An organism’s life history is the pattern of growth, development, and reproduction over the course of its life. Since fitness is a measure of the organism’s reproductive success, we know that natural selection will favour the life history... Read More
A fundamental question in ecology is the question of how the vast diversity of species that we find on this planet originate. Key to this is the idea of reproductive isolation, or the group of mechanisms which... Read More
The task of classification of organisms has remained a daunting task ever since we humans began to group what we consider to be closely related living beings together. In the mid 1700s, Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician... Read More
While Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution explains the vast diversity of species we see today, their theory doesn’t offer an explanation as to HOW life came to be on our planet 3.2 billion years ago. We know... Read More
Within much of western science prior to the 6th century BC, creation myths pervaded much of the answers to the creation of the universe and the species within it. Aristotle had proposed a taxonomy of nature. Amongst the... Read More
Natural selection is the key mechanism through with evolutionary change occurs and has led to the near infinite modifications that we see in the biological diversity of the world today. In order for natural selection to occur, three... Read More
The source of all essential nutrients is either in the atmosphere or in the form of rocks and minerals around us. These nutrients make their way through living and inorganic forms through nutrient cycling. As organisms are develop,... Read More
All energy on the planet is governed by the laws of thermodynamics. The first law states that energy can be transferred but cannot be created nor destroyed. The second law states that while energy is transferred, a portion... Read More
Each environment an organism inhabits holds a different set of constraints for processes related to the survival, growth, and reproductive ability of a species. Different patterns of temperature, precipitation, seasonality, depth, salinity, pH, and dissolved oxygen among terrestrial... Read More
Ecology is the study of the relationship between organisms and their environment Ecology is the scientific study of the relationships between the processes behind an organism’s ability to survive, grow and reproduce, and the physical/chemical components (abiotic –... Read More
Episode 1 of The Ecology Podcast, hosted by Arun Dayanandan, Charles Plaisir, and Kyle Grant. In this episode we talk about who we are, what got us interested in ecology, and where we hope to take the show.