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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Environmental: Biodiversity
Published Sierra squirrels find their niche amid a changing climate
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study of squirrels in California's Sierra Nevada mountains finds that climate is just one factor impacting where species make their homes in a changing world.
Published New tool shows progress in fighting spread of invasive grass carp in Great Lakes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers created a new way to estimate the abundance of invasive 'sleeper' species in freshwater ecosystems and help guide management strategies.
Published A detailed map of the microverse: Microbial niches
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source What defines the habitat -- the ecological niche -- of a microorganism? It is a combination of environmental factors such as temperature, moisture, and nutrient content. But the exact contribution of each of these factors is difficult to predict. A research team has redefined microbial niches by determining which microorganisms live together.
Published Insect decline also occurs in forests
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The number of insects has been declining for years. This has already been well documented for agricultural areas. In forests, however, temporal trends are mostly studied for insect species that are considered pests. Now, a research team has studied the trends of very many insect species in German forests. Contrary to what the researchers had suspected, the results showed that the majority of the studied species are declining.
Published Warming Arctic draws marine predators northwards
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Marine predators have expanded their ranges into the Arctic waters over the last twenty years, driven by climate change and associated increases in productivity.
Published Innovative method predicts the effects of climate change on cold-blooded animals
(via sciencedaily.com) In the face of a warming climate that is having a profound effect on global biodiversity and will change the distribution and abundance of many animals, a research team has developed a statistical model that improves estimates of habitat suitability and extinction probability for cold-blooded animals as temperatures climb.
Published DELLA proteins could hold key to the next Green Revolution
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A family of 'promiscuous' proteins found in all land plants is responsible for many different plant functions, despite remaining relatively unchanged for over 450 million years.
Published Can cities make room for woodpeckers?
(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.
Published Ants took over the world by following flowering plants out of prehistoric forests
(via sciencedaily.com) Today, ants are pretty much everywhere. To learn more about how these insects conquered the world, scientists used a combination of fossils, DNA, and data on the habitat preferences of modern species to piece together how ants and plants have been evolving together over the past 60 million years. They found that when flowering plants spread out from forests, the ants followed, kicking off the evolution of the thousands of ant species alive today.
Published Scientists analyze sounds emitted by plants
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have recorded and analyzed sounds distinctly emitted by plants. The click-like sounds, similar to the popping of popcorn, are emitted at a volume similar to human speech, but at high frequencies, beyond the hearing range of the human ear.
Published How plants cope with the cold light of day -- and why it matters for future crops
(via sciencedaily.com) New research has discovered a cold 'coping' mechanism that is under the control of the plant biological clock and could offer solutions to breeding more resilience into crops less suited to cold climates.
Published Detecting coral biodiversity in seawater samples
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have developed a method to measure coral biodiversity through extracting the environmental DNA (or eDNA) from a liter of surface seawater collected from above a reef. The method has been confirmed to work through observations made by scientific divers in the same areas of ocean. This has paved the way for large-scale comprehensive surveys of reef-building coral to take place and removes the reliance of direct observations made through scientific scuba diving or snorkeling.
Published How whale shark rhodopsin evolved to see, in the deep blue sea
(via sciencedaily.com) 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.
Published Conserving wildlife can help mitigate climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) 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.
Published Even Sonoran Desert plants aren't immune to climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) In North America's hottest, driest desert, climate change is causing the decline of plants once thought nearly immortal and replacing them with shorter shrubs that can take advantage of sporadic rainfall and warmer temperatures.
Published Turtles and crocodiles with unique characteristics are more likely to go extinct
(via sciencedaily.com) 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.
Published Climate change threatens lemurs on Madagascar
(via sciencedaily.com) Even supposedly adaptable mammal species face increased risk of extinction.
Published What should we call evolution driven by genetic engineering? Genetic welding, says researcher
(via sciencedaily.com) With CRISPR-Cas9 technology, humans can now rapidly change the evolutionary course of animals or plants by inserting genes that can easily spread through entire populations. An evolutionary geneticist proposes that we call this evolutionary meddling 'genetic welding.' He argues that we must scientifically and ethically scrutinize the potential consequences of genetic welding before we put it into practice.
Published Rare beetle, rediscovered after 55 years, named in honor of Jerry Brown
(via sciencedaily.com) 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.
Published Earth's first plants likely to have been branched
(via sciencedaily.com) A new discovery changes ideas about the origin of branching in plants.