{"id":676735,"date":"2020-12-21T17:33:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T21:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=676735"},"modified":"2020-12-21T17:33:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T21:33:46","slug":"monitor-lizard-should-be-regarded-as-ecosystem-engineer-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=676735","title":{"rendered":"Monitor lizard should be regarded as &#039;ecosystem engineer,&#039; researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ten years of research led by the University of South Florida has revealed that a monitor lizard should be regarded as an &#8220;ecosystem engineer,&#8221; a rarity for reptiles. Tortoises and sea turtles are the only reptiles considered to be ecosystem engineers, a term used to describe organisms that have a great impact on their environment based on their ability to create, modify, maintain or destroy a habitat. Sean Doody, assistant professor and graduate director of integrative biology at the USF St. Petersburg campus, discovered that while a related species is considered invasive in the United States, in Australia, small animal communities rely on the monitor lizards&#8217; burrow system, called a warren, using it as a habitat, a place to forage for food and nesting.&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n Click here for original story, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2020-12-lizard-regarded-ecosystem.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Monitor lizard should be regarded as &#8216;ecosystem engineer,&#8217; researchers say<\/a>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Phys.org&#013;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten years of research led by the University of South Florida has revealed that a monitor lizard should be regarded as an &#8220;ecosystem engineer,&#8221; a rarity for reptiles. Tortoises and&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phys-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}