Om Nom Nom: The Links Between Plant Diversity and Herbivory

I usually start a post with the reason why a particular article caught my eye. Today, I’m not sure why my eyeballs glommed on to this paper, but they did. As it turns out, they have a pretty good taste in articles. Who knew?

An early view paper from the Journal of Ecology looks at how the large herbivores of the African savanna affect the diversity and community structure of plants. More and more studies these days are taking a phylogenetic approach to community ecology questions. That is, they are looking at the evolutionary development and history of a species or taxonomic group to explain the patterns that we currently see. This new study takes this approach in the subtropical woodland biome, or “bushveld,” of the Kruger National Park (KNP) in northeast South Africa. This area is home to 148 mammal species, of which 30 are large herbivores such as elephants, rhinos, and giraffes. The vegetation of this area consists of 1974 species, including 458 species of trees and shrubs. KNP varies from dense thicket, savanna woodlands to forests characterized by tall trees and a closed canopy. These plant communities are under occasional pressure from periodic fire and under constant pressure from large herbivores. This study looks at the impacts of these herbivores on the phylogenetic structure of woody plant assemblages and evaluates the impacts of their removal on plant community composition and structure.

The researchers used DNA sequencing to reconstruct the phylogeny of 448 species of trees and shrubs (using Amborella as an outgroup), representing 246 genera, 71 families and 31 orders. ... Let’s pause for a second to say “Wow!” ... Then they calculated divergence times and used speciation models on these data. Next was the community sampling along a north-south transect through KNP. This transect has enclosures situated along it where large herbivores are partly or fully excluded. These enclosures have been established in the park for between 8 and 43 years. Within 15 defined “ecozones,” the researchers surveyed 110 50x50 meter unrestricted herbivory plots and 15 50x50 meter plots in each of the five herbivore exclusion enclosures. Within these plots they recorded all species of trees and shrubs and the number of individuals per species (abundance). Then they evaluated various physical and mechanical plant defense traits (not including chemical defenses), using wood density of quantify plant resistance to physical damage and specific leaf area (SLA) as a proxy for leaf nutrient content.

All sorts of indices (MPD, MNTD, SR, Shannon, NRI, NTI) and statistics were used that I’m not going to go into because they will just confuse everyone. But when all the statistics were done, they found a latitudinal gradient in diversity with the highest diversity in the south and extreme north and low diversity in the center (which matches rainfall patterns). In parallel, they found shifts in community phylogenetic structure comparable to these changes in community diversity, indicating that the communities in the center are more highly phylogenetically clustered (composed of more closely related species). Plant diversity in the KNP is strongly spatially structured and this clustering is reflective of generalist browsing, the geomorphology of the area, and the patchy distribution of large herbivores. In plots where herbivory is unrestricted they found significant phylogenetic clustering of plant communities, likely the result of the heavy pressure from the herbivores. They also found that plant defense traits had a weak but significant phylogenetic signal, suggesting that they do not fit well into the simple model they used. When the researchers compared the enclosures to the unrestricted areas they found “that when megaherbivores are excluded, species diversity generally decreases, but changes in phylogenetic diversity [vary] by spatial location.” When large herbivores are excluded, plant community structure is contingent upon the initial community structure. If a community was initially overdispersed then the shift towards a more clustered community would occur by excluding large herbivores and vice versa. Ultimately, they conclude that the exclusion of large herbivores results in impoverished species communities.

I think that it is important to mention that these researchers were limited by the study design they had to work with. These enclosures had already been set up by other people. As such, the scientists encountered some issues that they would have been able to control for if they had set up the site themselves. Issues like enclosure age and location. For example, one enclosure was located on a river that periodically floods, altering local plant diversity. Such issues make it difficult for them to predict how specialist vs. generalist herbivores impact community structure and prevents them from drawing strong conclusions about the underlying causes for the patterns they saw.

On the upside, their results add valuable knowledge critical for predicting the impacts of overall herbivore decline on African ecosystems and local increases of these animals in protected reserves. This study “shows not only that large herbivores are key to maintaining woody plant diversity, but also that they may impose specific phylogenetic structure on plant communities.” Shifts in this structure have downstream consequences in that phylogenetic diversity can capture genetic and functional diversity, which has been linked to ecosystem productivity. And, ultimately, we want to keep our ecosystems happy and productive, right?


Kowiyou Yessoufou, T. Jonathan Davies, Olivier Maurin, Maria Kuzmina, Hanno Schaefer, Michelle van der Bank, & Vincent Savolainen (2013). Large herbivores favour species diversity but have mixed impacts on phylogenetic community structure in an African savanna ecosystem Journal of Ecology : 10.1111/1365-2745.12059


(image via Animals Time)

The Silverback Playbook: Changing Climate and Ape Distribution

On occasion, I go back to my roots in biogeography and peruse that subset of journals for interesting articles. Admittedly, I now skip over some topics that I used to devour, such as the species-area relationship (the "most general, yet protean pattern" that has recently warranted a special virtual issue). These days, I tend to stop and read articles about distribution patterns, especially as they relate to current problems like climate change.

There are an increasing number of studies that show that climate change will affect species distribution patterns and biodiversity patterns in general. Temperatures, rainfall patterns, sea level changes, etc. are likely to cause geographic shifts in the ranges of plants and animals, altering their relationships with the environment and other species. The common methods for predicting these effects are called bioclimatic envelope models. Basically, these models try to determine the "climate envelope," a description of the climate that defines a species' range, and then map the geographic shift of that envelope under climate change. These types of models are useful for predicting distribution patterns, but they do not inform us about the underlying mechanisms that limit species' distribution and how species will change their behavior and/or the kinds of habitats where they can survive. Think about this behavior part a little more in depth, specifically taking brain size into account. It has been shown that large-brained species are better able to cope with seasonal changes in their environments, buffering themselves against modest levels of climate change, and are more resistant to extinction.

When you think of large-brained species, which ones come to mind? Probably the primates, specifically the African apes (gorillas and chimpanzees). What do we already know about these species? We know that they live in Africa (the most vulnerable of all continents to the effects of climate change), occur in similar habitats (although they differ somewhat in biogeographical ranges), are highly endangered, have highly restricted ranges, have a slow life history, have a large body mass, and have somewhat similar diets. Knowing this, how do you think climate change will affect them?

