#engineering ecosystems

[wachinyeya]

https://english.radio.cz/beavers-build-planned-dams-protected-landscape-area-while-local-officials-still-8841536

A beaver colony in the Brdy region has gained overnight fame by building several dams in the Brdy protected landscape area, creating a natural wetland exactly where it was needed. It saved the local authorities 30 million crowns, and has the public cracking jokes about public administration and red tape.

The administration of the Brdy protected landscape area, which had gained approval for the 30 million crown project, was dealing with red tape and seeking the respective building permits from the Vltava River Basin authorities when the dam project was completed almost overnight by a local colony of beavers.

They could not have chosen their location better –erecting the dams on a bypass gully that was built by soldiers in the former military base years ago, so as to drain the area. The revitalization project drafted by environmentalists was supposed to remedy this. Bohumil Fišer, head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration says Nature took its course and the beavers created the necessary biotope conditions practically overnight.

[cognitivejustice]

When water buffalo make a home for themselves in abandoned spaces, they can bring with them a rich array of frogs, bats and plant life.

Each autumn, as tadpoles outgrow their tails, the Kizilirmak Delta on Turkey's Black Sea erupts into chaotic commotion with the emergence of marsh frogs. While the fist-sized frogs are at home in the delta's wetlands, dozens can be seen hopping out of the muddy waters to exploit one particularly strange and unusually lively hunting ground.

Climbing up a hillside of thick fur, the frogs encounter terrain that's warm underfoot and an atmosphere that buzzes with flies. But there are risks to foraging here. The surface beneath their webbed feet twitches and shakes, and the entire floor is prone to lurching unpredictably through the air and collapsing into the mud.This moving mountain of brawn and bugs is the muscular back of a massive water buffalo. On each of these giants roaming the delta, as many as 20 frogs or more can be found hitching a ride to their next meal.

In this – the first observed example of amphibians foraging on the body of a large mammal – Turkey's marsh frogs have capitalised on one of the peculiar benefits that these huge animals bring to their wetland environments: their knack for attracting flies. Yet the frogs are just one of countless species worldwide, from bats to bog grasses, finding their surroundings transformed and their fates improved by the presence of buffalo.

Over the course of more than 3,000 years since the water buffalo were first domesticated in Asia, these half-tonne mammals have spread around the world. Today they are estimated to number more than 200 million across 77 countries on five continents. For generations they were prized as powerful plough-pulling draft animals and providers of nutritious milk. In recent years buffalo have begun to earn a reputation among conservationists as handy landscape managers and a crucially important ecosystem engineer.

[comic-journeyman]

Well here's my first art tumblr post!

I plan on posting a mix of new and old art and then just keeping current from there

Anyway, here she is!

Title: Untitled (open to suggestions)

Medium: Pencil, Acrylic Paint

Reference: Unnamed classmate

Statement:

This piece was part of a series, the overall theme being climate destruction. In the image a girl is staring into the beavers eyes, they are sharing a moment of reflection as each considers their role in the environment. They are sharing a spiritual bond as human connects back to her roots. I chose a beaver due to them being ecosysyem engineers. They calculate each log and slap of mud creating a structure so efficient that human engineers are unable to replicate it. They get their title of ecosystem engineers from their practice of digging deep into pond beds so water stays at an appropriate level year round, enabling pond life to flurish. They take a dry pond bed and literally tranform it into an ecosystem full of life.

- That's my infodump haha (you should look into more though I just scratched the surface!)

[ALL art on this account is NOT for AI use, all art is self owned and subject to copyright infringment. Please share and enjoy my art, just don't steal it 💕]

[fronomeeps]

the localization of old man emmet....

ok out of seriousness- for fun i made old man emmet an oc counterpart! his sole purpose is to be the protag of a lil rpg game id like to make. he doesn't have a name yet and have just been calling him the conductor/star conductor, he's the conductor of a space train! ill post about him mostly on my new game blog @fronosgamerchair

[distractionactivated]

Resolutely not reblogging a post about the UK biodiversity crisis to point out that drastic declines in biodiversity in the last 20-100 years do not, necessarily, mean that the entire history of human cultivation of nature here is catastrophic. Like, I get the point the person was making and I also think that the 'we made this green and pleasant land' rhetoric is usually thinly-veiled nationalist chauvinism, but also please think about the statistics you're using.

If your stats all point to the major damage being in the last century or two, this relates to industrialisation, industrial farming, power consolidation, and un/deregulation, not the activities of ordinary farmers 500 years ago or whatever. Therefore, it's not actually countering the points the 'green and pleasant land' chuds are talking about.

[scientificworldresearch]

A comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of ecosystem services (ESs) and their relationships with new-type urbanization is crucial for promoting sustainable development, particularly in rapidly urbanizing areas.

Scientific World Research Awards Visit our page : https://scientificworld.net/ Nominations page : https://scientificworld.net/award-nominati...

