I’ve spent a good chunk of time over the past 2 months putting out small mammal traps to catch rodents at different field sites in coastal Louisiana. My goal is to understand the prey base of local carnivores and then figure out if they are being selective about what they eat or simply taking prey […]
Archive for the ‘invasive species’ Tag
You dirty rat?
Catching their breath
As I mentioned in my last post, ocean acidification is likely to cause problems for hermit crabs both because the calcium carbonate used by snails to construct shells which are, in turn, used by hermits will be less available and because hermits exhibit less movement and environmental awareness as pH drops. A variety of aquatic […]
Getting our hands dirty
Although some plant species are doing very well around the world (sometimes to the point of becoming invasive), other species are losing ground. In some cases there are focused recovery plans, but oftentimes the issue of habitat loss trumps our best efforts to sustain these populations. So how can we contribute to both habitat availability […]
Slow and steady wins the race?
In my last post, I recounted some of the issues facing tortoises around the world: habitat loss, habitat degradation, disease, hunting, etc. Some of these problems have been impacting tortoises for a long time, while others are more recent in nature. The good news is that concerned individuals have been working to support tortoise populations […]
The ups and downs of owl-dom
In my last post, I catalogued a variety of issues facing owls in different places around the world- while a lot of that was focused on the northern spotted owl, the issue of habitat loss is pretty well universal. I had expected that most of the recent literature on owl conservation would investigate complex relationships […]
Why didn’t I spot that?
In deciding to focus on owls for this month’s posts, I clearly had forgotten about one of the biggest debates over timber harvesting- the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) gained lots of publicity as a bone of contention in the discussion of what to do with old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. As birds […]
Losing our insect control
Over the past week, I’ve been looking into when and how scientists first became aware of white-nose syndrome in northeast bats, as well as what the loss of those bats could mean for all of us. It’s pretty depressing reading on the whole- especially when you realize that it has developed so quickly. What were […]
Keeping parrots in their place
Over the past few weeks I’ve been looking into conservation issues involving parrots, and it turns out that there are two very different sides to this story: on the one hand, habitat destruction and the pet trade are threatening wild populations around the world; on the other hand, the pet trade (and to a certain […]
A colorful invasion
In my last post, I looked at the status of several wild parrot species which have been negatively impacted by habitat loss, hunting, and other human activities. This week in my reading I investigated the other side of the equation: invasive parrot populations around the world. To be perfectly honest, although I had been vaguely […]
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 […]