Ecologist

The ecologist warned us that petroleum was not merely a blessing but also a curse.

“It is called a kowari," said ecologist John Augusteyn, who shot the footage.

Ziri is an ecologist.

Ziri became an ecologist.

Mark Simmons is Chief Ecologist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. A native of Great Britain who has studied natural flora worldwide, Simmons says the appearance of so many flowers really is something to celebrate.

A bio-diverse ecosystem is often a delicate balance, and it doesn’t take much to upset it. In her research, co-author Diane Srivastava has studied the cascading effects of extinction. In one experiment, the University of British Columbia ecologist removed the ecosystem’s top predator — a damsel fly larva — from a single bromeliad plant — with surprising results.

Scientists wanted to see how these developing larvae were being affected by the increased acidity of the ocean water caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Whitman Miller — an environmental scientist and ecologist with the Smithsonian research center — says oceans normally absorb about half of the carbon dioxide that's produced by living creatures. But when excess CO₂ is pumped into the atmosphere and dissolves into seawater, that contributes to an acidification, or a lowering of the pH of the oceans. A byproduct of that process — carbonic acid — rapidly converts to carbonate and bicarbonate ions, which Miller says are corrosive to the calcium carbonate shells of oysters and other marine species.

Anywhere else in the world, this would be a fisherman's dream, rivers so abundant with fish they jump out of the water, and often right into the boat. But these are not the kind of fish that get anglers in the United States excited. They are known as Asian Carp and the explosion of their population in the Illinois River is a concern to large-river ecologist Kevin Irons.

WCS ecologist Glennon says the current theory is that the moose resurgence was facilitated by the laws protecting the preserve, and several corridors of protected land linking the Adirondacks to Maine, Vermont and Canada, which provide safe travel routes for the animals.

Kathryn Stoner is a research ecologist at the National University of Mexico. She has been studying how certain monkeys contribute to seed dispersal in a tropical forest in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.