ecology

A seven-year experiment shows that pond communities bear the imprint of random events in their past, such as the order in which species were introduced into the ponds. This finding locates one of the wellsprings of biodiversity but also suggests that it may not be possible to restore ecosystems whose history we cannot recreate.

GoodenoughThe hot topics of global warming and environmental sustainability are concerns that fit neatly within the precepts of religious naturalism, according to Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to being a renowned cell biologist, Goodenough is a religious naturalist and the author of The Sacred Depths of Nature, a bestselling book on religious naturalism that was published in 1998. Religious naturalism neither requires belief in God nor excludes such faith. Rather, the movement is based on what Goodenough describes as “an exploration of the religious potential of nature.”

Ellen Damschen & Forest ServiceA new paper on ecological corridors co-authored by Washington University biologists Ellen Damschen and John Orrock in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, was published online Dec. 1 as part of a special issue on movement ecology. This research reveals that by understanding how species move, you can predict if and how corridors work.

WUSTL senior Ruth Poland and Jonathan Chase, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and director of WUSTL’s Tyson Research Center, check species out in one of Tyson’s ponds.An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that after ponds dry up through drought in a region, when they revive, the community of species in each pond tends to be very similar to one another in species composition.

In science, it’s best to be good, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky. Ecologist Owen Sexton, Ph.D., professor emeritus of biology in Arts & Sciences, had just completed a census of snakes at a conservation preserve northwest of St. Louis when the great flood of 1993 deluged the area, putting the preserve at least 15 feet under water. The flood provided Sexton with a rare opportunity: His collected data and the flood would combine to make “the perfect study” of how an area rebounds from natural disaster.

Sexton observes a flooded Marais Temps Clair.In science, it’s best to be good, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky. Ecologist Owen Sexton, professor emeritus of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, had just completed a census of snakes at a conservation preserve northwest of St. Louis, when the great flood of 1993 deluged the area, putting the preserve at least 15 feet under water. The flood provided Sexton with a rare opportunity: his collected data and the flood would combine to make “the perfect study” of how an area rebounds from natural disaster.

Sexton observes a flooded Marais Temps Clair.In science, it’s best to be good, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky. Ecologist Owen Sexton, professor emeritus of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, had just completed a census of snakes at a conservation preserve northwest of St. Louis, when the great flood of 1993 deluged the area, putting the preserve at least 15 feet under water. The flood provided Sexton with a rare opportunity: his collected data and the flood would combine to make “the perfect study” of how an area rebounds from natural disaster.

Copyright Pieter JohnsonEutrophication is caused by higher phosphorous and nitrogen that create a profound impact on the food web, threatening the frogs’ existence.A collaboration involving ecologists at WUSTL and the University of Wisconsin strongly points to farming practices and development, two factors that create a condition called eutrophication in ponds and wetlands, as factors behind the high incidence of deformed frogs. Eutrophication is caused by higher phosphorus and nitrogen (prime components of agricultural fertilizer) levels in wet ecosystems. Higher levels of these nutrients cause a profound impact on the food web that imperils the frogs’ existence.

New evidence has linked deformities to the presence of a parasite that has been noted in scientific literature for a century and a half.

Image courtesy of the Cellar Store, San Bernardino, CA.A new book is persuading ecologists to think “outside the helmet”.An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis has co-authored a new book that is forcing the pith helmet set to “think outside the helmet.” Jonathan M. Chase, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts& Sciences at Washington University and Mathew A. Leibold, Ph.D.,associate professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, take on one of the tenets of ecology, niche theory, which holds that species evolve and thrive because of their particular environment and what activities they do to shape that environment, providing them their niche, if you will.