A study published in the Journal of Biogeography takes a look at how the behavior and distribution of African apes will be affected by climate change. They use a time budget model to investigate how climate warming and behavioral flexibility might affect ape survival. Time budget models are based on individual behavior, how much of an individual animal's time is spent on feeding, resting, traveling and socializing. An animal's time is limited (there is only so much time in a day) and so there is a constraint on the size of a group that can be maintained in a particular habitat which ultimately determines a species' distribution. These types of models can predict distribution as well as the bioclimatic envelope models, as they are based on simple climatological variables, with the added advantage of providing informing us about mechanisms of keeping a species in a particular habitat and evaluating the level of ecological stress in areas where it does occur. They applied this model to data from 20 natural populations of gorillas (Gorilla beringei and Gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus). The model looked at the relationship between climate, group size, body weight, and time budgets. They ran the model to predict ape distribution across Africa under a uniform worst-case climate change scenario, highlighting the importance of individual behavioral requirements for survival. I'm going to save you lengthy descriptions of the model parameters, time budget equations, and model testing. You can thank me later.

The study found that gorillas are more restricted by temperature variation than are chimpanzees. This may cause gorillas to suffer more strongly from the effects of global warming. Their larger body mass and smaller group sizes also increase their risk of extinction even with their behavioral flexibility. This doesn't mean that the chimps are unaffected. They found that chimpanzee communities will be significantly reduced even at locations where they are predicted to survive. The model showed that two critical factors may ultimately determine their survival at these locations: minimum viable community size and minimum party size. Although the distribution for both genera is in the downward direction, the two taxa are predicted to respond differently to changes in climate. Chimpanzees are expected to primarily suffer a reduction in community size because they will need to spend an increasing amount of their time moving and resting. And considering that minimum viable community size is one of the two critical factors, chimps will find it difficult to survive in any of their present habitats and may even go extinct. On the other hand, gorillas already live in small groups and when combined with a dramatic reduction in available habitat (again with the moving and resting time), climate change is predicted to have a stronger effect on their biogeography. However, the authors think that the few surviving populations should be able to maintain present-day group sizes, making them locally stable. Even if the changes in climate were not as extreme, the researchers think that their model would still predict that apes will suffer habitat loss simply due to time budgeting problems that may be reinforced by indirect effects (like temperature on leaf quality). Sure, behavioral flexibility may help, particularly with the more socially fluid chimpanzees, but the environment will support only what it can support (especially for hungry, large bodied creatures).

It is important to note that this study does not include anthropogenic (human caused) influences. Couple those with the doom-and-gloom predictions that the study already makes and it looks like it's bye-bye time for the big apes. That is a bit of a depressing note to leave the post on. Perhaps the good (or happy?) note to leave on is that studies such as these (that take mechanism into account) can give us better ways to predict and preserve optimal habitats, ultimately finding ways to best conserve these species. After all, that is the goal right?


Lehmann, J., Korstjens, A., & Dunbar, R. (2010). Apes in a changing world - the effects of global warming on the behaviour and distribution of African apes Journal of Biogeography, 37 (12), 2217-2231 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02373.x


(image via earthtimes.org)

Burn Baby Burn: Fire, Forests, and Carbon

I know, I know. I've been a bit absent over the last few weeks. I'm going to call laying on the beach in South Florida at Christmas enough of an excuse. That and I was finishing up my Wildland Firefighter course. Yep, I'm now all certified to start and stop forest fires. Should you be afraid? Perhaps. But it got me to thinking about prescribed burning, an area of ecology that I know about but don't regularly keep up with the literature. So I decided to take a look at what has recently been published on the topic and found a nice paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management about the balance of carbon sequestration and habitat conservation as they relate to fire.

Most people tend to think Fire = Bad. In many situations that's true, but in others fire is actually a natural, healthy process. In the past, various federal and state agencies have instituted wildfire suppression policies because they thought it was the best way to preserve the natural state of the land. All it really did was create a massive amount of fuel loading - lots and lots of fuel (dead logs, leaf litter, etc.) around to burn - which created even larger, more destructive fires. Now we know better, and the idea of a more natural fire regime is being used to control fuels and keep the balance of natural habitats.

Today's paper takes a look at woodlands, a subset of forests that are composed of low density, short trees  that typically have an open canopy with a ground layer made up of shrubs, grasses, and forbs. They can be economically important for lumber and livestock grazing, but they are also naturally important as significant carbon (C) sinks and as a biologically diverse habitat. Fire is known to be an important process in this ecosystem and is managed such that willdfires are allowed to burn unhindered, landscape level fuel management helps contain fire spread, and prescribed burning reduces fuels. This study investigates the effects of past fires on carbon storage, woody vegetation community composition, and habitat suitability. They do this by utilizing a "chronosequence" approach. This means that they grouped and compared stands of trees at different successional stages following fire events. These stands were located in the woodlands of Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge (BCNWR), located northwest of Austin, Texas, USA. The dominant woody vegetation in this area is the evergreen Ashe's juniper (Juniperus ashei), with subdominant species including several oak (Quercus spp.) species and Escarpment Black Cherry (Prunus serotina var. eximia). These woodlands are also inhabited by the golden-cheeked warbler (Dendroica chrysoparia), an endangered bird species they used to assess habitat suitability. The mixed juniper-oak are critical for this warbler as they use the stringy, sloughed bark from the mature Ashe's juniper exclusively for nesting material and requre Lepidopteran (Geometridae) larvae that feed on broadleafed foliage during the spring breeding season.

The researchers established 60 plots next to trees that had been used for a previous dendrochronology (tree rings) study. That means that they had the history of the tree from the tree rings, this history including fire scars that could be pinned to exact years. The fires were low-intensity, surface burns that mostly consumed the ground layer, seedlings, and saplings. From this they were able to pick sites with single fire events and then assign their plots into three groups: recent-fire (less than 40 years), old fire (greater than 40 years), and no fire. Then, for each plot, they identified tree species and measured their diameter and heights, collected data on woody debris and leaf litter depths, and collected soil samples for carbon and nitrogen analysis.

The authors found significantly different total aboveground biomass C averages for the 60 study plots. Recent-fire showed 5.25 kg m-2, old fire averaged 6.86 kg m-2, and no fire had 9.18 kg m-2 of C. Previous studies have shown that low to moderate intensity fires have less effects on live biomass, stabilize carbon fast afterwards, and primarily affect trees in an age-specific and density-related way. This study found that "the impact of low-intensity fire on C storage increases for sites with higher proportions of biomass in small trees" (greater than 20cm in diameter) as these are more greatly impacted by surface fires.

