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Hai-Handel boomt

By Guest PostAugust 20, 2013Environment, NatureAir New Zealand, asian airlines, cathy pacific, doug perrine, drittgroesste haifangnation, eu, finnen, finning, frankreich, hai arten, hai handel boomt, heringshai, korean air, new yorker ubahn, portugal, qantas, spanien, volker homes, weissspitzen hochseehai, wwf

Spanien ist drittgrößte Haifangnation / EU verbietet „Finning“

Ein toter Hai in der New Yorker U-Bahn, aber bis zu 100 Millionen gefangene und getötete Haie jährlich – auf diese Diskrepanz macht der WWF anlässlich der Veröffentlichung einer neuen Studie aufmerksam. Etwa ein Fünftel der weltweit gefangenen Haie gehen demnach auf das Konto von Indonesien und Indien. Direkt dahinter folgt Spanien, das neben Frankreich und Portugal zu den drei EU-Staaten unter den 20 größten Haifangnationen der Welt gehört. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Analyse von TRAFFIC, dem Artenschutznetzwerk von WWF und der Weltnaturschutzunion IUCN. Angesichts dieser Zahlen bangt der WWF um den Fortbestand vieler Haibestände, etwa von Herings- oder Weißspitzen-Hochseehai. „Haie pflanzen sich sehr langsam fort. Daher sind sie besonders anfällig für Überfischung“, warnt Volker Homes, Leiter Artenschutz beim WWF.

Zwar wurde im März 2013 auf der Artenschutzkonferenz CITES der bessere Schutz von fünf besonders bedrohten Hai-Arten beschlossen, doch bis die Maßnahmen greifen, dürften noch einige Jahre vergehen, so die Befürchtung des WWF. Die aktuelle Analyse kommt außerdem zu dem Ergebnis, dass es besserer Kontrollen und einer lückenlosen Dokumentation bedürfe, um Verstöße gegen die neuen Bestimmungen zu verhindern. (more…)

Scientist names new fly species after the Professor who has supported his work

By Guest PostAugust 14, 2013Nature, Scienceamber rocks, aspect of biodiversity, bishop museum, caribbean island, dave penney, dominican republic, fly, hawaii, hispaniola, journal zootaxa, keroplatidae family, neal evenhuis, new species, proceroplatus preziosii, richard preziosi, university of manchester

A Professor from The University of Manchester has had his name immortalised as a new species of fly.

Professor Richard Preziosi, from the Faculty of Life Sciences, said he was delighted with the unusual tribute from researcher Dr Dave Penney.

It follows his continued support of Dr Penney’s unfunded research into amber rocks which he has been investigating for around 20 years.

Dr Penney discovered the new species of fly, which he has named Proceroplatus preziosii, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, after finding a fossil in 16 million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic. His findings were confirmed by Dr Neal Evenhuis, of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, who is the leading world expert on this group. The species is a tiny gnat just a few millimetres long belonging to the Keroplatidae family. (more…)

First global atlas of marine plankton reveals remarkable underwater world

By Guest PostAugust 11, 2013Naturebacteria, c more, chaetoceros decipiens, climate change, computer model, data for plankton, diazotrophs, foraminifera, global atlas, hastigerina digitata, impact, jellyfish, maredat, marine biodiversity, marine biota, marine plankton, marine plankton diatom, nitrogen fixing bacteria, ocean acidification, ocean field data, predict, scott doney, South Pacific, Southern Ocean, subtropical ocean gyres, whoi, yawei luo

Under the microscope, they look like they could be from another planet, but these microscopic organisms inhabit the depths of our oceans in nearly infinite numbers.

To begin to identify where, when, and how much oceanic plankton can be found around the globe, a group of international researchers have compiled the first ever global atlas cataloguing marine plankton ranging in size from bacteria to jellyfish. The atlas was published on July 19, 2013, in a special issue of the journal Earth System Science Data. (more…)

Dolphins keep lifelong social memories, longest in a non-human species

By Guest PostAugust 10, 2013Nature, Scienceage, bailey, bermuda, brookfield zoo, Chicago, chimpanzees, cognitive sophistication, dolphin connection, dolphin named allie, dolphin named kai, dolphin quest, dolphins, elephants, florida keys, human social memory, humans, jason bruck, non human species, scotland, sex, signature whistle, social memories, spectrograms, st andrews, stephanie l king, texas state aquarium, university, vincent m janik

Dolphins can recognize their old tank mates’ whistles after being separated for more than 20 years—the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human species.

