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A Spawning Aggregation in a Bluehead Chub Nest – Brandon Peoples (2014)

April 6, 2017 at 10:52 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

This short observation shows a spawning aggregation containing seven species of fish in a Bluehead chub (Nocomis leptocephalus) nest in Toms Creek, New River Drainage in Blacksburg, Virginia. These species are Mountain redbelly dace (Chrosomus oreas), White shiner (Luxilus albeolus), Rosefin shiner (Lythrurus ardens), Rosyside dace (Clinostomus funduloides), Central stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum) and Crescent shiner (Luxilus cerasinus). Bluehead chub with it’s impressive nesting behavior provides a rich natural history for ecologists. Brandon Peoples who recorded this short observation is a […]

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How We Measure Photosynthesis – NEON Education (2014)

March 25, 2017 at 6:14 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Technical Notes, Video

National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large collaborative group of long-term ecological research sites spread over 81 locations in the United States including Harvard Forest and Smithsonian Ecological Research Center (SERC). This video is a part of the educational portfolio by NEON showing how researchers measure photosynthesis at single leaf level using infra red gas analyzers. Understanding photosynthesis at leaf level enables scaling up and extrapolate photosynthesis at forest level. Infact, there are computer models that treat forest canopies […]

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Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) on Board ISS – NASA/SVS (2017)

March 20, 2017 at 10:54 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Transport System is a remote-sensing instrument installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015. Using LIDAR technology it scans a vertical slice of the atmosphere for natural as well as human made aerosols and clouds. The near-real-time data transmitted from the ISS enables CATS team to process it within six hours. One of the natural aerosol sources is volcanoes. In April 2015, the CATS instrument provided a detailed profile of the south Chilean volcano Calbuco when it […]

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A Day in the Life of an Elite Male Greater Sage-Grouse on the Lek – Marc Dantzker – Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2015)

February 16, 2017 at 2:10 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Here’s another fascinating piece of natural history from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In this series of short observations staff producer and biologist Marc Dantzker breaks down the mating behavior and social interaction of the Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in five sections. Lekking or lek mating is a breeding behavior where males come together in a place and perform competitive displays to impress visiting females. While males do their “hello check me out” dances, females asses their qualities and choose […]

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A Leafcutter Ant Colony in Barro Colorado Island

February 13, 2017 at 6:10 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

Filmed on Jan 28th 2017 during the dry season. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue (STRI) Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. Leafcutter ants are an impressive group with more than 40 different species. All evolved and diversified in the New World at around 12 million years ago. Phylogenetic evidence suggests their evolution could go back as far as 50 million years ago when America separated from Africa. A mature colony can have more than 8 million workers collectively farming a subterranean fungus. […]

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Ecology from the Air – Greg Asner (2009) TED Talk

January 30, 2017 at 1:44 am / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, Video

Being able to measure interaction of the living and the non-living at large continental-scales is eye opening. That’s what successful scientist Greg Asner does with the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO). NASA’s Landsat earth observation satellites have been feeding us invaluable global-scale data for more than 40 years. The new satellite Landsat 8 began transmitting near-realtime information. Thanks to these earth observation satellites we can instantly know scale of natural or human-made impacts on ecosystems. Deforestation for oil palm plantations in […]

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Western Ghats Program – CEPF/ATREE (2016)

December 25, 2016 at 9:28 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Video

India’s Western Ghats is an ecologically unique biodiversity hotspot recognized by the United Nations as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF) in association with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) have been supporting projects by conservationists and researchers in the area. The exceptionally high level of biological diversity and endemism in this mountain chain represents some of the best representatives of non-equatorial tropical evergreen forests in the world. Natural history and evolution […]

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Planet Earth – Jungles – BBC (2006)

