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Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
Their icy hunting grounds are rapidly shrinking, but polar bears in Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago have defied the odds by bulking up instead of wasting away, a study said Thursday.
At newly colonized high-elevation sites in the central Italian Apennines, female Daubenton’s bats take turns using the same hunting spots instead of feeding side by side. A study published by a research team from the University of Naples Federico II, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, and several international partner institutions in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation shows that this fine-scale temporal partitioning helps the bats avoid competition and may be crucial for surviving at the cold edge of a climate-driven range expansion.
New research from the University of St Andrews published in Current Biology has shown that the role of age in male humpback whale reproduction has changed as populations recover from centuries of exploitation. Whaling drove many large whale populations to the brink of extinction. But its legacy runs deeper than a drastic decline in numbers. Decades after commercial whaling ended, its impacts continue to shape whale populations, influencing not just how many whales there are, but which males get to reproduce.
Even the most remote regions of the globe are not free from plastic pollution. In a study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, researchers from São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil have detected plastic rocks on Trindade Island, the easternmost point of South America.
Though previous research has shown that bird populations are declining across North America, a new study is the first to show that the pace of loss has picked up speed since the mid-1980s in three regions: the Midwest, California and Mid-Atlantic states. The work appears in Science.
Giant clams (Tridacna gigas), members of the family Tridacnidae and among the most striking inhabitants of tropical coral reefs, are being driven toward extinction. Over-harvesting for jewelry, the aquarium trade, and food, together with habitat loss and pollution, has severely reduced their populations. Climate change is now compounding these threats, making the situation even more precarious for these vulnerable animals.
A research team led by Dr. Chris Baumann and Dr. Dorothée Drucker from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen has found that the European wildcat is increasingly using agricultural lands as hunting grounds in some parts of Germany, especially in summer when grain crops provide cover. Wildcats normally live in forests; this kind of behavioral change is seen as a response to pressure from human influences such as the fragmentation or destruction of forest areas and more intense agriculture.
Liverwort uses hair-like rhizoids to collect phosphorus from its surroundings and deliver it to where it is needed. This Kobe University discovery sheds light on the evolution of one of the most essential features of land plants: roots for nutrient acquisition.
How do plants achieve their remarkably regular arrangement of leaves and flowers? And why does this pattern remain so stable, even as plants grow and respond to their environment? Researchers at Wageningen University & Research and the Dutch fruit and vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan have identified the biological mechanisms that underpin this precision. Central to the process are so-called PLETHORA proteins, which act as key regulators of plant growth.
A new study provides a comprehensive global synthesis of how vessel traffic affects large marine wildlife, including whales, dolphins, seals, manatees, sea turtles, sharks and rays. The study, “Charting the Course for Management: A Global Analysis of Effects of Vessels on Marine Megafauna,” was published in npj Ocean Sustainability.
Plants around the world are flowering earlier in the year, a trend attributed to climate change. But there could be another hitherto hidden trigger. Scientists led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences suggest a cause may be morning dew drops, as explained in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers identified 10 new species and seven new groups (genera) of Hawaiian leaf-roller moths. While new species are frequently discovered, the description of a new genus of insects is a much rarer event; seven groups at once is almost unheard of. Discovered by College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR) graduate student Kyhl Austin and Professor Daniel Rubinoff, this research highlights how much Native Hawaiian biodiversity remains a mystery.
Seven weaned elephant seal pups in California’s Año Nuevo State Park tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory confirmed Tuesday evening.
Suitable habitat for migrating monarch butterflies will shift southwards because of climate change, according to a study published in PLOS Climate by Francisco Botello and Carolina Ureta at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and colleagues.
Climate change has caused some tropical plants to flower earlier or later than they used to; in some cases by a matter of weeks or even months, according to a study of 8,000 flowers across more than two centuries, published in PLOS One by Skylar Graves and Erin Manzitto-Tripp of the University of Colorado–Boulder.
