New research from William & Mary published in PeerJ Life & Environment reveals that decals intended to reduce incidents of bird window strikes—one of the largest human-made causes of bird mortality— are only effective if decals are placed on the outside of the window.
Computer scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with biologists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, recently announced in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution a new, predictive model that is capable of accurately forecasting where a migratory bird will go next—one of the most difficult tasks in biology. The model is called BirdFlow, and while it is still being perfected, it should be available to scientists within the year and will eventually make its way to the general public.
Fleeing isn’t the only way by which songbirds can protect themselves against predators.
Careful siting of renewable energy development seems to play a key role in minimizing impacts to wildlife, but this requires detailed knowledge of where animals breed, winter, and migrate. To address this need, BRI established a wildlife and renewable energy program in 2009, which has evolved over the past 12 years into BRI’s Center for Research on Offshore Wind and the Environment (CROWE).
Julia Gulka tackles emerging environmental issues in an office surrounded by photographs, illustrations, and personal watercolor paintings of the birds she studies and the places she has traveled.
The red junglefowl – the wild ancestor of the chicken – is losing its genetic diversity by interbreeding with domesticated birds, according to a new study led by Frank Rheindt of the National University of Singapore published January 19 in the journal PLOS Genetics.
Birds fly more efficiently by folding their wings during the upstroke, according to a recent study led by Lund University in Sweden. The results could mean that wing-folding is the next step in increasing the propulsive and aerodynamic efficiency of flapping drones.
A study examined the effects of anthropogenic noise on cognition, beak color, and growth in the zebra finch. Researchers first tested adult zebra finches on a battery of cognition assays while they were exposed to playbacks of urban noise versus birds tested without noise. Urban noises caused the birds to take longer to learn a novel foraging task and to learn an association-learning task. Urban noise exposure also resulted in treated males to develop less bright beak coloration, and females developed beaks with brighter orange coloration, respectively, than untreated birds. Findings suggest that urban noise exposure may affect morphological traits, such as beak color, which influence social interactions and mate choice.
Researchers at Hokkaido University have revealed the effects of high pathogenicity avian influenza virus infection on an Ezo red fox and a Japanese raccoon dog, linking their infection to a recorded die-off of crows.
Here are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Marine Science channel on Newswise, a free source for media.
It is now widely accepted that birds are descended from dinosaurs.
Animals must defend resources critical to their and their offspring’s survival. With few resources, tree swallows become more territorial, which likely increases testosterone allocation in their eggs. This may promote offspring aggression, a trait critical for survival in competitive environments.
As nations meet this week in Montreal on efforts to address an unprecedented loss of biodiversity — more than a million species are threatened with extinction — a new study published in The Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B points to the unique and vital role animals play in reforestation.
New research reveals that the animals that perceive time the fastest are those that are small, can fly, or are marine predators.
Collisions with glass windows on buildings, transportation shelters, noise barriers and fences are a major source of bird mortality.
Diving birds like penguins, puffins and cormorants may be more prone to extinction than non-diving birds, according to a new study by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.
British Trust of Ornithology researchers call for better monitoring of soil invertebrates after new research, collating 100 years of data, suggests significant and previously undetected declines in UK earthworm abundance could have occurred.
NAU professor Jeff Foster was recently awarded a grant by the DoD for a new study, “Demonstration of Metabarcoding for Monitoring Bird Species Habitat Quality on DoD Installations.” This three-year, $900,000 project will focus on five insectivorous species on four military sites.
While most animals don’t learn their vocalizations, everyone knows that parrots do – they are excellent mimics of human speech. Researchers aim to add to what we know about animal vocal learning by providing the largest comparative analysis to date of parrot vocal repertoires.
The European robin’s closest relatives are found in tropical Africa. The European robin is therefore not closely related to the Japanese robin, despite their close similarity in appearance.
Researchers show that great bustards in Spain prefer to eat two plant species with compounds active in vitro against protozoa, nematodes, and fungi: corn poppies and purple viper’s bugloss. Males, who spend much time and energy on sexual displays during the mating season, have a stronger preference for these plants than females, and more so during the mating season than at other times of the year. The authors thus consider great bustards as prime candidates for non-human animals that self-medicate, but stress that more research is needed to definitively prove this.
