In modern ecology, the removal or addition of a predator to an ecosystem can produce dramatic changes in the population of prey species. For the first time, scientists have observed the same dynamics in the fossil record, thanks to a mass extinction that decimated ocean life 360 million years ago.
The earstones of fish record their presence in "dead zones" in oceans and coastal waters and could be a tool in understanding fishes' interactions with their environment.
In a pair of studies, researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory report that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are consistently showing up in the blood and eggs of loggerhead sea turtles, that the turtles accumulate more of the contaminant chemicals the farther they travel up the Atlantic coast, and that the pollutants may pose a threat to the survival of this endangered species.
An international team of scientists, led by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, has used DNA to determine that groups of dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and copper sharks (Carcharhinus brachyurus) living in different coastal regions across the globe are separate populations of each species.
Georgia Tech researchers have solved the mystery of how fire ants self-assemble into a waterproof raft.
Mosquitoes make proteins to help them handle the stressful spike in body temperature that’s prompted by their hot blood meals, a new study has found.
Can sustainable aquaculture be the key in saving the blue fin tuna and keeping the fish a culinary treat worldwide.
A new VIMS study shows that turbulence from boat propellers can and does kill large numbers of copepods—tiny crustaceans that are an important part of marine food webs.
An Iowa State University researcher is one of a team of scientists who have recently researched the fly family tree -- one of the most complicated in the animal world. It turns out that houseflies have more than 152,000 cousins. And those are just the ones we know about.
A census team led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Insitut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo today announced some encouraging news from a region plagued by warfare and insecurity: a small population of Grauer’s gorillas has not only survived, but also increased since the last census.
A new study led by a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is painting a more complete picture of an extraordinary sea worm that makes its living in the depths of the ocean on the bones of dead animals.
In a study appearing in the May issue of the journal American Naturalist, researchers show that just three ecological factors – rainfall, predator diversity, and island size and shape – can account for nearly all of the differences in infection rates among the eight Channel Islands off the California coast.
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study.
Birds are known more for their senses of vision and hearing than smell, but new research suggests that millions of years ago, the winged critters also boasted a better sense for scents.
Twenty-one pronghorn were captured and fitted with GPS collars in the Upper Snake River Plain of Idaho as part of an ongoing migration study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and its partners, the Bureau of Land Management and Idaho Fish and Game.
Examining how fruit flies genes respond to exercise may hold clues to help people stay healthier and more active into their advanced years. But first scientists had to figure out how to get a fly to exercise.
For the first time in millions of years, king crabs are invading Antarctica which could mean organisms with disease-fighting compounds may be wiped out.
Invasive Plant Science and Management –Invasive plant species do not make good neighbors. Aside from their obvious disrespect for fence lines, weeds can continue to edge out native species even after the invaders have been plucked or controlled.
A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction.
As rice farmers across the southern U.S. prepare to plant their crop this month, evolutionary geneticist Ana Caicedo and others have begun a major new study of how weeds evolve in general and of invasive weedy rice in particular, a prime threat to a staple that feeds millions worldwide every year.
In an unprecedented collaborative analysis published in the journal PlosBiology, scientists from 49 nations demonstrated that the ability of reef fish systems to produce goods and services to humanity increases rapidly with the number of species. However, growing human populations hamper the ability of reefs to function normally, and counterintuitively, the most diverse reef fish systems suffer the greatest impairments from stressors triggered by human populations.
Research by Tufts biologists shows that wingless "stay-at-home" female fireflies get less support from their mates than females able to fly. Some male fireflies donate a "nuptial gift" to mates--sperm wrapped in a nutritious high-protein package. When a species' females lose the ability to fly, the males evolve to transfer only sperm, with no food gift.
Fossil teeth of African animals show that during the past 10 million years, different plant-eating critters began grazing on grass at different times as many switched from a salad-bar diet of tree leaves and shrubs, says a University of Utah study.
A species of algae long known to associate with spotted salamanders has been discovered to live inside the cells of developing embryos, say scientists from the U.S. and Canada, who report their findings in this week's PNAS. This is the first known example of a eukaryotic algae living stably inside the cells of any vertebrate.
Analysis published this week in the journal Science shows how declines of bat populations caused by a new wildlife disease and fatalities at industrial-scale wind turbines could lead to substantial economic losses on the farm.
Weather and environmental change can bring alterations – and scarcity – in food resources. In looking at how such changes might affect mating choices and subsequent reproduction, University of Cincinnati researchers studied how hunger affects the mating preferences of common female spiders.
Kunz and his coauthors review the role of bats in providing ecosystem services, focusing primarily on those that regulate and provide services needed to sustain humankind, with a brief overview of supporting and cultural services. One of the grand challenges that society faces is how best to identify, protect and conserve services that are critical for human and ecosystem health.
