The lifestyles of insects, such as bees and wasps, range from simple solitary arrangements to more recently evolved, highly complex family social structures. One major factor that allowed social complexity to evolve may have been insects’ ability to defend their … Continue reading
Journal Club
Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members
Category Archives: Ecology
Cooperative defense against disease may have helped insects evolve complex societies
Categories: Ecology | Evolution | Journal Club
Tagged ambrosia beetle, eusociality, insects, social insects
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Models shift blame for Neanderthal extinction away from modern humans
Neanderthals vanished about 40,000 years ago, but the reasons for their demise remain shrouded in mystery and a source of debate among archaeologists. The timing coincides with the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which has led some researchers to … Continue reading
Categories: Anthropology | Ecology | Evolution | Genetics | Journal Club | Population Biology
Tagged allele, breeding, evolution, extinction, Homo sapien, modern human, Neanderthal, population size
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Pollen frozen in a glacier reveals the legacy of human impacts in the heart of the Inca Empire
The Illimani glacier sits between the urban sprawl of La Paz, Bolivia, on one side, and the roads and plantations of the Amazon basin on the other. It was no doubt a very different landscape some 550 years ago, when … Continue reading
Categories: Anthropology | Ecology | Journal Club
Tagged Amazon, Andes, glacier, ice core, Inca, paleoclimatology, paleoecology, pollen analysis
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Sweeping study finds big landscape changes on the fringes of Europe’s protected areas
Quaint cobblestone towns and green pastures dot the Pyrenees Mountains, at the gates of Catalonia’s Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. Hike a few miles into the park, though, and the Spanish landscape of trickling rivers and montane … Continue reading
Categories: Ecology | Environmental Sciences | Journal Club
Tagged buffer zone, conservation, CORINE data
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Predators can harm rather than help biodiversity
Rich biodiversity depends on the ability of species to coexist. And yet, ecologists are still grappling with the requisite mechanisms. Recent findings published in Nature suggest that predators might not be as helpful a driver of species coexistence as … Continue reading
Categories: Animal Behavior | Ecology | Journal Club | Population Biology
Tagged anole, biodiversity, lizard, population dynamics, predator, prey
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Journal Club: Protozoan predators help pinpoint how evolution and ecology shape predator-prey dynamics
A hungry lynx bounds after a scampering hare. Occasionally the lynx secures its catch. Often, it doesn’t. For ecology students, this back and forth battle is the textbook example of an ecological process driving predator–prey population dynamics. The predator population … Continue reading
Categories: Ecology | Evolution | Journal Club
Tagged bacteria, eco-evolutionary, hare, Lotka-Volterra equation, lynx, predation, predator-prey population dynamics, protozoan
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Journal club: A simple model to help identify which species might become invasive
Invasive species are a major driver of global biodiversity loss. Now researchers have developed a simple model that can quickly predict which species are likely to become established outside their native environment. The team recently reported in the Proceedings of … Continue reading
Categories: Agriculture | Ecology | Environmental Sciences | Journal Club | Plant Biology
Tagged acacia, alien species, climate science, eucalypt, global range, invasive species, model, niche
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Journal Club: Marine conservation move sparks a fishing frenzy
Initiatives to protect marine ecosystems could do more harm to marine life than good, according to a recent PNAS paper. The work suggests that the announcement of one of the world’s largest marine protected areas sparked a sudden uptick in … Continue reading
Journal Club: Protein vs protein, study comprehensively compares the environmental impacts of livestock and seafood
The most environmentally friendly protein sources include clams, sardines, and cod. Not surprisingly, beef has the worst environmental impact. Somewhat surprisingly, farmed salmon is relatively innocuous; but catfish is not. These are the conclusions of a recent study that compares … Continue reading
Categories: Agriculture | Ecology | Environmental Sciences | Journal Club | Sustainability Science
Tagged beef, greenhouse gas, nutrition, protein, salmon, shellfish
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