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Categories: Ecology: Nature, Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published New butterfly species created 200,000 years ago by two species interbreeding
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have shown that an Amazonian butterfly is a hybrid species, formed by two other species breeding together almost 200,000 years ago. Researchers have shown that an Amazonian butterfly is a hybrid species, formed by two other species breeding together almost 200,000 years ago.
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 Older males out-compete young males outside breeding pairs, bird study shows
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Young male blue tits are less successful in fathering offspring outside their breeding pair, not because of a lack of experience, but because they are outcompeted by older males, researchers report.
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 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 Biodiversity is key to the mental health benefits of nature
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New research has found that spaces with a diverse range of natural features are associated with stronger improvements in our mental wellbeing compared to spaces with less natural diversity.
Published Can animals count?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding number sense in animals by confirming the existence of discrete number sense in rats, offering a crucial animal model for investigating the neural basis of numerical ability and disability in humans.
Published Unlocking the 'chain of worms'
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An international team of scientists has published a single-cell atlas for Pristina leidyi (Pristina), the water nymph worm, a segmented annelid with extraordinary regenerative abilities that has fascinated biologists for more than a century.
Published Evolution's recipe book: How 'copy paste' errors cooked up the animal kingdom
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The 'copy-paste' errors allowed animals to keep one copy of their genome or genes for fundamental functions, while the second copy could be used as raw material for evolutionary innovation. Events like these, at varying degrees of scale, occurred constantly throughout the bilaterian evolutionary tree and enabled traits and behaviours as diverse as insect flight, octopus camouflage and human cognition.
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 Even the simplest marine organisms tend to be individualistic
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Sport junkie or couch potato? Always on time or often late? The animal kingdom, too, is home to a range of personalities, each with its own lifestyle. Biologists report on a surprising discovery: even simple marine polychaete worms shape their day-to-day lives on the basis of highly individual rhythms. This diversity is of interest not just for the future of species and populations in a changing environment, but also for medicine.
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 Leptanilla voldemort, a ghostly slender new ant species from the dark depths of the underground
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source In the sun-scorched Pilbara region of north-western Australia, scientists have unearthed a mysterious creature from the shadows -- a new ant species called Leptanilla voldemort.
Published Africa's iconic flamingos threatened by rising lake levels
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source It is one of the world's most spectacular sights -- huge flocks or 'flamboyances' of flamingos around East Africa's lakes -- as seen in the film Out of Africa or David Attenborough's A Perfect Planet. But new research has revealed how the lesser flamingo is at danger of being flushed out of its historic feeding grounds, with serious consequences for the future of the species.
Published Oxidant pollutant ozone removes mating barriers between fly species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers show that ozone levels, such as those found in many places on hot summer days today, destroy the sex pheromones of fruit fly species. As a result, some natural mating boundaries maintained by species-specific pheromones no longer exist. The research team has shown in experiments that flies of different species mate when exposed to ozone and produce hybrid offspring. Since most of these offspring are unable to reproduce, the results could provide another explanation for the global decline of insects.
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 New report 'braids' Indigenous and Western knowledge for forest adaptation strategies against climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Forests could also be potential bulwarks against climate change. But, increasingly severe droughts and wildfires, invasive species, and large insect outbreaks -- all intensified by climate change -- are straining many national forests and surrounding lands in the United States. A report outlines a new approach to forest stewardship that 'braids together' Indigenous knowledge and Western science to conserve and restore more resilient forestlands.
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 Cold-affinity algae species are gradually being replaced by warm-affinity ones off the coast of Biscay
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A study has analyzed the impact of the rise in sea surface temperature on macroalgae communities over the last four decades. Points at various depths were investigated in a location off the coast of Biscay, and an increasing scarcity was observed in the number of cold-affinity structuring species, while small warm-affinity ones have proliferated. The researchers are warning that some ecological functions are in jeopardy as a result.