POSTSCRIPT: This line is an idea from my favorite book about becoming a biologist, “On Becoming a Biologist,” by John Janovy Jr. He describes how he has his students find biological content in artwork or magazines as a class exercise. The answer to the riddle in this case is “the biological content is in my brain as I take the picture.”
;}
I think pupfish are great.
One of the central hypotheses about how the diversity of life is generated is known as “adaptive radiation“. This term, popularized by G.G. Simpson in the mid 20th century, encapsulates an idea that is relatively easy to grasp: that the spectacular arrays of morphological and species diversity that we observe in the world are often the result of great bursts of speciation and morphological change. These bursts occur because a single species colonizes a new area, acquires a new adaptation, or suddenly escapes its competitors or natural enemies (possibly by their extinction). This opens up a new universe of possible lifestyles that evolution then drives that species to take up by rapid diversification. Think of the Hawaiian honeycreepers or Darwin’s finches.
The idea holds great sway because it is simple and powerful, but testing it empirically has proven very difficult. This is in part because the actual…
View original post 1,067 more words
I like to eat parfaits by the “cat garden,” where CSUF’s feral cats hang out.
not just me against the stalls, see if you can find the backpack!
part of a new series!
Humpback Chub by James Williams, Federal Employee
What did one ecologist say to the other? That’s my field!
I read Last Chance to See… by Douglas Adams (late and very lamented) and Mark Carwardine (who is on facebook) today sitting on a tangled bank on the San Joaquin River, escaping from the Excessive Heat we Fresnoans were warned about, taking the batteries out and putting them back in my phone, which is evidently allergic to water and is performing the cellphone version of a sneezing fit, trying to start up and failing over and over again. I swear I barely dipped it in. The fish in the river seemed mostly to be speckled dace (23 fans on facebook), largemouth bass (7814 fans on facebook) and bluegills (0 people interested in Bluegills on facebook) – I’m not complaining, I’ll take any kind of fish-watching over pretty much anything else. For instance, I spent a good hour the day before yesterday tracing a canal through the Fig Garden neighborhood in Fresno. My first ecology observation in Fresno? The mosquitofish (no facebook fans) that used to live in the canal seem to have been replaced by speckled dace, who seem to like the shopping carts. In my unscientific poll, it’s a mixed correlation between number of facebook fans and abundance near shopping malls, which is a little surprising since I associate facebook with shopping. But I also use facebook on my phone, so there does seem to be a negative association between fish and facebook in general. The fish need to get with the program and I need my phone to be functional.
aquaticbiology 