14 posts · 4,576 views
A wildlife biologist in Alaska who researches game species within the framework of population studies. Full of all sorts of disinformation.
Gene Flow
13 posts
Things with Hooves
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- February 21, 2011
- 02:12 PM
- 393 views
Where’s the Statistics?
by twoyaks in Things with Hooves
After reading over and digesting Nelson’s (1998) “Development of migratory behaviour in northern white-tailed deer” the group had gradually come to the conclusion that the paper did not really belong in the otherwise good Canadian Journal of Zoology. The paper is very little more than a case study of the fates of 36 collared white-tail [...]... Read more »
Nelson, M. (1998) Development of migratory behavior in northern white- tailed deer. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 76(3), 426-432. DOI: 10.1139/cjz-76-3-426
- January 27, 2011
- 03:27 PM
- 245 views
Sometimes, it does matter where you're from.
One of the major thrusts of the research I've involved with in the last few years is in the world of "domestic introgression." Some times, when we move animals around, there will be a pre-existing wild form of that species. For reindeer transplanted to Alaska, it's the endemic caribou. Some mink farms are in areas that already have a wild mink population. And a dog is nothing, if not a very ... Read more »
SACKS, B., MOORE, M., STATHAM, M., & WITTMER, H. (2011) A restricted hybrid zone between native and introduced red fox (Vulpes vulpes) populations suggests reproductive barriers and competitive exclusion. Molecular Ecology, 20(2), 326-341. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04943.x
- December 14, 2010
- 05:47 PM
- 210 views
Does conservation have an impact?
For good or for ill, humans massively modify the world around them. From the perspective of other species, the majority of our modifications are "for ill." Some individuals realized that humans might irrevocably alter their favourite places, and thus was born the conservation movement out of local concerns. It wasn't until the 20th century that conservation of entire species really took off as a ... Read more »
Hoffmann, M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Angulo, A., Bohm, M., Brooks, T., Butchart, S., Carpenter, K., Chanson, J., Collen, B., Cox, N.... (2010) The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates. Science, 330(6010), 1503-1509. DOI: 10.1126/science.1194442
- December 9, 2010
- 10:45 AM
- 319 views
The snowshoe hare-coyote-Dall's sheep cycle?
When we teach our students predator-prey relationships, we tend to tell them a very basic story that have come from a few very good studies. It's not that all we have are simple models, but but we like to build up the basics before we dive into the complexities. Because when you get down to the complexities, a lot of counter-intuitive things happen which don't follow "common-sense" relationships.... Read more »
Arthur, S., & Prugh, L. (2010) Predator-Mediated Indirect Effects of Snowshoe Hares on Dall's Sheep in Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Management, 74(8), 1709-1721. DOI: 10.2193/2009-322
- November 1, 2010
- 11:15 AM
- 214 views
Isle Royal Lessons: Predation Risk v. Dinner
It's been a while since I've written a science blog post, and not because I haven't been reading papers. On the contrary, I've had the exact opposite problem! I'd like to revisit some work done on moose on Isle Royal, Michigan, one of the best studied ecosystems in the US. Reading about the Isle Royal studies was part of what got me into biology to begin with.
Isle Royal is an island in Lake ... Read more »
Edwards, J. (1983) Diet shifts in moose due to predator avoidance. Oecologia, 60(2), 185-189. DOI: 10.1007/BF00379520
- October 8, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 303 views
Can we agree F-st has run its course?
Other scientists out there! Hi. Can we agree that Fst, as wonderful as it's been, has run its course? It was a good idea - a great first crack at population genetics. When Wright came up with it, it was a wonderful idea. And for some applications - those where heterozygosity is generally low (I'm looking at you allozymes) - it works quite nicely. But once you're outside the Hs of .4 to .6, your ... Read more »
GERLACH, G., JUETERBOCK, A., KRAEMER, P., DEPPERMANN, J., & HARMAND, P. (2010) Calculations of population differentiation based on GST and D: forget GST but not all of statistics!. Molecular Ecology, 19(18), 3845-3852. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04784.x
- August 19, 2010
- 11:00 AM
- 376 views
Does caffeine help you drink?
It was my brother who told me that drinking coffee while drinking alcohol was a good idea - it would lessen the effects of intoxication. I launched into an ethanol fuelled discussion of how physiologically implausible that sounded to me, but we were celebrating a great occasion, and so I don't think I got much beyond slurring something about cyclic AMP before we instead had some of Arizona's ... Read more »
Ferreira, S., de Mello, M., Pompeia, S., & de Souza-Formigoni, M. (2006) Effects of Energy Drink Ingestion on Alcohol Intoxication. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 30(4), 598-605. DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2006.00070.x
- June 29, 2010
- 01:45 PM
- 262 views
But you started out so well!
