It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

Nature published a study yesterday that provides the first evidence for microbial ecosystems beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.  Genetic data suggests that the microorganisms discovered are a mix of chemosynthetic autotrophs and heterotrophs, and therefore likely influence the geochemistry of the surrounding Southern Ocean.

Mackey et al., in a recent article in Conservation Letters, paint a dire picture of the state of primary forests worldwide. – Nate Johnson

Etienne Low-Décarie and colleagues show that, over the past years, ecological models have become much more complex and that their explanatory power have decreased steadily, in their new paper “Rising complexity and falling explanatory power in ecology“.

The last issue of Science features three letters about animal population declines:

•  Fauna in decline: Plight of the pangolin
• Fauna in decline: First do no harm
• Fauna in decline: Global assessments

At last, SCALES, a research project aiming to bring  the issue of sac ale into biodiversity conservation, ha just released a free ebook: “Scaling in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation“. – Vinicius Bastazini.

August 22, 2014