Ecology & Zoology

New research shows that dairy products have made life easier for thousands of years. Even in places that are a challenge for anyone, like the Tibetan Plateau - the “roof of the world.” Genetic engineering due to natural selection at several genomic loci certainly made early Tibetans better able to survive high elevations, but those did nothing for calorie requirements. A new study finds that dairy made it possible. Ancient proteins from the dental calculus of 40 human individuals from 15 sites across the interior plateau show that dairying was introduced onto the hinterland plateau…

Scholars at Tel Aviv University have recorded and analyzed click-like sounds distinctly emitted by plants. The sounds are similar to the popping of popcorn and emitted at a volume similar to human speech, but frequencies human ears don't detect. The researchers believe plants usually emit sounds when they are under stress, and that each plant and each type of stress is associated with a specific identifiable sound. Though the frequency is too high for human ears, it is in the range detectable by bats, mice, and insects. It was already known that vibrometers attached to plants record…

In 2014, a new invasive species from Asia was detected in Pennsylvania, but by the time government knows about it, it is too late and spotted lanternflies have since spread to more than 100 counties across 14 states.  Forests and cropland have paid the price, and a new study used agent-based models that incorporated information on habitat suitability, life history, movement and natural dispersal behaviors to map the dynamics of their infestation. If environmentalists want to help have fewer pesticides in use, get them early. Spotted lanternfly egg cases look like a smudge of…

It is easy to believe ants disperse and walk randomly until they find something they want, but a new paper says they may have a more methodical approach. At least one species of rock ant, Temnothorax rugatulus, doesn’t walk randomly at all. Instead, their search combines systematic meandering with random walks interspersed. They alternate left and right turns on a relatively regular length scale of roughly three body lengths. The study finds that the ants’ meandering may make their search more efficient than a pure random search would, because ants tend to cross their own paths less…

If you fish you know that catching a muskie (muskellunge), the “fish of 10,000 casts”, is like hitting a hole-in-one in golf. You will talk about it a lot. But it doesn't need 10,000 casts because that would mean having one strike is random. Instead, it helps to learn how they behave. A recent experiment evaluated behavioral traits – activity, aggression, boldness, and exploration – for 68 young muskies in laboratory tanks before transferring the fish to an outdoor pond. Then they fished the pond every day for 35 days. They found what anglers learn by trying every combination of time of day,…

Advent calendars with hidden chocolatey treats, huge tins of Quality Street and steaming cups of hot chocolate festooned with whipped cream and marshmallows are all much-loved wintry staples at Christmastime. But how many of us stop to think about where chocolate actually comes from and how it made its way into our culinary culture? The story of chocolate has a compelling, rich history that academics like me are learning more about every day. Chocolate is made by fermenting, drying, roasting and grinding the seeds of a small, tropical tree of the genus Theobroma. Most chocolate sold today is…

One of the largest mass extinctions ever is bad. Six marine extinctions is even worse. That all happened in one period now known as The Devonian Period, 419 to 358 million years ago. Yet that is also when the world got the trees and complex land plants similar to those we know today first evolving and spreading across the landscape. Those complex root systems affected soil biogeochemistry and set off part of the chain that allowed humans to thrive.  It has been proposed that plant evolution and root development occurred so rapidly and on such a massive scale that nutrient export from the…

Land mammals such as horses experience ‘pulses’ in their blood when galloping, where blood pressures inside the body go up and down on every stride. In all mammals, average blood pressure is higher in arteries, or the blood exiting the heart, than in veins. This difference in pressure drives the blood flow in the body, including through the brain. Locomotion can forcefully move blood, causing spikes in pressure, or ‘pulses’ to the brain. The difference in pressure between the blood entering and exiting the brain for these pulses can cause damage. Long-term damage of this kind can lead to…

In over 15 years of blogging, in this and previous sites, I have mostly stayed away from the topic of climate change, the environmental catastrophe we are creating with our "perennial growth" myths and our disdain of our planet and the other species that inhabit it, and the continuous slaughter of over a billion animals every year for our unnecessarily opulent lunch tables.  The reason of not touching the horrible situation we are facing is that, quite simply, I am not a true expert of the topic, and I wish to avoid adding a non well-informed voice to the high-noise discussions that take…

The value of bees in pollination is overstated, outside the on-demand almond grower market the pollination done by bees would be taken up by 400,000 other species if bees disappeared tomorrow, but that doesn't mean they are not an important part of the ecosystem in other ways. The problem is that endangered, at risk, and other terms are political. Of endangered species listings, 70% were done by two presidents, and the definition of endangered has changed from a science one to an advocacy one.  A new model hopes to quantify it all with some clarity. There are challenges in creating a…