Notes for March 23rd

• Prior to reading this post, I was unaware of the "ecology of fear".
• A review of studies documenting various aspects of why women are less represented in math and science.
• Something every rancher seems to know intuitively but has never been shown with any evidence to the public/research community:  Managing for the highest quality grasslands in the plains seems to reduce the profitability of the land.  The authors modified grazing to produce 'poor', 'good' and 'excellent' grassland quality.  But, as we've discussed previously, quality is a subjective term, and grazing is just one management tool for grasslands.  I'm also wondering whether the lower quality grasslands are sustainable (the authors investigated over a 34 year period, which is a long time for humans, but not a long time for a grassland), or if they will degrade over time.  (via Conservation Maven)
• Predicting extinction risk in carnivores.  (via EEB & Flow)
• Gliding ants.  With videos! (via Arthropoda)