Ferretcam

Much more information on Black Footed Ferrets is available at the Black-Footed Ferret Recover Program website. They have a nice video on the history too, but only part 1 so far. I hadn't realized it was 30 years since the rediscovery of the ferret.

The Black-Footed Ferret Cam is at the National Zoo (about half way down the page, you have to close a screen on top of it first).

Our second ferret post this year! Fortunately I already have a ferret label to help keep all the ferret posts organized.

Looking for your post?

I moved some discussion section posts. If you post these as replies to the question (see questions to the right) then, although the formatting isn't great, they are all available together.

Un"Natural" Disaster

In June of this year California government voted to increase the property tax $150 in fire prone rural communities, and there is currently legislation on the table to increase the tax up to $3,000 for a large property owner. This tax is meant to help supplement the expected costs of fire men to protect this land in the next wildfire. To find out if your home may be in one of these fire prone communities you can review a “fire risk” map recently published by the state government. Proposition. The fire ranking on these sites is based both off of the fuel present and the climate conditions. At this ranking system 37% of the state becomes at least moderately prone to fire, including all of the deserts, because the map does not actually have a low risk rating. The only area that is not prone to fire is the San Joaquin Valley, which the states claims is not at risk due to extensive agricultural watering. To incentive the private sector Prop 40 was passed, which grants money to non-governmental organization to execute wildland fuel reduction.

While fire is a natural disaster, it is also a fairly predictable one which many endemic species have evolved to harness for their own benefit. Some environments in California even encourage fire with slightly explosive oils in their structure. As more of California becomes developed, and the price for living in fire prone areas increase, I could see a financially driven re-engineering of California wildlands to become less fire prone. This may entail anything from thinning forests to reducing chaparral. Is an environment without “natural” disasters still a conserved ecosystem?

Ford, Bill. “Assemblyman Cook Denounces Governor Brown’s Proposed Fire Tax Hike.” Joshua Tree Star, September 19, 2011. Accessed September 29, 2011.

“Fire Threat.” California Department of Forestry and Fire protection. October 20, 2005. Accessed September 29, 2011.

‘Proposition 40 Fuels Reduction”. California Department of Forestry and Fire protection. 2011. Accessed September 30, 2011.

Trimming the Phylogenetic Tree

One of the main objectives of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, a powerful legislative driver of ecological conservation efforts, is to prevent organisms defined by specific genotypes from going extinct. An assumption of this act is that species with small isolated populations are likely to go extinct, but the reverse of this is often forgotten; many only recently speciated organisms also form small populations in isolated ranges. An international team of researchers (T Jonathan Davies et al. 2011) analyzed the genetic data of plant species in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and compared how the population size of species related to their time since speciating. The results show the range of “extinction hot spots” more significantly correlates with range of plant Lineages that have most recently diversified, than with the habitats directly influenced by human development. This means that, at least for plant species, small populations (ones that may be listed as endangered) may be more of a result of natural selection filtering out subprime genotypes than human degradation of the environment. Since the genetic data of this study was limited to an incomplete flora sample of the United Kingdom and South Africa it should not be assumed true for other parts of the world, but can serve to remind us that the loss of genetic traits is fundamental to natural selection.

Isolated patches to metapopulation

Here's the collared lizard paper I referred to in class: The transition from isolated patches to a  metapopulation in the eastern collared lizard in  response to prescribed fires
It's a very readable account of a very long term study.

Hopefully today's class will allow you to understand the terminology.

A dramatic transition was documented from isolated fragments, to a nonequilibrium colonizing metapopulation, and finally to a stable metapopulation. This transition is characterized by the convergence of rates of extinction and recolonization and a major alteration of dispersal probabilities and pattern in going from the nonequilibrium to stable metapopulation states.

New Species Discovered on Whale Skeleton

We have recently talked about the idea of the food chain, how every single specie is connected either as the top of the food chain, the bottom, or somewhere in the middle. Regardless, every specie plays a role in the ecosystem, however, there are keystone species that have major impact on their ecosystem. It is important to preserve these keystone species because without them, the ecosystem can fall apart.

In an article by Science Daily, new species are discovered on whale skeleton. When a whale dies, its remain sinks to the bottom of the ocean, providing nutrients for countless fish and other bottom dwellers.

"A dissertation from the Department of Zoology at the University of Gothenburg describes no fewer than nine previously unknown species of these bacteria-grazing bristleworms...The family tree of bristleworms was explored using molecular data. The DNA analyses show that there are several so-called cryptic bristleworm species, meaning species that despite looking identical differ very much genetically. The analyses show that the adaptation to a life on whale cadavers has occurred in species from different evolutionary paths and at several points in time."

The efforts of such organizations like the Sea Shepherd to preserve whales are very important for the ecosystem.

Keep up the great works Sea Shepherd!

University of Gothenburg. "New Species Discovered On Whale Skeletons." ScienceDaily, 21 Sep. 2009. Web. 3 Oct. 2011

Pirate with a cause

The Sun magazine is, in their own words, an independent, ad-free monthly magazine that for more than thirty years has used words and photographs to invoke the splendor and heartache of being human.

Each month they have a fairly extensive interview with someone. These vary quite a lot but are often include people who could be broadly categorized as environmentalists.

Anyway, this month the interview is with Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, who believes in taking direct action to save marine wildlife.

In the most recent whaling season Sea Shepherd was able to obstruct the Japanese whalers even further. After taking less than 10 percent of its expected catch, the entire fleet was recalled by the Japanese government, ending the hunt for that year and possibly for the foreseeable future.

Here's the outrage

Around this time last year I wrote a post for the blog entitled 'Where's the outrage?' revealing my dated musical tastes and asking the question why there where no decent protest songs about the loss of species. Despite some good responses I stand by my claim - there are some decent environmental protest songs but few specifically about the loss of species.

One of the most interesting comments pointed out that whilst this may be true there was no shortage of protest movies. Anyway I was thinking of that today when an ex-student (hi Josh) sent me a link to this video.

Nature watching

Okay it's a repeat, but I was down on Haskells's beach this evening watching ducks surfing (have they always done that here? I've never seen ducks surf before but then again I'm British and our ducks are more sedate) when I remembered this post from last year. Another nice low tide tomorrow evening. For some tidepooling tips check out this post. Repeat follows....

When I was a child in the 1970's long car rides were occupied by either staring out of the window or fighting with siblings. (This was before video games, dvd's, iPods, satellite radio, and cellphones, heck it was even before cassette tapes). In an effort to encourage the more peaceful staring out of the window option many parents would resort to the cheap and ever popular 'I-Spy' books. Like the game of the same name these books would list items for you to spot and, as far as I remember, you would get a different number of points for different items. There were always items that were practically impossible to spot - 50 points for a 'Mobile Coal Office'. I don't even know what that is and forty-something years later I've still never seen a mobile coal office.

Although the majority of the books that I remember were road themed (for obvious reasons) they did make a number of natural history themed books. I'm sure many future bird spotters got their start with these books.


Anyhow, I was down on the beach today enjoying the low tide when I thought that they should have made an 'Ecological Interactions' I-Spy book. Not only would it have been more fun, I'd like to see what illustrations they'd have come up with. Here are some of the items I thought of. The best thing about these, compared to the mobile coal office, is that you just need to look hard to see most of them. Trust me, no matter how hard you look you won't see a mobile coal office.

• Predation - 1 point ( too easy but there have to be some easy ones)
• Predation where the predator is smaller than the prey - 3 points (think weasel, easy to spot but you need to sit very still for a while)
• Cannibalism - 3 points (surprisingly common)
• Herbivory - 1 point (way too easy)
• Parasitism - 3 points (take Armand Kuris's Parasitology class if you need some hints for finding macroparasites)
• Necrophilia - 10 points (need a hint? Watch some sea otters...)
• Inter-species sex - 10 points (Yup, sea otters again.)
• Inter-species necrophilia (is there a name for this?) - heck, take 50 points for this one but it's been observed in both sea otters and some water fowl.
• Interference competition - 1 point (too easy)
• Exploitation competition - 3 points (I guess you'd have to watch one spot long enough to see one organism eat another and then another organism come by looking for something to eat).

Wangari Maathai: Death of a visionary

I don't think I've posted an obituary here before but I was sad to hear of the death of Wangari Maathai this week. This extraordinary woman founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya that has planted 45 million trees and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize but that doesn't begin to describe her actual achievements.

what made the movement more remarkable was that it was also conceived as a source of employment in rural areas, and a way to give new skills to women who regularly came second to men in terms of power, education, nutrition and much else.

Read more at the BBC website.