Now you're getting into where my interest starts. That point in time where geology and humans started to function together. Clans who learned to turn chunks of obsidian and flint into useful tools.....archeology. My hobby, pilfering in fields ans streambeds looking for something I can touch, feel, a "link" to the ansestors if you will.
I'll have to go back and read most of this, but this thread caught my interest. Currently a semester away from a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries bio and looking either to getting a MS or just going into the field for a while. Whichever presents itself more available, especially wetlands based. The sheer diversity of those places compared to how little of the Earth's surface they cover is amazing.
Byrdman, a big hearty welcome! Glad you've joined our little informal study group. I'm at work now -- working on a very important slide show that will become a video eventually. It's an "advanced" course that I've taught once before, but years ago, and in very different circumstances with very different tools (no video). I'm designing it with the help of my ten most advanced students, five in Maine, five in Oregon (some go back to studies with me as early as 2003). The video would be a bit of a stretch here -- pretty advanced stuff, requiring a prerequisite (more basic course to start with) -- but it's about some of the stuff we're discussing in here re complexity. So, I'm pretty focused on that right now since it's going to be part of my money-earning process starting in May. But I'll be back soon to play more here, and follow up on what I posted earlier re muscle tissue and geology. (I've been thinking about creative ways to link the two and have fun with it.) And yes, I very much agree about wetlands biology/ecology. Amazing places. I grew up in kind of a wetland (Miss'ippi R watersheds near Memphis). Then came a couple of decades in the deserts -- which I also love but for different reasons. Now I'm in Maine which -- depending on time of year (like now, "mud season") is mostly one big wetland. (I'm looking at a temporary pond in my "backyard".) Knee height rubber boots are pretty much a necessity here, even for backpacking, unless you're doing high ridges like around Katahdin or in the western mountains. The potential for aquatic biology and ecology here are stupendous, including -- for me, especially -- microbial. (My undergrad was in invertebrate biology -- most of it small to microscopic, including insects.) My kingdom for a phase/contrast microscope and a vid cam to fit it. Older (1950's) PC scopes start around $4500 to $10k. New ones -- don't even ask. PS: I've had a LOT of experience with choosing grad schools, both those that worked and those that didn't (there be dragons). When you get closer, shoot me a 'pm' and I'll offer a few simple tips for choosing the "right" one for you, or at least increasing your chances of finding it.
Just an update for you Stone- I'm back at my undergraduate school as a Soil Science MS, but my project (when I get to start sampling next semester) definitely feels more like an ecology based project, focusing more on how well cover crop pasture acts as prairie surrogate, using grassland birds, among other parameters, as indicators. Excited becuase nothing like this has really been done or documented in the SE US. Now, if I could just get a good balance between TA'ing and Schoolwork!
Hey, Byrdman, thanks for your post. I see I've let this wonderful thread go dormant -- last post before yours was back in April. :-o Your program sounds very interesting, and it's truly great to read that you are excited by it. (I've known too many co-students in the past that really weren't excited by their work -- just a means to an end.) I hope you'll update us over time as it proceeds. I'm curious, are you aware of Allen Savory's work in "holistic management"? I suspect he takes a different approach to yours -- his ideas (and himself) are quite controversial: people either like it or hate it. But he offers some compelling evidence that his methods work (seemingly stunningly well) in at least some cases. I've been interested in it for years, but haven't gone too deeply into it, and I feel that he sometimes overstates his case. But there may be something of interest there for you.
I don't believe that I have, I might have to take a look into it! And like I said last post, right now not much is going on besides school and teaching, which while time-consuming, isn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be. But when field season starts up I plan to take lots of photo documentation (because who doesn't like pictures of what's going on).
On second thought, i think I have heard a little bit of his work. I think I saw a video in class about using rotational grazinf in Africa to replicate the movements of the native herd species. There is some similarity to what I'll be doing; my plots are all in or near the univeristy beef farm, and will be rotationally grazed by the cattle.
Great to see you here, @jeeter . Hell, we might have ourselves a discussion yet! (Topics always require a critical number.) I've been thinking about this thread a bit, and have two thoughts for now. One, I need to go back and reread the first few pages to see what we talked about already last spring, and get a sense of what I think I wanted to do with this thread. It's been a while. Two, I'm having a ... radical thought about "next steps" with it. I think I may produce a short talking head video with some slides, to introduce myself a bit more formally, and as an experiment about how to use video in forums like this. Biology and ecology are my professional home base; I'm a student and teacher of both. (My FUD is in evolutionary ecology on top of a LOT of university training in biology, ecology, and evolution.) For some concepts, I think video would offer me much better, easier ways to explain things than simply writing. I enjoy writing, and am fairly effective at it, but not everyone wants to read paragraphs of complex technical explanation. Sometimes, a picture (or video) is worth a million words. Might be fun, and offer you all a bit of ... insight into who I really am as a person. (Warning: may cause fear and loathing in some viewers. ) But I may have to put that off for a few weeks, at least anything significant -- I'm working on a HUGE project this week, a video in fact, that I intend to be a core of a large fundraising effort that I'm going to start on Indiegogo (like Kickstarter) later this autumn to help me develop a company around my work next year. Then, I'm going to be getting a week or two of camping in up just south of Katahdin before snow flies. But after that, once winter arrives -- <best GoT voice> Winter is coming -- then I'll have more time.
