Showing 20 articles starting at article 461

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Ecology: Invasive Species, Paleontology: Fossils

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Many landscapes in the tropics consist of a mosaic of different types of land use. How people make use of these different ecosystems, with their particular plant communities, was unclear until now. Researchers, many of them from Madagascar, have now investigated this. When considering biodiversity, forests often get the most attention. But this research shows that rural households use a wide range of plant species and services provided by many nearby ecosystem types.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In an exciting scientific development, an international team of researchers have officially named a newly discovered 145-million-year-old pterosaur. The animal had enormous 2-meter wingspan and was nicknamed 'Elvis' when the fossil was first unearthed in Bavaria, Germany because of the giant pompadour-like bony crest on its skull. Now the animal has been given a formal scientific name of Petrodactyle wellnhoferi. The name translates as 'Wellnhofer's stone-finger' honouring legendary German palaeontologist Peter Wellnhofer who spent his career working on German pterosaurs. Petrodactyle is a very complete skeleton with nearly every bone preserved and in remarkable detail.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Small-winged and lighter colored butterflies likely to be at greatest threat from climate change. The family, wing length and wing colour of tropical butterflies all influence their ability to withstand rising temperatures, say ecologists. The researchers believe this could help identify species whose survival is under threat from climate change.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Biological invasions are a major threat to ecosystems, biodiversity, and human well-being, resulting in ecosystem degradation and causing economic costs in the multi-trillions of euros globally. A study sheds light on the stark economic cost resulting from biological invasions in the European Union (EU).

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Portable chemical imaging technology can reveal hidden details in ancient Egyptian paintings, according to new research.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Ice Age saber-tooth cats and dire wolves experienced a high incidence of bone disease in their joints, according to new research.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Algorithms can predict what movies or songs you might like, but they can also predict which species a predator would most likely eat. Researchers have been using machine learning to identify species interactions, and can predict which species are most likely to go extinct, so that intervention can be planned before this happens.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Humans began altering environments long before records were kept of the things that lived in them, making it difficult for scientists to determine what healthy ecosystems should look like. Researchers show the recent fossil record preserves a reliable snapshot of marine environments as they existed before humans.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Movement in the Earth's tectonic plates indirectly triggers bursts of biodiversity in 36 million-year cycles by forcing sea levels to rise and fall, new research has shown.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have found toxins in the venom of asp caterpillars are completely different to anything they have seen before in insects. Toxins in the caterpillar venom punch holes in cells the same way as toxins produced by disease-causing bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella. Venoms are rich sources of new molecules that could be developed into medicines of the future, pesticides, or used as scientific tools.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

America's forests have a tough time in store for them. Climate change is increasing temperatures and decreasing moisture levels across the country, not a winning combination for trees.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A study has identified genes involved in development of stone cells -- rigid cells that can block a nibbling insect from eating budding branches of the Sitka spruce evergreen tree. The insect's attack has stunted the growth of these forest giants.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers describe a 500 million-year-old tunicate fossil species. The study suggests that the modern tunicate body plan was already established soon after the Cambrian Explosion.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the asteroid-induced mass extinction 66 million years ago. But not all the birds alive at the time made it. Why the ancestors of modern birds lived while so many of their relatives died has been a mystery that paleontologists have been trying to solve for decades. Two new studies point to one possible factor: the differences between how modern birds and their ancient cousins molt their feathers.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have filled a major gap in the state's fossil record -- describing the first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils in Texas. The weathered bone fragments are from the limbs and backbone of a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have been mystified as to why animals are missing in much of the fossil record. Researchers have now developed a new method to determine if animals really were absent during certain geological eras, or if they were present but too fragile to be preserved.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A Cretaceous origin for placental mammals, the group that includes humans, dogs and bats, has been revealed by in-depth analysis of the fossil record, showing they co-existed with dinosaurs for a short time before the dinosaurs went extinct.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

50 million years ago in what is now northwestern Colorado, a katydid died, sank to the bottom of a lake and was quickly buried in fine sediments, where it remained until its compressed fossil was recovered in recent years. When researchers examined the fossil under a microscope, they saw that not only had many of the insect's hard structures been preserved in the compressed shale, so had several internal organs and tissues, which are not normally fossilized.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

How the megalodon, a shark that went extinct 3.6 million years ago, stayed warm was a matter of speculation among scientists. Using an analysis of tooth fossils from the megalodon and other sharks of the same period, a study suggests the animal was able to maintain a body temperature well above the temperature of the water in which it lived. The finding could help explain why the megalodon went extinct during the Pliocene Epoch.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have identified the oldest decisive evidence of humans' close evolutionary relatives butchering and likely eating one another.