[Eds note: The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this Tuesday taster has actually gone online on a Thursday… Sorry everyone, especially Bjorn – Jennifer and I were out of the office and unable to post on the right day. Normal service will be resumed next week! – Emilie, Functional Ecology Managing Editor.] Ecology without Borders registration closed! More than a day before closure of … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 24/10/2017
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” was a philosophical question posed by George Berkeley to explore various concepts relating to perception; is a sound only a sound if someone hears it, how much can we truly know about the unobserved world and so forth. I’m not looking to start a metaphysics debate (honestly!) but, for me, the answer is decidedly ‘yes, it does’. At least that’s the case if you happen to have an acoustic recorder somewhere in the vicinity of said tree when it falls. Continue reading “Ecologist’s Diary with Richard Beason: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it… it does make a sound!”
by Bjorn Robroek
25 years ago, from September 28 to October 1st 1992, about 50 peatland scientists got together in the Hyytiälä Forestry Station in Southern Finland to discuss the latest knowledge on carbon cycling in peatlands. 25 years later, on September 25 to September 28, 2017, a group of over 80 peatland scientists – including some of the 1992 participants: Harri Vasander, Nigel Roulet, Dicky Clymo, Line Rochefort, et al.– travelled (back) to Hyytiälä with a similar set of aims. The conference not only looked back at the first peatland meeting in Hyytiälä 25 years ago, but also celebrated the 100th anniversary of Finland.
These days, I am tutoring a few first year Biology students. In search of how to do that in the best and most effective way, I found some helpful information here, and here. Most of us at some point learned about the effect of earthworms in soils and ecological processes. A recently accepted paper in Functional Ecology shows that this effect is largest in ecosystems … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 17/10/2017
Dear all,
One of the Ecologist’s Diary bloggers had to unfortunately leave us. In Richard Beason we, however, have found a very worthy replacement. Richard will join the team which now consists of himself, Tracy, Gesche, and Rob. I hope you will continue reading their blogs, and give Richard a warm welcome. Below is a little introduction about Richard and his writing plans; looking forward to his posts.
Bjorn
This week in Functional Ecology, a very interesting paper on how feeding behaviour and diet have been instrumental in shaping waterfowl beak shape . The author, Aaron Olsen, also put together a tutorial on how to create a “backtransform morphospace” in R. Two independent studies, published in Nature, show that mobility in research increases impact. If you want to move to a new lab; what … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 10/10/2017
It’s late July, the alpine meadows of the Swiss Alps are in full bloom, and the heat of the summer sun drives a deep sweet smell from the litter of the spruce forest floor as we start our walk up. My friend and colleague Mark leads the way as we move up the tour de Mont Blanc from la Fouly in the Valais, heading for our research site at ~2500m. There, the sun has given rise to abundant flowers, rich meadows, the buzzing of insect and bird life, but still works hard at melting the last of last of the snow. As we reach the site, we are greeted with the familiar, but always astounding, mixture of snowbeds, ridges, meadows, flush wetland, pools and screes of this dynamic and fantastic environment (see picture). Continue reading “Ecologist’s Diary with Rob Mills: Making the most of summer snow”
In this Hindsight, Dicky Clymo, Emeritus Professor at Queen Mary University of London, writes about the first measurements of gas effluxes from a peat bog: the first drops of what has since become a storm. Continue reading “Hindsight: The earliest measurements of gas fluxes from a blanket bog”
“The fine roots of perennial plants are a royal pain to study”. Continue reading “Ecologist’s Diary with Gesche Blume-Werry: A royal pain”
At my dinner table, we often talk about the environmental issues around eating beef. The information is often ambiguous and the whole issue seems to be a minefield, but cattle farming is evidently contributing to emissions, and eating grass-fed beef is not going to change that, as stated in a blog on the Food Climate Research Network. If you are interested in regime changes in … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 03/10/2017
Functional Ecologists 