk-size T-rex and an Eagle that ate children?!
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
One trait that shows interesting evolutionary trends is the size of animals. Body size plays a significant role in the most important interactions between animals: competition (for resources or mates) and predation (for both predator and prey). Body size is also, of course, significant for a variety of physiological reasons. It's no surprise, therefore, that biologists spend a lot of time thinking about body size, and have discovered some intriguing patterns. For instance the so-called island ru........ Read more »
G. Grey. (1873) Description of the extinct gigantic bird of prey, Hokioi, by a Maori. Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 435. info:/
Scofield, R., & Ashwell, K. (2009) Rapid Somatic Expansion Causes the Brain to Lag Behind: The Case of the Brain and Behavior of New Zealand's Haast's Eagle ( ) . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29(3), 637-649. DOI: 10.1671/039.029.0325
Sereno, P., Tan, L., Brusatte, S., Kriegstein, H., Zhao, X., & Cloward, K. (2009) Tyrannosaurid Skeletal Design First Evolved at Small Body Size. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1177428
- August 23, 2009
- 11:12 PM
- 488 views
Science knows it doesn't know everything... and neither did Darwin
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
A couple of interesting examples of the self-correcting nature of Science today:1. It turns out that good ol' Charlie Darwin was wrong about the human appendix! Bollinger and colleagues reported several years ago that this sometime exemplar of vestigial organs is not so useless after all: The human vermiform (“worm-like”) appendix is a 5–10 cm long and 0.5–1 cm wide pouch that extends from the cecum of the large bowel. The architecture of the human appendix is unique among mammals, and ........ Read more »
Randal Bollinger, R., Barbas, A., Bush, E., Lin, S., & Parker, W. (2007) Biofilms in the large bowel suggest an apparent function of the human vermiform appendix. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 249(4), 826-831. DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.08.032
SMITH, H., FISHER, R., EVERETT, M., THOMAS, A., RANDAL BOLLINGER, R., & PARKER, W. (2009) Comparative anatomy and phylogenetic distribution of the mammalian cecal appendix. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01809.x
- June 13, 2009
- 04:43 AM
- 831 views
Lost Sounds
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
Deep in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, where the mighty Siang river carves its way through the Himalayan wall, nestled the Adi hamlet of Tuting, surrounded by a sea of green—overgrown fields, verdant mountains, the river itself deep green. The very moonlight seemed green as it shone on the ghostly mist rising from the gorge. Eighteen years ago, a search for India's last Takin—that... Read more »
Madhusudan Katti. (2001) Vocal communication and territoriality during the non-breeding season in a migrant warbler. Current Science, 80(3), 419-423. DOI: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb102001/419.pdf
WARREN, P., KATTI, M., ERMANN, M., & BRAZEL, A. (2006) Urban bioacoustics: it's not just noise. Animal Behaviour, 71(3), 491-502. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.07.014
SWADDLE, J., & PAGE, L. (2007) High levels of environmental noise erode pair preferences in zebra finches: implications for noise pollution. Animal Behaviour, 74(3), 363-368. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.01.004
Slabbekoorn, H., & Peet, M. (2003) Birds sing at a higher pitch in urban noise. Nature, 424(6946), 267-267. DOI: 10.1038/424267a
Fuller, R., Warren, P., & Gaston, K. (2007) Daytime noise predicts nocturnal singing in urban robins. Biology Letters, 3(4), 368-370. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0134
- May 9, 2009
- 05:06 AM
- 1,294 views
Plagiarism, peer-review, and protecting the integrity of science
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
I am, (it seems) almost constantly reading, evaluating, and passing judgment on, material written by others: not just when I'm synthesizing material for my own papers or blog essays, but as a peer reviewing manuscripts and grants written by colleagues, or as a teacher grading student papers. Comes with the territory of being a professor, or course. As it happens, its that time of year again when... Read more »
Dove, A. (2009) Regulators confront blind spots in research oversight. Nature Medicine, 15(5), 469-469. DOI: 10.1038/nm0509-469a
Errami, M., Sun, Z., Long, T., George, A., & Garner, H. (2009) Deja vu: a database of highly similar citations in the scientific literature. Nucleic Acids Research, 37(Database). DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkn546
Long, T., Errami, M., George, A., Sun, Z., & Garner, H. (2009) SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY: Responding to Possible Plagiarism. Science, 323(5919), 1293-1294. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167408
- March 18, 2009
- 09:08 PM
- 1,608 views
Urban forestry through the lens of "socio-ecological systems"
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
Contributed by Seth Reid, following a vigorous class discussion with guest presentation by Genevra Ornelas.
