A study conducted by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany has shown that the male members of a sandpiper population who spend less time sleeping are more successful at mating with females and have more offspring.
The sandpiper mating season takes place during the summer in the Arctic Circle, when the sun practically never goes down. Males of the species compete to impress females by fighting with each other, defending territory, and flying over the females while making a hooting sound.(more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The global trade in bullfrogs, which are farmed as a food source in South America and elsewhere, is spreading a deadly fungus that is contributing to the decline of amphibians worldwide, according to a University of Michigan biologist and his colleagues.(more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Innovative problem solving requires trying many different solutions. That’s true for humans, and now Michigan State University researchers show that it’s true for hyenas, too.(more…)
Robotic boats track radio-tagged common carp in area lakes
As a stiff breeze sweeps across Staring Lake in suburban Minneapolis, a five-foot, antenna-sporting robotic boat plies the water in a back-and-forth pattern.
On the shore, Volkan Isler follows the action as two graduate research assistants launch a second boat.
Today Isler, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Minnesota, and graduate students Pratap Tokekar and Josh Vander Hook have come to the lake to test the newer of the boats. Their mission: developing a new technology to track invasive fish.(more…)
The most common lineages of fish found today in oceans, lakes, and rivers evolved about the same time as mammals and birds, a new Yale University-led study shows.
The comparative genetic analysis of more than 200 fish species, reported the week of Aug. 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gave an earlier than expected evolutionary birthday to well-known teleost — or ray-finned — fish such as salmon, bass, or tuna.
The analysis also shows that the very earliest lineages of living teleost fish were eels and bonefishes, not tropical freshwater bonytongue fish as some scientists had proposed. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Predatory beetles can detect the unique alarm signal released by ants that are under attack by parasitic flies, and the beetles use those overheard conversations to guide their search for safe egg-laying sites on coffee bushes.
Azteca instabilis ants patrol coffee bushes and emit chemical alarm signals when they’re under attack by phorid flies. In an article published online July 27 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues show that pregnant lady beetles intercept the ants’ alarm pheromones, which let the beetles know that it’s safe to deposit their eggs. (more…)
Shenandoah National Park, Va. – American eels are declining across their range but are showing indications of a population revival following the removal of a large dam in Virginia.
The removal of Embrey Dam on the Rappahannock River increased American eel numbers in headwater streams nearly 100 miles away, according to research just published by U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service researchers.
American eels undergo long-distance migrations from their ocean spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea to freshwater streams along the Atlantic coast from northern South America to Greenland. Dams may slow or even stop upstream eel migrations. However, prior to this research, little was known about American eel responses to dam removal. (more…)
When a University of Washington researcher listened to the audio picked up by a recording device that spent a year in the icy waters off the east coast of Greenland, she was stunned at what she heard: whales singing a remarkable variety of songs nearly constantly for five wintertime months.(more…)