 This study's results support that periodic surface fires maintain many forests by favoring fire-tolerant species, such as oaks, and decreasing the density of fire sensitive species, such as juniper. They found that sites with a single fire disturbance had a higher density of oak seedlings than juniper seedlings (though not significantly so), especially in years that had low precipitation in the summer. The densities of mature trees was found to be mainly influenced by differences in topography, herbivory, and historical climate.

I would like to say that all of this added up to a good conclusion about habitat suitability for the golden-cheeked warblers but, unfortunately, they found significant differences. Fire reduces mature tree density, which has a negative impact on habitat suitability, but high intensity fire is related to higher oak recruitment (food source for their food source). Managing these woodland for the golden-cheeked warbler may require both mechanical treatment and the use of fire. The critical core breeding habitat for this warbler includes old-growth stands composed of large, mature junipers and about a 40 percent oak species mix. These stands should be protected from intense fire through the mechanical thinning of the understory and the removal of heavy fuels.

Overall, the authors conclude that fire management can achieve multiple outcomes on a single site. This means that detailed ecological information about the species composition and population structure of an area are needed in order to assess conditions and projections on restoration.

Yao, J., Murray, D., Adhikari, A., & White, J. (2012). Fire in a sub-humid woodland: The balance of carbon sequestration and habitat conservation Forest Ecology and Management, 280, 40-51 DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.05.042

More on wildland fires and prescribed burning:
GeoSTAC's Wildland Fires page
University of Florida IFAS Extention's "Benefits of Prescribed Burning"
National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center


(image from Texas Department of Agriculture)

The Ugly Animal Preservation Society

The IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species. This List is used for information and analyses on the status, trends and threats to species in order to establish a baseline from which to monitor status changes, monitor biodiversity trends, establish conservation priorities, and provide freely available data. Their are seven classifications of species: Least Concern (LC), Near Threatened (NT), Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), Critically Endangered (CR), Extinct in the Wild (EW), and Extinct (EX).

The IUCN Red List currently has over 4,000 species listed as Critically Endangered. This classification includes species such as gorillas and leopards, but the list is made up primarily of less charismatic species than these. The ugly species, if you will. These ugly species are important, of value, and contribute to their ecosystems in significant ways.

Now, evolutionary biologist Simon Watt has proposed that we stand up for these less aesthetically pleasing creatures through the Ugly Animal Preservation Society (UAPS). When you really take the time to find out about them, many of these ugly animals are more weird and fascinating than their charismatic co-inhabitants. Simon often champions the Canadian blue-grey taildropper slug. This slug is bright blue and has the interesting behavior of dropping its tail when it is scared. Yep, its butt drops off so the predator can eat it while the slug gets away. Don't worry though, it grows a new butt.

Recently, the UAPS had their first general meeting. Okay, well, it was sort of an excuse to get a bunch of comedians in the same room together to talk about ugly animals, but it turned out to be productive anyway. The audience of this meeting voted on a species that would represent the UAPS as their mascot. The winner was the Proboscis Monkey. Sure, you may find this breed of ugly to be kind of cute until you find out that this monkey's digestive system makes them bloat up and become massively flatulent. Ew.

We are all guilty of it: we get so caught up in the cute, the cuddly, and the beautiful that we sometimes forget about everyone else. The UAPS also takes an "everyone else" viewpoint in that they champion saving a habitat rather than a single species. By protecting a habitat, we save all of the species within it, ugly and cute alike.

What do you think? What is your favorite ugly animal....or plant (we shouldn't forget about plants!)?

(via the Naked Scientists podcast)

Captain Planet: The Trailer

A fan-made Captain Planet trailer. So well done, I would see this!

Biodiversity Good, Extinction Bad, Climate Change Worse

This phylogenetic tree of life was created by David Hillis, Derreck Zwickil and Robin Gutell. It depicts the evolutionary relationships of about 3,000 species throughout the Tree of Life. Less than 1 percent of all the known species. Download the pdf from the Hillis Lab.

I hope we can all agree that: biodiversity = good, extinction = bad. This incredibly simplistic statement could be taken a number of ways, but, as we are doing with so many things lately, let's look at it through the lens of global climate change. How important is maintaining biodiversity? How bad is extinction? And how do these factors affect the function of ecosystems?

It has been established that the current rate of species extinction has far outpaced those rates we see in the fossil record. By "far outpaced," we're talking about a sixth mass extinction within 240 years (that's the projection as of now at least). There have been hundreds of experiments that have tackled this question of biodiversity and ecosystem processes, particularly in plant systems. Take a big statistical spoon and mix all the experiments together and you find that the loss of plant biodiversity affects biomass production and decomposition. Experiments to manipulate biodiversity in controlled environments have actually found that biodiversity can act as an independent variable that directly controls such ecosystem functions as nutrient cycling and biomass production. Studies have shown that greater biodiversity also increases these effects over time, likely by either a saturating response curve (large increases in ecosystem functioning as species are added to communities, leveling off after a while, with any additional species only increasing ecosystem functioning by small amounts) or a linear response curve (think: straight[er] line). These temporal aspects of diversity-productivity relationships are still somewhat obscure, particularly the mechanisms of these changes over time. Now add global climate change. It is uncertain the sizes these effects will be and how the direct effects of other types of environmental change (like atmospheric composition, nutrient pollution, etc.) will affect ecosystem functioning.

So far the month of May has yielded some big, interesting papers on the impacts of biodiversity loss. A paper by Peter Reich et al. in Science takes a look at the time component of biodiversity loss and how it affects the growth curves I mentioned above. In this paper, the authors present data from two long-running (≥13 years) grassland biodiversity experiments at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Cedar Creek Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Minnesota, USA: the “Cedar Creek Biodiversity Experiment” (BioDIV), planted in 1994–1995, and the “Biodiversity, CO2, and N Experiment” (BioCON), planted in 1997. At these sites a number of plots are planted with different numbers of species of plants including various C3 and C4 plants and nitrogen (N)-fixing and non-fixing dicotyledonous herbs. The authors looked at the effects of diversity on biomass productivity and found that productivity (aboveground and belowground) increased and became less saturating over time; the diversity-productivity relationship became more linear and less strongly decelerating over time. Their evidence suggests that this may be due to the accumulating effects of complementary resource acquisitions and use and such ecosystem feedback effects as soil N cycling. Basically, the plants are complementing each other, increasing the functional diversity of the system. The greater the diversity of plants the more natural components (carbon, water, etc.) of the system can be capitalized on over time, a result that short-term experiments may underestimate.

