I’d like to try something new and see if it sticks — a weekly post briefly noting a handful of items from the scientific blogosphere I’ve noticed in the past week. Here goes:

Photo by ehpien.

• NeuroDojo: Chickadees grow new brain cells while caching food — but they grow more in the wild than they do in captivity.
• Dechronization: Mitochondrial DNA is not as good for evolutionary and ecological genetics as was once thought. It doesn’t even evolve in a nice, clocklike fashion!
• The EEB & flow: Plant communities have a lot going on underground.
• Conservation Maven: Exotic giant tortoises seem to make pretty good replacements for extinct native giant tortoises. (Of course, it’s hard to imagine introduced giant tortoises ever running amok in a new habitat.)
• EcoTone: Loss of top predatory fish can spur algae blooms.