What colour is the colour for little girls? Well, if you were raised in a "Western" context, the answer is really simple. It's pink, duh. But if you think about it, there's no reason why pink should be for little girls per se, or why boys have blue. Why can't girls have brown, and boys have tangerine? It's just as logical as pink for girls, blue for boys. And I like the colour tangerine. And the ... Read more »
Frassanito, P., & Pettorini, B. (2008) Pink and blue: the color of gender. Child's Nervous System, 24(8), 881-882. DOI: 10.1007/s00381-007-0559-3
- June 24, 2010
- 11:00 AM
- 283 views
Moose management - it works, sometimes
Well, I finished reading "Science and Values Influencing Predator Control for Alaska Moose." It was actually a very good read, with excellent cadence, even if I had heard all of this at conferences before. I've got a few general comments on this, but first I'll lay out the review a bit.
It comes in four five.
First, it reviews the relative effects of predation to other factors for moose. After... Read more »
Boertje, R., Keech, M., & Paragi, T. (2010) Science and Values Influencing Predator Control for Alaska Moose Management. Journal of Wildlife Management, 74(5), 917-928. DOI: 10.2193/2009-261
- June 18, 2010
- 04:09 PM
- 405 views
How screwed is the polar bear?
Even deniers like Akasofu wouldn't argue that the planet isn't warming. He just casts the blame elsewhwere, in a probably incorrect manner. It's the naïve who say that global warming is a hoax because "it snowed a lot last winter" (and so are those who believe in global warming because it's hot today, but for different reasons), that or the ideologues who view this through a partisan lens. Let ... Read more »
Rode KD, Amstrup SC, & Regehr EV. (2010) Reduced body size and cub recruitment in polar bears associated with sea ice decline. Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America, 20(3), 768-82. PMID: 20437962
- May 28, 2010
- 12:57 PM
- 457 views
Prodigious Pronghorn Population Projections
Can the presence of wolves be good for prey species? Intuition seems to suggest the answer is no. After all, wolves eat prey, and being eaten is fairly bad for one's health. Wolves are implicated in a number of natural declines of prey species in a number of systems, especially in closed populations where immigration can't bolster floundering populations. The use of wolf control is a ... Read more »
Berger KM, & Conner MM. (2008) Recolonizing wolves and mesopredator suppression of coyotes: impacts on pronghorn population dynamics. Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America, 18(3), 599-612. PMID: 18488620
- April 22, 2010
- 11:16 AM
- 377 views
Everything you wanted to know about Hangovers (but were too affraid to ask)
Recently, I read a statement by the American Heart Association about Alcohol, saying that although moderate alcohol reduces your risk of stroke, if you don't already drink you should not begin drinking because drinking raises your risk of cancer. This is an interesting statement, because I think it is incorrect. Cancer is rare, Stroke is common. Even though alcohol increases the probability of ... Read more »
Wiese JG, Shlipak MG, & Browner WS. (2000) The alcohol hangover. Annals of internal medicine, 132(11), 897-902. PMID: 10836917
- April 6, 2010
- 10:49 AM
- 400 views
When it doesn't matter where you're from
People move animals around. It's what we do. Why are there Elk on Afognak island? Some guy thought it was a good idea at the time. Wildlife managers in the past were some of the biggest conduits for moving animals around, frequently en mass, back before biology really caught up with the profession. We can cite plenty of examples where moving animals around to do population rescues was a bad thing... Read more »
Haanes, H., Røed, K., Mysterud, A., Langvatn, R., & Rosef, O. (2010) Consequences for genetic diversity and population performance of introducing continental red deer into the northern distribution range. Conservation Genetics. DOI: 10.1007/s10592-010-0048-1
- March 18, 2010
- 01:51 PM
- 332 views
On the Origins of Polar bears
From PNAS March 16, 2010 vol. 107 no. 11 5053-5057 "Complete mitochondrial genome of a Pleistocene jawbone unveils the origin of polar bear" Lindqvist et al. 2010.
The polar bear has become the flagship species in the climate-change discussion. However, little is known about how past climate impacted its evolution and persistence, given an extremely poor fossil record. Although it is ... Read more »
Lindqvist, C., Schuster, S., Sun, Y., Talbot, S., Qi, J., Ratan, A., Tomsho, L., Kasson, L., Zeyl, E., Aars, J.... (2010) Complete mitochondrial genome of a Pleistocene jawbone unveils the origin of polar bear. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(11), 5053-5057. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0914266107
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