The Cedar Creek LTER  site (Credit: David Tilman, UMN)

These ideas were discussed in a perspective paper by Bradley Cardinale, published in the same issue of Science. Here he points out that if Reich et al.'s conclusions prove to be general then they will have quantified how ecological impacts of extinction scale through time. Certainly not an insignificant conclusion. The Reich et al. paper doesn't spend a whole lot of time delving into niche theory (relational position of a species or population in an ecosystem, the where and how an organism makes its living), to the point that the word "niche" isn't even in their paper. But it is essentially what they are talking about, or at least hinting at.When species are accessing different resources then they are filling different niches, and the more diverse the species the more niches they can exploit. Cardinale knows quite a bit on this topic as he himself published a very nice study last year where he used a model system of stream biofilms, experimentally adding extra niche opportunities, to test the effects of algal biodiversity on water quality, showing that the more species in a stream the more ecosystem functions increased. Cardinale's examination of the Reich et al. paper points out some interesting points about the consequences these curves may have for conservation, specifically making the point that if the conclusions of the study hold true then biodiversity loss has probably already begun to degrade essential ecosystem processes.

Figure from Cardinale (2012)

Another paper published this month in Nature also takes a look at biodiversity loss as a driver of ecosystem change. In their study, David Hooper et al. use a series of meta-analyses of published data to look at the magnitude of the effects of species loss on productivity and decomposition. They focused on these two processes because they are major biological processes influencing carbon storage and other ecosystem services. Their analysis statistically summarized existing data, compared the environmental effect sizes to the estimated effects of species loss derived from a database of 192 peer-reviewed publications, summarized the results of 16 experiments that simultaneously manipulated plant species richness and some other environmental change variables (elevated CO₂, nutrient pollution, etc.), and assessed a large range of projections of species loss. This analysis showed that the biodiversity loss in the 21st century could rank as one of the major drivers of ecosystem change. In areas where local species loss is low (1-20%) there will be negligible effects. In areas of intermediate loss (21-40%), species loss is expected to decrease biomass production by 5-10 percent. In areas of high species loss (41-60%), the effects would rank alongside other major drivers such as warming, ozone, and acidification. They estimate that a 50% species loss will reduce biomass production by 13%. These reductions in biomass and decomposition don't sound like a lot, but, at least for decomposition, they are equal or greater than the effects of CO₂ or nitrogen. Hooper et al. also found that species loss would need to exceed that of prior mass extinctions (≥75% loss) to rival those environmental changes that have the greatest effect on primary production. Not a senerio that we will probably see globally, but locally or within certain taxa it could be realized if current extinction rates continue. Additionally, the types of species that are lost also have a huge effect. A good example of this was shown nicely in the Reich et al. paper above. When you add in other environmental changes to the meta-analysis it reinforces these conclusions.

I hope I've made my point that biodiversity = good, extinction = bad, and climate change = worse. I also hope I (and these authors) made the case that the loss of biodiversity isn't just a consequence but rather a major driver in key processes that affect our planet. Think about it.

You can read more in the articles:

Reich, P., Tilman, D., Isbell, F., Mueller, K., Hobbie, S., Flynn, D., & Eisenhauer, N. (2012). Impacts of Biodiversity Loss Escalate Through Time as Redundancy Fades Science, 336 (6081), 589-592 DOI: 10.1126/science.1217909

Cardinale, B. (2012). Impacts of Biodiversity Loss Science, 336 (6081), 552-553 DOI: 10.1126/science.1222102

Hooper, D., Adair, E., Cardinale, B., Byrnes, J., Hungate, B., Matulich, K., Gonzalez, A., Duffy, J., Gamfeldt, L., & O’Connor, M. (2012). A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature11118

Cardinale, B. (2011). Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning Nature, 472 (7341), 86-89 DOI: 10.1038/nature09904

And here are some additional write-ups:
NSF story "Ecosystem Effects of Biodiversity Loss Rival Climate Change and Pollution"
NSF story "Plant Diversity Is Key to Maintaining Productive Vegetation" also at Science Daily

And some related websites you may want to visit:
Cedar Creak LTER site
LTER Network

One-Third for the Birds

For this post I was looking for something a little different. Not so much a weird topic, but more like a topic that I haven't really posted on before. I came across an interesting article about predator-prey relationships as they relate to population sizes. It is one of those basic dynamics that is taught in almost every biology and/or ecology class there is, and rightfully so, because when you get down into it it is actually pretty interesting, no to mention really important.

Most people think they know predator-prey relationships. One thing eats another thing. The organism doing the eating is the predator and the one that is eaten the prey. That is perfectly true. Now think about it in terms of evolution. The predator and the prey evolve together, what is usually referred to as the "evolutionary arms race." If the predator does not catch any food then it does not survive; those that evolve better ways to catch food survive (speed, stealth, smell, sight, etc.). If the prey gets caught by the predator then it (obviously) does not survive, and so it evolves better ways to evade predators (camouflage, speed, poison, etc.). It is important to point out that both the predator and they prey are both adapting, a type of co-evolution. Next, think about the system in terms of population. The interaction of predators and prey greatly affect their population sizes, often on several levels within the food chain/web (or tropic pathway/cascade). When predators eat prey they: (1) decrease the population size of the prey, (2) survive, thereby not decreasing their own population, and (3) are healthy, and alive, enough to breed additional predators, increasing their population. So when there are lots of predators you see a big dip in the size of the prey population. You will can make the same types of conclusions when you take the point of view of the prey. When prey is eaten by the predator: (1) they are removed from the population, decreasing population size, (2) are no longer healthy and alive to reproduce, (3) release their food source (if there is one) to increase their population, and (4) by decreasing their population there is that much less food for their predators. These interactions can result in very predictable, natural boom and bust cycles within these populations and is more the focus of today's topic. If you want pictures and graphs then check out the classic lynx-hare relationship and the Lotka-Volterra Model.

A new paper published in Science takes a look at the role of top predators in marine ecosystems. These upper tropic level (UTL) species include seabirds, marine mammals, and large predatory fish. All groups that have been depleted due to human activities. Fisheries impacts cause direct mortality in the targeted species and indirect, often more subtle, mortality lower down in the food chain/web. Fisheries that specifically target lower tropic level (LTL) species (small fish, squid, crustaceans, etc.) threaten those higher tropic level species by directly removing their food sources. However, it can be very challenging to assess the impacts of fishing on food webs, an ecosystem level approach. Think about it: all those predator-prey interactions in the ocean. That's tough. Often what you see is studies, even large ones, taking on a big chunk of the system, modeling how it works based on gathered data, and drawing conclusions or feeding it into an even bigger model. This study in Science specifically looks at seabirds.

