Feeding ecology
August 2nd, 2011
Seeing beneath the sediment
IT IS NOT UNCOMMON for naturalists to believe that the selective forces in nature are obstacles and difficulties which are heroically overcome by individuals which pass their superior genes onto their kind, driving the patterns of diversity and abundance on earth in a process we call “evolution”. However, I don’t think it always works quite like that. I think that the struggle is at once a little more optimistic and elegant: a little more perhaps like water flowing downhill. The way I see it is that nature is an expansive thing, with organisms responding to the pressures of their environment by taking the path of least resistance – of not necessarily troubling over obstacles, but rather constantly and optimistically dashing towards new or favourable opportunities. By taking advantage of physical and environmental opportunities, adopting behaviours which play to their strengths, organisms carve out a passage of survival, living to pass on their genes which, if favourably adapted to their behaviour and surroundings, become extant throughout the population. It’s more like that John Lennon song where he sings “there’s no problems, only solutions”. more »
July 10th, 2011
Lessons from bark foragers
ANYBODY WHO regularly visits the Australian bush and has an eye for birds will tell you that many Australian birds will spend a little time foraging on the bark of trees and some will spend a fair bit of time foraging on the bark of trees. However, there are only three groups of birds which are totally dedicated to making a living off the bark of trees. Interestingly, although they are only distantly related, they have all devised similar social strategies which can probably tell us a thing or two about the profitability of foraging on bark for a living but may also have some important lessons for helping us understand the viability of remnant bush plots, appropriate management practices and forming better planning guidelines. I think that this is an area crying out for further study . . . more »