Archive for the ‘Australia’ Tag

Keeping tabs on fungi

I spent some time over the past week looking into how we can all contribute to fungi conservation- since fungal conservation doesn’t get as much attention as plant and animal conservation, there aren’t as many international organizations or projects that are seeking support. Instead, it seems like smaller, more local groups are more prevalent. And […]

Natural born flowers

In my last post I talked about some of the environmental concerns surrounding the cut flower industry, namely pesticides, water use, and the movement of parasites and diseases. While there are many other facets to growing flowers for bouquets, I want to highlight two other issues, both of which I think we can influence: wildflower […]

There goes the neighborhood?

When I started looking into rodent conservation, what I had expected to find was a tail of two species groups: 1) invasive, introduced rodent species dominating the natives, and 2) disappearing native species and simplified ecosystems as a result of habitat loss to human activities. It would appear, however, that the global situation is a […]

Many endangered mice, see how their ranges contract

As I mentioned in my first post of the month, I’m interested in learning about the conservation status of rodent species. I think I may have overlooked the threats facing them because several species (notably the black and Norwegian rats) have been incredibly successful invasive species. When I started looking through the literature, I found […]

Going on the offensive for sharks

Over the past few posts, hopefully you have gotten a sense of how a combination of increasing demand and general prejudice has led to massive overexploitation of shark populations around the world- some of the information I have passed along is pretty bleak. But I don’t want you to think that it’s all doom and […]

Where the wild sharks are

My last post presented a pretty bleak view of current shark populations and the challenges they face, so this week I want to focus on the ways that researchers are trying to understand the most important aspects of shark conservation- sometimes the strategies they propose aren’t effective, but still lead to improved shark knowledge and […]

Repelling the invaders

During the past few weeks, I’ve been looking into invasive aquatic plants- it’s clear that there are many species and that we are doing a good job of helping them find new habitats to exploit. It’s also clear that there are big differences between species in terms of impact and the locations where they pose […]

Getting your hands wet

Many of the salt marsh and barrier island restoration projects I’ve described in previous posts are pretty big scale- it would be challenging for an individual to plan and carry out offshore dredging or large-scale marsh terrace construction. But is there a way to contribute in some small fashion to these bigger projects? Given how […]

Building a better dingo house

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen that dingoes play a variety of roles in the environment, and the extent and importance of those roles is hotly debated by researchers. Dingoes may help native wildlife by keeping exotic predator numbers down, but they may also prey upon threatened species in Australia. Dingoes are apex predators […]

Keeping up with the pack

Dingoes seem to be pretty controversial animals, and I think I even found about as close as you’ll get to a fight in the scientific community over the ecological roles of the dingo (what was fascinating about the exchange was not just what was said, but how it was said- scientists can be mean). A […]