Let me tell you, this is not the latest “I and the bird” carnival. This is really Oekologie, #18 by the way (edition #17 can be found at Reconciliation ecology). (Given the scarcity of submissions due to August being a somewhat dry month of the blogosphere, more than one post a blog is featured in this edition, and some other liberties were taken -in, not off).
This edition will thus be bird-biased, don’t take it to personality. Well, no, let’s do that. Personality is indeed an important component of fitness, and since in birds it relates to parade and mating, and at the end, is somewhat a determinant of reproduction. And birds are good models for studying this intriguing characteristic of individuals with such an evolutionary importance. To convince you, please hear about the songs of the Male European collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis. There’s a study telling you why bad boys are successful when it comes to dating (just perch lowly and sing). Let’s be fair to poor males (and stay ‘collar red’ in some way), not every female will react to bad boys songs (as a side note interspecies singing behaviour is apparently widespread)… And when there are too few bad boys, cooperative polyandry remains a convenient solution. Learn more about this fascinating reproductive behaviour, probably favorised by nesting spots scarcity (something many parrots have to face apparently!). Guindilgii! This might well be part of such songs that pleases (birds) so much, but that’s not. That’s rather good news for once, it’s the species epithet of an endangered parrot, and this species successfully reproduced in captivity, and a pair gave birth to three chicks at Houston zoo.
In the not-so-good news, an introduced parasite may be push the decline of Canadian native bumblebees further. Introducing bumblebees to greenhouses to increase the yields resulted in this parasite jump onto the wild pollinating species. Read more about this STD here, or here. (Just in case you would think this topic isn’t birdy at least, be aware the conclusion of the latter link is “Cover your mouth when you cough. On a chicken“. On the other hand, if you find this not birdy enough, go read about bird parasitism here). Bad times for bees it seems. What’s more, we can count with yet another invasive (if only for bee(tle)s, and wasps).. Along with the more or less pessimistic stances, the question “will the great animal migration disappear?” is raised (well, mosses will still migrate far away, at least, and storks might do it as well, as long as their population stands). On another line, “is human species a virus?“, a surrealist post at an Unreal Blog. Yep, there’s this interaction aspect in virus life, and the question whether or not viruses can be considered alive. If a virus can get sick because it is infected by another virus, does it provide a clue in this heated debate?
Apart from disease spreads, we have a couple of post dealing with the ever ongoing question of speciation (are you kidding?). Of particular interest is the ecology of speciation of course, or what do we learn about the ecological triggers behind speciating. This is sometimes hard to figure out when there’s nothing left from past but modern diversity… How to study speciation burst when fossils are not available? Begins with a phylogeny, then see if speciation rates are seemingly changing over time. Apparently, warblers did and what’s more, because of their ecological opportunism, even if this speciating success eventually decreased as niches saturated (sorry, can’t help jumping into something like “yep, they did a tree for Dendroica). Second, you may learn about yet another example of ring species from Australia: the Rosella species complex. As to ecological implications, these parrots are standing at the cross-road between blending into environment (yellow species) or keep in being sexy (redish of course).
Another very interesting story is to be found at 10 000 Birds. I let you discover where the interaction between blogging and conservation biology can meet, hopefully with a great success. Go read, and if possible, do more than reading…
And to finish with, GrrlScientist provides us with a review of Carl Zimmer‘s book, “Microcosm“, dealing with the ubiquitous and sometimes unkind Escherichia coli, a bacteria that has the guts. This book has to be good.
The next Oekologie host is apparently unknown yet, so “We need hosts for this fall! If you’re interested in hosting Oekologie on your blog, please contact us!” (contact email on the carnival’s site).
Finally, if you enjoyed this edition, I invite you to vote for a species here. I know, it’s plants down, but hey, nevermind!
Uh oh. More things to read…..
Thanks for the include!
[…] 14, 2008 • No comments yet The eighteenth edition of our favorite ecology blog carnival is at Seeds Aside and it’s for the birds, in a very good way. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Oekologie #18”, url: […]
[…] 14, 2008 • No comments yet The eighteenth edition of our favorite ecology blog carnival is at Seeds Aside and it’s for the birds, in a very good way. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Oekologie #18”, url: […]
Nice collection, despite the relative paucity of stories. I do worry about the future of “Oekologie”, however, given the shortage of hosts stepping up, and Jeremy’s own misgivings about blogging! I’d do it again, but our semester just started and the next several weeks are going to be crazy until we settle into the routine. I might volunteer for a later edition – but I hope we don’t fold up in the meantime, eh?!
[…] in Tangled Bank #111, Linnaeus’ Legacy #10, Carnival of the Blue # 15, I and the Bird #81, Oekologie #18, I and the Bird #82, Carnival of the Green #141, Tangled Bank #112, and Carnival of the Elitist […]
[…] science. This carnival was down for a couple months, with the last edition posted in August at Seeds Aside, however, it’s back in November and hopefully regularly after that. Make sure by […]
[…] 2008 edition. This blog carnival links to the best writing in the blogosphere, regardless of topic. Oekologie, issue 18. This blog carnival focuses on ecological blog writing. The Boneyard, issue 22. Even […]