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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Ecology: General
Published Plant sensors could act as an early warning system for farmers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Using a pair of sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers discovered signals that help plants respond to stresses such as heat, light, or attack from insects or bacteria. Farmers could use these sensors to monitor threats to their crops, allowing them to intervene before the crops are lost.
Published Dog attacks on mountain tapirs highlight a growing threat to endangered wildlife
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers who captured footage of dog attacks on endangered mountain tapirs in Colombia are calling for action to protect threatened wildlife.
Published Unique field study shows how climate change affects fire-impacted forests
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source During the unusually dry year of 2018, Sweden was hit by numerous forest fires. A research team has investigated how climate change affects recently burnt boreal forests and their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
Published Making crops colorful for easier weeding
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy counterparts. This could involve altering the crops' genomes so that they express pigments that are already produced by many plants, for example, anthocyanins, which make blueberries blue, or carotenoids, which make carrots orange. Then, they say, weeding robots could be trained to remove only the weeds using machine learning.
Published Coral reef microbes point to new way to assess ecosystem health
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study shows that ocean acidification is changing the mix of microbes in coral reef systems, which can be used to assess ecosystem health.
Published CO2 worsens wildfires by helping plants grow
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source By fueling the growth of plants that become kindling, carbon dioxide is driving an increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires, according to a new study.
Published New tagging method provides bioadhesive interface for marine sensors on diverse, soft, and fragile species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Tagging marine animals with sensors to track their movements and ocean conditions can provide important environmental and behavioral information. Existing techniques to attach sensors currently largely rely on invasive physical anchors, suction cups, and rigid glues. While these techniques can be effective for tracking marine animals with hard exoskeletons and large animals such as sharks, individuals can incur physiological and metabolic stress during the tagging process, which can affect the quality of data collection. A newly developed soft hydrogel-based bioadhesive interface for marine sensors, referred to as BIMS, holds promise as an effective, rapid, robust, and non-invasive method to tag and track all sorts of marine species, including soft and fragile species. The BIMS tagging, which is also simple and versatile, can help researchers better understand animal behavior while also capturing oceanographic data critical for helping to better understand some impacts of climate change and for resource management.
Published Florida Wildlife Corridor eases worst impacts of climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Florida is projected to lose 3.5 million acres of land to development by 2070. A new study highlights how Florida can buffer itself against both climate change and population pressures by conserving the remaining 8 million acres of 'opportunity areas' within the Florida Wildlife Corridor (FLWC), the only designated statewide corridor in the U.S. Interactions between the FLWC and climate change had not been previously examined until now. Findings show substantial climate resilience benefits from the corridor, yielding a much higher return on investment than originally thought. About 90 percent of Floridians live within 20 miles of the corridor.
Published Seed ferns: Plants experimented with complex leaf vein networks 201 million years ago
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several times. Using new methods, the fossilized plant Furcula granulifer was identified as such an early forerunner. The leaves of this seed fern species already exhibited the net-like veining in the late Triassic (around 201 million years ago).
Published Twisted pollen tubes induce infertility
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Plants with multiple sets of chromosomes, known as polyploids, are salt-tolerant or drought-resistant and often achieve higher yields. However, newly formed polyploid plants are often sterile or have reduced fertility and are unsuitable for breeding resistant lines. The reason is that the pollen tube in these plants grows incorrectly, which keeps fertilization from taking place. Pollen tube growth is mainly controlled by two genes that could be useful in crop breeding.
Published Digging up new species of Australia and New Guinea's giant fossil kangaroos
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. The three new species are of the extinct genus Protemnodon, which lived from around 5 million to 40,000 years ago -- with one about double the size of the largest red kangaroo living today.
Published Tropical forests can't recover naturally without fruit-eating birds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds limiting their capacity to disperse seeds and restore healthy forests.
Published Where have all the right whales gone?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful exposure to commercial fisheries and vessel strikes. The resulting maps, spanning 20 years of whale observations, are publicly available to inform risk assessments, estimations of whale harm/disturbance, marine spatial planning, and industry regulations to mitigate risk to right whales.
Published Biofortified rice to combat deficiencies
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Vitamin B1 is an essential micronutrient for human beings. Its deficiency is the cause of numerous diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Researchers have achieved a significant advance in the fight against vitamin B1 deficiency, frequently associated with a rice-based diet. By specifically targeting the nourishing tissues of the rice grain, the scientists have succeeded in considerably increasing its vitamin B1 content, without compromising agronomic yield. These results could help solve a major public health problem in regions where rice is the staple food.
Published Genetic underpinnings of environmental stress identified in model plant
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have identified 14 genes that thale cress -- a plant commonly used in genetic investigations since its genome is well documented -- express more when responding to five specific stressors, as well as eight genes that the plant suppresses.
Published Ants in Colorado are on the move due to climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Ant species living in Boulder's foothills have shifted their habitat over the last six decades, potentially affecting local ecosystems, suggests a new study.
Published Deforestation harms biodiversity of the Amazon's perfume-loving orchid bees
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A survey of orchid bees in the Brazilian Amazon, carried out in the 1990s, is shedding new light the impact of deforestation on the scent-collecting pollinators, which some view as bellwethers of biodiversity in the neotropics.
Published New approach needed to save Australia's non-perennial rivers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An extensive review of current research incorporating geomorphology, hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology and Indigenous knowledges identifies prevailing factors that shape water and energy flows in Australia's non-perennial rivers -- but the review also points to research deficiencies that must be addressed if these river systems are to be preserved and protected.
Published 'Teacher Toads' can save native animals from toxic cane toads
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists from Macquarie University have come up with an innovative way to stop cane toads killing native wildlife by training goannas to avoid eating the deadly amphibians.
Published Impact of climate change on marine life much bigger than previously known
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Fish and invertebrate animals are far more affected by warmer and more acidic seawater than was previously known. The big gain of the new method is that more details become known about effects of climate change on species.