Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

ECOmotion Studios on Huffaker’s crazy experiments to make prey and predators coexist

Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0

Here’s the last of four ECOmotion Studios animated shorts celebrating the Ecological Society of America’s centennial. This one’s a bit thin in my humble opinion. It captures the essentials of Huffaker’s really odd experiments (I am always struck by what extents Huffaker had to go to stabilize predator and prey populations), but mostly uses the narrative Read More

A Minor Post, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Predation, Science in Art & Design, System Stability

ECOmotion Studios on Simberloff & Wilson’s island biogeography experiments

Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0

Here’s another classic ecological experiment depicted by the ECOmotion Studios crew, again for the Ecological Society of America‘s centennial. This one uses some of the same narrative approaches as the other shorts in this series, although this one is set to more of a “song” than the others. Narrating an experiment and its rationale is Read More

A Minor Post, Community Ecology, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Ecology, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Science in Art & Design

ECOmotion Studios on Hairston Smith Slobodkin and why the earth is green

Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0

Here’s another fun and informative video from ECOmotion Studios. I thought that it was interesting how this short discussed the connection between decomposers and the eventual supply of oil, although I wonder if many viewers will gain enough information from this short video to fully understand this idea. The basic ideas behind Hairston-Smith-Slobodkin (HSS) are Read More

A Minor Post, Carrying Capacity, Community Ecology, Ecological Society of America, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Predation, Science in Art & Design, Terrestrial

EcoMotion studios celebrates Robert Paine’s Pisaster experiments

Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0

Back at the Evolution 2014 meeting I encountered the great “Drift” animated short, which I still use in my evolution course. Well the producers of that short have formed ECOmotion Studios, and they have made a bunch more videos in honor of the Ecological Society of America‘s centennial. This one is a fun “spoken word” jam Read More

A Minor Post, Coevolution, Community Ecology, Competition, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Education, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Intertidal Zones, Keystone Species, Methods, Predation, Science in Art & Design