Dr. Sara Iverson from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia is able to determine what predators at the top of the food chain are eating, and by extension, how their diet has changed due to changes in ecosystems.
As Wisconsin’s wolf population grows, intensifying the potential for conflicts with people, University of Wisconsin-Madison research is revealing that one of the most visible types of conflict — attacks on livestock — is highly localized and may be predictable.
In the first analysis of how warning coloration evolved in carnivores, researchers explain why some species use bold coloration to warn predators that they risk being sprayed with stinky gas or getting into a vicious fight, while others do not. Results are in the current online issue of Evolution.
A DNA-based study sheds new light on the complex evolutionary history of the woolly mammoth, suggesting it mated with a completely different and much larger species. The research, which appears in the BioMed Central’s open access journal Genome Biology, found the woolly mammoth, which lived in the cold climate of the Arctic tundra, interbred with the Columbian mammoth, which preferred the more temperate regions of North America and was some 25 per cent larger.
It’s an alligator-eat-alligator world out in the waters of Orange Lake in Alachua County, Florida. Cannibalism among American alligators is responsible for a 6–7% reduction in the number of juvenile gators here each year, according to a new study. This number is based on the recovery of marking tags from the stomachs of harvested alligators.
A team of 21 researchers from 11 nations has completed the first-ever study of the risk of extinction for individual seagrass species around the world. The 4-year study, requested by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), shows that 10 of the 72 known seagrass species (14%) are at an elevated risk of extinction, while 3 species qualify as endangered.
Texas Tech University biologists discovered a new species whose origins probably trace back to a dramatic marooning after glaciers receded and sea levels rose.
A new study by Baylor University environmental health researchers found that zebra fish exposed to several different technical mixtures of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) – a common fire retardant – during early development can cause developmental malformations, changes in behavior and death.
Two Kansas State University professors are fishing for answers on how Kansas River dredging influences native wildlife and water resources. Their project involves habitat and fish sampling on the Kansas River, which stretches across northeast Kansas.
“TerpSearch” survey could lead to more effective management of human activities that contribute to mortality of diamondback terrapins.
Bonefish are among the most sought-after sport fish in the world, but until recently scientists knew little about their spawning habits. Now, they’ve discovered more by tagging and tracking bonefish movements in the Bahamas. Results appear in an early online issue of the journal Marine Biology.
Physical anthropologist Chris Kirk has announced the discovery of a previously unknown species of fossil primate, Mescalerolemur horneri, in the Devil’s Graveyard badlands of West Texas.
Dalhousie PhD student Shane Gero has recently returned from a seven-week visit to Dominica. He has been travelling to the Caribbean island since 2005 to study families of sperm whales, usually spending two to four months of each year working on the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. One of the goals of this project is to record and compare whale calls over time, examining the various phrases and dialects of sperm whale communities.
Marine species facing threats from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico far exceed those under legal protection in the United States, a new paper finds. Researchers found 39 additional marine species beyond the 14 protected by federal law, ranging from whale sharks to seagrass, that are at an elevated risk of extinction.
Advertisers often tell us how life-changing hair loss can be, but it actually is a matter of life and death for the Australian fur seal. These seals depend on a thick coat of fur to maintain their body temperature. Seals in the Bass Strait off southern Australia are losing clumps of their fur. Damage to this insulation means that the animals must spend more energy maintaining a core body temperature, negatively affecting their health and survival.
There’s a reason to be afraid of the dark. Fish accustomed to living near the light of the water’s surface become proverbial “fish out of water” when they move to dark environments like caves, according to a study from North Carolina State University.
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo veterinarians, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program have joined forces to answer a perplexing wildlife question: Why are bog turtles getting sick?
Pyrite nanoparticles from oceans' hydrothermal vents rich source of iron for bacteria and plant life, University of Delaware researchers find.
A new research paper from an international and interdisciplinary team, published in the journal Ecography, has uncovered the mystery behind the relationship between the duration of the open water period and the geographic coverage of marine species.
In a new book, biologist Joe Roman traces the four-decade history of the Endangered Species Act--while describing his cross-the-nation tour following the tales (and sometime tails) of the many creatures (and a few plants) that have been at the center of the ESA’s contested place in American life.
For more than two hundred years, the question of why there are more species in the tropics has been a biological enigma.
Rotational grazing of cattle in native pasturelands in Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado regions can benefit both cattle and wildlife, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The University of Maryland, Columbia University and the Smithsonian Institution have pooled their expertise to create the world’s first plant identification mobile app using visual search – Leafsnap. This electronic field guide allows users to identify tree species simply by taking a photograph of the tree’s leaves. In addition to the species name, Leafsnap provides high-resolution photographs and information about the tree’s flowers, fruit, seeds and bark—giving the user a comprehensive understanding of the species.
Endangered fin whales are singing near the Verrazano Narrows, while further offshore blue, humpback and the highly endangered right whales resound. Cornell University bioacoustics researchers will talk May 4 in NYC about what must be done to understand and safeguard these whales.
