Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) is an international legally-binding treaty with three main goals: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Just to recap, components of biodiversity are all the various forms of life on Earth, including ecosystems, animals, plants, fungi,Continue reading “United Nations Convention on Biodiversity”

Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809 in Shrewsbury, England and was a British naturalist known for his theory of evolution and his deep understanding of the process of natural selection. Darwin was born into a family of scientists, in which he was the second youngest of six kids and a child of wealth andContinue reading “The Evolution of Charles Darwin”

Arthur Tansley published a paper in the Journal of Plant Ecology in 1917 titled “On Competition Between Galium Saxatile L. (G. Hercynicum Weig.) And Galium Sylvestre Poll. (G. Asperum Schreb.) On Different Types of Soils”. The original method was to plant the seeds of the two species together in different types of soils. The fourContinue reading “Do You Know What’s Missing from Tansley’s 1917 Paper???”

Lucy Beatrice Moore is known as the ‘the mother of New Zealand botany’ was born on 14 July 1906 in Warkworth, New Zealand. She grew up as the fifth child of eight siblings on their farm, Huamara. Her parents Janet Morison and Harry Blomfield Moore (librarian) encouraged her love for nature and plants. After attendingContinue reading “Lucy Beatrice Moore: A Brief Biography”

Henry Chandler Cowles was born on 27 February 1869 on a small farm in Connecticut, USA. He was the oldest son of Henry Martyn Cowles (a farmer and market gardener) and Eliza Whittlesey (a Sunday school teacher and daughter of a Cleveland judge). On 27 March 1888 Cowles graduated from New Britain High School andContinue reading “Henry Chandler Cowles: A Brief Biography”

Peer-reviewed articles refer to sources that are reviewed by a panel of authorities and are thus more reliable than sources that have not been peer-reviewed. Research articles in peer-reviewed journals [primary literature] and chapters in edited textbooks [tertiary literature] are some examples of peer-reviewed sources. Peer-reviewed sources are generally more robust since they have undergoneContinue reading “The Three Types of Literature”

What the 2019 Report on Climate Change says about Vegetation Loss The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) an intergovernmental panel of the United Nations published a short report last year. This Summary for Policy Makers also holds integral information on the impacts of climate change on vegetation worldwide. An increase in photosynthetically active plantContinue reading “Shades of Green and Brown”

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett Every student knows the nerve-wracking experience of failure. Whether we have failed in a biodiversity class, or we think we are going to fail a report on organic chemistry, failure keeps us from moving. Science is all about action, andContinue reading “Advice to Science Students: Learn How to Fail!”

Students can easily get confused between the different class of literature when they are first starting off writing their very first essay or lab report. I’m sure I did! However, before I started doing my research for those assignments, I took a lot of time to understand the differences between a peer-reviewed primary, secondary andContinue reading “Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Literature – Monkey Puzzle Tree”