Get Connects Here ====================

You tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3VJAhOE-70w4G7Qi7AqoZA Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/swr_awards/ Blogger : http://scientificworldresearch.blogspot.com/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scientific-world-8a3327368/ Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/scientificworl... Twitter : https://x.com/SWR_Awards

[jcmarchi]

Stackpack Secures $6.3M to Reinvent Vendor Management in an AI-Driven Business Landscape

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/stackpack-secures-6-3m-to-reinvent-vendor-management-in-an-ai-driven-business-landscape/

Stackpack Secures $6.3M to Reinvent Vendor Management in an AI-Driven Business Landscape

In a world where third-party tools, services, and contractors form the operational backbone of modern companies, Stackpack has raised $6.3 million to bring order to the growing complexity.

Led by Freestyle Capital, the funding round includes support from Elefund, Upside Partnership, Nomad Ventures, Layout Ventures, MSIV Fund, and strategic angels from Intuit, Workday, Affirm, Snapdocs, and xAI.

The funding supports Stackpack’s mission to redefine how businesses manage their expanding vendor networks—an increasingly vital task as organizations now juggle hundreds or even thousands of external partners and platforms.

Turning Chaos into Control

Founded in 2023 by Sara Wyman, formerly of Etsy and Affirm, Stackpack was built to solve a problem she knew too well: modern companies are powered by vendors, yet most still track them with outdated methods—spreadsheets, scattered documents, and guesswork. With SaaS stacks ballooning and AI tools proliferating, unmanaged vendors become silent liabilities.

“Companies call themselves ‘people-first,’ but in reality, they’re becoming ‘vendor-first,’” said Wyman. “There are often 6x more vendors than employees. Yet there’s no system of record to manage that shift—until now.”

Stackpack gives finance and IT teams a unified, AI-powered dashboard that provides real-time visibility into vendor contracts, spend, renewals, and compliance risks. The platform automatically extracts key contract terms like auto-renewal clauses, flags overlapping subscriptions, and even predicts upcoming renewals buried deep in PDFs.

AI That Works Like a Virtual Vendor Manager

Stackpack’s Behavioral AI Engine acts as an intelligent assistant, surfacing hidden cost-saving opportunities, compliance risks, and critical dates. It not only identifies inefficiencies—it takes action, issuing alerts, initiating workflows, and providing recommendations across the vendor lifecycle.

For instance:

Renewal alerts prevent surprise charges.

Spend tracking identifies underused or duplicate tools.

Contract intelligence extracts legal and pricing terms from uploads or integrations with tools like Google Drive.

Approval workflows streamline onboarding and procurement.

This brings the kind of automation once reserved for enterprise procurement platforms like Coupa or SAP to startups and mid-sized businesses—at a fraction of the cost.

A Timely Solution for a Growing Problem

Vendor management has become a boardroom issue. As more companies shift budgets from headcount to outsourced services, compliance and financial oversight have become harder to maintain. Stackpack’s early traction is proof of demand: just months after launch, it’s managing over 10,500 vendors and $510 million in spend across more than 50 customers, including Every Man Jack, Rho, Density, HouseRx, Fexa, and ZeroEyes.

“The CFO is the one left holding the bag when things go wrong,” said Brandon Lee, Accounting Manager at BizzyCar. “Stackpack means we don’t have to cross our fingers every quarter.”

Beyond Visibility: Enabling Smarter Vendor Decisions

Alongside its core platform, Stackpack is launching Requests & Approvals, a lightweight tool to simplify vendor onboarding and purchasing decisions—currently in beta. The feature is already attracting customers looking for faster, more agile alternatives to traditional procurement systems.

With a long-term vision to help companies not only manage but discover and evaluate vendors more strategically, Stackpack is laying the groundwork for a smarter, interconnected vendor ecosystem.

“Every vendor decision carries legal, financial, and security consequences,” said Dave Samuel, General Partner at Freestyle Capital. “Stackpack is building the intelligent infrastructure to manage these relationships proactively.”

The Future of Vendor Operations

As third-party ecosystems grow in size and complexity, Stackpack aims to transform vendor operations from a liability into a competitive advantage. Its AI-powered approach gives companies a modern operating system for vendor management—one that’s scalable, proactive, and deeply integrated into finance and operations.

“This isn’t just about cost control—it’s about running a smarter company,” said Wyman. “Managing your vendors should be as strategic as managing your talent. We’re giving companies the tools to make that possible.”

With fresh funding and a rapidly expanding customer base, Stackpack is poised to become the new standard for how modern businesses manage the partners powering their growth.

[monsterpotion]

Since you added on to that Nobilis post, I don’t suppose you know where online one could find people to play with?

Aside from "in the notes of that post" (I'm secretly hoping at least one game starts directly from this suggestion, but not holding my breath for it)...