Researchers eavesdropping on complex signals emanating from a remote Wisconsin lake have detected what they say is an unmistakable warning — a death knell — of the impending collapse of the lake’s aquatic ecosystem.
In a paper to be published today [April 29, 2011] in the journal “Science,” a team of Boston University researchers under the direction of Michael Hasselmo, professor of psychology and director of Boston University’s Computational Neurophysiology Laboratory, and Mark Brandon, a recent graduate of the Graduate Program for Neuroscience at Boston University, present findings that support the hypothesis that spatial coding by grid cells requires theta rhythm oscillations, and dissociates the mechanisms underlying the generation of entorhinal grid cell periodicity and head-direction selectivity.
In modern ecology, the removal or addition of a predator to an ecosystem can produce dramatic changes in the population of prey species. For the first time, scientists have observed the same dynamics in the fossil record, thanks to a mass extinction that decimated ocean life 360 million years ago.
The earstones of fish record their presence in "dead zones" in oceans and coastal waters and could be a tool in understanding fishes' interactions with their environment.
In a pair of studies, researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory report that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are consistently showing up in the blood and eggs of loggerhead sea turtles, that the turtles accumulate more of the contaminant chemicals the farther they travel up the Atlantic coast, and that the pollutants may pose a threat to the survival of this endangered species.
An international team of scientists, led by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, has used DNA to determine that groups of dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and copper sharks (Carcharhinus brachyurus) living in different coastal regions across the globe are separate populations of each species.
Georgia Tech researchers have solved the mystery of how fire ants self-assemble into a waterproof raft.
Mosquitoes make proteins to help them handle the stressful spike in body temperature that’s prompted by their hot blood meals, a new study has found.
Can sustainable aquaculture be the key in saving the blue fin tuna and keeping the fish a culinary treat worldwide.
A new VIMS study shows that turbulence from boat propellers can and does kill large numbers of copepods—tiny crustaceans that are an important part of marine food webs.
An Iowa State University researcher is one of a team of scientists who have recently researched the fly family tree -- one of the most complicated in the animal world. It turns out that houseflies have more than 152,000 cousins. And those are just the ones we know about.
A census team led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Insitut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo today announced some encouraging news from a region plagued by warfare and insecurity: a small population of Grauer’s gorillas has not only survived, but also increased since the last census.
A new study led by a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is painting a more complete picture of an extraordinary sea worm that makes its living in the depths of the ocean on the bones of dead animals.
In a study appearing in the May issue of the journal American Naturalist, researchers show that just three ecological factors – rainfall, predator diversity, and island size and shape – can account for nearly all of the differences in infection rates among the eight Channel Islands off the California coast.
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study.
Birds are known more for their senses of vision and hearing than smell, but new research suggests that millions of years ago, the winged critters also boasted a better sense for scents.
Twenty-one pronghorn were captured and fitted with GPS collars in the Upper Snake River Plain of Idaho as part of an ongoing migration study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and its partners, the Bureau of Land Management and Idaho Fish and Game.
Examining how fruit flies genes respond to exercise may hold clues to help people stay healthier and more active into their advanced years. But first scientists had to figure out how to get a fly to exercise.
For the first time in millions of years, king crabs are invading Antarctica which could mean organisms with disease-fighting compounds may be wiped out.
Invasive Plant Science and Management –Invasive plant species do not make good neighbors. Aside from their obvious disrespect for fence lines, weeds can continue to edge out native species even after the invaders have been plucked or controlled.
A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction.
As rice farmers across the southern U.S. prepare to plant their crop this month, evolutionary geneticist Ana Caicedo and others have begun a major new study of how weeds evolve in general and of invasive weedy rice in particular, a prime threat to a staple that feeds millions worldwide every year.
In an unprecedented collaborative analysis published in the journal PlosBiology, scientists from 49 nations demonstrated that the ability of reef fish systems to produce goods and services to humanity increases rapidly with the number of species. However, growing human populations hamper the ability of reefs to function normally, and counterintuitively, the most diverse reef fish systems suffer the greatest impairments from stressors triggered by human populations.
Research by Tufts biologists shows that wingless "stay-at-home" female fireflies get less support from their mates than females able to fly. Some male fireflies donate a "nuptial gift" to mates--sperm wrapped in a nutritious high-protein package. When a species' females lose the ability to fly, the males evolve to transfer only sperm, with no food gift.
Fossil teeth of African animals show that during the past 10 million years, different plant-eating critters began grazing on grass at different times as many switched from a salad-bar diet of tree leaves and shrubs, says a University of Utah study.
A species of algae long known to associate with spotted salamanders has been discovered to live inside the cells of developing embryos, say scientists from the U.S. and Canada, who report their findings in this week's PNAS. This is the first known example of a eukaryotic algae living stably inside the cells of any vertebrate.
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