Thanks, @Stone . Good to be back. I’m currently working on a grad degree in resources management, focusing on water issues. Human impact on the environment and ways to mitigate it are interesting. Sustainability, green, going hippie. Kind of. One of the things I’ve been reading up on is Artificial Recharge, essentially pumping water back underground to replenish aquifers. And of course, the downside of aquifer depletion, which runs the gamut from land subsidence to loss of biodiversity to human conflict etc. But more on that tomorrow. Right now I’m tired. Just found out that Olaf has strep and now Patchy is coughing and running a light fever. Joy.
Are you thinking of making a wetland surveying/deliniation firm, or something similar? There's a couple of those around my hometown, and one of my buddies worls for one and makes me jealous; keeps finding Venus Flytraps and Pitcherplants in the field.
Interesting and relevant question. No, not that kind of company, although technically, I'm trained to do it, both biology, ecology and I have an MS in math with a focus on probability theory and statistics. But instead of going a research direction after grad school -- though I toyed long with the idea (explored a couple of post-doc positions) -- I went into college-level teaching. I taught biology and math full-time (with perks!) at a community college in NM for eight years. Since 2001, I've been a free-lance college teacher teaching the complexity (system) sciences (and mathematics) mostly applied to biological and ecological systems. Yeah, yeah, I know, there is no such thing as a free-lance educator. Education has gone mainstream and corporate. (Universities are "non-profit" <wink, wink> corporate entities that still do quite well for themselves.) So, I'm trying to invent a new educational niche, and after nearly two decades of struggle (after investing a LARGE sum of personal funds into it), I feel I'm gaining ground. I taught live seminars and courses for most of that time to a few hundred students (much more successfully on the west coast in larger cities, not so well in small town Maine ). But now, I'm getting into video production, so I can put my courses that I've developed during those 18 years on video. I'm not a professional videographer, but I've had some training and have learned a LOT by self-study. Given the Internet, that gives me a pretty large audience. And I don't need many to make a quite descent living, and hopefully support a well-dialed company built around it.
Does this mean we’re gonna I think I speak for everyone when I say keep us posted! I’m curious to see how it turns out and compares to the contemporary system in place now (listen to me use that BS).
Didnt realize there were this many people interested in this. I just found this thread the other day and have been going through it all. I'm currently in my jr year of undergrad working on a degree in Natural resource ecology with a focus on rangeland management. @Stone you mentioned Allan Savory, we've gone over alot of his work in a few of my principle classes. In fact one my my professors went to a conference put on by the Savort institute in South Africa a few years back.
9:30 pm on Friday night -- at work. Have had dinner #1 (2 hours ago), heating #2 now. Rendering a video to mp4. (Been working on this puppy for a week.) It's not finished; this is the 2nd render to mp4 (there are layers -- best to collapse all layers after a point before adding more) -- but all the really hard part is finished. Layer 3 is easy, creative stuff -- photos, text, etc. Point is this: I'll get back to you tomorrow. @Spikebot587 , glad you've joined us. And glad I'm not the only one here who's been exposed to Savory's ideas. There's a lot of systems (complexity) behind his work. At some point, it bends into his own philosophy. But up to there ...
Here's an update for Stone and everyone else. First M.S. semester went off relatively beautifully, and it's almost time to start my research (Thank God). I'll start in late March with several treatments of summer cover crops, and hopefully (the one part that worries me) the avian ecology aspect. If the second part falls through I think we're just going to collect data on a winter cover.
Field season has begun! Crops are planted, initial soil samples have been taken, and my bird survey route has been planned!
In the short rows now, bird survey has long been over, and a few treatments are still developing last time I checked. There's a field day coming up that if there's any photos taken of me showing off my work , I'll see about putting them here(good chance my advisor will send one or two to twitter). But other than that, get it finished and mowed so we can take soil samples, and of course, the writing .
Another update: just got some analyses back for carbon and slowly putting the survey data into an easier to manipulate form. Hoping to defend in late May. Also got a few good aerial shots.