Our March 4th class discussion revolved around urban forestry and how it pertained to an article written by John M. Anderis, Marcos A. Jannsen, and Elinor Ostrom. This article provided, “A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecologcial Sytems from an Institutional Perspective.”... Read more »
Anderies, J. M., Janssen, M. A., & Ostrom, E. (2004) A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective. Ecology and Society, 9(1), 18. DOI: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art18/
- March 18, 2009
- 08:38 PM
- 1,574 views
Ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and how to pay for them
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
Brad Schleder shares this summary of class discussion of two very interesting papers that Brett Moore brought to the table.
Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales
Erik Nelson, Guillermo Mendoza, James Regetz, Stephen Polasky, Heather Tallis, D. Richard Cameron, Kai MA Chan, Gretchen C. Daily, Joshua Goldstein,... Read more »
Nelson, E., Mendoza, G., Regetz, J., Polasky, S., Tallis, H., Cameron, D., Chan, K., Daily, G., Goldstein, J., Kareiva, P.... (2009) Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7(1), 4-11. DOI: 10.1890/080023
Bohlen, P., Lynch, S., Shabman, L., Clark, M., Shukla, S., & Swain, H. (2009) Paying for environmental services from agricultural lands: an example from the northern Everglades. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7(1), 46-55. DOI: 10.1890/080107
- March 16, 2009
- 07:48 PM
- 793 views
Why are all earthly lifeforms lefties?
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
What, you think you are not left-handed? Just because you favor your right hand to write/eat/pitch that baseball, etc.? Actually, in case you didn't already know this: deep down, at the amino acid level, we are all lefties! Southpaws, each and every one of us! That's just another one of those wonderfully weird arbitrary fact about life on earth! Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are fundamental to the structure and function of life as we know it on our planet (which is pretty much ho........ Read more »
Glavin, D. P., & Dworkin, J. P. (2009) Enrichment of the amino acid l-isovaline by aqueous alteration on CI and CM meteorite parent bodies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811618106
- March 16, 2009
- 06:11 AM
- 1,367 views
Coupled Human And Natural Systems - a class discussion
by Madhu in Reconciliation Ecology
Heather Hanlin wrote the following summary of our class discussion on Feb 17th:
We discussed two different papers: “Coupled Human and Natural Systems,” by Jianguo Liu et al (2007), and “The Effects of Human Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Characteristics on Urban Patterns of Biodiversity” by Ann Kinzig et al (2005). The “Coupled Human and Natural Systems,” are referred to as CHANS. CHANS are... Read more »
Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S., Folke, C., Alberti, M., Redman, C., Schneider, S., Ostrom, E., Pell, A., Lubchenco, J.... (2007) Coupled Human and Natural Systems. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 36(8), 639-649. DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[639:CHANS]2.0.CO;2
Ann P. Kinzig, Paige Warren, Chris Martin, Diane Hope and Madhusudan Katti. (2005) The Effects of Human Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Characteristics on Urban Patterns of Biodiversity. Ecology and Society, 10(1), 23. DOI: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss1/art23/
- December 22, 2008
- 06:31 AM
- 1,612 views
Phylogenomics suggest ratites lost flight multiple times
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
Rebekah Wukits discusses recent findings about ratite evolution for Bio 135.Ratite evolution has been debated for centuries. Some of the earliest evolutionary biologists questioned whether or not ratites had a linear evolution or if the major groups had had independent origins. Richard Owen proposed that living ratites had much more in common with other flight capable groups while being united by the “arrested development of wings unfitting them for flight”. In 1951, two ornithologists, Mayr........ Read more »
J. Harshman, E. L. Braun, M. J. Braun, C. J. Huddleston, R. C. K. Bowie, J. L. Chojnowski, S. J. Hackett, K.-L. Han, R. T. Kimball, B. D. Marks.... (2008) Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(36), 13462-13467. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803242105
- December 3, 2008
- 05:33 AM
- 960 views
Modeling the emergence of multi-drug resistant TB hot zones
by Student @ Fresno State in Darwin's Bulldogs
Rebecca Freeman submitted this essay for the Evolution class.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a “hot zone” is an area with >5% prevalence (or incidence) of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDRtb). Sally M Blower and Tom Chou have been using a mathematical method to track the emergence and evolution of multiple strains of drug resistant tuberculosis, but they have now developed a new, more complex mathematical model. Before this model, there was only a two strain model, ........ Read more »
Sally M Blower, & Tom Chou. (2004) Modeling the emergence of the 'hot zones': tuberculosis and the amplification dynamics of drug resistance. Nature Medicine, 10(10), 1111-1116. DOI: 10.1038/nm1102
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