Thursday, February 15, 2007

Oekologie Carnival

Hello and welcome to the (slightly delayed) February 15, 2007 edition of oekologie, the carnival of ecology and environmental science. Let's start off by clarifying what ecology actually is. Jeremy Bruno of The Voltage Gate starts off a series of basic ecological concepts by asking "What Is Ecology? ". My favorite definition is one of the oldest -- the study of how organisms interact with each other and with their environment. It is distinct from environmental science, which focuses on humans and, as Jeremy makes clear, it is a very broad field of study.

From here, let's move to posts on the science of ecology. James Millington at Direction not Destination presents a description of Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States. Johan A. Stenberg of Insect-Plant Ecology presents a post on the open journal PLoS one and a call for less explanatory factors in experimental ecology. If you read ecology papers, you'll probably get behind that second one!

Yours truly has a post on feedbacks between climate and volcanic activity. You might say this is more Earth science than ecology, but I think anything on global self-regulation is ecologically relevant.

Greg Laden presents two evolutionary biology posts, The Evolution of Human Diet and Models of Sexual Selection. I learned quite a bit from these.

Finally, Marcia Bonta presents Grasslands of Central Pennsylvania. This excellent description of Pennsylvania grasslands and the forces that maintain them leads to our next subject area, natural history.

We start off with two posts from GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life. Gyroscopes Tell Moths How to Fly Straight explains, well, how gyroscopes at the base of moth antennae tell them how to fly straight and C'mon Baby, Light my Fire gives us a fascinating look at courtship among fluorescent spiders. Did you know fluorescent spiders existed? Cool! Reigh Belisama at Save The Ribble! has a nice post about a riverside nature walk, Locals Enjoy The Ribble's Winter Wildlife. Finally, Dave at Via Negativa gives us two posts, Bluestem and Forester-think: a brief primer. Both are thought provoking discussions on the relationships between humans and nature, which segues nicely to our third subject area, the environment.

Here, we start off with the ever-controversial subject of exotic species. Mike Bergin at 10,000 Birds, presents What is Wild?, which distinguishes between individual "fugitives" and established populations. On the other hand, Nuthatch at bootstrap analysis gives us shooting mute swans versus mute swans shooting blanks. What has more ethical standing, individuals or ecosystems?

Let's continue the water theme for a while. Don Bosch, The Evangelical Ecologist, presents The Desert Blooms, a piece about the recovery of marshes in Iraq and the establishment of Iraq's Ministry of Environment. Garry Peterson at Resilience Science discusses the role of an obscure fish in coral reef recovery from an algal-dominated state in Hidden Ecological Functions and Ecological Hysteresis. Jennifer Pinkley at The Infinite Sphere gives us Karst geology and water pollution and Sewage treatment plant on karst floodplain??? .

What can we do to protect the environment? Wenchypoo at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket presents an appropriately contrarian post titled Green is Making Me See Red. Meanwhile, Vihar Sheth at green | rising discusses the environmental benefits of vegetarianism in You Are What You Eat.

On the political level, Justin Lowery at blog4brains.com presents America: Pro-Immigration? Then Pro-Oil Dependence!. Vihar Sheth at green | rising presents Wasted Gas, on the use of landfill methane. John Feeney at Growth is Madness! points out that the problem isn't population or consumption, it's both, in An unholy matrimony. And Marcelino Fuentes at Biopolitical brings up the issue of scientific uncertainty at Crichton, Laurance, Lomborg, and their agendas.

We finish up on a light note. Avant News presents Ostrich Charged With Multiple Ostricides posted at Avant News, saying,

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of oekologie using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

6 comments:

Dave said...

"Finally, Dave Bonta presents Grasslands of Central Pennsylvania at Marcia Bonta." That's incorrect. It's my mother's blog; I merely submitted the link. Thanks for the inclusion, though.

Jane Shevtsov said...

Fixed it! Thanks for the correction, Dave.

Anonymous said...

Excellent, Jane! We had a lot of links for the second edition, and you detailed them wonderfully.

Unknown said...

Great work. The once-per-month format is a good idea, as it seems to be getting the cream of the crop of posts.

Jennifer said...

Great job, thanks! I'm just getting started reading all of the great posts, a nice way to spend a dreary February day!

Wayfarer Scientista said...

Hi there...found you through your signature on an email you sent Ecolog-L and wanted to say great job with this carnvival!