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Yellowstone Wolf Study Reveals How to Raise Successful Offspring

By Guest PostOctober 11, 2012Naturearmies, arms race, body weight, bridgett vonholdt, canine distemper, carnivore population, cooperation, cooperative, dan macnulty, dan stahler, data, excellent model, factor, female, female wolves, gray wolves, group behavior, key ingredient, life history, life sciences, mother, national, national park, offspring, park service, predator, princeton university, pup survival, reproduction, robert wayne, social carnivores, sociality, soldiers, state university, study, survival advantage, utah, weight, wolves, world, yellowstone, yellowstone park, young adulthood

What are the key ingredients to raising successful, self-sufficient offspring? A new life sciences study using 14 years of data on gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park indicates that cooperative group behavior and a mother’s weight are crucial.

“A female’s body weight is key in the survival of her offspring, and cooperation in the protection and feeding of young pups pays off in terms of the production of offspring,” said Robert Wayne, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-author of the new research, published this week in the online edition of the Journal of Animal Ecology. (more…)

Sailing in a Sea of Microbes

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2012Sciencealgae, Arctic, atmospheric chemistry, bacteria, biogeochemical cycles, biomass, carbon dioxide, Chile, climate, daniel stolte, easter island, Environment, food production, genome, Germany, global warming, grassroots initiative, greenhouse gas, matt sullivan, melissa duhaime, microbe, ocean water, oceans, oxygen production, pacific ocean, research vessel, saguaro cacti, sequence, tara oceans, ua, university of arizona, wolves, world of viruses, world of webs

Researchers led by Matt Sullivan at the UA are among the first to dive into the world of viruses drifting through the world’s oceans.

Surrounded by the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean stretching from horizon to horizon, a lonely dot is glinting in the sun. It is the aluminum hull of a sailboat, a 118-foot schooner with white sails billowing from two masts.

On the deck, crewmembers and scientists are milling about. Commands are flying back and forth, and soon a strange contraption consisting of tubes clustered around an array of sensors dangling from a crane is lowered into the water, until it disappears in the clear blue depths. (more…)

Powerful Mathematical Model Greatly Improves Predictions for Species Facing Climate Change

By Guest PostDecember 4, 2011Environment, Nature, Scienceatmosphere and oceans, beetle, bridgett vonholdt, carbon dioxide emissions, coat color gene, coat color phenotype, daniel macnulty, daniel stahler, earth temperature, ecological impacts, ecological model, ecological parameters, ecosystem, Environment, environmental change, general model, genetics, global warming, gray wolf, grizzly bears, harmony, health of populations, heterozygotes, high arctic, integral projection model, ipm, mathematical model, new model, plants, polar bear, population ecology, population genetics, predictive model, quantitative genetics, robert wayne, species, sub fields of ecology, tim coulson, trophic cascade, wolf, wolf population, wolves, yellowstone, yellowstone national park

UCLA life scientists and colleagues have produced the most comprehensive mathematical model ever devised to track the health of populations exposed to environmental change.

The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, is published Dec. 2 in the journal Science.

The team’s groundbreaking integral projection model, or IPM, unites various sub-disciplines of population biology, including population ecology, quantitative genetics, population genetics, and life-span and offspring information, allowing researchers to link many different data sources simultaneously. Scientists can now change just a single variable, like temperature, and see how that affects many factors for a population. (more…)

Thermal Imagery Sheds Light on Wolf Disease

By Guest PostDecember 12, 20102 commentsEnvironment, Naturecolored wolves, contagious canine skin disease, coyote, dehydration, disease ecologist, doug smith, elk, grizzly, hypothermia, infections, malnutrition, mange, mites, northern rockies, northern rocky mountain, paul cross, remote cameras, reproduction, sarcoptic mange, social behavior, survival, thermal imagery cameras, thermal imaging, wildlife species, wolf, wolf discovery center, wolves, yellowstone national park

Psychedelically colored wolves depicted by thermal imaging will shed light on how mange affects the survival, reproduction and social behavior of wolves in Yellowstone National Park.

About a quarter of the wolf packs in the park are afflicted with sarcoptic mange, a highly contagious canine skin disease caused by mites that burrow into the skin causing infections, hair loss, severe irritation and an insatiable desire to scratch.

The resulting hair loss and depressed vigor of the wolves leaves them vulnerable to hypothermia, malnutrition and dehydration, which can eventually lead to death, said Paul Cross, a U.S. Geological Survey disease ecologist, who leads the project along with Doug Smith of Yellowstone National Park. (more…)

Scary Chupacabras Monster is as Much Victim as Villain

By Guest PostOctober 22, 2010Culture, Sciencebarry oconnor, blood, chupacabras, chupacabras syndrome, coyotes, creepy crawlies, dogs, evil looking animals, evolutionary history, foxes, goatsucker, halloween, hans klompen, itchy rash, legendary beast, livestock, mange, monsters, puerto rico, sarcoptes scabiei, scabies, tales, wolves

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— As Halloween approaches, tales of monsters and creepy crawlies abound. Among the most fearsome is the legendary beast known as the chupacabras.

But the real fiend is not the hairless, fanged animal purported to attack and drink the blood of livestock; it’s a tiny, eight-legged creature that turns a healthy, wild animal into a chupacabras, says University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor. (more…)

Are Wolves Saving Yellowstone’s Aspen Trees from Elk?

By Guest PostSeptember 3, 2010Naturearthur middleton, aspen, aspen tree, carnivores, cheetahs, ecology, elk, erik jules, hunting strategies, jedediah brodie, landscape of fear, matthew kauffman, predators, u s geological survey, wolves, yellowstone national park

LARAMIE, Wy. — Previous research has claimed that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 is helping restore quaking aspen in risky areas where wolves prowl. But apparently elk hungry for winter food had a different idea.

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