Tag Archives: ecology

Albatross enclosures and the Large Hadron Collider

Posted on 2015/11/30 by Sam

In my last post on the value and possible non-existence of “mesocosms,” I closed with a quote from Stommel’s 1963 paper on scale in physical oceanography.  Stommel’s point, which I echoed, is that certain natural processes take place on space … Continue reading →

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There’s no such thing as a mesocosm

Posted on 2015/11/23 by Sam

I don’t know about those experiments.  They were all done in mesocosms…or as I call them, “bags.” –Anonymous limnologist Last week, the eminent population ecologist Charley Krebs, channeling the sentiment expressed in the quote above, wrote a blog post on something … Continue reading →

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Must Be That Time Of The Season

Posted on 2011/02/24 by Sam

After four or five months of Seattle winter, you kind of loose track of where you are. Add on a touch of end-of-quarter madness, and you can really start to lose it. I actually had a moment yesterday when, for … Continue reading →

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Reef Noise As Guide for Floating Crustaceans

Posted on 2011/02/07 by Sam

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a small planktonic crustacean floating in the tropical ocean. Your world is vast, but its physical geography at your scale is relatively simple. Light and warmth are above, dark and cold are down. … Continue reading →

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Cape Cod Crabs Consume Haline Hay

Posted on 2010/11/30 by Sam

An interesting piece of ecological detective work from the shores of New England, which came to my attention via this blog post and this op-ed in the Cape Cod Times. Salt marshes on Cape Cod have been suffering local die-back … Continue reading →

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Krill v. Salps in the Southern Ocean

Posted on 2010/03/15 by Sam

Last week, writing about copepods, I mentioned that they make up what is probably the most massive group of animals on earth. I also mentioned the likely runner up: krill. In particular, the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. Photo by Uwe … Continue reading →

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Ecology of the Zombie Apocalypse

Posted on 2009/10/31 by Sam

A non-trivial question: how will vampires be affected by the coming Zombie Apocalypse? For a startlingly rigorous discussion on the topic, head over to Southern Fried Science: http://southernfriedscience.com/2009/10/30/blood-and-brains-can-vampires-survive-a-zombie-apocalypse/ Major hat tip to SFS for this post—this is truly the best … Continue reading →

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The End of the Line

Posted on 2009/06/25 by Sam

I just got back from watching “The End of the Line”, a new documentary about overfishing which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this winter and is currently in limited release. If you have the chance to see it, I … Continue reading →

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NOAA Predicts Large Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone This Summer

Posted on 2009/06/19 by Sam

NOAA announced yesterday that the “dead zone” at the outlet of the Mississippi River will likely be larger than usual this summer, due to a combination of a rainy spring with increased stream flows and an increased fertilizer load from … Continue reading →

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Holy $#!*, that’s a big jellyfish

Posted on 2009/06/11 by Sam

This crazy-ass photo has been making the rounds on the internet after the publication a few days ago of a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution on the increasing abundance of jellyfish around the world. It is … Continue reading →

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