How does wildlife colonise barren land?

To the left is a rich and vibrant unofficial nature reserve that contains a wide range of animals from Butterflies, beetles, mice, dragonflies, foxes and moths, as well as plants such as ragwort, buddliea, cow parsley and daisies. However not too long ago, this area of land contained nothing more than rubble from the previous demolition of a building. And yet, it has somehow developed into this  wildlife rich haven. But how exactly does the incredible colonisation of barren land occur?

Before rough terrain can be hospitable to the majority of animal life (apart from lizards and other reptiles and small mammals that can use the nooks and crannies of rock piles to hide from predators), plants must first colonise the land.  The seeds of plants can be transported to these terrains mainly through the wind, or by animals that have either carried them in their fur or that have eaten them; depositing the seeds in their droppings. However the first plant colonisers of rough terrain like this one will mainly consist of grasses, mosses, wildflowers such as Ragwort (left), nettles and other weeds etc as they have evolved to absorb nutrients out of mostly nutrient deficient environments. Due to the force of the weather, other plants that require more hospitable environments with higher levels of nutrient content can also survive, as strong wind and rain can cause rocks to erode, leading to the formation of soils that contain the nutrients formally trapped in the rock. The leaves of the first plant colonisers can also improve the soil, as any leaves that fall will decompose, releasing their nutrients into it.

Once a range of plant life has established itself on an area of land, insect life such as bee's, hover-flies, beetles etc can feed on the nectar and pollen that these plants produce, as well as on the leaves during their larval stages. These insects will help the plants to reproduce by transporting pollen, creating more plant life for the site in the future. Small insects such as springtails, ants and mites, as well as crustaceans such as woodlice and millipedes can also improve the health of the environment by breaking apart decaying plant life, allowing it to be released back into the environment.

Due to the now growing population of insects, birds and insectivorous mammals and reptiles will become attracted to the area as it contains the small creatures they feed on. Small organisms are also prey animals for birds of prey such as sparrow hawks and falcons, as well as larger mammals such as foxes which will also become attracted to the site.

On building sites like the one pictured, the land itself can be very rough and uneven. This is good news for aquatic life as when it rains, pools of water are likely to form. Small pools of water can attract marine insects such as mosquitos and dragonflies that produce aquatic offspring. They can also attract amphibians such as newts and frogs.



So the next time you walk past a building site, or an abandoned area of land, do not refer to it as a waste land. To the natural world, there is no such thing.

-Thomas Glen

facebook.com/goodnaturepage

Photos: Thomas Glen

Why do people believe in bullshit?

Its now becoming more and more of a rarity that I am able to leave my house without some form of mind-numbing drivel presenting itself to me in one form or another. I walk through my local high street past a Chinese medicine store (pictured to the left) that claims it has an effective cure for baldness, something  that the international medical community has been kept in the dark about apparently. I go on Facebook and see endless streams of Facebook pages claiming that vaccinations were created by (seemingly) satan himself. Even friends of mine or other students at my university surprise me with tales of ghost sightings, psychic dreams, possessions by the devil during church services, and the "facts" behind astrology. And whenever I come across these claims I always think one thing. What drivel. What pure, meaningless drivel.  I even once opened a Jamaican newspaper known as The Gleaner that had an article about crystals as a method of fortune telling, explained in a positive light as if it were true. But what causes people to believe such things? I mean there is no evidence that the position of the planets has any effect on our lives in any way, and yet almost every newspaper I have come across throughout my life has had a horoscope page with some vague hokum about the planets alignment foretelling our daily lives. Well in my opinion it comes down to 3 main reasons. 

1. The popularity of pseudoscience-based social media pages:

Facebook as well as other social media sites contains a ridiculous number of pages with ever increasing fan bases, that of which post many claims rarely backed up with any reliable evidence.

 For example, pages such as Food Babe and Dr Oz have hundreds of thousands of followers, all of these followers being able to see the many outlandish ideas posted by these pages. Ideas that are mostly made up of evidence lacking conjecture. And because of the number of fans these pages have accumulated due to the attractive images used, and the wide use of health-based terminology such as "cleanse", "toxin", as well as complicated chemical formulae that the common person will not be able to understand or be able to verify as true, any information posted is spread across the globe turning ridiculous, biased, and mostly falsifiable information into common knowledge among the masses.

