Something strange is happening in the South Australian seas. Someone’s not turned up for their party. Around this time of year the Australian giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) gather along the South Australian coastline between False Bay and Whyalla to mate and spawn. Why has it happened? Have they found a new place to get together? Or, are there so few of them now that it’s a big deal to see three or four in the one place? Will they come back? Is it natural, or something us humans have done?
Posts Tagged ‘ecology’
Ecological islands on land: a first for New Zealand?
This article describes Maungatautari, a volcano that’s become a native animal refuge in a sea of dairy pasture. New Zealanders have been first at many things. They may also be the first to create ‘islands on land’. That is, ‘ecological islands’ on land, anyway.
Why frogs love puddles! The ephemeral breeders.
The summer afternoon storms of subtropical Queensland are an awe inspiring sight and sound of nature. If you’re lucky enough to have some trees and ponds around your house, the wet balmy night will be filled with the crawk – crawk – crawk of male Green Tree Frogs (Litoria caerulea) seducing prospective partners. But not all frogs are so lucky!
Biodiversity: what it is and why it’s important
The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International year of biodiversity. This year we will celebrate life on earth and the importance of biodiversity. It also presents an occasion for us to think more about biodiversity. What exactly is meant by biodiversity? Why it is so important? This article answers these questions and introduces the concept of biodiversity.
Glaucus atlanticus a beauty at eating those marine stingers
Along the beaches of Queensland and Northern New South Wales, northerly winds often bring with them blue bottles or Portugese man o’ war jelly fish. The blue bottle (Physalia physalis) is a small jellyfish (Siphonophora) with a powerful sting. Sometimes know as a marine stinger it can inflict a nasty sting when its tentacles wrap around the tender skin of your torso or thigh. But the blue bottles have other things on their cnardarian minds…there is a predator out there and a beautiful one at that
Bats breed better when the rivers run
Many things in nature are interconnected; I guess that’s why people use terms like the ‘web of life’ and other big words like ‘biocomplexity’. Dr Rick Adams (of the BatLab) recently published his work on the reproductive success of bats in relation to changes in the volume of water flowing down streams.
The Forest Dragons (Hypsilurus spinipes) of the Border Ranges National Park
Have you ever walked through the forest and felt like you were being watched. Well if you were walking in the Border Ranges national park of New South Wales, you probably were being watched by forest dragons!
Bees, pollinating a third of everything you eat!
As well as making honey, honey bees pollinate countless hectares of agricultural crops. It’s estimated that a third of the food you eat could be attributed to pollination by bees. The productivity of modern agriculture would be drastically reduced without the humble honey bee. There is a whole industry based around trucking bee hives to crops for pollination duties.
