Citizen scientists can contribute to an effort to enter thousands of preserved organism samples from the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory into an easily searchable database. An ISU scientist overseeing the project said there’s no telling what kind of discoveries may await among the various specimens of plants, insects and animals.
Fish and birds are able to move in groups, without separating or colliding, due to a newly discovered dynamic: the followers interact with the wake left behind by the leaders. The finding offers new insights into animal locomotion and points to potential ways to harness energy from natural resources, such as rivers or wind.
The structures zipping together the barbs in bird feathers could provide a model for new adhesives and new aerospace materials, according to a study by an international team of researchers publishing in the Jan. 16 issue of Science Advances. Researchers 3D printed models of the structures to better understand their properties.
With winter temperatures in Maricopa County rarely dipping below freezing--60 degrees and raining, like today, is one of its more wintry days--Arizona is a perfect home for virus-carrying mosquitoes to overwinter, allowing the virus to survive.
A new study combining data from citizen scientists and weather radar stations is providing detailed insights into spring bird migration along the Gulf of Mexico and how these journeys may be affected by climate change. Findings on the timing, location, and intensity of these bird movements are published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Bats have long intrigued humans. In a variety of cultures, they embody malevolent symbolism, including darkness, death, foreboding, and evil spirits. In others, they’re benevolent flyers who bestow good fortune. Bats themselves also come in a variety of forms and shapes. The miniscule “bumblebee bat,” ranks among the world’s smallest mammals. Flying foxes, which eat mostly fruit and other vegetation, can have wingspans reaching up to 6 feet long. The clear-winged wooly bat may be one of the strangest to look at. Its wings are nearly transparent, and the muscles, circulatory system, and bones are clearly visible through the translucent, almost-paper-thin skin.
Light pollution is on everyone’s minds in Reno, Nevada, a city famous for its bright lights and nightlife. Nighttime light pollution is a growing concern for cities worldwide. Artificial light at night has been found to cause serious health effects including disrupting our sleep-wake cycle ¬–our circadian rhythm.
When it comes to flirting, animals know how to put on a show. In the bird world, males often go to great lengths to attract female attention, like peacocks shaking their tail feathers and manakins performing complex dance moves. These behaviors often stimulate multiple senses, making them hard for biologists to quantify.
Texas State University researchers, in partnership with Bat Conservation International (BCI), have completed a trial of an ultrasonic acoustic Bat Deterrent System that reduced overall bat fatalities at the Los Vientos Wind Energy Facility in Starr County by 54 percent.
Under future climate scenarios, changing winds may make it harder for North American birds to migrate southward in the autumn, but make it easier for them to come back north in the spring. Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology came to this conclusion using data from 143 weather radar stations to estimate the altitude, density, and direction birds took during spring and autumn migrations over several years.
A study by an international team of conservation scientists found that a dam built in Thailand 31 years ago has caused the local bird population to collapse.
Move over, range maps: A new series of dynamic bird maps from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology reveals unprecedented details not only about where the birds are, but how their numbers and habitats change through the seasons and years.
The study, which was recently published in Nature, tracked how disease is spread by placing colored dust on hibernating bats to mimic how a fungal pathogen is transferred from one individual to another. Then, biologists found connections between how the dust moves and actual diseases spread.
Argonne researchers discovered how to keep birds and pilots at a safe distance to avoid run-ins at air force bases.
Kennesaw State microbiologist Chris Cornelison is among a collaborative team of researchers awarded a $365,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to combat white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease causing the rapid decline of tricolored bats in Texas.
The sport of parahawking, or paragliding in partnership with a bird of prey, is an opportunity to experience flying like a bird. And the Torrey Pines Gliderport adjacent to the University of California San Diego is one of the only places in the world where you can don a harness, jump off a seaside cliff and soar with a raptor. Alumnus David Metzgar co-leads the unforgettable flights, as well as a falconry school and other interactive encounters with hawks, falcons and owls.
Male birds-of-paradise are justly world famous for their wildly extravagant feather ornaments, complex calls, and shape-shifting dance moves—all evolved to attract a mate. New research published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology suggests for the first time that female preferences drive the evolution of physical and behavioral trait combinations that may also be tied to where the male does his courting: on the ground or up in the trees.
In August of 2017, millions peered through protective eyewear at the solar eclipse—the first total eclipse visible in the continental United States in nearly 40 years. During the event, researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the University of Oxford watched radar to observe the behavior of birds and insects.
Scientists have shown that a bird found in Pennsylvania is the offspring of a hybrid warbler mother and a warbler father from an entirely different genus—a combination never recorded before now and which resulted in a three-species hybrid bird.
A team of Wisconsin researchers documents that woodland hawks — once in precipitous decline due to pollution, persecution and habitat loss — have become firmly established in even the starkest urban environments, thriving primarily on a diet of backyard birds attracted to feeders.
To find ways to improve man-made active sensing, scientists worldwide study the sonar systems of bats and dolphins. During the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9, Laura Kloepper will compare bat and dolphin sonar systems, describing her work on how the two animals cope with acoustic interference. She'll use her findings to argue why bats have the superior system.
For more than 30 years, people who feed wild birds have been reporting their observations to Project FeederWatch at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. FeederWatch participants turn their hobby of feeding birds–a hobby more than 50-million strong in North America–into scientific discoveries. Their reports help scientists better understand what happens to birds facing challenges such as climate change, habitat loss, and disease.
