Ecology & Zoology
A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world's oldest Sequoia trees shows that California's western Sierra Nevada was drought-ridden and often on fire from 800 to 1300, according to a new study published in Fire Ecology.
During those 500 years, known as the Medieval Warm Period, extensive fires burned through parts of the Giant Forest at intervals of about 3 to 10 years. Any individual tree was probably in a fire about every 10 to 15 years.
Knowing how giant sequoia trees responded to a 500-year warm spell in the past is important, the authors say, because climate change will probably subject the…
Butterflies are emerging over 10 days earlier in Spring than they did 65 years ago, and anthropogenic global warming is probably at fault, according to a study in Biology Letters.
The study found that mean emergence date for adults of the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has shifted 1.6 days earlier per decade in Melbourne, Australia. Early emergence is causally linked with a simultaneous increase in air temperatures around Melbourne of approximately 0.14°C per decade, and this warming is known to be human-induced.
Researchers raised caterpillars of the Common Brown…
Birds communicate with their developing chicks before they hatch by leaving them messages in the egg, new research published in Science has found.
By changing conditions within the egg, canary mothers leave a message for their developing chicks about the life they will face after birth. In response, nestlings adjust the development of their begging behavior.
If chicks get a message that they will be reared by generous parents then they beg more vigorously for food after hatching. But chicks that are destined to be raised by meaner parents end up being much less demanding.
By attending to…
Researchers studying populations of numerous moth and butterfly species across Papua New Guinea have developed a new technique to study the spread and diet of insect pests--DNA barcoding, which involves the identification of species from a short DNA sequence.
DNA barcodes showed that migratory patterns and caterpillar diets are very dynamic. In one case, a tiny moth that is distributed from Taiwan to Australia, had recently crossed thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean.
The research is detailed in this week's edition of PNAS.
"DNA barcoding was developed for rapid identification but it also…
Scientists from the U.S. department of Agriculture have discovered how The Aedes aegypti mosquito detects the chemical structure of a compound called octenol as one way to find a mammalian host for a blood meal.
Scientists have long known that mosquitoes can detect octenol, but this most recent finding, published in PLoS One, explains in greater detail how Ae. aegypti--and possibly other mosquito species--detect the compound.
Ae. aegypti, according to the study, taps into the "right-handed" and "left-handed" structural nature of octenol, which is emitted by people, cattle and other mammals.…
-------- Original Message --------Subject: are ants bad for our health?From: Date: Sun, February 28, 2010 2:00 amTo: bugman@bugs.org
We have ants and I respect their quest for food...but does their presence in our home have any health consequences foe us?Thanks,Bruce
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for bringing your BUG-Question to P.R. Mantis and the BUG-People! We love to help people understand, respect and even appreciate the incredible world of BUGS every chance we get!
Well put question! It isn't always easy to figure out where their rights stop and ours start. Respect is a tricky thing…
A new study of the Atlantic longarm octopus, Macrotritopus defilippi, indicates that the species has exceptional camouflage capabilities. Scientists say the octopus avoids predators in part by expertly disguising itself as a flounder.
While two other species of octopuses are known to imitate flounder, this is the first report of flounder mimicry by an Atlantic octopus, and only the fourth convincing case of mimicry in cephalopods.
The study was published this week in Biological Bulletin.
Comparing still photographs and video footage from five Caribbean locations collected over the last…
So, I was going to blog about the new baby giant octopus (complete with webcam!) at the Smithsonian. But, it's not really a squid.
Then I was going to talk about sperm whales collectively hunting squid, and point out that the BBC made a geographic error. (The study was conducted in the Gulf of California, on the Pacific side, not in the Gulf of Mexico, which is on the Atlantic side.) But that's really about mammals, which is just not what I do here.
So I dilly-dallied, and a good thing too, because what should show up in my inbox last night but an Australian fisherman's article about sexing…
A possible new
solution to a 163-year-old biology puzzle - why animals grow bigger in cold climates - may have been found, according to researchers who say ecological factors can now be added to
physiological ones.
The results were published
in The
American Naturalist and they say it offers new
insight into 'Bergmann’s rule', an ecogeographic notion that correlates latitude with body mass in animals - animals grow larger at high, cold latitudes than their counterparts closer to
the equator. While traditional explanations have
been based on body temperature being the driving force of…
The flowering plant purple loosestrife - Lythrum salicaria - has been heading north since it was first introduced to the eastern seaboard from Europe 150 years ago. This exotic invader chokes out native species and has dramatically altered wetland habitats in North America.
But as this invasive plant has spread north it has run into challenges posed by a shorter growing season, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Ecology. Scientists have found that adapting to the Great White North carries a severe reproductive…