A pair of disturbances common in Western Canada’s boreal forests, when combined, may have an unexpected benefit of limiting the spread of non-native plant species, a University of Alberta study shows. The research gauged the interactive effect that natural wildfires and the presence of seismic lines—narrow clearings cut into forests for oil and gas exploration—had on the establishment and spread of non-native plants growing beside roads.
Researchers have reported the discovery of a new species of jellyfish, Malagazzia michelin, marking only the second species of its genus ever found in Japanese waters. Led by Takato Izumi of Fukuyama University, the discovery was a collaborative effort between marine biologists and staff from several prominent institutions, including the Tsuruoka City Kamo Aquarium and the Saikai National Park Kuju-kushima Aquarium. The study is published in ZooKeys.
According to a new study by the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC) and the National University of Colombia, chronic ocean warming is driving a nearly 20% annual decline in fish biomass. However, the researchers have found that extreme marine heat waves can sometimes mask this trend by causing temporary population increases in certain areas. The work appears in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Bottlenose dolphins usually live in small to medium-sized groups in coastal and open-sea waters, but every once in a while, a dolphin might leave its pod behind, flock to coastal areas and approach human settlements. While this is a relatively rare occurrence, cases of dolphins entering coastal or urban areas are well documented.
Biologists have long wondered why caribou are the only deer in the world in which females—like males—have antlers. A study of shed antlers collected from calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides a new answer. The study is published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Aleksey Maro knows far more than he cares to know about the urination habits of chimpanzees. But if you want to measure the alcohol intake of chimps in a Ugandan rain forest, where a breathalyzer is impractical, collecting urine for analysis is your only choice.
Whether it’s redfin pickerel in the Kennebec River or sturgeon in the Great Lakes, nearly one-third of freshwater fish species are facing possible extinction, threatening food supplies, ecosystems and outdoor recreation. As conservationists work to preserve these species, the University of Maine assistant professor Christina Murphy asked herself if there was an easier way to identify threats to fish before they become endangered.
A study published in Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology reveals a surprising link between cellular aging markers and survival in black-legged kittiwakes (members of the gull family). In the work titled “Who’s coming home? Shorter early-life telomeres predict return to the natal colony in an Arctic seabird,” researchers have found that kittiwake chicks with shorter telomeres were more likely to return to their birthplace as adults, contradicting predictions that longer telomeres would indicate better survival prospects.
A key characteristic of modern human society is rapid urbanization, a process that can reshape natural environments and disrupt the habitats of many organisms. One widespread byproduct of urbanization is artificial light at night (ALAN), which has become one of the most pervasive human-made environmental disturbances. ALAN can affect animals by changing their physiology, behavior, and geographic distribution. In particular, it disrupts natural day-night cycles, circadian rhythms, predator-prey interactions, and reproduction across a wide range of species.
More than 350,000 chemicals are used worldwide, and many find their way into the ocean through plastic pollution. As plastics accumulate in coastal waters, they continuously leach bioactive additives that can interfere with the chemical cues marine animals rely on to find food, avoid predators, choose habitats, and communicate.
From summer evenings to global disease prevention, mosquito repellents are a daily defense for billions of people, yet until now, scientists didn’t fully understand how mosquitoes themselves perceive these “keep away” signals. A new study has pinpointed an odorant receptor that helps mosquitoes detect a repellent odor and steer away. The researchers found that activating this receptor switches on a dedicated neural pathway that can override the insects’ attraction to human scents, producing clear avoidance behavior.
The world has far more bees than anyone realized. Scientists have, for the first time, estimated just how many species of bees are out there on a global scale, offering a clearer look at how these vital pollinators are distributed around the planet. The landmark study, led by University of Wollongong (UOW) evolutionary biologist Dr. James Dorey, provides the most comprehensive count to date—broken down by continent and country—calculating there are, at a minimum, between 3,700 and 5,200 more bee species buzzing around the world than currently recognized.