Researchers’ theory: An increase in population size may mean sounds used in mate competition need not travel as far as before; acoustic information extracted from songs could be useful population monitoring tool
A good-news global warming story about a pine tree with a storied past promises that a back-to-the-future approach will provide economic opportunities and help prepare the southeastern U.S. for a changing climate.
Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution – the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.
Female birds in species that breed in groups can find themselves under pressure to sexually show off and evolve the same kinds of embellishments – like fanciful tail feathers or chest-puffing courtship dances - as males, according to new research in the latest issue of Nature (Dec. 10, 2009).
With growing concerns about the effects of global warming on polar bears, it's increasingly important to understand how other environmental threats, such as mercury pollution, are affecting these magnificent Arctic animals.
The Wildlife Conservation Society today released a list of animals facing new impacts by climate change, some in strange and unexpected ways.
Looking for larks? Searching for surfbirds? Checking for chickadees? There’s an app for that. BirdsEye, a new application for the iPhone and the iPod touch, is now available.
“Taja,” a two-year-old white Bengal tiger, is back to her old self, bounding around her enclosure, and recovering well following a minimally invasive spaying procedure at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
Millions of shark fins are sold annually to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy. Now, scientists using DNA tools have traced sharks’ fins from the Hong Kong market back to the sharks’ homes, and find that endangered populations are still being exploited. CITES will consider better protecting sharks from international trade, at its March meeting in Qatar.
The tranquility of gardens is no coincidence; careful planning is required to create that sense of escape from the daily grind. According to one Ryerson researcher, achieving that contemplative atmosphere depends on a garden being designed not as disparate elements, but as a sum total of its parts—and her proof is in the picture.
In the essay, “Where the Wild Things Were,” currently appearing in Foreign Affairs, Dr. Steven Sanderson, President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society, asserts the world’s political institutions have failed the planet but “realism cannot turn into defeatism.”
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today a report revealing that the last remaining population of Siberian tigers has likely declined significantly due to the rising tide of poaching and habitat loss.
Recent theories suggesting that half of fishes' food comes from from land-based ecosystems may not hold water. Experiments show that algae, not land-based matter, builds healthy and fertile aquatic organisms.
A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society says that western lowland gorillas living in a large swamp in the Republic of Congo—part of the “mother lode” of more than 125,000 gorillas discovered last year—are becoming increasingly threatened by growing human activity in the region.
Understanding mixing in the ocean is of fundamental importance to modeling climate change or predicting the effects of an El Niño on our weather. Modern ocean models primarily incorporate the effects of winds and tides. However, they do not generally take into account the mixing generated by swimming animals.
Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America’s vast assemblage of large animals — including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers — began their precipitous slide to extinction.
A series of studies carried out at the University of Haifa have found that rodent, reptile and ant lion species behave differently on either side of the Israel-Jordan border.
DNA recovered from fossilised bones of the moa, a giant extinct bird, has revealed a new geological history of New Zealand, reports a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that honeybees can discriminate between food at different temperatures, an ability that may assist bees in locating the warm, sugar-rich nectar or high-protein pollen produced by many flowers.
Recording hundreds of thousands of individual uplinks from satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, sea lions, and other marine animals, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and BirdLife International have released the first-ever atlas of the Patagonian Sea – a globally important but poorly understood South American marine ecosystem.
Zoo Atlanta recently became the first zoological institution in the world to obtain voluntary blood pressure readings from a gorilla. This was made possible by the Gorilla Tough Cuff developed by Georgia Tech students.
In the most comprehensive study of animal evolution ever attempted, an international consortium of scientists plans to assemble a genomic zoo--a collection of DNA sequences for 10,000 vertebrate species, approximately one for every vertebrate genus.
New insights into the biology of the platypus and echidna have been published, providing a collection of unique research data about the world’s only monotremes.
Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity? A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists at Michigan Technological University, reporting in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology.
The "Ask A Biologist" Web site at Arizona State University, a scientific sanctuary for students and teachers alike – hosts this year's Ugly Bug Contest.
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers are close to unraveling intricate cellular pathways that control molting in blue crabs. The discoveries could revolutionize the soft-shell crab industry, generating new jobs and additional profits for the U.S. fishing industry along the coastal Southeast.
