Density at a distance

Next week's module in Grinnell's BIO 252 course (Organisms, Evolution, and Ecology) is about population ecology: in particular, density-independent and density-dependent population dynamics. You don't suppose there any, say, news items about those topics, do you?  Y'know. To show how they're relevant? Teachable-moments kind of thing?

Washington Post: simulations of density-dependent spread of a directly transmitted pathogen in human populations

The Guardian: severe outbreak of migratory desert locusts in Africa

Smithsonian Magazine: COVID-19 may threaten humans' closest relatives, just another spin of the extinction vortex for the great apes

How about some good news?  With a picture of a kitten, maybe?

The Scotsman: (wild) cat conservation

And here are some 2020 census data:

Seedling densities per 0.5-meter-squared in a Kern County population of Clarkia xantiana, Feb 2020. (Image by co-PI David Moeller, U. Minn. Twin Cities). Still counting after all these years.