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Forest Dynamics of North America Over 25 Years

December 20, 2021 at 8:14 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

Using the images captured by the Landsat satellites, landscape ecologists produced a comprehensive visualization of decades of forest dynamics shaped by human management and natural disturbances. Dark green pixels had no disturbances in the 25 years studied. Yellow shows where a disturbance happened in a particular year. At this scale, what really stands out are the large fires in the West and timber harvesting in the Pacific Northwest, Maine, and all across the Southeast. Climate scientists need to know the […]

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A Satellite-eye View of Three Decades of Deforestation in the Amazon

December 17, 2021 at 1:39 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

This short documentary compiles satellite-tracked evidence for Brazilian Amazon rainforest destruction between 1985 and 2018. How do you map and quantify the Amazonian deforestation? The data recorded by the Landsat has revealed the stark rate of the Amazon deforestation in great detail. The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world. It covers an area roughly equal to that of the continental United States. In a time series spanning over three decades, starting the year of 1985, we can observe […]

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The Science in Saving the Fowler’s Toad – Ryan Mariotti (2017)

June 19, 2021 at 11:15 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Wildlife Documentaries

Like many amphibians, Fowler’s Toad (Anaxyrus fowleri) is facing myriad threats caused by Human activities. Filmed and directed by environmental filmmaker Ryan Mariotti this short documentary follows Canadian herpetologists Dr. David Green & Dr. Katherine Yagi from McGill University studying populations of this sand specialist frog on Lake Erie. Researchers identify the threats facing the Fowler’s Toad and how to save it. These threats include habitat alteration due to invasive Phragmites plants and demographic bottlenecks arising from low recruitment rates […]

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Horseshoe Crabs Mating in Maine

April 9, 2021 at 11:25 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

This is a quite rare footage of Atlantic horseshoe crabs (Limulus poyphemus) recorded during high tide about 10:00 am in Recompence Shore, Freeport Maine on May 26th 2010. Mating mostly happens in moonlit nights (romantic animals) on sandy beaches. Here they are mating in broad daylight on a rough pebble beach. External fertilization is one of the ancestral ways to produce offspring however it can be rather costly. Egg production requires more resources compared to sperm. Females therefore need more […]

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Chasing Ghosts – bioGraphic / Eric Bendick (2019)

February 25, 2021 at 9:11 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Orchids have a special place in plant biologists’ hearts. How can they not? They are the beetles (*) of the plant world. One in every five flowering plant species living today is an orchid. Although orchids are so diverse, they are also rather rare. Most people think of orchids as showy, vibrant and beautiful, but Gastrodia agnicellus, named in 2020 from a forest in Madagascar, is quite the opposite. The evolutionary alliance of orchids and their pollinators go as far […]

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The Kingdom of the Lion Tailed Macaque – Poorna Kedar (2019)

December 18, 2020 at 11:37 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Lion Tailed Macaques is an endangered primate endemic to the Western Ghats of India with a restricted geographical range. Due to habitat loss and human pressures populations have been on the decline. The filmmaker Poorna Kedar has recorded these vulnerable primates at one of the critical habitats of this species near the town of Valparai. India’s Western Ghats is an ecologically unique biodiversity hotspot recognized by the United Nations as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The exceptionally high level of […]

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A Window into the Twilight Zone – Jennifer L. Berglund / WHOI (2020)

August 2, 2020 at 12:51 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Video

The Ocean Twilight Zone is the largest habitat on Earth. It is a vast ecosystem that does not depend on sunlight directly. This is the place where organisms have evolved seemingly bizarre adaptations such as bioluminescence and reproduction modes such as the Angler Fish with a parasitic male. The clues for chemical origins for how life may have started could be there in thermal vents. The discovery of diel vertical migration of fish and zooplankton forming the deep sound scattering […]

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Observations and Simulations of 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season by NASA