Figure 1: A map of the distribution of
seabird and prey species. (click for
larger view)

Seabirds are a good system because they are conspicuous members of the marine ecosystem globally, have been studied and measured for decades, can reflect change at several scales, long-term breeding datasets from several species in several environments exist, and data from systems where prey availability has been measured suggests that seabirds can be used as indicators for forage fish population fluctuations. This study looked at the response between seabird breeding success and forage fish abundance across various species and ecosystems. The modellers compiled 438 data points spanning 15 to 47 colony-years per breeding site, in a total of seven marine ecosystems spanning 19 time series, 14 seabird species and their prey. They crunched a whole lot of numbers, using statistical methods that I'm not going to mention here, to quantify the fluctuations in food abundance and breeding success.

They found something that you usually don't see when you crunch that much data - all their species showed the same response. The results showed that the number of fledglings per breeding pair started to decline and was more variable when their forage fish food source dropped below one third of its maximum observed amount. The prey becomes scarce and as a result the hunting becomes more inefficient. The birds do not have enough food to successfully raise that many young.

Sure, there are the normal high and low cycles that I mentioned at the beginning, and those are natural. However, adding high rates of fishing from humans into it and, as with many other systems, we exacerbate the problem or collapse the system completely. The fish populations never recover from low seabird numbers because predation and habitat destruction by humans still puts a large amount of pressure on the fish, causing chronic food scarcity for the birds. And, as this study shows, this scarcity can have long-term affects on breeding success, can reduce survival in adult birds, and may affect the trajectory of their populations. The thresholds revealed by this study should inform management objectives in balancing predator-prey interactions, a "keep one-third for the birds" approach. If done well, these management decisions can sustain healthy UTL predator populations, maintain LTL fish populations, and could be applied to other marine ecosystems.

Read the paper here:
Philippe M. Cury, et al. (2011) Global seabird response to forage fish depletion -- One-third for the birds. Science: 334(6063), 1703-1706. (DOI: 10.1126/science.1212928)

And a write-up in ScienceNOW called "A Surprising Threshold for Seabird Survival"

Learn more about predator-prey interactions at
University of Michigan's Introduction to Global Change Curriculum's "Trophic Links: Predation and Parasitism"
New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI)'s Predator-Prey Relationships page
University of Wisconsin-Madison's SSCC page on Predator-Prey Models (Warning: Contains potentially scary math)
A neat demo from Wolfram of a Predator-Prey Model of foxes and rabbits

Also, revisit my post called "To Eat or Not to Eat, That is the Fishy Question" to learn more about how to purchase seafood from green stores or restaurants and guides on choosing the correct seafood.

(image from readysetwhoa.wordpress.com)

To Eat or Not to Eat, That is the Fishy Question

I love seafood as much as the next person...well, ok, probably more. It is a healthy and delicious food source, but there is a limit to the fish in the sea. We tend to think of ocean fish and shellfish as just food on our plates, but they are wildlife. Wildlife that we hunt on a very large scale.

Humans have been fishing the oceans for thousands of years, but within the last half century technology has developed such that we are able to fish farther, deeper, and more efficiently. As such, more than 70 percent of the world's commercial marine fish stocks are either fully exploited, overfished, or have collapsed. Add to that illegal fishing, habitat damage, and bycatch and you have a serious worldwide problem. Over the past few decades aquaculture, or fish farming, has become an increasingly popular solution to the increasing pressures on marine resources. In fact, today, half of our seafood comes from farms. However, the ecological impact of farming depends on the species raised, the farm location, and how the animals are raised. What does that mean? Well, some species are easier to raise than others, some farms are closed-systems where wastes are controlled, some farms have higher escape rates which threaten native species with diseases, and some farms feed a vegetable- or soy-based diet while others feed with wild caught fish.

Alright, well, that's pretty bleak right? So what can you, the single lowly consumer, do about it? Actually, that is pretty simple. Ask questions and watch what you eat. First, there are a few ocean-friendly steps that you can take:

1. Purchase seafood from a green (or if unavailable, yellow list) or look for the Marine Stewardship Council blue eco-label in stores and restaurants. (see below about where to get and how to read seafood guides)

2. When you buy seafood, ask where it comes from and if it is farmed or wild-caught. Most reputable markets will label their fish. However, some stores and restaurants only give generic names and catch locations for their fish. Ask anyway and tell them why you care, it may prompt them to look into it. An alternative is to buy seafood through online retailers, such as EcoFish.com, who feature sustainable species and deliver right to your home.

3. Spread the word. The more people practicing safe seafood the better.

Seafood guides are a free and easy way to help you choose the right seafood. In general, the lists are broken up into three colors:

•  Green (Best) - abundant, well-managed and caught or farmed in environmentally friendly ways.
• Yellow (Good/OK) - an alternative to green but there are mixed records on how they are managed, the health of their habitat, or how they are caught or farmed.
•  Red (Avoid/Worst) - have one or more serious environmental problems such as overfishing, poor management, high bycatch, extensive habitat damage, or come from farms that allow widespread pollution, spread disease, use chemicals, or have a high escape rate.

No matter the country you live in you should be able to find a list that works for you. There are small pocket guides, larger lists, and even easy-to-use online searches. I've listed some great websites below where you can find more information about sustainable seafood and lists to help you choose wisely.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
This is the best website I have found for information, guides, searches, and links.

Environmental Defense Fund's Seafood Selector
This is a great website that includes a lot of information about each of the species on each of the three lists. They also include great, free, downloadable guides.
Blue Ocean Institute's Seafood Page
This website includes a great FAQ page as well as a seafood and sushi guide.

Natural Resources Defense Council's Sustainable Seafood Guide
This guide delves more into the topic of contaminated seafood but includes a shopping guide, recipes, and health alert information.

Marine Stewardship Council
Find out what MSC products are available in your country. Find out about what it takes to get a product certified and even track a fishery.

Marine Conservation Society - FISHONLINE website
This is for you U.K. folks. You can search for a fish, get fish ratings and lists, get information on fishery/production areas and methods, and download seafood guides.

Australian Marine Conservation Society
This one is for the Aussies. They include all the information you could want about your oceans. There are downloadable seafood guides and also an iPhone app!

