Category Archives: Nature

Ecologists Shed New Light on Effects of Light Pollution on Wildlife

By Guest PostDecember 3, 2012Environment, Naturealarm calls, animal behaviour, Antarctica, artificial light, asia, common redshank, data, earth, ecologist, electrical lighting, Europe, exeter, feeding habit, forth estuary, full moon, gas flare, grangemouth, light pollution, longannet, marshes, negative effect, nervous birds, oil refinery, power station, ross dwyer, satellite, scotland, sentinel, shorebirds, spring migration, teu hoo, uk coasts, university, us military, wildlife

Light pollution is often associated with negative effects on wildlife. Now, ecologists have found that by mimicking a perpetual full moon, the gas flares and electrical lighting along Scotland’s Forth estuary are helping shorebirds stock up on more food during the winter to fuel their spring migration.

The research is the first to use night-time light data from US military satellites to study animal behaviour.

Coasts and estuaries are among the most rapidly developing areas on Earth. Night-time satellite images of the planet show that except Antarctica, continents are ringed with halos of brightly-lit human development. But coasts are also key wildlife sites. Every year, millions of waterbirds arrive from the Arctic to overwinter on UK coasts, yet scientists remain largely in the dark about how these birds respond to the bright lights of coastal cities and industry. (more…)

Say Hi to a Magpie via New App

By Guest PostNovember 21, 2012Natureandroid, apple devices, benefit, colin scott, common garden birds, database, exeter, good morning, gps, habitat, human life, human sense, magpie mapper, mobile phone, mr magpie, new app, quality, richard inger, satellite technology, sightings, south west, tony whitehead, uk, university, urban birds

A new app which encourages people to say “good morning Mr Magpie” via their mobile phone will help scientists evaluate the benefits which birds bring to the quality of human life.

Whether you view them with sorrow or joy, using your smart device to help build up a national database of sightings of the distinctive black-and-white birds will feed into wider research by the University of Exeter to assess how much value people place on having birds in their gardens.

Dr Richard Inger, at the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the University’s Cornwall Campus, said: “We chose to study magpies because they’re one of the most common garden birds in the UK and are easily recognisable. Many people already acknowledge them for luck, and we’re asking them to go one small step further and log sightings on their mobile phones. Magpies are not everyone’s favourite birds, but by getting involved you can help us to gather crucial data which will help us establish how much time the birds spend in different habitats. (more…)

Collaring Tapirs – Elephant look-alikes – to Help Them Survive

By Guest PostNovember 19, 2012Natureagricultural community, animal, bairds tapir, camera trapping, central, cow, crops, elephant look alike, endangered species, Environment, farmer, gerald urquhart, gps collar, lyman briggs college, michigan state university, monitor, movement, nicaragua, project, rainforest, seed dispersal, south america, wildlife

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A team of Michigan State University researchers will soon be heading into the rainforests of Nicaragua to help an endangered species known as a Baird’s tapir co-exist with local farmers whose crops are being threatened by the animals.

The animals were thought to be extinct in that part of the world until just two years ago when the MSU team discovered them still living there through the use of “camera trapping” – the setting up of still and video cameras in order to “capture” the animal. (more…)

Genetic Patterns of Deep-Sea Coral Provide Insights into Evolution of Marine Life

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2012Environment, Natureancient, barnacles, biodiversity, biogeography, bivalves, bryozoans, bubblegum coral, canyons, circulation model, climate change, continental slopes, coral, cryptic species, csiro, deep sea coral, early pliocene, eastern north pacific, Epoch, fjords, gastropods, gene flow, genetic diversity pattern, geological features, global warming, historical pattern, hypothesis, juan sanchez, late-miocene, marine life, marine organism, migration, migration pattern, moss animals, niwa, north atlantic, ocean acidification, oceanic circulation, organism, paragorga arborea, pattern, period, ph, red algae, santiago herrera, sea stars, seagrass, seamounts, South Pacific, southern indian, species, spiny dogfishes, timothy shank, trans arctic interchange, western north pacific, whoi

Patterns Also Shed Light on How Environmental Disturbances Affect Aquatic Organisms

The ability of deep-sea corals to harbor a broad array of marine life, including commercially important fish species, make these habitat-forming organisms of immediate interest to conservationists, managers, and scientists. Understanding and protecting corals requires knowledge of the historical processes that have shaped their biodiversity and biogeography.

