Tag Archives: ecology

No surprise to Buzz Holling: Non-linear response of seabirds to forage fish depletion

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Garry Peterson

Guest post from Henrik Österblom from the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Basic ecology rests firmly on a number of basic assumptions.  Some of these assumptions, specifically how predators interaction with their prey, were developed by a key figure in the history … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecological Management | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biotic simplification and ecological reorganization

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Garry Peterson

From a powerful review paper in Science on the Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth (DOI: 10.1126/science.1205106) James A. Estes and many other ecological stars documents the strong role of apex consumers (i.e. big herbivores like elephants) and top predators (e.g. … Continue reading →

Posted in Regime Shifts, Reorganization | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A new global database of plant traits – TRY

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Garry Peterson

An ongoing research programme in ecology is to use species traits to model ecosystem dynamics and function.   Most of the effort on traits has focussed on plants. TRY is an exciting new global database of plant traits that has managed … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecosystem services | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seven Reflections on Disasters and resilience from around the web

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Garry Peterson

1) The Boston Globe’s Big Picture photo blog has pictures of Japan one month after the quake & tsunami 2) Andy Revkin comments on DotEarth on the limits of Japan’s disaster memory in response to a fascinating Associated Press article … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecological Economics, Visualization | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Microbiological resilience

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Garry Peterson

From Microbiology: The new germ theory in Nature news: …collaborations are linking those exploring the human microbiota in the intestine, skin, mouth and other surfaces with microbial ecologists, such as Banfield, who have already made a career out of studying … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideas | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bridge building ecological theory

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Garry Peterson

A new book from my former McGill colleague, Michel Loreau is lying on my desk.  I haven’t read From Populations to Ecosystems: Theoretical Foundations for a New Ecological Synthesis yet, but Tadashi Fukami has, and his review is in Science.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideas, Tools | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trends in Ecology and Ecosystem Services

Posted on January 24, 2010 by Garry Peterson

In response to my recent post on the growth in research on Ecosystem Services, Mark Neff from the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University writes: You’re right that there has been significant growth in number of … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecosystem services | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Short Links: Gorillas, drunky shrews, and jellyfish

Posted on August 6, 2008 by Garry Peterson

Three nature stories from the New York Times: In the Congo Republic a survey has discovered a large population (125 000) of Western lowland gorillas. Trove of Endangered Gorillas Found in Africa The survey was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A view of the RA’s research from Cultural Ecology

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Garry Peterson

Lesley Head in her article Cultural ecology: the problematic human and the terms of engagement (Prog Hum Geogr 2007 31:837 DOI: 10.1177/0309132507080625) discusses the current ‘terms of engagement’ between the cultural and the ecological. She writes: Although ecology would in … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideas | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment