A thread on what we know, and how we know it
The science.
The mechanisms underneath what's happening in your patch.
Most of what's true about a backyard is true because of biology, not because of opinion. The food web is a real thing. Co-evolution between plants and insects is a real thing. Keystone species, pollination, decomposition — these are mechanisms, and they were worked out by patient people in lab coats who counted and counted and counted.
These notes are about that work. The science underneath what we observe. The reason a native oak feeds five hundred species and a Bradford pear feeds almost nothing is not aesthetic preference. It's evolutionary history. We try to translate that history into language a person can use without a degree.
We are not scientists. We are readers of scientists. If we get something wrong, we want to know. Write to hello@backyard.bio and we will correct it in the next revision.
Start here
A keystone species is one whose absence would collapse the food web around it. There are surprisingly few of them. They matter much more than the others.
Read the full note →More in this thread
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Goldenrod is innocent. Ragweed is the one that makes you sneeze.
For decades it has been blamed for autumn allergies it does not cause. The actual culprit is ragweed.
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The myth of the tidy yard
Why an immaculately mowed lawn is a 20th-century invention with a strange history, and why most things alive prefer a little disorder.