You might know the short-tailed shearwater and sable shearwater by the common name “muttonbirds”. These two species of seabird breed on islands off southeastern Australia. Both undertake a breathtaking two-week, non-stop flight across the Pacific to the Bering Sea, more than 10,000 km away near Alaska and Russia. Here, they spend the northern summer. Shearwaters … Read more
When Rachel Carson wrote an environmental classic silent spring In 1962, she warned that unchecked impacts on humans could create a quiet future. Forty years later, biologists have discovered the striking effects of noise pollution on songbirds. They found that low-pitched traffic noise forced birds to sing at higher pitches in European cities. Songbirds in … Read more
Human society has not simply adapted to the natural world. They steadily learned how to change that. Arlie Ellis, professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, draws on research in archaeology, ecology, anthropology, and evolutionary theory to explain how cultural practices have evolved to exert extraordinary influence on the … Read more