What are /r/ecology's favorite Products & Services?

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While we can assert the cultural importance of lawns, their inherent cultural value pales in comparison to their ecological harm. Biodiversity and human health are inextricably linked, this isn’t something we can ignore because it’s inconvenient. I’m not advocating for everyone to have their lawns or private “green spaces” reforested, rewilded, or go fallow but rather a reduction in their scale and prevalence to best facilitate a sustainable and just future.

Unfortunately, with arguments of this type it just comes down to a philosophical argument of short term gain vs long term flourishing and anthropocentrism/chauvinism vs environmentalism; not everyone is going to agree.

Edit: for a better understand or a greater appreciation of the rationale behind this I’d recommend reading these two books. My synthesis of political theory, ecology, conservation, and anthropology was affirmed after reading these-more so than any paper I’ve read. The first is accessible and touches upon this topic directly in its closing chapters but is largely culturally agnostic. The works of James C. Scott truly brought this all together-while his writing is academic, it’s absolutely brilliant in aggregating seemingly disparate content into an appreciable argument. His other work Seeing like a State is also relevant to this discussion.

Dirt:The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery

Against the Grain by James C. Scott

Which produce are you worried about? With the exception of a few gourds, I think most produce with waste seeds come from trees, or are notoriously hard to establish.

personally, I just make sure everything is fully composted, and then I pass the compost through a metal sieve before spreading it. haven't had a single volunteer in many years.

What educational level are you? If you're university level then I recommend looking at some of the scientific literature and choosing a couple of primary lit citations

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=applied+island+biogeographic+theory&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14

If you are at a university then you should be able to access journal articles for free via your university's web site.

Or you could go hardcore and talk about the limitations of island biogeographic theory in applied conservation biology:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320708001845

Island biogeography is useful as a conceptual framework but unless you are in a fairly simple landscape, alone it doesn't go far -- you need a metapopulation biology and a good understanding of matrix habitat to really apply it in reserve design.

Source: used to be an ecology professor, till I quit to work full time in conservation biology.

There's quite a bit of research on this topic. http://scholar.google.com can help you peruse.

Right now in New England there are some conservation goals that I'm at odds with, that are influenced by succession. As New England changes from pasture to forest there has been a sharp reduction of certain grassland birds. Some people want to create habitat for these birds while others believe that the forest replacing the grasslands is closer to the pre-European ecology so fuck the birds.

It's a mess.

This cheatsheet doesn't contain ggplot because it only focuses on the most common functions that are easiest for beginners (such as base package plotting), but there is a handy cheatsheet especially made for ggplot at the top of the page here if this helps: https://www.rstudio.com/resources/cheatsheets/

Mate, that's wonderful. Okay, so since other commenters have already made many great recommendations, I'll only add one more—so as to not overwhelm you—one that pertains to gardening, The Conscientious Gardener: Cultivating a Garden Ethic (UCP, 2011) by Professor Sarah Hayden Reichard (University of Washington) and with a foreword by the renowned Peter Raven. I hope that title helps you on your ecological journey. Anyways, enjoy the book, the lecture and exploring nature (:

If you want to get a bit more hands-on, I think buying a microscope is a great way to learn about your local aquatic wildlife. I bought this one for $80 a while back and it's served me really well. Pretty much any pond or stream is gonna be full of really interesting critters. Bits of algae or dead leaves you can fish out of the water often have all kinds of cool stuff crawling all over them, and if you scoop up some pond water in a tupperware and leave it with some handfuls of grass for a few days they should multiply pretty nicely. If you're patient, you can definitely start to learn some really interesting behaviors and relationships of some of the organisms you find, just by watching them do their thing. Journey to the Microcosmos also makes great youtube videos about this stuff :)

Best of luck on your journey!

There is a recent, modern Flora of Virginia with good keys and line drawings. If the book is too big, they appear to have an app as well.

I am not sure if this would help or not, but here is a relatively similar game focused to some extent on the conservation and recovery of california condors.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.condorcountrygame.condorcountry

Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists

Design and Analysis of Ecological Experiments

It sounds like a good idea to me to start with a basic intro ecology book.

Molles, Ecology: Concepts and Applications is a good book. Covers a good breadth of ecological concepts applicable to no matter where you go. You can also get it cheap.

If you’re interested in animal specific books I’m afraid I can’t help too much, I do tree ecophysiology.

If you mean humidity then there are lots of things like these hygrometers- I just picked the first off amazon. Obviously there are better ones for science but there’s some quite cheap ones available.

Thlevel 3-Pack Hygrometer Thermometer Digital LCD Monitor Humidity Meter Gauge for Humidifiers Dehumidifiers Greenhouse Basement Babyroom https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JDSHD4Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_D7JGVHXX3QY6RAPH6E4C?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

If you’re looking at beetles then pitfall traps are a good place to start (assuming you’ll know how to identify the beetles?)

