Ethan Linck’s Cataclysms to Desolate the World is a beautiful piece of nature writing about the loss of forest birds on Guam and the impact that introduced tree snakes have …
Rewilding
The massive impact of animals on forest nutrients
A study recently published in the journal of Functional Ecology shows us how large fruit-eating animals can be responsible for massively enhancing forest nutrientA substance that contains the raw materials …
How do you reduce shark attacks? Try increasing shark numbers
Ecology is a complex science and so often, our simplest assumptions about how things work, don’t hold up in practice. Take sharks for example. How do you reduce shark attacks? …
During the last ice-ageA period of reduction in Earth’s temperature of between about 4–7 degrees that resulted in the rapid expansion of ice sheets and glaciation of much of the …
A single lyrebird moves 350 tonnes of soil a year
Lyrebirds will make a few appearances in my forthcoming book. Mostly because they are are an outstanding and visible indicator of animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would …
Using species’ potential range as an indicator of conservation importance
A new paper published in the journal Ecological Indicators proposes that we use indices of species’ potential range to inform conservation status (Mason et al, 2021). Findings like these should …
Biodiversity Conservation and the Earth System
A recent paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution sets out the increasing evidence that loss of large vertebrates in particular, is having massive impacts on ecosystem processes. The …
Addressing the rapid decline of insects means having more insect-eating birds
The life-histories of insects and vertebrates are coupled. Predator and prey cannot exist without one-another. Species richnessThe number of species within a given area. Note, this is often confused with …
A pair of identical twins can be born, where one ends up eating meat and the other becoming vegan, or one is a wealthy billionaire and the other works in …
What is a keystone species? Animals stabilise ecosystems, not drive them
What is a keystone species? The term was coined by American zoologist Robert Paine in 1969 as meaning an animal that has disproportionate effect on its surroundings. Conservationists will often use …