WWF Sustainable Seafood Consumer Guides
Not in the U.S., the U.K, or Australia? Not a problem. Check out the World Wildlife Fund's list of worldwide seafood guides. The is a link to your country's web page with link to download a seafood guide PDF. While you are there (no matter your country of origin) check out their information on fisheries and sustainable seafood.

End of the Line
This is the world's first major documentary about the effects of overfishing. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year and is now out on DVD. Go to their website to watch the trailer, find or organize a screening, order a DVD, and/or find links for guides.


(image from envirothink.wordpress.com)

Settling Sediment

I found a nice paper on the coral reef environment in the Caribbean. But first, because I haven't introduced it yet, and so I can refer back to it in the future: Coral. What is it?

Coral is an animal that belongs to the phylum cnidaria (ni dare ee ah, that c is silent folks). This is a very diverse group that consists of jellyfish, corals, and other stingers. These animals sting because they are armed with stinging cells called nematocysts. If you've ever come face to tentacle with a jellyfish then you are aware of their painful potential. There are four major groups of cnideria: Anthozoa (true corals, anemones, sea fans, and sea pens), Cubozoa (box jellies), Hydrozoa (siphonophores, hydroids, fire corals, and medusae), and Scyphozoa (true jellyfish).

We will be concentrating on the first because it includes the corals that build the large reefs found in tropical waters, generally between 30 degrees N and 30 degrees S latitudes. Various types of coral species can be found at various depths, but reef-building corals are usually found at depths of less than 46m (150ft). This a warm depth that allows sunlight to get through to feed their zooxanthellae. Zooxanthellae (zoo zan thell ee) are a type of microscopic algae that have a symbiotic relationship with coral. This shallow water depth also tends to be close to shorelines where wave action is abundant and brings in food to these filter feeders. The temperature and salinity of these waters also allows for the precipitation of calcium which the corals use to build their hard skeletons. Within a skeleton lives an individual coral polyp. A polyp starts off life as a floating animal but when it reaches adulthood it becomes sedentary and its body changes to a tubular saclike shape with a central mouth surrounded by a ring of tentacles. These tentacles are used for defense and for moving food to the mouth, and they contain the nematocysts which are double-walled structures containing a folded, venom-filled thread with a barbed tip that can shoot out and penetrate prey. The wonderful colors of the coral reef come from the natural pigments of the coral tissue or the zooxanthellae. Coral reefs are formed as old coral dies and new coral builds on top of it, a process taking hundreds or thousands of years, and a reef is made up of millions of individual polyps. The corals within this ecosystem remove and recycle carbon dioxide, shelter and provide food for other reef animals, and can even offer some protection to the land.

Humans contribute to the deterioration of coral reefs in a number of ways. Physical damage caused by boats, recreational contact (touching coral kills it, so hands and fins off!), and over-fishing cause a lot of ecological stress to reefs. The runoff of sediments, contaminants and nutrients from agriculture, industry, sewage, and land clearing are also stressful. Additionally, coral bleaching is occurring at a rapid rate. This is when the environmental conditions no longer support the symbiotic relationship of corals with zooxanthellae. No colored zooxanthellae, no colored coral. No symbionts equals coral death.

An older, but still relevant, paper published in the Bulletin of Marine Science reports on a project that monitored the effects of land development on a near-shore reef in St. Thomas, USVI. Land development in the Virgin Islands has rapidly increased, particularly up from the shoreline. This development means the removal of natural vegetation and construction of roads, increasing erosion rates. That means lots more silt and clay that gets into the water. As I mentioned above, sedimentation is very stressful and deleterious to coral. It is just dirt, you may think, so how is that bad? Well, sediments decrease light penetration (which reduces photosynthesis in zooxanthellae and coral growth), settling sediment contributes to tissue loss or mortality (it reduces larval settlement and it literally smothers the coral polyps), it increases coral energy costs (increasing respiration while decreasing photosynthesis), and chronic sedimentation may reduce the abundance and diversity of corals and other reef organisms (increasing susceptibility to diseases, bleaching, and predation and decreasing recovery rates after disturbances). Because of these detrimental effects the Virgin Islands Coastal Zone Management (CZM) has implemented a strict code for developers proposing building projects in sensitive shoreline areas, and academic and government organizations conduct reef assessments to quantify the impact of development on the coral reef environment.

This study's objectives were to measure the rates of sedimentation, monitor water quality, quantify changes in the abundance and diversity of sessile reef organisms, document the acute and chronic effects of sedimentation on coral condition, and develop management guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness of sediment control measures. The conducted their study a fringing coral reef in Caret Bay, on the northwest side of St. Thomas, particularly looking at the Caret Bay Villas construction site in relation to this reef. The conducted a sediment analysis using sediment traps at 5 and 12 meters, calculating sediment load and composition. They also did seawater analysis, collecting water along transects to look for suspended solids and turbidity. They also measured the percent cover of scleractinian (stony) corals, sponges, encrusting gorgonians (sea whips and sea fans), and macro algae. Using quadrants they identified and counted gorgonians and focus monitored individual coral heads of Porites astreoides and Montastrea annularis.

They found that the distribution of fine sediments along the reef were more concentrated in shallow depths, and that coarse sediments were only deposited in traps during months when large ground swells occurred.  The patterns of sedimentation relative to rainfall was related to the progress of the Villas' construction. The percent cover of living coral was found to have declined 14% over 18 months. This large decline may have resulted from dislodgement by large waves in the winter, smothering from sedimentation, or death due to pigment loss. They did document dislodgement but it is unlikely that that this was the sole mortality factor.  The authors also rule out much mortality due to direct smothering since they never actually observed it. They concludef that it is most likely that the majority of the mortality was related to the indirect effects of sedimentation and bleaching. They found strong evidence that the bleaching of corals was strongly correlated to sedimentation rates. So more suspended sediments equals an increased likelihood that corals will bleach. And this is in line with other studies.

This study is nice because it provides direct evidence that sedimentation (in this case from land development) cause stress to corals and may lead to their decline due to bleaching. It also provides good evidence for management practices along sensitive shorelines.

