Researchers may have just stumbled upon a mathematical secret to how nature works (Washington Post).Study reveals consistent predator prey pattern (New York Times).But not in the simple pattern they might have expected to find. In every park they looked at, there seemed to be a very consistent relationship of predator to prey. When Hatton and his colleagues then started putting it all together and crunching the numbers, summing up all the carnivores (lion, hyena, leopard, etc.) and herbivores (buffalo, zebra, impala, etc.) in these parks, they found a very unexpected and regular pattern. So I gathered all the animal census data I could for parks in east and southern Africa.” “When I began my PhD in biology at McGill, I wanted to go back and compare whole communities of African animals across protected ecosystems to see how the numbers of carnivores are related to their herbivore prey at the scale of whole landscapes. “I went to high school in Zimbabwe and spent vacations in the National parks there,” says Hatton, the lead author of the study that was just published in Science. Some scientists are already suggesting that it may well be the discovery of a new law of nature. Although biologists have long known of very regular mathematical laws governing functions in the body like metabolism and growth, no study has ever shown that similar kinds of laws may exist at a whole other level: that of ecosystems globally. It’s a surprising finding that suggests a level of organizational structure and function in ecosystems that had not previously been recognized. Moreover, they found this same pattern in a whole range of different ecosystems. Instead, what Hatton and the McGill-led team discovered was that, in a very systematic way, in crowded settings, prey reproduced less than they did in settings where their numbers were smaller. So one might imagine that the population of lions in each park would increase to match the available prey. The parks were teeming with potentially tasty treats for the lions. In this case, the answer had nothing to do with isolated human hunters. His favorite movie of all time is Heathers.Why aren’t there more lions? That was what puzzled McGill PhD student Ian Hatton, when he started looking at the proportion of predators to prey across dozens of parks in East and Southern Africa. On the airwaves, Josh reviews movies weekly in Las Vegas on KTNV Channel 13 and Highway Radio, and he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year with comedian Jason Harris. He's a member of the Critics Choice Association, the Television Critics Association, and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society. He reviews movies and TV series for CBR, The Inlander, and Crooked Marquee, and has archived 2,000-plus reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. He eventually worked as the film editor for Las Vegas Weekly from 2009-2018, while also working as the TV comedies guide for the pioneering (and now defunct) online outlet from 2008-2013.Īs a freelance writer, Josh has written about movies, TV and pop culture for Vulture, Polygon, Inverse, New Scientist, and more. He started his career as an intern at Las Vegas Weekly, where his first professional movie review was Reign of Fire, starring Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, and CGI dragons. Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |