Feature Channels: Nature

• share
• favorite_border

Leatherbacks are the largest turtles on Earth with evolutionary roots that go back more than 100 million years. But their numbers, particularly in the Pacific, are declining at an alarming rate due to egg harvest, fishery bycatch, coastal development, and highly variable food availability. A Dalhousie University team is conducting leading research on the turtles, including attaching satelite transmitters that are the basis for tracking them in the Great Turtle Race.

• share
• favorite_border

Team of researchers explores how inheriting favorable or unfavorable habitat affects the overall rise and fall of animal populations. For some animal species, inheriting habitat may play as much of a role in survival as inheriting intelligence, fertility, camouflage or other genetically transferred characteristics.

• share
• favorite_border

Two weeks after rains begin, an elephant family named "the Royals" usually switches to a grass diet to bulk up for pregnancy. But when they wandered off their African reserve, cattle grazed the grass so short that elephants couldn't eat it. The University of Utah study of isotopes in tail hair suggests how climate change and human encroachment may affect endangered elephants.

• share
• favorite_border

A team led by University of Illinois at Chicago biologist Jennifer Schmidt used DNA tagging to show that whale sharks, the world's largest fish, show little genetic variation across widely separated tropical oceans, underscoring the need for wider protection against over-fishing.

• share
• favorite_border

The wolves on Isle Royale are suffering from genetically deformed bones. Scientists from Michigan Technological University blame the extreme inbreeding of the small, isolated wolf population. They report the first scientific evidence in the current issue of the journal Biological Conservation.

• share
• favorite_border

Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago. Today, these same features characterize the large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that are in decline and at risk of extinction. They appear to be the least able to rebound from declining numbers due to overfishing.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today the discovery of a huge population of rare dolphins in South Asia"”but warns that the population is threatened by climate change and fishing nets.

• share
• favorite_border

Virginia citizens have been reporting a significant number of deaths of birds common to bird feeding stations such as finches. The current problem is not yet epidemic statewide. Salmonella occurs in wildlife in regular cycles, and we appear to be in one of those up cycles, says a wildlife specialist. Good sanitation with feeding stations is recommended.

• share
• favorite_border

Northeastern University and MIT researchers have observed"”for the first time"”the origin of a mass gathering and the subsequent migration of hundreds of millions of animals. Utilizing a new imaging technology invented by the researchers, they were able to instantaneously image and continuously monitor entire shoals of fish containing hundreds of millions of individuals stretching for tens of kilometers off Georges Bank near Boston.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at North Carolina State University and three universities in Japan have shown for the first time that it is possible for certain female termite "primary queens" to reproduce both sexually and asexually during their lifetimes. The asexually produced babies mostly grow to be queen successors "“ so-called "secondary queens" "“ that remain in the termite colony and mate with the king. This produces large broods of babies without the dangers of inbreeding, as secondary queens have no genes in common with the king.

• share
• favorite_border

Tips to preventing termite infestations in the home.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study documents how larval dispersal connects fish populations in a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) "“ information critical for policymakers. The study, done by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist and his colleagues in France and Australia, shows some larvae can travel from one marine MPA to another - up to 35 km away.

• share
• favorite_border

A new species of the oldest known beaked bird "“ about 120 million years old "“ has been named for biologist Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Feduccia is the S.K. Heninger professor emeritus and former chair of the biology department in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences.

• share
• favorite_border

A free, online archive of bird and animal sounds recorded throughout the western United States has been created at The University of Utah's J.W. Marriott Library. The digital archive available to anyone interested in listening to the natural sounds of this diverse section of the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

Take a new look at nature through the eyes of physicists at next month's March Meeting of American Physical Society (APS), which takes place from March 16-20, 2009 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.

• share
• favorite_border

A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia.

• share
• favorite_border

The annual meeting of GSA's South-Central Section will feature a presentation on the Arlington Archosaur Site in Texas. Among the site's 95 million-years-old rocks is a rich deposit of fossils, not only of an as-yet-unnamed carnivorous theropod, but also of a large, herbivorous "duck billed" hadrosaur, prehistoric crocodiles, turtles, sharks, and a new species of lungfish.

• share
• favorite_border

Leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, are threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans. A Dalhousie University professor addresses the threat of plastics to this endangered species.

• share
• favorite_border

Despite the popularity of great white sharks in television and cinema, relatively little is known about their biology, and even less is known about their evolutionary origins. A new 4-million-year-old fossil from Peru provides important evidence suggesting the shark's origins may be more humble than previously believed.

• share
• favorite_border

Austin has become the largest city in the country to be certified as a community wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. Community wildlife habitats create spaces that provide food, water, cover, and places for wildlife to raise young throughout an entire community"”in individual yards and in public areas such as schools, parks, and businesses.

• share
• favorite_border

New software developed with help from the Wildlife Conservation Society will allow tiger researchers to rapidly identify individual animals by creating a three-dimensional model using photos taken by remote cameras.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time ever, rescuers used a new sedation delivery system to help free an entangled North Atlantic right whale. The new system was developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with NOAA and the Univ. of Florida and the Univ. of Wisconsin veterinary schools to make the animals more approachable by rescue boats.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wildlife Conservation Society today released its third report on pronghorn and natural gas drilling in Wyoming's Upper Green River Basin. The report revealed that while most pronghorn appear to be unaffected by gas drilling in the study areas, others are losing ground to areas of highest development.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program (WCS "“ India) has released a unique training video on YouTube that showcases the latest scientific methods for estimating the numbers of wild tigers and their prey.

