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Categories: Biology: Evolutionary, Ecology: Endangered Species

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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.

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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).

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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.

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4.5 million gamers around the world have advanced medical science by helping to reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories using a minigame included inside the critically and commercially successful video game, Borderlands 3. Their playing has led to a significantly refined estimate of the relationships of microbes in the human gut. The results of this collaboration will both substantially advance our knowledge of the microbiome and improve on the AI programs that will be used to carry out this work in future.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or 'seaweed,' to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time periods by acquiring genes that enable cell adhesion, extracellular matrix formation, and cell differentiation, researchers report. Surprisingly, many of these multicellular-enabling genes had viral origins. The study, which increased the total number of sequenced macroalgal genomes from 14 to 124, is the first to investigate macroalgal evolution through the lens of genomics.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of placozoans.

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Early jawless fish were likely to have used bony projections surrounding their mouths to modify the mouth's shape while they collected food. Experts have used CT scanning techniques to build up the first 3D pictures of these creatures, which are some of the earliest vertebrates (animals with backbones) in which the mouth is fossilized. Their aim was to answer questions about feeding in early vertebrates without jaws in the early Devonian epoch -- sometimes called the Age of Fishes -- around 400 million years ago.

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The first birdfeeders were made in the 19th century, and their design rapidly evolved during the 20th century. Researchers at the consider the evolution of the birdfeeder to be an example of multispecies design, where unwanted guests have shaped the human-made artifact.

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Genetic analysis finds evidence suggesting that acoustic fat bodies in the heads of toothed whales were once the muscles and bone marrow of the jaw.

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Light supplies the energy plants need to build up biomass. A research team is researching how plants adapt their photosynthesis to changing light. They describe a key molecular mechanism that synchronizes the processes involved.

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Scientists are amazed at the discovery of a bristle worm with such sharp-seeing eyes that they can measure up to those of mammals and octopuses. The researchers suspect that these marine worms may have a secretive language, which uses UV light only seen by their own species. The advanced vision of such a primitive creature helps to finally settle an epic debate about the evolution of eyes.

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A new reconstruction of the 375-million-year-old fossil fish Tiktaalik -- a close relative of limbed vertebrates -- used micro-CT to reveal bones still embedded in matrix. The reconstruction shows that the fish's ribs likely attached to its pelvis, an innovation thought to be crucial to supporting the body and for the eventual evolution of walking.

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A new study calls into question Bergmann's rule, an 1800s-era scientific principle stating that animals in high-latitude, cooler climates tend to be larger than close relatives living in warmer climates.

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In a recent study, researchers found that 78% of the world's bird species do not thrive in the most modified human-dominated environments. These species are also most likely to have declining populations.