Ecological Documentaries | Nature Documentaries

Home » Ecological Documentaries (Page 10)

Cormorant Pursuing a Fish School – Lütfü Tanrıöver (2014)

October 11, 2014 at 1:25 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Lütfü Tanrıöver recorded this short observation in the eastern Mediterranean town of Fethiye. As the camera rolled it recorded some pretty interesting interactions. Most water birds ambush their prey. Cormorants are different. They actively chase their prey underwater. Here you can see one going after a small school of Mediterranean sand smelt (Atherina hepsetus). Predation pressure is intense. If you pay attention you will notice another predator of small fish, a blue-spotted cornet fish entering the screen from the very […]

Continue reading »
Acid Oceans – Science Bulletins – AMNH

September 8, 2014 at 12:33 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, Video

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution a quarter of the carbon that has been released into the atmosphere was absorbed by the oceans. As a result the acidity of the oceans has increased by %30. Increasing acidity makes it corrosive dissolving the calcium shells of marine organisms. Ocean acidification will affect fisheries by disrupting the very base of the food-webs. Sea urchins, hermit crabs, lobsters, coral polyp prefer ocean water with a pH of about 8.2 in order to […]

Continue reading »
Salt Marsh Watch – Dean Hardy

July 28, 2014 at 10:46 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, Video

How will rising sea levels affect coastlines? As this is written, rate of sea level rise is about 3 milimeters per year worldwide. The main video above is a quick “snapshot” of the tidal flow in a Georgia salt marsh replete with smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and marsh fiddler crabs (Uca spp.) scurrying about over the mud. The perspective of the camera, between two and three feet above the marsh sediment, can be thought of as from that of a […]

Continue reading »
The Making of the Fittest: Birth and Death of Genes – HHMI – Sean Carrol (2011)

April 21, 2014 at 3:11 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

A fish caught known as Crocodile fish or icefish in Antarctic waters by the Norwegian expedition in 1927 tells us another fascinating story on evolution of life. Birth and Death of Genes is one of the four educational videos Sean Carroll has produced for communicating biological evolution to public with the support of HHMI. These fishes (called Nothothenoids) are unique for they are the only vertebrates in the world that lack the oxygen-binding protein hemoglobin, which gives blood its red […]

Continue reading »
Appetite for Extinction – Invasive Lionfish of the Bermuda – Robert S. Zuill (2013)

April 10, 2014 at 4:12 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Video

Lionfish are popular aquarium fish native to the Indo-Pacific region. The lionfish invasion in the western Atlantic began in the mid 1980s off the southern coast of Florida, USA. From Florida, lionfish have spread in all possible directions. By 2000, individuals had been sighted off the coast of North Carolina and Bermuda. First lionfish were reported from the Bahamas in 2004, where they quickly dispersed throughout the archipelago by 2007. The range of lionfish has increased further southward. Lionfish now […]

Continue reading »
Brown Wood Rail singing in the Chocó forests of Ecuador – Luke Browne (2013)

March 7, 2014 at 2:13 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The Brown Wood Rail (Aramides wolfi) is a poorly known bird from western Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Because of extensive habitat loss,it’s considered vulnerable to extinction with less than 4,000 individuals remaining. Here, we recorded an individual singing in front of a motion-activated camera trap at Bilsa Biological Station, one of the largest remaining pieces of Chocó forest in western Ecuador. Bilsa is located within Machine-Chindul Ecological Reserve, Esmeraldas province, Ecuador. The Karubian lab at Tulane university has described the […]

Continue reading »
Invasive Lionfish of the Tropical Atlantic – Marine Ecology Expeditions – Lorenzo Mittiga (2012)

February 28, 2014 at 4:09 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Lionfish are popular aquarium fish native to the Indo-Pacific region. The lionfish invasion in the western Atlantic began in the mid 1980s off the southern coast of Florida, USA. From Florida, lionfish have spread in all possible directions. By 2000, individuals had been sighted off the coast of North Carolina and Bermuda. First lionfish were reported from the Bahamas in 2004, where they quickly dispersed throughout the archipelago by 2007. The range of lionfish has increased further southward. Lionfish now […]

