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Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
UC Riverside researchers have identified a mechanism that allows plants to rapidly slow growth in response to extreme environmental stress. The finding could help farmers grow more resilient crops, and one researcher continued the work years into retirement to uncover it.
As bees and hummingbirds flit from flower to flower, greedily sipping nectar in exchange for pollination, the animals often get another treat: alcohol. In the first broad analysis of the alcohol content of flower nectars, University of California, Berkeley biologists found detectable alcohol in at least one flower of 26 of the 29 species of plants tested. While most samples had very low levels, almost certainly from yeast fermenting the sugars in the nectar, one contained 0.056% ethanol by weight: about 1/10 proof.
Dung beetles remove feces from wild animals in forests and thus inhibit the spread of parasites. They work the dung into the soil and thus supply nutrients to plants. They fulfill this task both in European commercial forests and in the Amazon. However, rising temperatures could lead to a decline in species diversity and population sizes of dung beetles.
In February 2023, a resident at Kyoto University’s Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior—EHUB—treated researchers to a spontaneous musical performance. Ayumu, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee, removed floorboards from a walkway and used them to drum while he let out complex and structured sounds similar to vocal expressions. It was something the researchers had never seen him do before.
With almost a third of cacti species threatened with extinction, a new open-access database of cactus ecology and evolution could help scientists and conservationists save species from the brink.
Three-hundred-million years ago, Earth was very different. The continents had coalesced into Pangea, which was dominated in its equatorial regions by vast coal-swamp forests. With high atmospheric oxygen levels, wildfires were common.
Britain’s hazel dormice are getting lighter in spring but fatter in autumn as our climate changes, suggests new research in Scientific Reports. The study, titled “The effects of climate and land cover on hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) body mass over space and time,” used 30 years of data on the weight of dormice at different times of year.
Invasive species cost Canada billions of dollars each year. Now, a team led by UBC researchers has developed a new genomic test that can trace the Asian spongy moth—one of the biggest threats to North America’s forests—back to its source, giving officials a better chance of stopping infestations before they spread. The findings are published in the journal BMC Genomics.
There is a limit on how many times a mammal can be cloned before suffering “mutational meltdown,” Japanese scientists have discovered, after making 1,200 clones over two decades that started off with a single mouse.
In a new study, Northwestern University scientists explored how snow flies—small, wingless insects that crawl across snow to find mates and lay eggs—survive in freezing cold temperatures. They discovered this snow-dwelling fly uses a surprising combination of strategies: it generates its own body heat like a mammal and produces antifreeze proteins like an Arctic fish.
A research team led by the Museum für Naturkunde presents the first evidence that several bat species produce courtship songs in the immediate rotor-swept zone of wind turbines while circling around the nacelle. Data from over 80,000 audio recordings at nacelle height from six German sites, together with stereo-thermal 3D reconstructions of bat flight trajectories, document both bat song and elevated bat density in the rotor-swept zone. Both lines of evidence suggest that, under certain circumstances, bats actively approach wind turbines and provide an explanation for why collision risk may increase during the mating season.
New research from the Shorebird Science and Conservation Collective at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI), published in the journal Conservation Biology, provides a model for big data to inform conservation. To better protect shorebirds, the Smithsonian scientists coalesced 7.1 million observations from 36 species contributed by 75 organizations and are analyzing those data to deliver actionable information to decision makers.
Scientists have proven that a wildflower steeped in folklore for its medicinal powers has genuine healing qualities—and the potential to help combat antibiotic resistance. Tormentil, a yellow wildflower found in heath and boglands in the UK, Ireland and across Europe, can inhibit the growth of one of the world’s most deadly pathogens.
What can the world’s longest living individual teach us about longevity? A team of scientists coordinated by the University of California, Davis, sequenced the Great Basin bristlecone pine genome, which could help unlock the secrets of this tree’s exceptionally long life and provide insights for other species.
In recent years, scientists have carefully deciphered details of the honey bee “waggle dance,” which is an advanced form of social communication in the animal kingdom. University of California San Diego biologists and their international colleagues recently unraveled how the dance conveys critical information about food sources for the benefit of fellow hive inhabitants.
Biological invasions are a major driver of biodiversity loss and invasive pollinators can reshape native plant-pollinator networks. A new study published in the journal NeoBiota reveals that invasive pollinators are fundamentally reshaping native plant-pollinator networks in Chile, leading to a “silent takeover” that threatens the stability of one of the world’s most unique biodiversity hotspots.
Discarded litter not only makes our streets and neighborhoods look untidy, but it can also pose a significant risk to wildlife. However, in a surprising development, a study published in the journal Animal Behaviour reports that blue tits are lining their nests with cigarette butts, which may protect them from parasitic infections.
Characteristic features of plants, such as their active ingredients or flower color, may have developed through very different evolutionary histories. This is shown by an international study on the orange-flowering California poppy led by researchers at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU). The multidisciplinary research team compared the biosynthesis of alkaloids and carotenoids as well as flower control factors of this plant at the genetic level.
New research from the University of St Andrews reports sperm whales headbutting one another. The behavior was captured on film and described scientifically for the first time, confirming accounts by 19th century mariners of sperm whales using their heads to deliberately push and strike objects, occasionally even sinking ships, thereby inspiring Herman Melville’s classic tale Moby Dick.
Techniques developed to study the distant past—from dating ancient artifacts to reconstructing climate records in ice cores—are now being repurposed to help us better understand the lives of modern sea turtles. Using radiocarbon methods from archaeology, researchers show that sea turtle shell plates are biological time capsules that record signs of major environmental disturbances in the ocean.
As human-caused climate change continues to raise temperatures across the globe, understanding how birds regulate their temperature is vital for their conservation. But how much heat birds emit—an invisible spectrum of radiation known as mid-infrared—has never been studied, until now.
Studying endangered animal species without disturbing them and disrupting their natural habitat could be highly advantageous, as it would contribute to their protection and prevent unnecessary stress. Conventional methods for studying endangered species and their DNA, however, entail capturing animals for short periods of time, examining them and collecting tissues or other biological samples. These approaches often require significant resources and can be very stressful for animals. In the case of elusive species—animals that conceal themselves well and are thus very difficult to find or observe—it is also impractical.
A critically endangered monkey has given birth just months after pioneering surgery saved her from undergoing an amputation. Masaya, a 15-year-old roloway monkey at Chester Zoo, had a golf-ball-sized mass removed from her foot last summer in a complex operation carried out jointly by zoo vets and surgeons from the University of Liverpool’s Small Animal Teaching Hospital.
When most people think about corals, they imagine a tropical reef with crystal blue water, teeming with colorful fish. But, in the depths of the cold, murky Gulf of Maine, deep-sea corals thrive, feasting on a steady supply of organic matter raining down from the surface ocean.
Climate warming can increase plant growth in permafrost regions by lengthening the growing season, speeding up plant metabolic processes, and allowing deeper root penetration as permafrost thaws. However, the capacity for additional vegetation to offset the carbon released during permafrost thawing depends on nitrogen supply.
Two deep-sea amphipod species have been found to live in both hemispheres and share features, according to a new study that boosts our understanding of the biodiversity and evolutionary processes shaping deep-sea ecosystems. Dr. Paige Maroni and Professor Alan Jamieson, from The University of Western Australia’s School of Biological Sciences, were co-authors of the study published in Marine Biology.
Like the males of many animal species, male Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies, a commonly studied lab animal, are aggressive toward one another and even fight when competing for resources such as food and females. Researchers in the lab of David Anderson have been studying aggression in these insects for decades, elucidating the neural basis for heightened aggression in males, among other discoveries.