"Urban forest restoration by trial and error is costly, and resulting failures are both discouraging to practitioners and condemning of future funding approval. Instead, we propose an evidence-based approach developed with partners and practitioners, informed by, ecologists and applied through practice oriented principles."
where I will be posting musings on my recently initiated research career transition from astrophysics to ecology. I would like this place to be a lively forum, especially for scientists involved in similar matters. First post is online 🎉 , boosts welcome ! 💚 🍂 🔭 #Astrodon#Ecology
You can register by following @lookingup.francois-rincon.org or using the rss feed link on the site.
In 1995, 14 wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park.
No one expected the miracle that the wolves would bring.
It started with the wolves hunting the deer, this led to a rapid decrease in the deer population. The wolves' presence also made the deer avoid parts in the park where they were and easy prey.
Thanks to the deer's absence, those parts started to regenerate. Forests of aspen and willow trees started to flourish.
That's when things really started to happen. With trees and bushes came more berries and bugs. As soon as that happened, various bird species started moving in.
With the increasing tree population, also another species was attracted. The beaver, previously extinct in the region, moved back. And the dams they built provided habitats for otters, muskrats and reptiles.
The wolves also killed coyotes, which meant more hawks, red foxes, badgers and weasels in the park. Even the population of bald eagles and ravens rose.
But here's where it gets really interesting. The wolves changed the behavior of the rivers. With more balance between predator and prey came the possibility for other species to thrive. There was less erosion because of increased vegetation. And the river banks were stabilized, the channels narrowed, more pools formed, and the rivers stayed more fixed in their courses.
So the wolves did not only transform the great ecosystem of Yellowstone, they also changed the park's physical geography.
A marketplace is not an ecosystem. It is merely a single organism, a megafauna, whose sole purpose is to consume and grow as much as possible.
An ecosystem on the other hand has no inherent growth-imperative. The primary objective of an ecosystem is equilibrium; circular exchange of energy. A secondary objective is emergent diversity for the sake of adaptability & robustness.
How about this idea instead? Let's just STOP FLYING SO MUCH!!
Nationalize the airlines and shut them down. Take over the factory farms and close them for good.
Except that probably makes way too much sense. It's what any thinking person with a conscience would do.
But capitalists don't care. They don't care about killing animals or polluting the atmosphere or even bringing about the end of civilization. None of that matters to them if there's 💵 money 💵 to be made!
I have a paper on crow behaviour under review that uses agent-based modelling in R to predict survival outcomes. One review is complete, but the editor emailed to ask for more reviewer recommendations because she is struggling to find willing reviewers.
Anyone fancing reviewing a lovely modelling paper about crows?
Can I get some follow recommendations? I’m acutely aware that of the people I follow who post about our planet’s systems, most of them are climate people. I’d love to follow more people posting at a #systems level. Y’know, the people who distill down expert knowledge into consumable packets for the rest of us. Think #hydrology/ #freshwater/ #oceans, #biodiversity, #ecology, #biology, #agriculture, #energy, #economics, #geology#planetaryBoundaries … these kind of topics. Boosts appreciated!
I've just read a very interesting — but disturbing — essay about the direct connection of historical colonialism to deforestation, desertification, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Ugh.
My first reaction is to be appalled and disgusted (once again) with the incredibly poor "stewardship" shown by European conquerors of indigenous peoples. Time and time again, these "civilized" invaders proved far less capable of effectively managing precious natural environments and resources than had the original inhabitants. Damn them!
And my second reaction is to be fascinated by the suggestion that "Anthropocene" may not in fact be a suitable name for the geological epoch we entered at some point in the past few hundred years. This is because the prefix "anthro" suggests that ALL humans are responsible for the changes wrought by global industrialization, when in truth it was, and is, only a mere sliver of the population, that good old 1%, who are behind the drive to dominate nature and exploit the environment at whatever cost, so long as they can profit from it and solidify their positions at the top.
Here's a short excerpt which amplifies this point...
While the scientific community has been debating over which year the Anthropocene Epoch began, several Indigenous and Black scholars have shot back against the term.
The problem, some scholars say, is that the term assumes the climate crisis is caused by universal human nature, rather than the actions of a minority of colonialists, capitalists, and patriarchs. And the implication that the Earth was stable until around 1950, when the ‘Anthropocene’ supposedly began, denies the history of people who have been exploited by those systems for centuries.
Indigenous scholars have further addressed how the term stands for colonialist ideologies that sever the deep ties and interconnections between humans, plants, animals, and the soil.
“Instead of treating the Earth like a precious entity that gives us life, Western colonial legacies operate within a paradigm that assumes they can extract its natural resources as much as they want, and the Earth will regenerate itself,” said Hadeel Assali, a lecturer and postdoctoral scholar.
I hope you'll read the full essay, and then let me know what you think about its message.
When I was younger, I loved to go snorkeling, enjoying the beauty and diversity of Caribbean coral reefs. I'm glad I took the opportunity to see them in the 1980s and 1990s, because they're not going to be around much longer...
"Record Florida ocean temperatures may be ‘death knell’ for coral reefs"
Rising numbers of wild pigs and macaque monkeys in Southeast Asia pose risks to native forests and could lead to disease spread among livestock and humans, reveals a study led by The University of Queensland. Dr. Matthew Luskin, affiliated with UQ's School of the Environment, alongside his team,
Quoting because I don't think I can get to them and the rest of the conversation is important. Saying "WE are consuming the oil" is technically correct as no other species on Earth has figured out how to do it, but this observation and four quarters gives you a full dollar.
Ultimately people use what is affordable for them, including availability and cost. Using alternatives to fossil fuels is currently more expensive, whether in research, time or straight up money. There are several reasons for this, subsidies and marketing playing no small part, but boiling this question down to personal responsibility is either ignorant of the larger picture or incredibly privileged as in "if I could do it, anybody else can easily do it".
"On December 8th, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) made a shocking announcement that it was withdrawing support for several pending regulatory petitions that authorize the distribution of the controversial transgenic American chestnut tree, called Darling 58, outside permitted research plots due to “significant performance limitations.”
"...TACF cited performance limitations for all Darling progeny, which included lack of blight resistance, unexplained high mortality rates, and poor growth."
Looks like the skeptics of genetics engineering were, once again, mostly correct in their critiques.
I would love to play a PC game about #Rewilding, #ecology and #SustainableFarming. Is there anything like that out there, bonus points if it's available on #Linux?
The scope could be anything from managing your own small farm to something more large scale like the Great Green Wall of Africa. #LinuxGaming#Gaming
Yep
“They Were Everywhere” – Exploding Monkey and Pig Populations Pose Human Disease Risk (scitechdaily.com)
Rising numbers of wild pigs and macaque monkeys in Southeast Asia pose risks to native forests and could lead to disease spread among livestock and humans, reveals a study led by The University of Queensland. Dr. Matthew Luskin, affiliated with UQ's School of the Environment, alongside his team,