• share
• favorite_border

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a poorly understood condition that, in the two years since its discovery, has spread to at least seven northeastern states and killed as many as half a million bats. Now researchers have suggested the first step toward a measure that may help save the affected bats: providing localized heat sources to the hibernating animals.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Adelaide research has discovered that there are many more species of Australian lizards than previously thought, raising new questions about conservation and management of Australia's native reptiles.

• share
• favorite_border

Lizards living in tropical forests could be in serious peril from rising temperatures associated with climate change. In fact, those forest lizards appear to tolerate a much narrower range of survivable temperatures than do their relatives at higher latitudes and are actually less tolerant of high temperatures.

• share
• favorite_border

High-speed movies by MIT neuroscientists reveal the first glimpse of rat whiskers in action, showing the micromovements underlying the rat's tactile perception, which is closely related to the human sense of touch. These patterns, which are larger and more complex than any previously observed, are key to a rat's perceptions and behavior.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), together with the World Bank and Global Environment Facility (GEF), announced today a commitment of $2.8 million toward tiger conservation across its range. WCS will lead a new project, Tiger Futures, in partnership with other conservation organizations with long-term field experience in tiger conservation throughout countries spanning the big cat's geographical range in Asia.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time, researchers have documented a shift in breeding ranges for northerly species in North America. The study parallels findings in Europe.

• share
• favorite_border

"Psychedelica" seems the perfect name for a fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren, including bouncing like a ball along the seafloor. The new species has rare forward-looking eyes and is described in the journal Copeia.

• share
• favorite_border

With one "howl" of a good idea, University of Montana scientists have developed the howlbox, a low-cost device that emits wolf calls and then records any responses. It offers another tool to track the controversial species.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Montana researcher Scott Mills and his students have noticed an exceptional number of white snowshoe hares on brown earth. He contends that climate change and the color mismatch are causing much more hare mortality.

• share
• favorite_border

A combination of changing weather patterns, overfishing, pollution, and other factors have conspired to drive penguin populations into a precipitous decline, according to long-term research funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

• share
• favorite_border

When in a predator's grips, many lizards drop their tails to escape. But what price do they pay for freedom? A team led by biology professor Gary Gillis of Mount Holyoke College found the lizards were compromised: They could no longer jump without tumbling backwards, making it difficult to land safely when jumping between branches.

• share
• favorite_border

The economy isn't just squeezing the middle class on land, it's also affecting fish. According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other organizations, researchers discovered a surprising correlation between "middle class" communities in Eastern Africa and low fish levels.

• share
• favorite_border

Chinstrap penguins and fur seals showed persistent preferences for particular foraging areas even after a storm reduced the availability of food of choice in those areas, according to a study by Dr. Joseph Warren, Assistant Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University and colleagues.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Utah biologists discovered that young "right whales" learn from their mothers where to eat, raising concern about their ability to find new places to feed if Earth's changing climate disrupts their traditional dining areas.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- and that's a conservative estimate.

• share
• favorite_border

Times are tough for wildlife living at the frontier between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Armies are reportedly encamped in a national park and wildlife preserve on the Congolese side, while displaced herders and their cattle have settled in an adjoining Ugandan park.

• share
• favorite_border

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) released photos today from the first large-scale census of jaguars in the Amazon region of Ecuador"”one of the most biologically rich regions on the planet.

• share
• favorite_border

Popularized by the 2005 movie "March of the Penguins," emperor penguins could be headed toward extinction in at least part of their range before the end of the century, according to a paper by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers published January 26, 2009, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

• share
• favorite_border

An international research team has discovered the first vertebrate with eyes that use mirrors rather than lenses to focus light. The spookfish, Dolichopteryx longipes, manages to focus light in the lower eye without using a lens. Light enters the lower portion of the eye and hits a mirror composed of stacks of crystals. This is the first time that this type of focusing mechanism has ever been found in a vertebrate.

• share
• favorite_border

Island-dwelling white-eyes have long been dubbed "great speciators" for their apparent ability to rapidly form new species across geographies where other birds show little or no diversification.

• share
• favorite_border

The global trade in frog legs for human consumption is threatening their extinction, according to a new study by an international team including University of Adelaide researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

New data released today by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Malaysia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) reveals that a population of endangered Asian elephants living in a Malaysian park may be the largest in Southeast Asia.

• share
• favorite_border

Last winter, government agencies killed one third of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd due to concerns about the possible spread of a livestock disease to cattle that graze in areas around the park. Such drastic measures may be unnecessary, however, according to researchers who have assessed the risk of disease transmission from Yellowstone bison to cattle.

• share
• favorite_border

A treasure trove of information about pre-human New Zealand has been found in faeces from giant extinct birds, buried beneath the floor of caves and rock shelters for thousands of years.

• share
• favorite_border

New tires allow race cars to take tight turns at high speeds. Hind wings give moths and butterflies similar advantages: They are not necessary for basic flight but help these creatures take tight turns to evade predators.

• share
• favorite_border

Human-made light sources can alter natural light cycles, causing animals that rely on light cues to make mistakes when moving through their environment. In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a collaboration of ecologists, biologists and biophysicists has now shown that in addition to direct light, cues from polarized light can trigger animal behaviors leading to injury and often death.