Continue reading »
Pitcher Plants of Palawan – Stewart McPherson (2010)

February 26, 2014 at 3:18 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The naturalist and explorer Stewart McPherson sets out to discover new species of pitcher plants on the Island of Palawan in the Philippines. Carnivorous plants have the most impressive adaptations that help them survive comfortably in low-nutrient environments. Most plants absorb nutrients through their root but carnivorous plants trap and digest various invertebrates to get nutrients. Even small frogs and mammals can become prey. McPherson previously discovered 5 new species of pitcher plants and photographed one that has trapped a […]

Continue reading »
Female Frog (Leptodactylus insularum) Leading Her School – Kristiina Hurme (2006)

January 29, 2014 at 2:23 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video

Leptodactylus insularum is a tropical frog occuring in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela. In this video, a female Leptodactylus insularum pumps her abdomen in the water, and tries to lead the school towards a different area in the swamp. Females attend schools for varying amounts of time, and this is a fairly young school, which may explain why they are slow to follow her. Or perhaps they’re feeding on a great patch and don’t want to leave! […]

Continue reading »
Damocracy – Todd Southgate (2013)

December 31, 2013 at 5:43 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

Damocracy is produced by Doğa Derneği, in collaboration with other founding members of the Damocracy movement: Amazon Watch, International Rivers, RiverWatch, Gota D’água (Drop of Water) Movement, Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) and Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre (MXVPS). Director is a Canadian environmental documentarist Todd Southgate. Current state of the Xingu River after construction of the Belo Monte Dam. Although one of the main focus of the documentary is the famous historical human settlement Hasankeyf threatened to be destroyed by dam […]

Continue reading »
21st Century Temperature and Precipitation Scenarios from IPCC

November 11, 2013 at 1:22 am / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, Video

Climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate global temperature and precipitation patterns will change throughout the 21st century because of rising greenhouse gas concentrations. The visualization above is based on one of the four scenarios called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) in which carbon dioxide concentrations reach 670 parts per million (ppm) by 2100, up from around 400 ppm today. The carbon dioxide concentrations in the year 2100 for each of the four RCPs are: RCP […]

Continue reading »
Metamorphosis – Tale of a Wetland (Bryan Maltais 2012)

July 24, 2013 at 12:08 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Nature reveals its ability to heal when amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants repopulate a recently abandoned rock quarry to create a flourishing wetland in Fort Collins, Colorado. However, the scarred earth of this healing quarry causes salamanders to undergo a rare and peculiar shift in their morphology. Time-lapse sequences show seasonal changes of the wetland over one year accompanied by underwater footage of amphibians breeding and undergoing metamorphosis. Everybody is familiar with the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths. The following […]

Continue reading »
Sponge Bob or Sponge “Poop”

April 14, 2013 at 10:07 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

It is ironic that biologically diverse habitats are usually rather poor in nutrients. Coral reefs are one of them. Crystal clear waters of the tropical seas is a “clear” indication of nutrient poor environment. Because nutrients in the water column are scarce microscopic plants and animals (planktons) that form the basis of food webs cannot maintain high numbers and the water column remains clear. Dissolved organic carbon is a nutrient that is inedible for most organisms living in a reef. […]

Continue reading »
A Cannibal Caterpillar?

April 11, 2013 at 7:27 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

On September 22 2012, I encountered this caterpillar eating another fuzzy insect part along the White Trail of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens, GA. While the munching was going on, a familiar bully of the bushes the ground beetle (Calleida punctata) came in. The beetle harassed and eventually forced the caterpillar away from the leaf. I desperately needed help in explaining the sequence of events happening in this video. Why was the ground beetle so interested in […]

Continue reading »
Nesting Chestnut Mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos swainsonii)

April 9, 2012 at 11:27 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Filmed and edited by by Jean and Phil Slosberg in 2010 the captured footage reflects a slice of natural history of chestnut-mandibled toucans. Slosbergs were able to record the nest preparation, parental care and nest maintenance phases from their home in Costa Rica. They note that after a successful breeding season the pair tried to nest in the same tree again in 2011 but were not successful because meliponid stingless bees have taken over the cavity. They attempted to clean […]

Continue reading »