default blog post image

Island Press Staff Picks

This week’s pick is from Lauren Koshere: “How’s the Park lookin’ these days,” asks a gravelly voice on the other end of the telephone line, “after they let those fires ruin the place?” As a reservations agent for in Yellowstone National Park, I answer hundreds of questions a day. But few guests’ questions refer to the Yellowstone fires of 1988. Fewer still reflect such disapproval about the management of those fires.
default blog post image

A Call to Save Old Trees

David Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin, authors of several Island Press titles, have just collaborated on an important new study. Published in the latest edition of Science, the study reveals that old trees worldwide are dying at an alarmingly fast rate —and that these deaths are impacting forests' ecosystems greatly.
default blog post image

Unnatural Selection

Salamanders, fish and perhaps even humans are evolving fast in response to toxic chemicals. Is that bad? In the hemlock and oak forests of northeastern Connecticut, Steve Brady stood thigh deep in black muck and scooped up a handful of spotted salamander eggs. A Yale PhD student, he had once fancied himself zipping across tropical waters in a Zodiac boat or scanning rainforest canopies in search of exotic birds. Instead, he had just planted his budding career as an evolutionary biologist in a muddy ditch.
default blog post image

#ForewordFriday: Resilience Edition

First, there were droughts this summer; then Hurricane Sandy; and a week after that, there was a snowstorm in the northeast. It seems we just can't catch a break from Mother Nature.
default blog post image

The Art of Ecology and the Ecology of Art

Art interacts with observation and ecology on numerous planes. There is simply the aspect of personal inspiration, as when the creatures I observe in tidepool surveys or just hiking with friends who know the Sonoran desert become the basis for my Linozoic prints. Along these lines, I’m continually amazed at the diversity and quality of artwork produced by ecologists, samples of which I find myself auctioning off each year at a student benefit auction at the Western Society of Naturalists meeting.

Pages