BioScience articles from June 2005

BioScience archives from June 2005

Energy and ecosystems.(Editorial)
June 1, 2005... The release in March of the synthesis report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), an authoritative, multistakeholder scrutiny of 24 sample natural systems around the globe, may come to be seen as a turning point for common wisdom about...

Rebuilding a mainstream consensus for environmentalism.(Viewpoint)
June 1, 2005... The most perplexing feature of current federal environmental policy is that public attitudes, compelling science, and pragmatic solutions matter so little. Poll after poll demonstrates that the American people embrace environmental values and...

Generating heat: new twists in the evolution of endothermy.
June 1, 2005... The crocodile rests in the water, only its narial openings and eyes protruding from the water's surface. It is watching and waiting for a meal on feet (or with fins, scales, or feathers) to move by, when it will snap up its victim in its jaws,...

States, Congress, environmental groups oppose new EPA regulation.(Washington Watch)
June 1, 2005... Forty-three states have issued advisories against eating mercury-contaminated fish, in recognition of the harm that organic methylmercury pollution can cause to the environment and to human health. In response to stepped-up legal and political...

Breaking new ground: soil communities and exotic plant invasion.
June 1, 2005... As exotic plant species invade ecosystems, ecologists have been attempting to assess the effects of these invasions on native communities and to determine what factors influence invasion processes. Although much of this work has focused on...

Social learning in animals: empirical studies and theoretical models.
June 1, 2005... The last two decades have seen a virtual explosion in empirical research on the role of social interactions in the development of animals' behavioral repertoires, and a similar increase in attention to formal models of social learning. Here we...

Complexity in ecology and conservation: mathematical, statistical, and computational challenges.
June 1, 2005... Creative approaches at the interface of ecology, statistics, mathematics, informatics, and computational science are essential for improving our understanding of complex ecological systems. For example, new information technologies, including...

Quantitative bioscience for the 21st century.
June 1, 2005... Using a carefully chosen set of examples, we illustrate the importance and ubiquity of quantitative reasoning in the biological sciences. The examples range across many different levels of biological organization, from diseases through...

Do reservoirs facilitate invasions into landscapes?(Forum)
June 1, 2005... The extensive construction of reservoirs over the past century has radically altered the environmental landscape on a global scale. Construction of dams on most large rivers has interrupted the connectivity of water flow and greatly increased...

Getting the story right: a response to Vermeire and colleagues.(Forum)
June 1, 2005... A recent Forum article by Vermeire and colleagues (BioScience 54: 689-695) presents a critique of claims made by various authors who advocate heightened prairie dog conservation. Vermeire and colleagues assert that the only existing historic...

The complexity of crops.
June 1, 2005... Farmer's Bounty: Locating Diversity in the Contemporary World. Stephen Brush. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2004. 327 pp., illus. $32.56 (ISBN 0300100493 cloth). Farmer's Bounty: Locating Diversity in the Contemporary World is...

Building a Noah's Ark for plants.
June 1, 2005... Ex Situ Plant Conservation: Supporting Species Survival in the Wild. Edward O. Guerrant Jr., Kay Havens, and Mike Maunder, eds. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2004. 504 pp., illus. $80.00 (ISBN 1559638745 cloth). In 1984, Frank Thibodeau...

You can't tell a book by its cover.
June 1, 2005... Nature and Design. M. W. Collins, M. A. Atherton, and J. A. Bryant, eds. WIT Press, Boston, 2005. 360 pp., illus. $213.00 (ISBN 185312852X cloth). The first in an intended series of at least six, Nature and Design explores "the parallels...

New titles.(Books)
June 1, 2005... The Domestic Horse: The Evolution, Development, and Management of Its Behaviour. Daniel Mills and Sue McDonnell, eds. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005. 249 pp., illus. $43.00 (ISBN 0521891132 paper). The Epistemology of...

AIBS welcomes three new member societies.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2005... In April 2005 the AIBS Board of Directors welcomed the American Mosquito Control Association, the Long Term Ecological Research Network, and the Cactus and Succulent Society of America as member societies in AIBS. The American Mosquito...

2005 AIBS Emerging Public Policy Leader announced.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2005... In April, AIBS named Karen Deen Laughlin, Cornell University PhD candidate, as its 2005 Emerging Public Policy Leader. Laughlin will receive a trip to Washington next month to participate in the Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group's...

News from the National Ecological Observatory Network.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2005... The third and final meeting of the NEON Design Consortium (NDC) will be held in Estes Park, Colorado, 7-9 June 2005. Subcommittee members will focus on a number of issues, including deployment of the standardized sensor arrays required to...

NEON comings and goings.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2005... NEON welcomes Richard Munro of Triad Management Services, Inc., to its project office at MBS headquarters. Triad provides project management and science and engineering services to government-funded research projects, such as the Ice Cube...

Award winners for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching announced.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2005... Each year, some of the best math and science teachers in the United States are recognized by their peers and honored with Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, which are administered by the National Science...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)
June 1, 2005... June 5-7 2005 In Vitro Biology Meeting, Baltimore, MD; Web site: www.sivb.org/meetings.asp 5-10 26th Annual International Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists, Charleston, SC; Web site: www.sws.org/charleston2005 7-12...

When productivity goes up, diversity goes down.(BioBriefs)
June 1, 2005... Until modern times, usable (fixed) nitrogen was hard to come by in many ecosystems. Plants adapted in various ways to overcome this limitation, but since people began using fertilizers and burning fossil fuels, the amount of nitrogen available...

Floral diversity preserved in fossils.(BioBriefs)
June 1, 2005... The rich floral diversity of South America is legendary, but the conditions that gave rise to such diversity have been a mystery. Now the Patagonian desert is providing glimpses of the lush forests that existed long ago, revealing a richer past...