Word: ecologists
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Consider, for example, the massive forest diebacks occurring across the West. "People tend to think of forests as pretty slow changing," says Craig Allen, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "But once certain thresholds are exceeded, very rapid changes can occur." In some cases, thirsting trees perish because their circulatory systems--the long tubular columns in the trunk that transport water from the roots to the crown--collapse. In other cases, the trees become so weak they can no longer fend off insects and disease...
...Queensland and a member of the Commonwealth?s Threatened Species Scientific Committee, has been monitoring kangaroos since 1974. He says long-term monitoring usually happens only if a species is commercially harvested, a pest or attracts the interest of scientists or hobbyists. Grigg?s colleague Tony Pople, a population ecologist, agrees: ?Monitoring is a luxury that we can?t afford with limited conservation and management dollars - you?re forced to monitor only when you need to.? When Mooney and a visiting ecologist, Marco Restani of Minnesota?s St. Cloud State University, carried out that first snapshot survey last year, Restani...
DIED. ARNE NAESS JR., 66, Norwegian shipping magnate and ex-husband of pop diva Diana Ross; after falling 320 ft. while climbing in the Franschhoek mountains; in Cape Town, South Africa. Married to Ross for 14 years until their divorce in 2000, he was an ecologist and experienced mountaineer who conquered Mount Everest...
Wildfires, notes Duke University fire ecologist Norm Christensen, have been erupting in the canyons and foothills of the coastal mountains for thousands of years. The recipe to produce them is as simple as it is effective. Take a tract of pine and fir trees or shrubby chaparral. Let it stand for several decades. Then wait for the winter rains to stop so the tinder can dry. At that point, a spark is all it takes to start a conflagration...
...while some 20% escaped unscathed. Seed from areas where vegetation survived is already drifting into areas where vegetation was lost, and many important species--knobcone pine trees, flowering kalmiopsis bushes and carnivorous cobra lilies--are taking root in the ashes. "This is not a catastrophe," says World Wildlife Fund ecologist Dominick DellaSala, "but a process that drives biodiversity...