Becky Barak is a plant community and restoration ecologist, a 2017 David H. Smith Fellow and a founder of the website Plant Love Stories. She has wondered about the “acid test” quote for years. 

[Becky writes...] Restoration is an acid test for ecology. 

Raise your hand if you’ve heard that statement before. I’ve heard it before -- in restoration ecology talks, classes and papers. I thought it was a restoration cliche. But when I asked on twitter, I was surprised that more than 70 percent of respondents (thanks for responding, respondents!) hadn’t yet heard this quote. So, what does it mean? Where does it come from? And what the heck is an acid test?

​[Anna writes...] Would a bird intentionally spread fires?

Wildfires are known to attract certain birds of prey. These birds aren’t looking to warm their feathers; they’re hoping their next meal will come from the insects and small mammals fleeing the blaze.

​Some raptors have even been reported to spread fires themselves.

Picture this: you're standing out in nature. Look down. What do you see?

Is it plants in your yard? Is it barnacles on a rocky sea shore? Is it a forest floor?

It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you're picturing it! (Mine's a prairie.)

Nearly every eco-savvy gardener knows that native plants are best for attracting native animal species. We plant milkweed for the monarchs and thistles for the finches. With native plants themselves in increasingly short supply in their wild habitats, and increasing evidence that pollinators are in trouble (e.g., Potts et al 2010 in Trends in Ecology & Evolution), the more natives we can plant for the pollinators, the better.
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But a scientific research paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology last year (Salisbury et al. 2015) is challenging the assumption that natives are always the way to go.