While comedian Tommy Smothers always told his brother, “Mom always liked you best,” a study by biology researchers at North Dakota State University, Fargo, and Iowa State University, Ames, have found that female American coots favor their largest offspring, even before they hatch.
As fun as it is to obsess over and be scared by fictional vampires, the real things are much more fascinating. Here is some blood-curdling information from National Wildlife Federation on living, breathing vampires that might just be stalking you.
A recent study at Oregon State University has shown that native bumble bee species have high pollination and seed production levels in red clover. These findings offer promise for alternative crop pollinators, as the population of European honey bee in the US declines
Biologists for the first time have documented a second breeding season during the annual cycle of five songbird species that spend summers in temperate North America and winters in tropical Central and South America.
What do a West African drummer and a sperm whale have in common? According to some reports, they can both spot rhythms in the chatter of an ocean crowded with the calls of marine mammals -- a feat impossible for the untrained human ear.
Spend a little time people-watching at the beach and you're bound to notice differences in the amount, thickness and color of people's body hair. Then head to the zoo and compare people to chimps, our closest living relatives.
The government of Cambodia has transformed a former logging concession into a new, Yosemite-sized protected area that safeguards not only threatened primates, tigers, and elephants, but also massive stores of carbon according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which worked closely with governmental agencies to help create the protected area.
It may take a village to raise a child, and apparently it takes at least two adult birds to teach a young song sparrow how and what to sing.
Eastern forests are under siege from an insect that has laid waste to southern forests and is now threatening farther north. Like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, one UMass Amherst entomologist has been quietly seeding hemlock plots with predatory beetles which scientists hope can stem the invasion.
To avoid becoming a bat’s tasty treat, a species of tiger moth plays a trick with sound. The moth can make up to 450 ultrasonic clicks in a tenth of a second to jam the hungry bat’s sonar and escape death.
Plants may not have eyes and ears, but they can recognize their siblings, and researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered how.The ID system lies in the roots and the chemical cues they secrete.
Conservation biologists are setting their minimum population size targets too low to prevent extinction, according to a new study led by University of Adelaide scientists in Australia.
A new investigation of a fossilized tracksite in southern Africa shows how early dinosaurs made on-the-fly adjustments to their movements to cope with slippery and sloping terrain. Differences in how early dinosaurs made these adjustments provide insight into the later evolution of the group.
On October 3, the skeleton of a 40-foot-long, 7.5 ton dinosaur was put up for auction in Las Vegas. The dinosaur was a skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex, the iconic flesh-eating dinosaur that lived some 66 million years ago. The sale at auction of fossils such as this and others is a matter of deep concern to the profession of vertebrate paleontology.
The National Wildlife Federation has teamed with the upcoming feature film Where the Wild Things Are, to launch Be Out There™, a national campaign to get families and kids to spend daily time outdoors for their health, happiness and well-being.
New research from the University of Maryland shows that termite offspring not only stay to help in their birth colony, but may join with other colonies when the king and queen parents die to form a stronger group. It's social insect evolution at its best.
An unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds that call this country's grasslands home.
When pondering the demise of a famous dinosaur such as 'Sue,' the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossilized remains are a star attraction of the Field Museum in Chicago, it is hard to avoid the image of clashing Cretaceous titans engaged in bloody, mortal combat.
When the ancestors of living cetaceans—whales, dolphins and porpoises—first dipped their toes into water, a series of evolutionary changes were sparked that ultimately nestled these swimming mammals into the larger hoofed animal group. But what happened first, a change from a plant-based diet to a carnivorous diet, or the loss of their ability to walk?
Australian researchers have discovered a huge number of new species of invertebrate animals living in underground water, caves and "micro-caverns" amid the harsh conditions of the Australian outback.
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers exploring strategies for conserving the Diamondback Terrapin along Alabama’s Dauphin Island coastline are working to keep the once-celebrated turtle off the endangered species list. The Diamondback Terrapin has been a national delicacy, a source of state taxes and a casualty of commercial development and victim of new predators.
Work by Washington and Lee biologists persuaded the federal government to declare Helenium virginicum, also known as Virginia sneezeweed, a new protected species. Now the biologists are trying to determine whether the species will retain that status.
A team of Chicago biologists including UIC's Emily Minor is asking the public to use an online form to report monk parakeet nest sightings. The biologists plan to use the data to track real-time migration of this exotic Argentinean native as it expands its range across metropolitan Chicago.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right