Category Archives: Population Growth

Freakonomics takes the quantitative knife to how we produce and consume food

Freakonomics Radio “You Eat What You Are” This piece delivers a much needed kick in the self-righteous pants to the locavore movement. It systematically disassembles the assumptions of the local food movement, ending by discussing the minimal quantitative ecological benefits … Continue reading

Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Footprinting, Economics, Ethics, Food, Greenwashing, Hunger, Hypothesis Testing, Life Cycle Analysis, Philosophy, Population Growth, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Subsistence, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism | Leave a comment

David Sloan Wilson on Ayn Rand and the delusion of a world without tradeoffs

The Huffington Post “Ayn Rand and Modern Politics” What I really appreciate about this post is its very simple brand of analysis. It asks a simple question and employs a clear methodology to objectively understand a phenomenon (in this case, … Continue reading

Posted in A Minor Post, Behavior, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Game Theory, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Social Norms, System Stability, Web | Leave a comment

My ESA 2012 Poster is on Faculty of 1000 posters

F1000 Posters “The Evolution of Sustainable Use: a flash-based classroom tool for teaching population biology and sustainable resource management“

Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Carrying Capacity, Cooperation, Ecological Modeling, Marine Ecosystems, Multilevel Selection, My publications, Population Growth, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Harvesting, System Stability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, The Evolution of Sustainable Use | Leave a comment

National Geographic on the yartsa gunbu bubble

National Geographic “Tibetan Gold” This story encapsulates a whole host of unsustainable human behaviors: First, we have people over-harvesting an ecological product in a manner that risks its collapse; Second, the over-harvesting is driven by a cultural superstition that has spread … Continue reading

Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Coevolution, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecology, Economic sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Memetic Fitness, Parasitism, Population Growth, Resource Consumption, Sustainable Harvesting, System Stability, Tundra | Leave a comment

Preview of my ESA 2012 poster promoting the Evolution of Sustainable Use activity

This year I am proud to be returning to the Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. I missed last year’s meeting and I am excited to be overwhelmed by all the amazing scholarship that is on display at … Continue reading

Posted in A Major Post, Biodiversity Loss, Carrying Capacity, Conferences, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Food, Group Selection, Marine Ecosystems, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Predation, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Teaching Tools, The Evolution of Sustainable Use | Leave a comment

Are the population dynamics of Dupont’s lark dictated by multilevel selective pressures?

An fascinating new paper published this week in the journal PLoS One demonstrates how selection acting at least three different levels produces distinct selective pressures that shape the song behavior of male Dupont’s lark (Chersophilus duponti) in the Ebro Valley … Continue reading

Posted in A Major Post, Articles, Behavior, Competition, Group Selection, Multilevel Selection, Population Growth | Leave a comment

2012 Sustainability Crash Course at Pratt Institute

For the second year in a row I participated in Pratt Institute’s Crash Course in sustainability, sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Design Studies. I once again gave my talk entitled “Ecosystems: Where they came from, how they work, and … Continue reading

Posted in Art & Design, Biomes, Center for Sustainable Design Studies, Conferences, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Green Design, Greenwashing, Life Cycle Analysis, Population Growth, Pratt Institute, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Sustainable Pratt | 1 Comment

HOME, a documentary about the impacted Biosphere

I just watched the video Home, a production of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his Good Planet Foundation. Composed solely of high-quality panoramic images intensified by a soaring new-age soundtrack, the film provides viewers with a fairly comprehensive overview of the earth’s … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Film & Television, Food, Freshwater Ecosystems, Hunger, Mangrove Forests, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-270, Ecology, Pollution, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Temperate Forest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Tundra, Vegetarianism, Water Supply | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Patterns in mussel beds may reflect interaction between individual behavior and emergent environmental patterns

Mussel beds off of Polzeath, United Kingdom (photo by Andy F) Natural selection is often oversimplified as the effect of the outside environment on the survival and reproduction probability of individual organisms. In the end this perspective has some value: … Continue reading

Posted in Behavioral Ecology, Competition, Cooperation, Emergence, Individual-based Models, Intertidal Zones, Population Growth, Spatially Explicit Modeling | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Online tools for teaching the basics of population growth

The Otherwise population growth simulator In what now seems like an infamous episode in my early career, I once tried to deliver a sample lesson on population growth during an all-day interview for a full-time teaching position at a fairly … Continue reading

Posted in Carrying Capacity, Ecological Modeling, Educational Software and Apps, MSCI-270, Ecology, Population Growth | 2 Comments