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Categories: Archaeology: General, Ecology: Animals

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     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

While pollinator populations of many species have plummeted worldwide, one bee species is blowing up the map with its rapid population expansion. The key to this insect's success? Its passion for pumpkins, zucchinis, and other squashes, and the massive increase in cultivation of these crops across North America over the last 1,000 years. A new study found that the squash bee (Eucera pruinosa) has evolved in response to intensifying agriculture -- namely squashes in the genus Curcurbita. The research has demonstrated the role of agriculture as an evolutionary force acting on a wild insect pollinator and may have implications for food security.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers are deploying the latest mapping techniques to identify the most important suburban habitat for North America's largest woodpecker. Wildlife habitat in congested places is becoming increasingly fragmented as forests give way to new construction. Eventually, this could spell trouble to an animal with specific habitat needs like the pileated woodpecker.

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For the first time, researchers have pinpointed a date when elite Mongol Empire people were drinking yak milk, according to a new study.

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Researchers are learning more about ancient graffiti -- and their intriguing comparisons to modern graffiti -- as they produce a state-of-the-art 3D recording of the Temple of Isis in Philae, Egypt.

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The largest-yet analysis of ancient DNA in Africa, which includes the first ancient DNA recovered from members of the medieval Swahili civilization, has now broken the stalemate about the extent to which people from outside Africa contributed to Swahili culture and ancestry.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The McCloud River redband trout, or O. mykiss calisulat, is newly identified as its own distinct subspecies of rainbow trout in a new study. It was named in consultation with the Winnemem Wintu tribe.

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Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a new study.

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Traces of ancient empires that stretched across Africa remain in the DNA of people living on the continent, reveals a new genetics study.

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Moths are more efficient pollinators at night than day-flying pollinators such as bees, finds new research.

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A group of researchers discovered that the rhodopsin -- a protein in the eye that detects light -- of whale sharks has changed to efficiently detect blue light, which penetrates deep-sea water easily. The amino acid substitutions -- one of which is counterintuitively associated with congenital stationary night blindness in humans -- aid in detecting the low levels of light in the deep-sea. Although these changes make the whale shark rhodopsin less thermally stable the deep-sea temperature, allows their rhodopsin to keep working. This suggests that the unique adaptation evolved to function in the low-light low-temperature environment where whale sharks live.

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Solving the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are not separate issues. Animals remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year. Restoring species will help limit global warming, new science reveals.

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New study demonstrates that the most endangered turtles and crocodile species are those that have evolved unique life strategies. Many of the most threatened species carry out important ecosystem functions that other species depend on. Habitat loss was identified as the key overall threat to turtles and crocodiles, followed by climate change and global trade. Unique species faced additional pressure from local consumption, diseases, and pollution.

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Researchers collected the bodies of birds that crashed into buildings while migrating, and used these specimens to learn about the relationship between birds and the microbes living in their guts -- which appears to be wildly different from mammals and their microbiomes.

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Even supposedly adaptable mammal species face increased risk of extinction.

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Free-range organic chicken or factory farming? Scientists have developed a new detection method that can reveal such differences in husbandry. The so-called epigenetic method is based on the analysis of the characteristic patterns of chemical markers on the genome of the animals.

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While sampling for insects on former California Gov. Jerry Brown's ranch, a University of California, Berkeley, entomologist collected a rare species of beetle that had never been named or described -- and which, according to records, had not been observed by scientists in over 55 years. The new species will be named Bembidion brownorum, in honor of Jerry Brown and his wife, Anne Brown.

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Volcanic relics scattered throughout the Australian landscape are a map of the northward movement of the continent over a 'hotspot' inside the Earth, during the last 35 million years.

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The diet quality of fish across large parts of the world's oceans could decline by up to 10 per cent as climate change impacts an integral part of marine food chains, a major study has found.

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Chemical and isotopic analysis of artifacts from southern Africa called copper ingots reveals new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries.

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By combining lab experiments and mathematical modelling, researchers have found a way to predict the movement of species that could guide conservation efforts to reconnect fragmented habitats.