CIPRES, for CyberInfrastructure for Phylogenetic RESearch, is a web-based portal or “gateway” launched at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego that allows researchers to explore evolutionary connections among species using supercomputers provided by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) XSEDE (eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment) project.
Researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis are challenging the notion that environment drives the evolution of brain size. A new study was released Sept. 25 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Human activities could change the pace of evolution, similar to what occurred 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, leaving modern birds as their only descendants. That's one conclusion drawn by the authors of a new study published in Systematic Biology.
In a new paper published in PLOS ONE, researchers describe a recent, rapid, and ongoing invasion of monk parakeets in Mexico, and the regulatory changes that affected the species’ spread.
Research efforts aimed at identifying bat species or individual populations that may be able to survive the arrival of deadly White-nose Syndrome (WNS) received a boost this week with the announcement of $100,000 (U.S.) in new funding for cross-border bat science.
Physicist Gabriel Mindlin has been looking at the phenomena from what is one of the most unifying and potentially enlightening perspectives of the issue: the dynamical physics of birds’ vocal organs. In his work, published this week in the journal Chaos, he explores the role of fundamental physics properties in the acoustic complexity of birdsong, and the relationship they have with neural instructions for their production.
A recurring theme in nature documentaries is that of choosy females selecting brightly colored males. A new study shows that, in monogamous mating systems, male birds may select their lifelong mates in much the same way.
Today, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) released video of three Endangered white-winged ducklings leaving their Koki tree-hollow home for the first time while their mother patiently waits for them to follow.
An increased number of bat sightings in the fall coincide with young bat being encouraged to leave the nest and fend for themselves.
A new University of Utah-led study shows that targeted forest regeneration among the largest and closest forest fragments in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and the Atlantic Forest of Brazil can dramatically reduce extinction rates of bird species over time.
Tulane University researchers have received a grant from the Morris Animal Foundation to continue study on lead exposure in wildlife.
Writing Aug. 11 in the journal Environmental Research Letters, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Tracey Holloway, an expert on air quality, and her former graduate student Olivia Sanderfoot, sort through nearly 70 years of the scientific literature to assess the state of knowledge of how air pollution directly affects the health, well-being, reproductive success and diversity of birds.
The ThermalTracker software analyzes video with night vision, the same technology that helps soldiers see in the dark, to help birds and bats near offshore wind turbines.
A biomathematician, neuroscientist, eletrophysiologist and statistician focus their attention and brainpower on how electrical brain impulses translate into a behavior.
Human-caused habitat loss looms as the greatest threat to some North American breeding birds over the next few decades. The problem will be most severe on their wintering grounds, according to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology.
A Cornell University study suggests that social feedback from other birds plays a crucial role in how baby birds – and human babies – learn to communicate.
A new antiviral drug candidate inhibits a broad range of coronaviruses, including the SARS and MERS coronaviruses, a multi-institutional team of investigators reports this week in Science Translational Medicine. The findings support further development of the drug candidate for treating and preventing current coronavirus infections and potential future epidemic outbreaks.
Tracking movements of individual particles provides understanding of collective motions, synchronization and self-assembly.
In 2014, during a visit to a remote part of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, ornithologist Dr. Miguel A. Gómez Garza came across parrots with a completely different colour pattern from other known species. A study published today in the open-access journal PeerJ names these birds as a new species.
It's easy to make up a story to explain an evolved trait; proving that's what happened is much harder. Here scientists test ideas about cooperative breeding in birds and find a solution that resolves earlier disagreements.
Biologists have always been fascinated by the diversity and changeability of life on Earth and have attempted to answer a fundamental question: How do new species originate?
Algal blooms deplete oxygen in lakes, produce toxins, and end up killing aquatic life in the lake. Researchers are tracing the role of bird feces, which are rich in phosphorus and nitrogen.
Biodiversity Research Institute will hold its annual meeting of the Wyoming Loon Working Group in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on May 24. Collaborators from state and federal agencies, nongovernmental research and conservation groups, and local universities will meet to discuss the status of Common Loons in the state. These meetings are an integral part of Wyoming’s conservation efforts regarding loons.
Which came first, overall bigger brains or larger brain regions that control specialized behaviors? Neuroscientists have debated this question for decades, but a new Cornell University study settles the score.
