biodiversity

This excellent post at The Fisheries Blog  uses a vist to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's kelp forest to explain the concept of trophic downgrading. The post references the seminal Science report on the topic co-authored by James A.

The July 26 editorial "Logging for spotted owls" dismisses decades of scientific research by touting one new study that suggests "heavy thinning" (aka, clear-cut lite) of forests could benefit spotted owls. Based on a single computer simulation, the new study suggests that intensive logging will magically prevent "catastrophic fires" such as the Biscuit that "wiped out" owls and other wildlife.

One of Marvel Comics' most popular characters, Wolverine, was born with the genetic mutation allowing him to recover rapidly from any injury. Combine that with the Canadian [sic] government's program to replace his skeleton with the indestructible metal adamantium, and you have one tough character. The character's eponymous creature is also one tough critter, one that thrives in frozen mountain habitats and has been reported to scare off grizzlies from their kills.

The standing dead trees were everywhere, their boles weathered silver where the bark had peeled. The carcasses of their fallen comrades littered the understory, with few aspen sprouting from the deadfall. The occasional mangled saplings we observed provided graphic evidence of heavy elk browsing. Recently, I explored this stand of ghost trees on Colorado’s High Lonesome Ranch (HLR), accompanied by some of the finest aspen ecologists in North America.