By studying barn owls, scientists believe they’ve taken an important step toward solving the longstanding mystery of how the brain chooses what most deserves attention.
When the male bearded manakin snaps its wings at lightning speed, it’s more than part of an elaborate, acrobatic mating ritual. The tiny muscle doing the heavy lifting is also the reason this exotic bird has evolved into four distinct species, according to new research published in the journal eLIFE by Wake Forest University biologist Matthew Fuxjager.
Warmer temperatures are pushing mountain-dwelling birds ever higher as they try to stay in their comfort zone. That's the conclusion of a group of scientists who retraced the steps of a 1985 expedition in the Peruvian Andes and documented how birds had shifted in the intervening 30 years. The new study also shows that species that were already living on the ridge-top now have smaller ranges and some have disappeared altogether compared with the 1985 survey.
When homeowners make landscaping choices, they may be inadvertently turning their yards into food deserts for birds, especially if they rely on non-native plants that don't support the insect life needed to provide feed for birds.
A joint research team from the National University of Singapore and Indonesian Institute of Science has described an unusual new songbird species. The bird was named the Rote Leaf-Warbler Phylloscopus rotiensis after the island of Rote where it is found.
A Mississippi State sociologist’s upcoming book explores how one rural community is adapting as shifting climatological conditions have eliminated more than 100,000 geese from a traditional wintering ground.
Orin Robinson, a fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, conducted research using eBird that provided evidence of endangerment of the California Tricolored Blackbird.
The combined impact of deforestation and wildlife exploitation on bird numbers is severely underestimated and could lead to some species becoming extinct, a joint study by the National University of Singapore and the University of Sheffield has found.
A new study shows Humboldt Bay to be one of the key sites in the western hemisphere for dozens of species of shorebird including western sandpiper, marbled godwit, and long-billed curlew.
Scientists know that upward currents of warm air assist birds in flight. To understand how birds find and navigate these thermal plumes, researchers used reinforcement learning to train gliders to autonomously navigate atmospheric thermals. The research highlights the role of vertical wind accelerations and roll-wise torques as viable biological cues for soaring birds. The findings also provide a navigational strategy that directly applies to the development of UAVs.
Using cloud computing and data from 143 weather radar stations across the continental United States, Cornell Lab of Ornithology researchers can now estimate how many birds migrate through the U.S. and the toll that winter and these nocturnal journeys take. Their findings are published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
September is the peak of autumn bird migration, and billions of birds are winging their way south in dramatic pulses. A new study published in the journal Science reports that scientists can now reliably predict these waves of bird migration up to seven days in advance. The study details the underlying methods that power migration forecasts, which can be used as a bird conservation tool.
Cloud forests are not immune to down-to-earth problems of climate change and deforestation. A 10-year study of bird populations in Cusuco National Park, Honduras, shows that the peak of bird diversity in this mountainous park is moving higher in elevation. Additional land protection may not be enough to reverse the trend, driven in part by globally rising temperatures.
Researchers have found declines in the number and diversity of bird populations at nine sites surveyed in northern New Mexico, where eight species vanished over time while others had considerably dropped.
You know that smell of fresh cut grass? It's a cry for help. Plants use scent cues to protect themselves and new research has identified the use of these plant volatiles in agricultural settings.
For a new study, UF/IFAS researchers used nine years of data to find out whether snail kites are reproducing after they move, and how these findings might change conservation strategies.
Birds create songs by moving muscles in their vocal organs to vibrate air passing through their tissues, and new research shows that these muscles act in concert to create sound. Scientists describe how zebra finches produce songs in this week’s Chaos: Using electromyographic signals, they tracked the activity of one muscle involved in creating sound, the syringealis ventralis. They then used the data from this muscle to create a synthetic zebra finch song.
Patients taking opioids for at least three months before spinal fusion surgery in the lower spine are much more likely to continue taking opioids one year after surgery, reports a study in Spine. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
In a new study, biologists have discovered that different versions of a single gene, called NDP (Norrie Disease Protein), have unexpected links between color patterns in pigeons, and vision defects in humans. The gene variations were likely bred into pigeons by humans from a different pigeon species and are now evolutionarily advantageous in wild populations of feral pigeons living in urban environments.
A study finds that chemicals used in flame retardants, plasticizers and other commercial products are broken down through the process of metabolism into other compounds. Researchers say not enough is known about the dangers posed by those compounds, known as metabolites.
ew research is adding validity to the adage "Birds of a feather flock together." A citizen-science-based report published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances suggests that when crows team up to take on a bigger foe it can be a highly successful strategy.
In a new study, researchers directly compared more than 16,000 DNA locations, and for the first time found clear evidence of genetic differences between Red-shafted and Yellow-shafted Flickers.
A new University of Washington-led paper pinpoints starvation as the cause of death for hundreds of thousands of Cassin's auklet seabirds in late 2014 to early 2015.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announces results of its five-year loon study Restore the Call: a male loon chick that was translocated in 2015 from the Adirondack Park Region of New York to the Assawompsett Pond Complex (APC) in southeastern Massachusetts has returned to the APC lake from which it fledged. The identification of this loon (through color bands) marks the first confirmed account of an adult loon returning to the lake to which it was translocated, captive-reared, and then fledged.
An international team of scientists has concluded the asteroid that smashed into Earth 66 million years ago not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but erased the world’s forests and the species that lived in trees. The researchers say only small ground-dwelling birds survived the mass extinction, profoundly changing the course of bird evolution.
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