A federal program that pays farmers to plant agricultural land with environmentally beneficial vegetation is probably the reason that sage grouse still live in portions of Washington’s Columbia Basin, according to a new study by UW, state and federal researchers.
Compelling evidence shows females prefer mates with better cognitive abilities in a number of animals and even humans. For male songbirds, their ability to sing complex songs has been suggested to signal cognitive ability and is vital for attracting females as well as repelling rival males. What’s not clear is how female songbirds can judge the cognitive abilities of potential mates, which is a necessary first step if smarter mates are preferred over their not-as-smart counterparts.
Researchers from the University of Missouri School Of Medicine recently discovered that although alligators, birds and dinosaurs have a similar skull-joint shape, this does not guarantee that their movements are the same.
Ravens have impressive cognitive skills when interacting with conspecifics – comparable to many primates, whose social intelligence has been related to their life in groups. An international collaboration of researchers led by Thomas Bugnyar, Professor at the Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, could uncover for the first time the group dynamics of non-breeding ravens. The results help to understand the evolution of intelligence in this species and were published in the scientific journal "Scientific Reports".
A research team reports that fully grown Galapagos penguins who have fledged -- or left the nest -- continue to beg their parents for food. And sometimes, probably when the bounty of the sea is plentiful, parents oblige and feed their adult offspring.
Scientists use LIDAR and radar data to study bird migration patterns, thanks to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility.
Birds exhibit an astonishing variety of nest designs, and in no group is this variety more striking than in the passerines.
To study the migration patterns of white-throated sparrows researchers kept track of how active the birds were by day and night. When the temperatures dropped , the birds all became restless at night, signifying they were in a migratory state. As temperatures raised none of the birds showed signs of migratory restlessness.
The WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) announced today that Dr. Jonathan Slaght will be honored for his work in Russia to conserve the Blakiston’s fish owl, an endangered species and the largest owl in the world.
The Natural Resources Management and Biological Sciences Departments are collaborating with the Operations Division to devise a humane method of studying and mitigating the bird’s numbers and effects on facilities.
Colin Parrish, John M. Olin Professor of Virology at the Baker Institute for Animal Health in Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, an expert on influenza viruses and the spread of the virus in animals, says the highly pathogenic influenza strain currently infecting wild birds and domestic poultry in several European countries could be transmitted to birds in North America as migratory flyways of some European and North American wild bird species overlap in the northern reaches of Canada.
This winter, Project FeederWatch – a citizen-science program where participants track birds visiting their backyard feeders from November to April – celebrates its 30th anniversary.
The global map of alien bird species has been produced for the first time by a UCL-led team of researchers. It shows that human activities are the main determinants of how many alien bird species live in an area but that alien species are most successful in areas already rich with native bird species.
New University of Washington research finds that for some songbirds, urban sprawl is kicking them out of their territory, forcing divorce and stunting their ability to find new mates and reproduce successfully, even after relocating.
A team of geologists at the University of Rochester has discovered a new species of bird in the Canadian Arctic. At approximately 90 million years old, the bird fossils are among the oldest avian records found in the northernmost latitude, and offer further evidence of an intense warming event during the late Cretaceous period.
Researchers from the University of Georgia have found that invasive species on Hawaii Island may be especially successful invaders because they are formidable scavengers of carcasses of other animals and after death, a nutrient resource for other invasive scavengers.
Number of avian species soars to 18,000
Researchers from China, Canada, and the University of Bristol have discovered a dinosaur tail complete with its feathers trapped in a piece of amber.
Birds of a feather flock together but they schedule parenting duties differently. Kansas State University researchers are part of an international team of ornithologists who have published a study in Nature about how mated pairs of wild shorebirds have established diverse schedules for parental care of the nest.
A new study led by Pacific University biologist Chris Templeton demonstrates that the alarm calls of songbirds are dramatically impaired by road traffic noise. Research by Templeton and colleagues has shown that signals critical for the survival of animals are compromised when birds live near even moderately busy roads.
Milder winters have led to earlier growing seasons and noticeable effects on the breeding habits of some predatory birds. This study looks at kestrels that nested in both non-irrigated shrub and grasslands and those that nested in irrigated crops and pastures.
Plastic in ocean releases sulfuric scent that tells seabirds to forage
A Texas A&M University team has discovered three never before documented bird species in Africa, and there could well be more.
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