Recent Videos

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  Some Animals Are More Equal than Others: Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades – HHMI (2016)

  May 29, 2017 at 5:39 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  On a field trip with students to the Pacific Coast, ecologist Robert Paine discovered a thriving community of aquatic organisms at Mukkaw Bay, at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. The tide pools were full of green anemones, purple sea urchins, pink seaweed, bright red Pacific blood starfish, as well as sponges, limpets, and chitons. At the low tide rocky surfaces exposed bands of small acorn barnacles, and large, stalked goose barnacles, beds of black California mussels, and some very […]

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  A Wolf’s Place – Annie White (2013)

  May 29, 2017 at 5:26 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Ecological theory predicts that by keeping herbivore populations under check predators can indirectly enhance growth of vegetation and can even alter local climate. The influential ecologist Robert Paine has demonstrated this phenomenon of keystone species on predatory starfishes and sea otters maintaining species diversity in coastal rocky communities in Washington. Directed and produced by Annie White, “A Wolf’s Place” tells the story of wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone national park in 1995. Wolves became locally extinct in much of the United […]

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  Otters vs. Climate Change – KQED/QUEST (2014)

  May 29, 2017 at 4:35 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

  Presence and absence of keystone species in a biological community have significant effects. To cite a few examples: Tropical fig trees form abundant food resources for many animals in times of scarcity. Bluechub fish in Eastern North American rivers construct rock nests which form a critical spawning area for many other fish in the same habitat. Beaver activity slows down hydrology and enhances water retention capacity of the ecosystems. Increased water table invigorates vegetation. At the same time reduced sun […]

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  The Man Who Planted Trees – CBS – (1987)

  May 24, 2017 at 8:15 am / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

  Forests are under intense pressure. The story by the French author Jean Giono published in 1953 is one of the most poetic depiction of landscape restoration that has touched feelings of so many people. The story inspired many restoration projects around the world. When read it for the first time many thought it was real. In fact, there are genuine independent reforestation projects impressively achieved by determined individuals and NGOs such as Plant a Billion and People and Reforestation in […]

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  Protecting Forests – Equator Initiative (2015)

  May 23, 2017 at 8:52 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

  Under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Equator Initiative supports the work of local and indigenous communities worldwide in creating sustainable development solutions. In 2015, the Equator Prize was awarded to 20 communities in recognition of their efforts. This short film highlights the work of five of the recipients of the Equator Initiative Prize protecting forests around the world. These include Wanang Conservation Area in Papua New Guinea, Prey Lang Community Network in Cambodia, Mtandao wa […]

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  Forest Man – William D. McMaster (2013)

  May 23, 2017 at 8:39 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

  Since 1979, Jadav Payeng has been planting hundreds of trees on an Indian river island threatened by erosion. Payeng is truly the embodiment of the protagonist in the famous story “The Man Who Planted Trees” published in 1953 by the French author Jean Giono. The photographer Jitu Kalita guides us through Payeng’s home the Majuli Island. This is the largest river island in the world located on Brahmaputra River. Floods generated by monsoon season threatens the Majuli Island by rapid […]

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  Leave It to Beavers – PBS (2014)

  May 22, 2017 at 1:14 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, PBS Nature, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  There are two species of beavers in the temperate zones of the world. North American (Castor canadensis) and Eurasian (Castor fiber) beavers were almost exterminated to extinction. These rodents are the largest after the tropical capybara that lives in wetlands of the South American tropics. Now bouncing back from extinction beaver populations are recovering under protection. Beavers are being recognized as keystone species by ecologists and conservation biologists. As habitat constructors and brilliant hydro-engineers, beavers can recharge water tables and […]

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  Genesis: Final Point – Fernando Gonzalez-I. Sitges (2000)

  May 16, 2017 at 7:23 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Galapagos archipelago occupies a special place in our quest to understand nature. It sits right on the junction of the Pacific ocean current where warm and cold water shifts. The nutrient levels reaching the islands by cold Humboldt current show a drastic decline when warm surface waters engulf the archipelago. The Galapagos lies at the southeast trade winds. When the current shifts the rainfall pattern changes drastically. The

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  Bald-faced Hornet Worker Collecting Nest Material

  May 9, 2017 at 3:21 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

  A female bald-faced hornet worker (Dolichovespula maculata) was stripping the surface of a wooden fence post to collect nest building material. While stripping with mandibles the cellulosic material gets rolled up under her thorax. She strips a piece as long as her body and then climbs up again to strip another. Two consequtive strips must have been the optimal load size to carry into the nest. Leaf-cutter ants of the neotropics also use their bodies as yard sticks. The motivation […]

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  Six Ways to Prepare a Coelacanth – Shelf Life – AMNH (2015)

  April 27, 2017 at 4:11 pm / Evolution, Natural history

  The Coelecanth was thought to be extinct. Its presence as a living species was discovered in 1938 by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. It is an immensely important species for evolutionary biology, especially in understanding tetrapod evolution. The story of the discovery of Coelecanth has been covered by many high profile magazines. Since its discovery from fossil remains the Coelecanth has been considered as the closest example for what could be as our last fish ancestor. This means that, it may have been […]

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  A Ghost In The Making: Searching for the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee – Neil Losen & Nate Dappen (2016)

  April 22, 2017 at 2:43 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Honeybees are fragile animals that have lost most of the traits that provide survival advantage in their wild counterparts. Public attention was particularly grappled when an experiment in the 1950s aiming to regain lost genes by hybridizing domesticated European honeybees with the wild African ones failed miserably. The experiment that started with good intentions lead to invasion of Africanized honeybees from Brazil to north all the way up to Texas. There’s clearly a disproportionately large emphasis on honeybees while neglecting […]

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  Acid Test – Natural Resources Defense Council (2009)

  April 8, 2017 at 5:05 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. Among them are planktons, corals and pteropods which form the base of the food web. Carbon dioxide dissolves higher quantities in cold water, therefore first biological signs of acidification is observed closer […]

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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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