Here's the paper:
Nemeth, Richard S. and Joshua Sladek Nowlis (2001) Monitoring the effects of land development on the near-shore reef environment of St. Thomas, USVI. Bulletin of Marine Science: 69(2), 759-775. (LINK)

If you like this then I also recommend this more recent marine ecology survey:
Pittman, Simon, Ron Kneib, Charles Simenstad, and Ivan Nagelkerken (2011) Seascape ecology: application of landscape ecology to the marine environment. Marine Ecology Progress Series: 427, 187-190. (DOI: 10.3354/meps09139)

And here's some more info on corals:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Page on Coral Reefs
Ocean World's Coral Page
Berkeley's Introduction to Cnideria
SeaWorld's Corals and Coral Reefs Page
Kansas Geological Survey's Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals

(image from treehugger.com)

Citizen Science. Get Involved.

Citizen science is becoming more and more popular these days. And why shouldn't it? It is an opportunity for volunteers, who may or may not have specific scientific training, to contribute to ongoing scientific research. The volunteer gets the benefit of participating in a task they are interested in and the scientist gets the benefit of many people going through very large amounts of data, allowing them to accomplish their research objectives. It is just a great way to involve the individual as well as promoting public engagement in science.

Citizen science is not a new concept, it has been around for centuries. However, with advances in technology and the rise of the Internet it has become so much easier to get people involved, especially across large geographic areas. And in most cases the human brain is much better at analyzing images and other data than a computer. Add to that the number of replications you can have when multiple people classify the same image and you can see how errors can be decreased and new discoveries made.

So how does this whole thing work and how can you get involved? Well, first, think about a scientific topic that interests you: ornithology, astronomy, climate change, geology...whatever. The scope of science is so big that there is likely a project that fits your interests. Next, you need to find a project. They come in several varieties. First there is the scope: international, national, regional, or local. Next there is the type of activity you want to do: field work, image or data analysis, or just contributing some of your computer's power. And finally, how long do you want to spend working on this: years, months, or hours. That sounds like a lot but once you have figured these parameters out it will make it much easier to find a projects that suits you. Once you have found a project there is typically a short training session to get you familiar with the user interface and how the data should be analyzed/recorded. Then you are all set to do some science!

I've divided some of the most popular citizen science projects down by category, giving a short description of each. Each icon is linked to take you to the project described. At the end I've linked to a couple of general, easily searchable websites that will help you find the project you want.

ASTRONOMY

This is one of the most popular citizen science fields, and the projects that make up the Zooniverse are the most popular of these projects. There are several projects within the Zooniverse to choose from including:

• Ice Hunters
•  Help find the final target of NASA's New Horizons Mission! After passing Pluto (and pending NASA approval of an extended mission, of course) the spacecraft will retarget itself for an encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). The target won't be selected until shortly before the Pluto encounter and there will be lots of images to go through to find out where to go next. This is where you come in. Look at pictures of never seen before objects to find out which one we should visit.
• Moon Zoo
• Explore the surface of the Moon! Look through images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and answer questions about what you see. Identify craters, boulders (called "Boulder Wars," LOL), or any interesting or weird features you come across.
• Galaxy Zoo: Hubble
•  There are hundreds of thousands of galaxies drawn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope archive. In this project you get to look at the gorgeous imagery from this telescope and classify the galaxies. Are they elliptical, spiral, irregular? Or is there some new type out there waiting to be discovered?
• Galaxy Zoo: Supernovae
•  This project is similar to the project above, this time contributing data from an automatic survey in California, at the world-famous Palomar Observatory. Except here you are looking for supernovae. Exploding stars!
• Galaxy Zoo: Mergers
• Here you are looking for the merging of galaxies. From images you select simulations that look similar to the targeted merger, tuning your best matches. You can even decide which simulation wins in a series of tournament-style competitions.
• Planet Hunters
• Look for extrasolar planets (planets around other stars)! This project finds planets by identifying how the brightness of a star changes over time.
• The Milky Way Project
• This projects aims to sort and measure our galaxy. Using the beautiful infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope you are asked to find and draw bubbles. These bubbles identify the life stages of the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. 
• Old Weather
• This project works to recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. This will contribute to climate model projections, improve a database of weather extremes, and track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.
• Solar Stormwatch
• Help spot explosions on the Sun and track them across space to Earth! Not only will you help to identify and classify activity on the Sun but you will also contribute to early warnings if dangerous solar radiation is heading toward astronauts. 

These scientists are seeking to understand a star that has been a mystery for many years. This star is epsilon Aurigae, it is located in the constellation Auriga, and it is a variable star (it changes in brightness over time). This change in brightness is called eclipse. It takes over 600 days, and it only occurs every 27.1 years. The project scientists will guide you through the process of how to observe epsilon Aurigae, how to send them your observations, and then how to see your results, analyze them, and even publish them in a scientific journal.

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. It is completely safe. All you need to do is download the program and it will run while your computer is on, not disrupting any of your other computing tasks.

CLIMATE SCIENCE

This project works to produce predictions of the Earth's climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy of climate models. To do this, they need people around the world to give them time on their computers - time when they have their computers switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity. What do you do? Not much really. You to run a climate model on your computer. It runs automatically in the background, not affecting any other tasks for which you use your computer. It is completely safe and requires no more of your time than it takes to download the program. Read more by clicking the image link or go to download the program HERE.

Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) works to measure and map precipitation. Each time a rain, hail or snow storm crosses your area, you take measurements of precipitation from as many locations as possible and report it on the website. These data are compiled and used to provide accurate high-quality precipitation data, increasing the density of precipitation data available throughout the country, and encourage citizens to have fun participating in meteorological science while heightening their awareness about weather.

This project aims to accurately record and analyze "ice on" and "ice off" events as well as snow depth, air temperature, and wildlife observations to learn how climate change affects our environment. You will receive instructions on how to properly IceWatch (even if you live in a warmer climate), you pick your location to observe over the winter (like a nearby lake, bay, or river), record your observations, and submit them online.



GENETICS AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

This project is great for gamers!

Genetic sequences are difficult to understand and decipher their structure, and this project aims to compare them to detect any similar regions they may have. So they have put together a website that abstracts the multiple alignment problem to a game where the goal will be to align words made by pieces of different color instead of letters representing the genetic code (A,C,G,T). You create columns of the same color and create gaps, ultimately finding the best tradeoff between aligning color and creating gaps. You can even choose a puzzle to solve from the disease you want to treat.

Another project that is great for gamers. This project is all about protein folding. Proteins are built from individual amino acids but they don't stay all stretched out in a strand, they fold into very specific shapes. Finding the shapes and the optimal folding is the hard part though and is what this project aims to do. Knowing the structures is important to things like drug development and disease research. The problem has been put into game form. You, as the player, solve a series of puzzles to optimally pack you protein, hide the hydrophobic bits, and clear any clashes. You can play individually or form teams, competing with other protein folders around the world.