October 13, 2016 at 5:15 pm / BBC documentaries, Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Jungles is the 8th episode of the BBC TV series Planet Earth. It makes a rapid tour around the tropical belt and highlights a few key phenomena and spectacular behavior including mating dance of bird of paradise, forest regeneration after a treefall, plant-animal interactions in the forest canopy, fig trees as a keystone species, primate territoriality, forest sounds, mating leaf frogs, water cycle through evapotranspiration, nutrient cycle through decomposition, food webs, parental care in insects, fungal parasitism, gliding calugos, carnivorous […]

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Plight of the North Atlantic Right Whale – Jeffrey Mittelstadt (2013)

October 3, 2016 at 11:38 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Directed, edited and produced by Jeffrey Mittelstadt of WildSides the short documentary was made for Whale and Dolphin Conservation. North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are highly endangered. Less than 500 North Atlantic right whales live in the wild. Close to 350 of them live in the East Coast of North America. The whale continues to be endangered but thanks to conservation measures like the acoustic stations its population more than tripled in a century. Apart from indirect negative Human […]

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Climatic Dynamics of Monsoons – NASA SVS (2016)

September 30, 2016 at 10:18 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

The monsoon was noticed for the first time in India. It is a seasonal rain and wind pattern that occurs in many places on our planet. The quasi-regular atmospheric pattern is hugely influential in Human history. The first truly global economy was established in the Indian ocean by sea faring merchants who traveled from Africa and middle east all the way to Indonesia and Malaysia and back. Predictability of the wind patterns around the Indian Ocean was the defining factor. […]

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Carolina Anole Lizard Changing Color

August 18, 2016 at 10:44 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

You can watch the gradual color change in this Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) from green to brown over 4 mins. Summer of 2011 was drier than usual in Athens, GA. Annual rainfall (37.11 inches) was lower than the 1981-2010 average (46.66 inches). The month of July was particularly hot. Average monthly temperature was 81.9 F (above 1895-2012 average of 80.0 F). Reptiles in such conditions have a rather fast metabolism and burn calories fast. This female lizard was a […]

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Fish Tool Use Documented in the Wild – (2016)

July 27, 2016 at 6:51 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video

The news that a black spotted tuskfish, Choerodon schoenleinii, (Valenciennes, 1839) was observed using a tool made the hearts of ethologists race. Here you can see a few recorded examples of the behavior from different locations and species belonging to the same genus within the wrasse family. As the story goes the behavior was first observed by Scott Gardner in Australia. On November 12th 2006, Mr. Gardner did an 18-m dive in the Keppel region of the southern Great Barrier […]

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Anole Lizard Aggression – Neil Losin (2011)

May 31, 2016 at 11:34 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

We humans rarely have punch ups with each other to decide who will mate. However, an anole lizards life is frequently interrupted by brawls. Neil Losin is an evolutionary biologist from UCLA who studies aggressive behavior among anole lizards. Anole lizards not only have punch ups among each other (intraspecific aggression) but they also have such interactions with other species (interspecific aggression). This is when things get even more interesting. In less than 10 minutes this documentary outlines the research […]

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Bowerbird’s Grand Performance – Life Story – BBC

May 22, 2016 at 9:20 pm / BBC documentaries, Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Wildlife Documentaries

With its retina punishing feather colors this is a spectacular solo mating dance performed by a male bowerbird advertising his male qualities. The independent dilation and contraction of the pupils is a striking part of the choreography at the beginning of the performance. In Humans male brains perceive dilated eyes as a signal for sexual readiness of females. Seeing the exaggerated form here should make us curious about our “inner reptile” since birds and mammals have evolved from independent reptilian […]

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Learning to Live on the Moon – PBS

May 17, 2016 at 2:04 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Nova Documentaries, PBS Nature, Video

Energy flows, nutrients cycle. This is how we can define working principles of an ecosystem in a nutshell. Our planet has a very complex land-air-water interaction and we are only beginning to understand the behavior of these systems by simplifying them in enclosed systems such as Landscape Evolution Laboratory (LEO). Due to its proximity, the Moon appears to be the most convenient celestial body to colonize. The Moon is so close that it can even occasionally get shielded by the […]

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