just for fun

November 7th, 2015 § 0 comments § permalink

Just for fun I am going to take a mainstream article about climate change and warming seas, and parse it here as a list of the highlighted terms within itself. Which is to say, tell me if you get the drift if I eliminate everything but the bold, linked or italicized print.  Full piece is HERE, but just for fun:

Ocean acidification benefits invasive species

By BRIAN MASTROIANNI, CBS NEWS
November 6, 2015, 5:15 PM

acidification of the world’s oceans
increased carbon levels
threaten native populations
jellyfish
threats to indigenous marine life
pathogens
corals
volcanoes
previous mass extinctions

Thanks Obama! [Not being sarcastic, I mean really, thanks Obama.]

plankton class of 2013

September 18th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Plankton is a lot like high school. Individuals find themselves tossed into a motley group of assorted creatures headed in the same direction. (Stay with me here.) They might not have anything much in common – they might be different sizes, eat different things, and perform vastly different roles in the ecosystem. Sometimes they are diverse; sometimes they are homogeneous (like during an algal bloom). Yet there they are, bound together in the Plankton Class of 2013.

Experts talk about this slippery set using terms such as “guild”, “ecological group” and “functional type”.  These groupings are not necessarily related to taxonomic or physiological closeness, but might throw a lasso around a particular activity the plankton are involved in, such as the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the ocean.

Just like your friends from high school, individual plankton might  veer off to become wildly different in their adult forms.  They might cycle for generations in local waters while others are drawn off into distant carbon sinks. If only they had some form of Facebook to keep in touch…

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