WHAT'S HAPPENING

Savanna Blog

Paleoecology is More Important than Agronomy. And Everything Else.

The other day I heard Darren Naish and John conway, of the excellent Tetrapod Zoology Podcast, stumble over the question of why Paleontology is important. This was apparently a spill over from a whole panel of experts stumbling over this question at the Pop Paleo conference. I want to talk to the guys about this, […]

Wolves

An understanding of the paleoecology can shed new light on our current political debate and open up new options for win/win solutions. In other words, my opinions about wolves will make everyone on all sides of the political spectrum angry. Before I do that, I will make everyone angry by talking about what I did […]

Disturbing. Or is it?

Words are so useful because they point to Truth. But if they don’t point to Truth, they point away from Truth. As such I think it is time that we ecologists have a sit down with the word “disturbance” and ask, ‘what have you done for us lately?’ While we’re at it, we can have […]

Taxonomy Needs a Complete Reorganization (and other surefire ways of creating viral Facebook content)

Both Separate and Connected. But how? I love to beat up on taxonomists because they tend to be constitutionally opposite of me. I see taxonomists as the accountants of the biological sciences, obsessed with making up rules out of thin air and trying to make everyone think they were made by God. But, I hate […]

The Exciting Conclusion to our History of Herbivory Series

Language is powerful tool for revealing truth. We evolved our ability to harness that. But for that same reason, it is more important for us to look out for ways that language conceals truth. Why do I casually mention this now in a blog about grass and cows? Well because this final stretch in our series about […]

History of Herbivory; Mass Extinction.

You call this a mass extinction event? Ha. I’ll show you a mass extinction event. Maybe you by now you would guess that I would say something like that, since I don't like to agree. But I also want to say that actually the mass extinction event that everyone knows about, the "KP" Extinction that […]