The remarkable memory feat is another indication that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to only a few other species, including humans, chimpanzees and elephants. Dolphins’ talent for social recognition may be even more long-lasting than facial recognition among humans, since human faces change over time, but the signature whistle that identifies a dolphin remains stable over many decades. (more…)

Fossil indicates hairy, squirrel-sized creature was not quite a mammal

By Guest PostAugust 8, 2013Nature, Scienceancient mammalian relative, april isch, armadillo like gait, China, daohugou fossil site, evolutionary adaptations, extinction, feathered dinosaur, fossil, Germany, inner mongolia, jurassic era, jurassic fossil, liaoning, mammal, mammal like reptiles, megaconus mammaliaformis, non mammalian characteristics, northeast of beijing, paleontological museum, placental mammals, pre mammalian fossil, proto mammal, squirrel sized creature, triassic jurassic transition, type of locomotion, tyrannosaurus rex, university of bonn, university of chicago, zhe xi luo

165 million-year-old omnivore may have had armadillo-like gait

A newly discovered fossil reveals the evolutionary adaptations of a 165 million-year-old proto-mammal, providing evidence that traits such as hair and fur originated well before the rise of the first true mammals. UChicago scientists described the biological features of this ancient mammalian relative, named Megaconus mammaliaformis, in the Aug. 8 issue of Nature.

“We finally have a glimpse of what may be the ancestral condition of all mammals, by looking at what is preserved in Megaconus. It allows us to piece together poorly understood details of the critical transition of modern mammals from pre-mammalian ancestors,” said Zhe-Xi Luo, professor of organismal biology and anatomy. (more…)

From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish

By Guest PostAugust 6, 2013Nature, Scienceadaptive radiation, age of fish, backboned animals, darwins comment, devonian era, end devonian extinction, evolutionary biologist, evolutionary rise, fossils from scotland, fouldenia, glaciers, hangenberg extinction, japanese amberjack, john megahan, lauren sallan, long extinct fish, mass extinctions, michael coates, misclassified fouldenia, oceans, post devonian tetrapods, predatory fish, ray finned fish, romers gap, sea levels, shell crushing, styracopterus, tropics, university of chicago, university of michigan, vertebrate species, yellowtail

ANN ARBOR — Mass extinctions, like lotteries, result in a multitude of losers and a few lucky winners. This is the story of one of the winners, a small, shell-crushing predatory fish called Fouldenia, which first appears in the fossil record a mere 11 million years after an extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of the planet’s vertebrate species.

The extinction that ended the Devonian Era 359 million years ago created opportunities quickly exploited by a formerly rare and unremarkable group of fish that went on to become—in terms of the sheer number of species—the most successful vertebrates (backboned animals) on the planet today: the ray-finned fish. (more…)

One Tree’s Architecture Reveals Secrets of a Forest, Study Finds

By Guest PostAugust 6, 2013Nature, Sciencebranching pattern, brian enquist, carbon dioxide, cathy hulshoff, course of evolution, ecosystem, Environment, journal ecology, leonardos rule, lisa patrick bentley, oxygen, secrets of forest, species, symmetrical y, theory, tree architecture, ua ecologists, ua ecology professor, university of arizona, university of oxford

Behind the dazzling variety of shapes and forms found in trees hides a remarkably similar architecture based on fundamental, shared principles, UA ecologists have discovered.

Researchers in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology have found that despite differences in appearance, trees across species share remarkably similar architecture and can tell scientists a lot about an entire forest.

Just by looking at a tree’s branching pattern, it turns out, scientists can gather clues about how it functions – for example how much carbon dioxide it exchanges with the atmosphere or how much water transpires through its leaves – regardless of the tree’s shape or species. (more…)

Zoo Polar Bear Sports High-Tech Neckwear for Conservation

By Guest PostAugust 1, 2013Natureaccelerometer, climate change mystery, digital fingerprint, high tech collar, high tech neckwear, polar bear, polar bear behavior

Study will help biologists track wild polar bears’ response to climate change

PORTLAND, Ore. — Tasul, an Oregon Zoo polar bear, recently landed her first white-collar job: research assistant for the U.S. Geological Survey. Her assignment: wearing a high-tech collar to help solve a climate change mystery. (more…)

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