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Categories: Ecology: Invasive Species, Paleontology: General

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Shrunken seashells and unusually dark sediment cores have helped geoscientists better understand the chronology and character of events that led to Ocean Anoxic Event 2, nearly 100 million years ago.

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The discovery of more than 250 fossilized eggs reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent, according to a new study.

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Flooding in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin is creating ideal breeding conditions for many native species that have evolved to take advantage of temporary flood conditions. Scientists have now developed virtual models of the Murray River to reveal a crucial link between natural flooding and the extinction risk of endangered southern bell frogs (Litoria raniformis; also known as growling grass frogs). Southern bell frogs are one of Australia's 100 Priority Threatened Species. This endangered frog breeds during spring and summer when water levels increase in their wetlands. However, the natural flooding patterns in Australia's largest river system have been negatively impacted by expansive river regulation that in some years, sees up to 60% of river water extracted for human use.

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Climate change presents a mismatch for some breeding songbirds, finds a new study using a decade of nestbox data.

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A study is providing a glimpse into dinosaur and bird diversity in Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous, just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. The fossils represent the first record of theropods -- a dinosaur group that includes both modern birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives -- from the Chilean portion of Patagonia. The researchers' finds include giant megaraptors with large sickle-like claws and birds similar to todays ducks and geese.

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A study examined the effects of anthropogenic noise on cognition, beak color, and growth in the zebra finch. Researchers first tested adult zebra finches on a battery of cognition assays while they were exposed to playbacks of urban noise versus birds tested without noise. Urban noises caused the birds to take longer to learn a novel foraging task and to learn an association-learning task. Urban noise exposure also resulted in treated males to develop less bright beak coloration, and females developed beaks with brighter orange coloration, respectively, than untreated birds. Findings suggest that urban noise exposure may affect morphological traits, such as beak color, which influence social interactions and mate choice.

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Despite recent, torrential rains, most of Southern California remains in a drought. Accordingly, many residents plant trees prized for drought tolerance, but a new study shows that these trees lose this tolerance once they're watered.

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90% of the plants and animals on Madagascar are found nowhere else on Earth, but this treasure trove of evolution is under serious threat due to habitat loss, over-hunting, and climate change. In this study, researchers examined how long it took Madagascar's unique modern mammal species to emerge and estimated how long it would take for a similarly complex set of new mammal species to evolve in their place if the endangered ones went extinct: 23 million years, far longer than scientists have found for any other island.

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Hispaniola once had among the highest diversity of rodents in the Caribbean. Today, only one rodent species remains, and its prospects for survival are uncertain. New carbon dates place the blame squarely on humans.

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Save the ... parasites? Analyzing 140 years of parasite abundance in fish shows dramatic declines, especially in parasites that rely on three or more host species. The decline is linked to warming ocean temperatures. Parasitic species might be in real danger, researchers warn -- and that means not just fewer worms, but losses for the entire ecosystem.

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New research has uncovered that pollen preserved in 250 million year old rocks contain compounds that function like sunscreen, these are produced by plants to protect them from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation. The findings suggests that a pulse of UV-B played an important part in the end Permian mass extinction event.

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Scientists have discovered for the first time that invasive rats on tropical islands are affecting the territorial behavior of fish on surrounding coral reefs. The new study shows that the presence of invasive black rats on tropical islands is causing changes in the territorial behavior of the jewel damselfish -- a herbivorous species of tropical reef fish that 'farm' algae in the branches of corals.

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A new study shows the potential for using Twitter and online news articles to track the timing and location of invasive insect spread in the United States and around the globe. Researchers say these sources are promising for filling in gaps when official data are not widely available.

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It was thought that there was only one species of the ghost-like Monotropastrum humile plant found in woodlands across East and Southeast Asia. In a major new discovery, botanists reveal that a rosy pink colored variant is actually a distinct new species, shaking up our understanding of this unusual-looking genus of plants. This 20-year study emphasizes the importance of combining various analytical methods to fully understand and protect biodiversity.

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Brown algae take up large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air and release parts of the carbon contained therein back into the environment in mucous form. This mucus is hard to break down for other ocean inhabitants, thus the carbon is removed from the atmosphere for a long time, as researchers now show. They reveal that the algal mucus called fucoidan is particularly responsible for this carbon removal and estimate that brown algae could thus remove up to 550 million tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year -- almost the amount of Germany's entire annual greenhouse gas emissions.

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A new study that reconstructs the history of sea level at the Bering Strait shows that the Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia to North America did not emerge until around 35,700 years ago, less than 10,000 years before the height of the last ice age (known as the Last Glacial Maximum). The findings indicate that the growth of the ice sheets -- and the resulting drop in sea level -- occurred surprisingly quickly and much later in the glacial cycle than previous studies had suggested.

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Archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

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Microraptor was an opportunistic predator, feeding on fish, birds, lizards -- and now small mammals. The discovery of a rare fossil reveals the creature was a generalist carnivore in the ancient ecosystem of dinosaurs.

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Researchers found that the number of common hippopotamus in the Bui National Park declined by about 70 percent following the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the reserve. From 209 individuals before the dam construction, the number declined to 64. Land cover changes led to severe reduction in forest cover and destruction of riparian areas through flooding. In addition, poaching activities increased during and after the construction period.

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Europasaurus is a long-necked, herbivorous dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic, about 154 million years ago, on a small island in modern-day Germany. Recently, scientists examined fossil braincase material of Europasaurus with the aid of micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). The digital reconstruction of the inner ear of Europasaurus gave the researchers new insights not only into its hearing ability, but also into its reproductive and social behavior.