OCEANOGRAPHY

The whale shark photo-ID library...its cool just saying it. This project uses photographs of the skin patterning behind the gills of each shark and any scars to distinguish between individual animals. This helps scientists to see where individual animals are going, the abundance of whale sharks, and their distribution. If you see a whale shark while out diving you can report all kinds of information about the encounter by filling out their online form, and you can submit pictures to the library.

Do you love whales? All kinds? This project is working to classify the sounds that whales make into distinct regions. "For example, in Orcas (Killer Whales) there are over 150 identified types of call. Every time you match a pair of Orca calls, you're casting a vote for those two calls to be considered 'similar'." The more this is done the better map the researchers get of calls that are alike. This allows them to identify patterns, groups of whales, and eventually get a better understanding of how whales communicate with each other. All you do is look at a spectrogram and listen to a call and then find a matching call. Simple.

This is a project for reporting jellyfish and other marine organisms. If you have seen jellyfish, red tide, or any other unusual marine life you just go online and fill out their form and submit it. They even have a list of similar projects around the world that you can participate in.

FishWatchers is a project out of the International Game Fish Association. This website allows you to  upload your fish observations and photos through the Internet. Any fish any time. This information will then be used to create current distribution maps to assist in monitoring trends in biodiversity

TERRESTRIAL PLANTS AND ANIMALS

This is a great project from a Dutch entomologist that lets motorists report the date, time, and location of their latest outing and the number of insects that get hit (and probably smushed) by their vehicle. Not only does it give an idea about how many bugs are killed by vehicles it provides insect presence in certain locations and information about their flight patterns.

This is a network of people across the United States who monitor plants as the seasons change. It is a national field campaign designed to engage the public in the collection of important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plant phenophases). You can send in regular observations or just a single report. Everything is usefull. They provide good identification keys and other tools you will need to start. Not in the U.S.? I'm sure there is is similar project near you.

This is a U.S. based citizen science project that is a national animal and plant phenology observation program. You find out the plants and animals near you on a provided list, learn to select a site and observe and record what is there, and submit your results.

 eBird is a real-time, online checklist program that reports and accesses information about birds. It provides information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. It is amassing one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources in existence. You enter when, where, and how you went birding, fill out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing, and submit your observations into the eBird database. They even provide tools so you can maintain your personal bird records and even visualize your personal data with interactive maps, graphs, and bar charts.

Neighborhood Nestwatch is a project out of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. The idea is to find and monitor bird nests so scientists can compare how successful nests are in urban, suburban, and rural areas. All you have to do is keep a watchful eye out throughout the year and report your results.

 I know several people that participate in the Christmas Bird Count each year and have a really great time. From December 14 - January 5 volunteers brave the cold weather to do a little bit of bird counting. Anything from feeder-watching to active birding counts. It provides valuable information on migrating birds, bird abundances and distributions, and much more. There are many groups out there too that participate in the count and would love to have another person to help, regardless of your skillset.

 NestWatch, as you might gather from the name, is a nest-monitoring project. It aims to compile large, continent-wide databases tracking survival and reproductive success of a wide range of species and provide a unified nest-monitoring scheme to track reproductive success for all North American breeding birds. You "get certified" (meaning you learn how to properly observe a nest without jeopardizing the nest), look for active nests, monitor the nests and collect data, and enter the data online. The fact that you get to see baby birds should be a big selling point *wink*

The Backyard Bird Count is similar to the Christmas Bird Count in that it is an annual event that provides a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the North America. The Count occurs from February 17 - February 20 and takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. When you are finished you enter your results on their webpage.

When it comes to doing science, watching the visitors to your bird feeder sure ain't bad. Project FeederWatch is a winter-long project of birds that visit feeders in backyards, nature centers, community areas, and other locales in North America. By counting birds at your feeder you help scientists to broadscale movements of winter-bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance. You count birds at your count site that are there because of something you have provided (plantings, food, or water) and only report the highest number of individuals you see in view at one time, and then you report it online. Simple.

OTHER

 The Quake-Catcher Network (QCN )is a collaborative initiative for developing the world's largest, low-cost strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to Internet-connected computers. The QCN obtains information about earthquake waves (seismic waves) by using computers that are connected to the Internet. Many laptop computers have built in sensors and desktop computers can utilize small USB sensors to collect the data. The data from these sensors are collected only when the computer is turned on and idle and is sent over the Internet. It is safe and easy. All you need to do is download the program.

 I used to take my ecology lab students out to cemeteries so we could collect data to make life tables. They were always a little squeemish at first but ended up loving the work. The Gravestone Project aims to map the location of a graveyards around the globe and then use marble gravestones in those graveyards to measure the weathering rate of marble at that location. The weathering rates of gravestones are an indication of changes in the acidity of rainfall between locations and over time and could be used as a measure of changes in climate and pollution levels. You go to your local graveyard and take a few measurements such as the lead lettering or headstone thickness.

The bodyLab is a project that researches the evolution of human body shapes and our ideas of attractiveness. All you have to do is go to the website and rate the silhouettes of women and/or men based on if you find that body shape attractive. It is so easy to do you don't even need to create an account.

The Sound Around You is building a sound map of the world as part of a new study into how sounds in our everyday environment make us feel. All you do is use your mobile phones (or another audio recording device if your phone is not compatible) to record 10-15 second clips from different sound environments, or ‘soundscapes’ from a family car journey to a busy shopping center, and to upload them to the virtual map, along with your opinions of them and why you chose to record it.

Dognition is a site that offers dog owners a series of science-based games that determine their dog's unique abilities and their relative strengths and weaknesses in various thinking skills. These skills range from empathy to cunning to memorization. As a user, you enter the results of your dog's behaviors, contributing to a data set that can be used by researchers studying dog cognition. It also offers the owners a "window into [their] dog's mind, offering a first step on the path toward improved behavior." You can tell how your dog sees the world and how they respond in different situations while at the same time contributing to science. Note: As of now this site/service has a fee.

WEBSITES FOR FINDING CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECTS

This is the best website I have found for finding a project that suits you. It has a great search engine and describes the projects very well. It also includes many local projects as well as great projects for kids.

This site is less detailed and contains fewer projects but is still a good source for citizen science.


(top image from thisgreenblog.com)