Following the Glitch Kickstarter back in 2020, a Discord server centered on the works of Jenna Moran emerged. It's probably the highest concentration of Nobilis players into one digital space. We also do a ton of other stuff there! Here's an invite link!*

If Discord doesn't suit you, I'm not sure - obviously I've seen that there's a rising awareness of Nobilis on tumblr, but it can be hard to coordinate between people hereabouts. I would encourage the would-be players reading this to organize amongst yourselves, though, like... tumblr might not be a place online where one could find people to play Nobilis now but I'd love for it to become such a place! Beyond that, well, me, personally, I'm really just a tumblr/Discord woman, for better or worse. I'm sure there are Nobilis players on Cohost! I probably even know them! But I don't know how to find 'em, necessarily. I'm open to comments from anyone with more information on this matter!

And just to be upfront about this part: the current state of affairs means that games of Nobilis tend to emerge slowly. This is something I'm hoping to change with my propaganda, certainly, but I don't want anyone to expect to roll into the Discord server and find a group day one. It might happen! Depends on how this post does, I imagine. But I don't want to give an unrealistic impression.

*this invite link is currently active and should remain so. If it is deactivated at some future point (due to spam or misuse) I will edit this post. right before I hit post I remembered I can't edit asks that I've answered. If the link don't work anymore we probably had a good reason!

[toadsrbutch]

BUTCH WORKING ON MY LITTLE CAR?????????

[screambirdscreaming]

At the bus stop one time there was a gaggle of preschoolers waiting to catch the bus for a field trip day, and someone walked past with a couple of friendly little dogs, to great general delight.

But after a little bit, the dogs were getting overwhelmed, and the preschoolers were gently coaxed to back off so the person with the dogs could continue on. Specifically, one of the preschool teachers said, "Sometimes, when you're small, being surrounded by big people can be a bit scary and overwhelming. Even if they are friendly."

This was recieved as great wisdom: after all, the preschoolers were also small, and understood how scary and overwhelming big people could be! And the dogs were indeed even smaller than the preschoolers, so it made sense.

What was funny and charming was that, upon absorbing and reflecting on this wisdom, they all felt the need to tell it to one another. In tones of great insight, they turned to one another and said, "Did you know? Sometimes when you are small, being surrounded by big people can be scary and overwhelming! Even if they are friendly!" Back and forth, without any particular concern that they were all saying the same thing. Have reached comprehension of an insight, it must be shared!

I must say that this behavior is less charming in tumblr users than in preschoolers. Not least because tumblr users, having gained a little analytical skill to misuse, insist on Summarizing and Generalizing and Unifying the insights they repeat, quickly turning any interesting new information into formulaic dogmatic mush.

[wachinyeya]

European bison released in England’s ancient woodland have doubled in number since 2022, and the woodland has gotten healthier since, reviving previously extinct beetle species and increasing sightings of dormice and reptiles. And England isn’t the only European nation getting bison back in business: In the 1920s, there were just 54 European bison after intense hunting over millennia, but thanks to re-wilding efforts there are now around 10,000, mostly in Russia and Belarus. RTBC

[mcr-airplane]

Why is a340 your favorite plane enlighten us 🙏

its like when you look at your favorite band member and you just feel your entire heart explode. i dont know why but whenever i look at her i just explode. its also SO safe id trust that plane with my life. literally 4 incidents ever. literally my babygirl TELL ME SHES NOT BEAUTIFUL. pretty little quad engine plane <3 A340S NEVER FLY OVER WHERE I LIVE IM DEVESTATED :(

[meowww-ffxiv]

G'raha: Did you find something?

Liios: I found an invasive species problem, is what I found.

[spidersiren]

lor got (or is getting, depending on verse) her degree in marine biology. when she isn't helping out her nyc, she works at a marine life rehabilitation center. it's one of the very few things she's super passionate about and cares for deeply.

her favorites are the sea turtles.

[lockhartandlych]

to be fair calling female morning joggers an indicator species isn't the right terminology, as they're not a separate species from humans.

what would be more accurate is saying that female morning joggers are an indicator that humans in the area, a very significant species to the surrounding ecosystem, are exhibiting natural behaviors and thus are not stressed by outside factors.

we are not a keystone nor an indicator species, but we are ecosystem engineers, like beavers or kelp. if a population of humans are stressed, they'll stress the ecosystem around them in turn, harming everyone. seeing humans exhibiting natural behaviors is thus a sign of healthy humans, and thus reassurance that the ecosystem around them will remain stable.

Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.

[wachinyeya]

After 500 Years, the Beaver Is Back in Portugal and Ready to Give a Dam https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/after-500-years-the-beaver-is-back-in-portugal-and-ready-to-give-a-dam/

For the first time in 500 years, the European beaver has been seen in Portugal, a moment that one nonprofit has called “one of the most significant steps in the aquatic rewilding of Portuguese rivers.”

“We’re talking about a species that provides ecological services that no modern equipment can replicate with the same efficiency and scale, without costs and bureaucracy that can never be overcome. The beaver improves water quality, creates refuges for other species and helps us fight phenomena such as drought and fires,” emphasizes Prata.

Portugal suffers from both drought and wildfires, which the beaver’s impact can help prevent through the increased water retention in dryland soil, while the wetter lands beaver dams create act as natural fire breaks.

Jun 18, 2025