 2. The lack of scientific mind sets:

As a zoology student, I have had the scientific method drilled into my head (figuratively of course-calm down conspiracy nuts) and will now rarely take any information I discover at face value, unless it is accompanied by substantial evidence to back it up. However not everyone has had a scientific background, and do not require as much evidence before making a decision. For example, say a person discovers he/she has cancer and has to go through intense chemotherapy to cure it. Chemotherapy can cause nausea, intense pain as well as a range of other incredibly uncomfortable symptoms, but someone with a scientific mind set realises it is the best treatment method due to the meticulous peer reviewed research that has lead to its creation. However, someone without a scientific mind set may not realise that chemotherapy is the best choice of treatment and may wish to avoid the dire side affects that come with it, choosing to look for much more pleasant alternative medicines; medicines that have not been studied, tested and peer reviewed by the scientific community. Scenarios similar to this one have caused many, including Apple CEO Steve Jobs, to die unnecessarily when scientifically tested treatments were available. 

If someone does not feel the need, or naturally does't even consider the idea, to study science-based evidence before making a decision, they are likely to become victims of the misinformation that runs rife in our society. 

3. The prolific human characteristic to believe the most exciting and unbelievable explanation:

Conspiracy theorists and their outlandish theories fill our media from time to time. Whether they be discussing how the moon landing was faked, how the blowing up of the twin towers was actually orchestrated by the american government, or that aeroplanes give off mind altering chemical trails while in flight, there will always be many who believe them with a passion. And that is because people want to believe things. 

People want to believe that aliens have visited our planet because it would be freaking awesome if it were true. They want to believe their parents are sitting in heaven, rather than rotting in the ground because it makes them feel better, and they want to believe that unlike the many ordinary and dull members of the human race, they themselves have psychic abilities and are therefore unique in some way. When it comes to intense belief, scientific reason is ignored by billions all over the world because scientific inquiry can discover evidence proving their core beliefs to be absolutely meaningless. Completely wrong. And this does not sit well with people. Just look at every religion in existence. There is no evidence for any of them, and yet look how many there are, and how many followers they have.

Evidence-lacking drivel presently fills our society more than ever, and I'd say the only way of combatting it is by increasing scientific thinking. Horoscopes should be removed from newspapers, and it should be more greatly explained to people why they have no validity whatsoever. No magazine or tv show should ever be allowed to release information that they claim to be true, that can be proven to be false in any way. And religious ideology should be kept as far apart from science as possible (In what way is teaching Noah's Ark in science class useful to anyone). If everyones first thought when being told an unbelievable piece of information was "What evidence is there to back up this claim",our world would be a much more logical and straight thinking place. Maybe then pseudoscience would disappear, less people would die from deadly illnesses after using useless treatments, new age healing would go the way of the dodo, and my university friend would stop trying to convince me that she saw the ghost of a long dead woman standing in her bedroom.

-Thomas Glen

Facebook.com/goodnaturepage

Sexton Beetles-The undertakers of the insect world

When you think of an undertaker, you probably think of a pale, middle aged man with bags under his eyes, who wears black clothes and has a number of selfies on his phone that he has taken with his dead colleagues (or maybe that last ones just me). However, I bet you’ve never considered that undertakers exist in the insect world.

The Sexton or Burying beetle (pictured) has the strange behavior of burying animal corpses it finds such as of shrews, rats and birds. 

When an animal dies, its pungent aroma can be sensed by these beetles due to chemoreceptors they have in their large antenna, and a single decaying animal can attract many of these beetles to the same corpse. This can lead to a number of beetles fighting one another over this valuable food source (males fighting males and females fighting females) until one couple remains afterwards who then goes on to mate. 

However if a male finds a food source with no female, he can release a pheromone to attract one, and a lone female may be able to raise a family on this food source with the use of sperm she may have stored from previous matings.

After a male and a female find each other on a corpse, the new couple will begin digging a hole underneath to bury it. As they do this, they remove all of the fur and cover the animal in  anti bacterial and anti fungal secretions, as well as other substances. This not only slows the decay rate of the corpse, but it also decreases the pungent smell of the corpse so as not to attract hungry animals, as well as rival Sexton beetles towards it. 

Sexton beetles also cleanse the animal corpse further due to small mites that they carry upon them wherever they go. When a Sexton beetles finds a corpse, these mites feed on the eggs and larvae of other insects that may be found on it already, making it more sterile which is what the adult beetles want. As the mites are able to feed, and the beetle has a more sterile corpse, this beetle/mite relationship is beneficial to both parties.

But why do Sexton Beetles go through all of this hard labour? Well it is all done for the reason life on earth does anything at all. For the purpose of reproduction.

The female will then go on to lay her eggs on the soil around the corpse. Once the eggs have hatched, the larvae will move into the corpse and make complete use of the huge, protective long-lasting food source, compliments of their loving parents. Although the parents have created this haven for their offspring, they will spend time digesting and regurgitating food for them. 

After a few days the larvae will leave the corpse and enter the soil where they go on to pupate, and change from their larval form into full grown adult beetles.

-Thomas Glen