While little is known about these processes, new research described in the journal Molecular Ecology helps elucidate the historical patterns of deep-sea coral migration and gene flow, coincident with oceanic circulation patterns and events. The investigators propose a scenario that could explain the observed evolutionary and present-day patterns in certain coral species. The findings can help scientists determine how climate change and other global processes have affected ocean habitats in the past and how they might do so in the future. (more…)

Climate Change Threatens Giant Pandas’ Bamboo Buffet–and Survival

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2012Environment, Nature21st century, affect, bamboo, bamboo famine, changing climate, chinese academy, climate change, climate projection, common species, conservation resource, field data, food supply, forest floors, historic data, human habitation, jianguo jack liu, julie winkler, mao ning tuanmu, meal source, michigan state university, mountain range, msu, natural bridge, northwestern china, optimistic scenarios, panda habitat, ploughshare tortoise, qinling mountains, sciences, scientists, shaanxi province, weihua xu, wild population, yu li, zhiyun ouyang

China’s endangered wild pandas may need new dinner reservations–and quickly, based on models that indicate climate change may kill off swaths of bamboo that pandas need to survive

In this week’s Nature Climate Change, an international journal, scientists from Michigan State University (MSU) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences provide comprehensive forecasts of how changing climate may affect the most common species of bamboo that carpet the forest floors of prime panda habitat in northwestern China. Even the most optimistic scenarios show that bamboo die-offs would effectively cause prime panda habitat to become inhospitable by the end of the 21st century.

The scientists studied possible scenarios of climate change in the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province. At the northern boundary of China’s panda distributional range, the Qinling Mountains are home to about 275 wild pandas, which account for about 17 percent of the remaining wild population. The Qinling pandas, which have been isolated because of thousands of years of human habitation around the mountain range, vary genetically from other giant pandas. The geographic isolation of these pandas makes them particularly valuable for conservation, but vulnerable to climate change. (more…)

USGS Study Tracks Pacific Walrus, Observes Effects of Arctic Sea Ice Loss on Behavior

By Guest PostNovember 15, 2012Environment, NatureArctic, Arctic sea ice, behavioral change, chukchi sea, ecosystems, feeding grounds, female walrus, gas, geoffrey haskett, hanna shoal region, iconic arctic species, lease blocks, marcia mcnutt, marine mammals, melting, mortality, northern, oil, pacific walruses, polar bears, russian scientists, s a sonsthagen, sea ice, summer, trampling, U.S. Geological Survey, walrus population

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sparse summer sea ice in the Arctic over the past five years has caused behavioral changes in Pacific walruses according to research published by U.S. Geological Survey and Russian scientists. The effects on the walrus population are unknown.

“The loss of sea ice is the ‘why’ for the change in walrus behavior; the tracking data tells us the ‘where’ in terms of their new forage patterns,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “What awaits to be seen is ‘how much will it matter?'” (more…)

How Butterfly Wings Can Inspire New High-Tech Surfaces

By Guest PostNovember 11, 2012Nature, Scienceaircraft, bacteria, bharat bhushan, butterfly, butterfly wings, catheter, coated, crude oil, electron microscope, fluid flow, giant blue, gregory bixler, high tech surfaces, iconic butterfly, industrial powder, jo mcculty, medical equipment, micrometer scale feature, microscopic texture, morpho butterfly, morpho didius, nano channel, Nanotechnology, Nature, ohio, ohio state university, oriza sativa, pipelines, plastic surface, rice leaves, silicon carbide powder, south american, watercraft, wings

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A South American butterfly flapped its wings, and caused a flurry of nanotechnology research to happen in Ohio.

Researchers here have taken a new look at butterfly wings and rice leaves, and learned things about their microscopic texture that could improve a variety of products.

For example, the researchers were able to clean up to 85 percent of dust off a coated plastic surface that mimicked the texture of a butterfly wing, compared to only 70 percent off a flat surface. (more…)