Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Deep Look on nutrient transport by salmon

Posted 09 Oct 2017 / 0

I have taught about the importance of nutrient transport by salmon in my Ecology course before, using an old Scientific American article. But this video is amazing. The footage of the salmon spawning and of blowfly maggots devouring a salmon carcass are phenomenal. A great teaching tool for talking about how community ecology drives nutrient Read More

A Minor Post, Decomposition, Ecology, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Freshwater Ecosystems, Keystone Species, MSCI-270, Ecology, Mutualism, Nutrient Cycling, Predation, Rivers & Streams, Temperate Forest

EnviroAtlas is now live, publicly available

Posted 30 May 2014 / 0

For the past couple of years I have been playing around with a really cool tool called EnviroAtlas, a project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This past semester I created two classroom activities that use EnviroAtlas, implementing them for the first time in my Ecology for Architects course. The EnviroAtlas tool was in beta-testing Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Citizen Science, Computer Science, Conservation Biology, Data Limitation, Deserts, Ecosystem Services, Education, Educational Software and Apps, Environmental Justice, Eutrophication, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Long Term Ecological Research, Macroecology, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Rivers & Streams, Sustainability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, Temperate Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Urban Ecology, Water Supply, Web

What happens when a landscape ecologist takes on urban ecology

Posted 29 Jan 2014 / 0

What’s so cool about the work that Eric Sanderson is describing is that it really amounts to doing historical research using an ecological forensics approach. The idea of mapping out “probable areas” of different populations — including humans — using mapped data is pretty smart. It is amazing how humans have transformed Manhattan. Thanks to Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Architecture, Community Ecology, Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Geography, Geology, Habitat Destruction, History, Hydrology, Ponds & Lakes, Rivers & Streams, Sustainable Urban Design, Talks & Seminars, Temperate Forest, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Urban Ecology

Concentrated factory farming of livestock massively alters the phosphorus cycle

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution” This short feature provides a clear example of how human agricultural practices massively modify nutrient cycles, decoupling what used to be inseparable: where animal feed is grown and where animals are raised. This separation means that we no longer have closed-loop agricultural systems. I would suggest Read More

A Minor Post, Closed Loop Systems, Composting, Economics, Ecosystem Ecology, Eutrophication, Food, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams, Soil Ecology, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism

Once considered clear, the line between ecological and evolutionary time scales is becoming more blurry

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “What Darwin Got Wrong” Great article on the importance of better understanding rapid and/or fluctuating evolution! The number of applications to applied human issues is fascinating.

A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Climate Change, Coevolution, Community Ecology, Fluidity of Knowledge, Freshwater Ecosystems, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Interactions, Invasive Species, Natural Selection, Pollution, Population Genetics, Predation, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Rivers & Streams

Now legal, Northern California’s pot farms join the rest of agriculture in impacting water supply

Posted 14 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR The Salt “California’s Pot Farms Could Leave Salmon Runs Truly Smoked” It is funny because as marijuana becomes legalized it joins tobacco and coffee as a potentially high-impact, low-necessity agricultural product. And I know there are a lot of cigarette smokers, coffee fiends, and potheads taking exception to that last sentence.

A Minor Post, Freshwater Ecosystems, Habitat Destruction, Law, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams, Sustainability, Water Supply

With all we know, we still know too little to reliably re-engineer ecosystems

Posted 06 Sep 2013 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “Saving One Species At The Expense Of Another” There are a number of really important points made by this nice short. The first is that scientists — even when acting carefully on the best available evidence and theory — can still fail to produce desired outcomes. The second is that modifying ecological communities Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Habitat Destruction, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams

US EPA’s EnviroAtlas project promises to give researchers, students new insights into the geography of ecosystem services

Posted 13 Aug 2013 / 0

At the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, I first learned about a really interesting initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project –now dubbed EnviroAtlas — is dedicated to creating a free, interactive online tool for exploring the geography of ecosystem services. I had the opportunity to check out a beta version Read More

A Major Post, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Climate Change, Computer Science, Conservation Biology, Deserts, Ecology, Ecology Education, Ecosystem Services, Educational Software and Apps, Environmental Justice, Freshwater Ecosystems, Geography, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Information Design, Invasive Species, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Rivers & Streams, Sociology, Sustainability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, Temperate Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Water Supply, Web