Scientists from the United States and China have discovered the first intact fossil of a mature eudicot, a type of flowering plant whose membership includes buttercups, apple trees, maple trees, dandelions and proteas. The 125 million-year-old find, described in this week's Nature, reveals a remarkably developed species.
The wolves of Isle Royale have done it again--surprised the scientists who have spent more than half a century studying them. Up to now, the wolves were believed to be completely isolated on the Lake Superior island. Now the DNA of an immigrant wolf from Canada has shown up in the wolves' droppings.
Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have stumbled upon a geological colossus in a remote corner of Afghanistan: a natural stone arch spanning more than 200 feet across its base.
By taking a closer look at animal bones scattered across the wilderness landscape, a University of Chicago researcher has found a powerful tool for showing how species’ populations have changed over decades or even a century.
Study by Wildlife Conservation Society, AMNH, on dolphins finds invisible oceanographic factors that keep populations separate.
The job of promoting conservation in the most biodiverse nation in the world is for the birds, according to the authors of a new bird guide produced by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Cornell University Press, and Editora Horizonte in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
A new species of a rugged and dashing darkling beetle was named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt on the 100th anniversary of a speech he gave at Tempe Normal School, now Arizona State University.
On the small island of Minorca researchers have unearthed an enormous fossil rabbit skeleton. This massive rabbit, aptly named the Minorcan King of the Rabbits (Nuralagus rex), weighed in at 12 kg (26.4 lbs)! — approximately ten times the size of its extinct mainland cousin (Alilepus sp.) and six times the size of the living European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus.
A joint study between local oyster growers and researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science suggests that moving farmed oysters into saltier waters just prior to harvest nearly eliminates the presence of a bacterium that can sicken humans.
Once thought to exclusively inhabit its namesake mountain range, the threatened Andean cat—a house cat-sized feline that resembles a small snow leopard in both appearance and habitat—also frequents the Patagonian steppe at much lower elevations, according to a new study published by the Wildlife Conservation Society and partners.
The mystery of biodiversity – how thousands of similar species can co-exist in a single ecosystem – might best be understood as the result of a massive rock-paper-scissors tournament, a new study has revealed.
If a foal doesn’t ingest colostrum within its first 12 hours of life, the animal likely will have a compromised immune system. Colostrum is provided in the mare's milk. For orphan foals, a suitable replacement must be administered.
In recent years, amphibian populations around the world have been declining. For example, the Iberian newt has become rare in Spain and Portugal. Simultaneously, human populations have increased, and along with them agricultural demand and the use of chemical fertilizers have increased. Runoff from fields brings chemical compounds such as ammonium nitrate into ponds and streams where they can be toxic to amphibians.
Rodents play a role in many scientific studies, but rarely in investigations of social behavior. In the South American caviomorphs, however, researchers have found an excellent subject to explore the evolution of sociality in rodents.
Grace Fuller, a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, is using health studies of night-shift workers as models to investigate health issues of nocturnal primates at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The days and nights of the animals are switched to enable patrons to see the animals when they're active.
A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society reveals the critical importance of western Arctic Alaska’s Teshekpuk Lake region to tens of thousands of birds that breed in the area during the brief, but productive arctic summers, and makes clearer the case for permanent protection of the area.
Neurobiologists at Vienna’s Research Institute of Molecular Pathology use the mating ritual of the fruit fly to study how the nervous system initiates, controls and utilizes behavior. Using newly developed thermogenetic methods, the researchers are able to initiate the courtship song of the male fly by “remote control”, and study the involved neural networks.
An international research team finds that loss of plant biodiversity disrupts the fundamental services that ecosystems provide to humanity.
Animals’ capacity to adapt is a factor in how they are likely to respond to changing climate conditions.
Despite recent cold snaps that brought record-setting low temperatures over much of Texas, the outlook for the annual Monarch butterfly invasion to the state looks promising “and better than expected,” says a Texas A&M University researcher.
Invasive plant species have long had a reputation as being bad for a new ecosystem when they are introduced. As it turns out, they aren't any more abundant away from home than they are at home.
In the mating game, some female mites are mightier than their mates, new research at the University of Michigan and the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests. The evidence comes, in part, from 40 million-year-old mating mites preserved in Baltic amber.
Cyanobacteria in mosses on the ground were recently shown to supply nitrogen to the Boreal forest, but until now cyanobacteria have not been studied in coastal forests or in canopies (tree-tops). By collecting mosses on the forest floor and then at 15 and 30 metres up into the forest canopy, Lindo was able to show both that the cyanobacteria are more abundant in mosses high above the ground, and that they “fix” twice as much nitrogen as those associated with mosses on the forest floor.
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