crushing the writer's spirit

sigh. my editor asked me to write a news story. i did but wasn't entirely pleased with my work. neither was the big bad boss apparently. not only has it been recommended that i talk to some other news writers for advice, through all the red pen scribbles i find that my news story has been pulled, forever to languish unpublished. and right after i mostly fixed it too. so, loyal reader, since the 9,000+ esa members won't get to see it, you're stuck with it. enjoy. really. do.

------
Until recently, direct comparisons of amber faunas were impossible due to sampling variability. Researchers David Penney (University of Manchester, Manchester, UK) and Mark Langan (Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK) set out to resolve this issue.

In the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of spiders preserved in amber during the Cenozoic era (beginning 65 million years ago), the study compared 671 amber fossil assemblages from the Dominican Republic and the Baltic Region. Considering that the two research sites are separated geographically by a great distance and in time by about 20 million years, one might expect a difference in the way that the amber captured the spiders.

The study, as published in Royal Biology Letters (2006; doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0442), characterized the preserved spiders according to family, predation strategies, and body size. Penney and Langan found the same families and methods of hunting represented at both sites. However, web-building spiders were larger in the Baltic while other predatory groups were similar in size between the two sites. The study attributes the difference in size to the structurally complex vegetation in the Baltic. Modern-day web-weaving spiders are larger in amber producing trees where they have adequate space for web support, capture, and retreat. “The fact that we’re not getting any size difference in the non-web-spinners suggests that the resin secretion was operating in the same way”, concludes Penney.

Amber fossils provide a unique insight into the ecology of the past. “The faunal assemblages that you find in the amber can be used to recreate the ecological conditions of the time”, explains Penney. “For example, the relative frequency of spider families in an assemblage will be indicative of particular climatic regimes.” Sampling uniformity will allow future comparisons in an ecological context to address interesting biological problems on a larger scale. Paleoecologists can look at what has happened to communities in the past and make predictions about issues such as climate change or habitat degradation.

Although this is the first time that such an exhaustive study of amber assemblages has been undertaken it won’t be the last. Says Penney, “I think quantitative amber paleobiology is definitely the way forward. Paleontologists have more data in the fossil record over time scales that people working in living faunas can only dream of”.
----

should i tell her that i only got a c in my one and only journalism class and vowed never to write again after that? should i say that my soul has been crushed yet again? that my talent and my parents' hopes and dreams are screaming for expression with the written word? nah. oh, and reader? the quotes are in the wrong place 'cuz we write in british style. obnoxious really. i spent my first month putting them all back in the right place.

if you're interested, I have been published. See my article on the 2006 International Wetland Symposium