The book "Mountains and Plains" by Dennis Knight is THE book in my opinion. It's on the state of WY so it might not be relevant, but goddamn is it a good book. Geology, topology, biology, climatology, it's all in there, beautifully arranged and explained. I cannot recommend it enough.

It sounds like what you’re looking for are zoology textbooks. this Amazon page is for a great book I once had on inverts and the depth it goes into is amazing. There are other suggested books that might be helpful on that page.

Hmm...it looks like they're only available to purchase through all the usual channels.

http://www.clicker.com/tv/human-planet/cities--surviving-the-urban-jungle-1643696/

Or available if you want to dig a little deeper.

This book is a great starter for what’s going on in that area: https://www.amazon.com/Journeys-Trees-Forests-People-Future/dp/1324001607

A recurring theme is this group that started to try and provide assisted migration for one extremely threatened tree species, the Florida Torreya.

Their website has since become a massive resource on assisted migration, and their work I believe helped kick off some of the controversy.

www.torreyaguardians.org/index.html

(The book gets into a lot of the controversy that emerged).

>Evolutionary biology is increasingly uncovering examples symbioses and cooperation as drivers of natural history -- it is becoming increasingly evident that cooperation is just as essential as competition in evolution.

That has been very obvious for a very long time. There is nothing new about it. Nothing I have said denies it.

>The idea that life's ultimate mechanism boils down to competition or exploitation is worth considering, but it's not self evident.

I never said anything about any "ultimate mechanism". However, symbiosis doesn't change what I sam saying. You won't get a better example of symbiosis than that between humans and dogs. But the idea that the symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs is beneficial to the rest of the ecosystem is clearly absurd. Humans and dogs work together because it is the interests of both to do so, and this very obviously comes at the expense of other organisms - specifically the ones they jointly hunt.

That is how the natural world works. The key word here is "natural". If you want to talk about "life's ultimate mechanism" then we cannot restrict the discussion to "natural" in this sense. Whether there could be an ultimate mechanism that transcends natural causality is very much an open question.

see: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755

I ended up getting the Carson Microflip and I’m loving it. There’s a little attachment where I could (not very good but works) attach my phone to the eye piece so I can record video without extra wires, potentially faulty connections, or screens.

Carson MicroFlip 100x-250x LED... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015MS8O48?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I use this one https://www.amazon.com/Microscope-50-1000X-Magnification-Wireless-Adjustable/dp/B081L4Y98G/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=1080p+digital+microscope&qid=1626225710&sr=8-6

Here is one of my vids with the microscope https://youtu.be/9jT-q97erXQ

Just finished this amazing book: Our Once and Future World by J.B McKinnon. I cant say enough great things about it. Puts our modern world in great context

https://www.amazon.ca/Once-Future-World-Nature-Could/dp/0307362183

While there’s always work to be done, take the sensationalism of the media with a grain of salt. Their main concern is to sell copies and generate page views, not portray science as accurately as possible.

I’d recommend a more nuanced scientific view that aligns with the comment above. Climate alarmism isn’t nearly as dire as the media makes it out to be. The book “Apocalypse Never” represents a balanced and constructive view of the path forward - in short, many factors are trending in the right direction and they need to be smartly built upon.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691

I just bought these Caddis waders, and I've been super happy with them. They keep me snuggly warm in Upstate NY region (close to Ontario!), they fit pretty well for women's waders. I am also very short so I sympathize. My one complaint is that the chest pocket is not very big, but that's it. Good tread on the boots (never buy felt!).

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B078VJ7MMX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

>the guy that wants to sing kumbaya with the trees and whales

Good one.

>So yeah, how can I not let their comments get to me?

Try with this and this.

I'd check out Gotelli's Primer: https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Ecology-Nicholas-J-Gotelli/dp/0878933182 . This is useful as an overview of the concept of modeling populations dynamics and landscape diversity. Then, if you want to start heading off into the deep end, look up papers on the topics of co-occurrence networks and zeta diversity.

Ben Bolker's book is in my opinion a necessary work-through for all ecologists. Models and R code are so clear and well-described, I still use it as a daily resource.

Maybe this one The biology of polar regions. I am not sure though, I have been planning to buy it soon, but I don't know if there's a lot about permafrost soils. Which is a really interesting topic! I would recommend reading articles about it!

Also, if you like biogeochemistry of permafrost soils, you are probably also interested in biogeochemistry of peat soils. As a lot of permafrost soils are frozen peat soils. For this I can recommend the biology of peatlands. This one I do have and it has some interesting biogeochemistry things in it. It includes much more than that though.

If you are interested in scientific articles pm me, I can probably get you a list of articles (I am writing a review study about anaerobic decomposition in peat soils right now). A lot of the biogeochemistry is the same (the obvious difference is off course temperature and the fact that in permafrost soil there is not a lot of activity because of temperature and the unavailability of liquid water).