A beautiful view from the coastal cliffs in Exmoor – but not if you look more closely. The right side of the photograph is dominated by a dense yellow-green canopy extending up and down the cliffs for kilometers in each direction. It looks like a scar, or a cancer. What is it? If you walk…

Can you guess what this is a photograph of? It’s an algal bloom on the surface of a lake, seen from above. The algae are growing so well because of eutrophication due to shallow depths, low flow, and high nutrient inputs. The pattern is beautiful, but the lake itself is a mess. When I say…

The woods at Wytham are do not look very ordinary. They are cut through by roads and instrumentation, because this forest has been a home for ecological research at Oxford for over sixty years. This week I had the chance to make the short cycle trip from the city center to the top of the…

The New Forest is not very new any longer. King William I established it in 1079 C.E. and it has persisted in southern England through the present day. I had the pleasure of walking through some of it last week on an ecological tour with Jonathan Spencer and Jane Smith (land managers and very good…