July 25, 2020 at 8:53 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

Atlantic hurricane season typically starts from June 1 and ends in November 30 in the northern Atlantic. There’s a noticeable peak from late August through September. Each season peak activity occurs around September 10th. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season had an unusually high cyclone activity surpassing any other season. The number of category 5 hurricanes, and the most intense hurricane ever measured (Hurricane Wilma) by atmospheric pressure was recorded during this time period. The visualization ’27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta’ […]

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Plants are Cool Too! (All Episodes)

May 20, 2020 at 10:27 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The “Plants are Cool Too!” series is supported by the Botanical Society of America (BSA) and hosted by Dr. Chris Martine. Here you will find all episodes of the series in reverse chronological order (last-in-first-out). Ecologists have hypothesized that there has to be a level of disturbance acting pretty regularly on communities. The intensity of disturbance has to be “mild” so that it doesn’t wipe every living thing but clear out some habitable zones for re-colonization by some species that […]

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Return of the Cicadas – Samuel Orr (2013)

May 19, 2020 at 12:44 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Cicadas are Hemipterans (true bugs). The genus Magicicada groups 13-year and 17-year periodical cicada species of eastern North America. The Spring of 2020 corresponds to the emergence of Brood IX of periodical cicadas in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Such emergences are spectacular feats of nature. After living underground feeding with tree roots for 13-years or 17-years (depending on the brood type) the adult insects dig themselves out synchronously in massive numbers to change their exoskeletons, mate and die. […]

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Eye of the Pangolin – Pangolin.Africa (2019)

April 2, 2020 at 11:21 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The etymological origin of the name pangolin comes from the Malay word pengguling. It means “one who rolls up”. The animal has at least eight species with a wide geographical distribution ranging from Africa to Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia including Malayan Archipelago and Indonesia. Unfortunately we know very little about this highly elusive animal and its existence is under threat. Scaly anteaters are quite unusual among mammals since their skin is covered by large and overlapping keratinized scales hugely […]

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The Queen of Trees – PBS (2006)

September 27, 2019 at 10:22 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, PBS Nature, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Queen of Trees is now viewable on the official YouTube Channel of Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble. Veteran wildlife filmmakers Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble once again put out a marvelous work by compiling observations on a community centered around a sycamore fig tree. The success of the documentary comes from their long-term observations in a particular filming spot in Kenya where they camped on location for more than two years. A thorough understanding of the landscape with it’s inhabitants […]

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When Plants Fight Back – bioGraphic (2017)

September 25, 2019 at 12:50 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Even Aristotle got it wrong. He thought plant roots convert soil into wood and grow that way. Plants resemble bizarre upside down animals. Their superior mouth parts (roots) are located in an inferior position. According to Aristotle, plants are ‘lower’ level living things. They are the first basic steps in procession of life from the inanimate to the animate (animals). Plants don’t move and are without ‘sensory soul’ but still have ‘souls’. Plants do not have any excrement, do not […]

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A Shark Swallowed Whole by a Wreckfish | Okeanos Explorer/NOAA (2019)

July 12, 2019 at 4:03 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations

The remotely operated vehicle Deep Discoverer (D2) and the telepresence capabilities of NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, brought a quite rare biological occurrence for Humans to observe. During the Dive 07 of the Windows to the Deep 2019 expedition viewers watching live have witnessed this fascinating predation in action taking place in the deep ocean. D2 was following a straight-line on a small topographic rise originally thought to be a shipwreck at about 450 meters (1,476 feet) of depth. As D2 […]

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A Diverse Tropical Forest Canopy and Crown Shyness – Dimitar Karanikolov (2019)

April 22, 2019 at 7:21 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

This is a wonderfully poetic and at the same time quite informative piece of short observation captured by the photographer Dimitar Karanikolov. The video successfully demonstrates a botanical phenomenon known as “crown shyness” by providing a nicely stabilized vertical view of canopy trees swaying by the wind in Tulum Mexico. Tree canopies are some of the most diverse sections in tropical forest. The exact mechanism of crown shyness is still not resolved but there are quite a few convincing hypotheses. […]

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