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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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! […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Ants, bees and wasps make up only 3 percent of animal diversity yet they may constitute up to 50 percent of the total animal biomass in land habitats. Bert Hölldobler is a leading entomologist (scientist who studies insects). He collaborated with ant biologist E.O. Wilson and developed the field of Sociobiology. The documentary does an excellent job introducing us observations coming from both natural and laboratory setting. First observation comes from the European red wood ants (Formica polyctena). These ants […]
This is an excellent footage capturing the behavior of a ground nesting nightjar. These birds are night-flying aerial insectivores active during dusk and dawn. It is almost impossible to see them during the day because of their camouflage. Nightjars are also known as goatsuckers which has no biological basis. If an intruder comes dangerously close to the nest, adults perform a well-known “broken wing” display. It is an excellent visual distraction. The bird will easily disappear soon after the intruder is at a […]
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