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Over the Hump: Ecologists Use Power of Network Science to Challenge Long-Held Theory

By Guest PostSeptember 26, 2011Nature, Sciencealpine tundra, british ecologist, bugle lily, ecologists, effects of environmental change on biodiversity, elizabeth borer, emperor new clothes, global sampling, grime unimodal pattern, habitats, henry gholz, hump shaped model, j philip grime, mt gilboa, national science foundation, peter adler, plant and animal species, productivity of the habitat, scientist, South Africa, utah state university

*Global sampling of 48 sites on five continents yields unprecedented data set*

For decades, ecologists have toiled to nail down principles explaining why some habitats have many more plant and animal species than others.

Much of this debate is focused on the idea that the number of species is determined by the productivity of the habitat.

Shouldn’t a patch of prairie contain a different number of species than an arid steppe or an alpine tundra? (more…)

Smells May Help Birds Identify Their Relatives

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Naturebirds, captive penguins, kin discrimination, olfactory sense, sense of smell

Birds may have a more highly developed sense of smell than researchers previously thought, contend scholars who have found that penguins may use smell to determine if they are related to a potential mate. (more…)

When Plants Go Polyploid

By Guest PostSeptember 15, 2011Natureanimal evolution, diploid lineages, evolutionary gamble, hereditary information, plant lineages, polyploid lineages, polyploidy

Plant lineages with multiple copies of their genetic information face higher extinction rates than their relatives, researchers report in Science magazine.

While duplication of hereditary information is a relatively rare event in animal evolution, it is common in plants. Potatoes, coffee, bananas, peanuts, tobacco, wheat, oats and strawberries, to name but a few, all carry multiple copies of their genetic material, in a condition called polyploidy. (more…)

New Video/Images of Walrus Haulout

By Guest PostSeptember 14, 2011Naturecontinental shelf, walrus haulout, walrus studies, young walrus

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The USGS Alaska Science Center has released new high-resolution video of Pacific walruses hauling out near Point Lay, Alaska, in late August, 2011. (more…)

A Tale of (More Than) Two Butterflies

By Guest PostSeptember 14, 2011Natureappalachian tiger, hybridization, poisonous butterfly, species formation, swallowtail butterfly, two butterflies

Appalachian tiger swallowtail butterfly is hybrid of other swallowtails

Flitting among the cool slopes of the Appalachian Mountains is a tiger swallowtail butterfly that evolved when two other species of swallowtails hybridized long ago. (more…)

Are New England’s Iconic Maples at Risk?

By Guest PostSeptember 5, 2011Naturealb eradication, alb infestation, alb outbreak, asian longhorned beetle, longhorned beetle, maple trees

Invasive Asian longhorned beetle has potential for wide reach in region’s forests

Are new England’s iconic maple trees at risk? If a beetle has its way, the answer may be yes. (more…)

Re-emergence of Salmon in The Thames ‘Not From Restocking’ Say Exeter Academics

By Guest PostSeptember 4, 2011Natureatlantic salmon, exogenous fish, indicator species, irish hatchery fish, riparian habitat, thames salmon

The recent returns of Atlantic salmon in the Thames are more likely to be a result of fish straying from nearby rivers rather than a consequence of expensive restocking efforts, according to new research by the University of Exeter

A team of University of Exeter bio-scientists, in collaboration with the Environment Agency, Westcountry Rivers Trust and Oviedo University, Spain, have been collecting genetic data from returning fish, which suggests that habitat restoration was more effective than re-introductions. The findings will be published in the journal ‘Biological Conservation’. (more…)

Fossil Discovery Represents New Milestone in Early Mammal Evolution

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2011Nature, Scienceancestors of mammals, carnegie mammalogist, carnegie museum of natural history, China, chong xi yuan, chuck lydeard, dna based methods of dating evolution, earliest known fossil of eutherians, eomaia, eutherian mammals, evolutionary hypotheses, fossil, fossil record, genetic data, john wible, juramaia sinensis, jurassic, jurassic mother from china, kangaroos, mammal evolution, marsupials, metatherians, molecular clock, monotremes, national science foundation, northeast china fossil, nsf, paleontologist, placental mammals, platypus, qiang ji, qing jin meng, shrew like mammal, zhe xi luo

*Northeast China fossil provides new information about earliest ancestors of today’s mammals*

A well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today’s mammal species–the placental mammals. (more…)

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