Un nuevo estudio que se presenta en la Reunión Científica Anual del ACAAI de este año muestra que un tratamiento que usa una tecnología de edición genética de repeticiones palindrómicas cortas, agrupadas y regularmente interespaciadas logró aliviar la inflamación y reducir la frecuencia de los ataques.
For centuries, Indigenous communities in the American Southwest imported colorful parrots from Mexico.
Scientists have so far found at least two genetic pathways leading to the same physical outcome: all-black feathers. This change was no random accident. It was a result of nature specifically selecting for this trait. The new study is published in the journal PLOS Genetics.
A new species of owl has just been described from Príncipe Island, part of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe in Central Africa.
A study has found that Eurasian jays can pass a version of the ‘marshmallow test’ – and those with the greatest self-control also score the highest on intelligence tests.
Hybrids of two common North American songbirds, the black-capped and mountain chickadee, are more likely to be found in places where humans have altered the landscape in some way, finds new University of Colorado Boulder research.
New research from King’s College London has found that seeing or hearing birds is associated with an improvement in mental wellbeing that can last up to eight hours.
A recent study, published in Current Biology, led by researchers at Stockholm University and Uppsala University, has shown that juvenile songbirds react to hearing the songs they will eventually produce as adults, even when they are as young as 12 days old.
Zoologists from Trinity College Dublin, working with a research team in Indonesia, have found several new species of colourful, tropical sunbirds.
The journeys of night-migrating birds are already fraught with danger. Light pollution adds yet another hazard beyond the increased risk of collisions with buildings or communication towers.
Project FeederWatch is back—with more ways to participate, more time to participate, and more ways to keep track of who is seeing what, where. The expanded 36th season of FeederWatch begins November 1 and ends April 30, 2023.
A newly released State of the Birds report for the United States reveals a tale of two trends – one hopeful, one dire. Long-term trends of waterfowl show strong increases where investments in wetland conservation have improved conditions for birds and people. But data show birds in the U.S. are declining overall in every other habitat – forests, grasslands, deserts, and oceans.
A new scientific review article led by WCS captures the unique and dynamic characteristics of coastal lagoon ecosystems in the Arctic Beringia Region, and discusses how climate change effects and human development could alter these habitats.
Tiny amounts of crude oil on the water surface, less than one percent of the thickness of a hair, can damage seabird feathers, a University College Cork (UCC) study finds.
By documenting hundreds of new nectar plants for painted ladies, scientists have renewed hope these charismatic butterflies may prove resilient to climate change.
The latest dinosaur discoveries in the Dinosaurs channel on Newswise.
A new study led by Lund University in Sweden shows that cities negatively affect the diversity of birds. There are significantly fewer bird species in urban forests compared with forests in the countryside - even if the forest areas are of the same quality.
The World Health Organization says monkeypox is a global health emergency. Scientists use ultrabright X-ray beams and diffraction imagery to understand how poxviruses behave. This can accelerate development of critical vaccines and treatments for monkeypox and other poxviruses.
On an island 30 miles off the coast of San Francisco, a hoard of invasive house mice are packing an ecological wallop far larger than what their small statures would suggest.
Near-real-time data on avian-solar interactions will help the energy industry understand risks and opportunities for wildlife at solar energy plants.
The woodpecker forebrain contains specialized pecking-related regions that resemble those associated with song and language systems.
Thank the rare crested ibis for a clue that could someday help our bodies make better drugs.
It's not possible to grow cacao without insects - that's logical. After all, they ensure that the flowers are pollinated and that the valuable cacao fruits, a sought-after material for the food industry, develop. Studies in Indonesia had shown in the past that birds and bats also contribute to increasing crop yields. However, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows now how large this contribution is.
A three-year study in northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana found that – even at small scales – emergent wetlands or ponds support many wetland bird species.
. In a paper published today in Royal Society Biology Letters, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) demonstrate a clear connection between personality in wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) and the likelihood of divorce. Though the link between personality and relationship outcomes in humans is well-established, this is the first study to do so with animals.
Residents of southern Sydney, Australia have been in a long-term battle over garbage—humans want to throw it out, and cockatoos want to eat it.
Scientists have known that sex-determination in vertebrates happens in the germ cells, a body’s reproductive cells, and the somatic cells, the cells that are not reproductive cells.
Birds have impressive cognitive abilities and show a high level of intelligence.
Along with implications for the future, the findings illuminate important moments in our past, including human migration into the Americas, the variable human use of coastal and interior habitats and the extinction of the flightless duck Chendytes.
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