Ecology & Zoology

I  often like to watch Dog Whisperer, and am fascianated by how a very small dog can often dominate a much larger one, simply through being of higher “energy”, as Cesar Millan calls it.  Watchers of that programme can see that this works across species too, as Cesar trains owners not to let their dogs dominate them, but to take over as human “pack leader”.  Now comes an interesting example of this working between related rodent species. Karnal is a city of over 1 million people, about 76 miles north of Delhi.  And they have a problem with rats.  Perhaps not as severe…

Cicadas are nature’s candy—fat meaty bugs straight out of a Temple of Doom buffet.  Though most cicadas worldwide live typical insect lives, the Magicicada genus in the eastern US has a special power move to counterbalance its deliciousness: periodicity.  So-called seventeen- and thirteen-year cicadas develop underground for most of their lives, emerging for a short adulthood in the summer of their last year.  But remarkably, populations, or broods, of cicadas live their lives in phase with each other. There are only 22 known broods that aren't extinct.  If your town was…

Researchers at the universities of Leicester and Oxford have made a discovery about plant growth which could potentially have an enormous impact on crop production as global warming increases. Dr Kerry Franklin, from the University of Leicester Department of Biology led the study which has identified a single gene responsible for controlling plant growth responses to elevated temperature. Dr Franklin said: "Exposure of plants to high temperature results in the rapid elongation of stems and a dramatic upwards elevation of leaves  These responses are accompanied by a significant reduction…

Researchers have discovered coral beds off the coast of Hawaii that are more than 4,200 years old, making them among the oldest living creatures on Earth. The team was directed by Brendan Roark of Texas A&M's College of Geosciences and included colleagues from the University of California-Santa Cruz and Australian National University in Canberra. Two different species of coral beds were documented using carbon dating methods, Roark says, with both being much older than previously believed. One species – Leiopathes – is now confirmed to be about 4,265 years old, while the other species,…

Researchers at the University of Florida have introduced 'Delicious', a new muscadine grape cultivar. 'Delicious' ripens early, produces high yields, and is disease-resistant. The black fruit features exceptional taste and texture with an edible skin, making it well-suited for fresh fruit consumption and the potential for wine production. The name 'Delicious' was selected based on the comments of vineyard visitors who sampled the fruit.  According to Dr. Dennis J. Gray, who led the research study published in HortScience, 'Delicious' (Vitis rotundifolia Michx.) originated from a cross…

People have always been fascinated by bats, but mostly in their erratic flying and their bizarre habit of sleeping upside down.    But landing with bad eyesight is not so easy either and a research team is the first to document the landing approaches of three species of bats — two that live in caves and one that roosts in trees. What they found was that bats landing are like people parallel parking their cars; we recognize it, but they don't all do it the same way. Using sophisticated motion capture cameras in a special flight enclosure, the team filmed each species of bat as it…

was a SEA PIG!  (Sorry, giant squid. Maybe next time.)This cool critter is an Echinoderm, which means it's related to sea stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers.  Despite several months studying invertebrates with my Marine Science class this year, I was stumped when trying to figure out which phylum this little critter belonged in- but the internets saved me, of course. Here is another picture where you can see it more clearly.  It's the Scotoplanes globosa in the middle column about halfway down. Lastly, a shout-out to the new Sant Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian…

When a single female antbird is nearby, those with male partners will sing over the songs of their betrothed in an apparent attempt to keep their messages from getting through, according to a new report in Current Biology. Males, of course, then change their tune. This may be the first evidence that such "signal jamming" and "jamming avoidance" (literal cock-blocking) occurs between mates, according to the researchers.  "In human terms, signal jamming is most commonly associated with attempts to scramble information in radio, radar, or cell phone signals," said Joseph Tobias of the…

Whether you follow the "duck, duck, gray duck" school of thought or are firmly ensconced within the "duck, duck, goose" camp, you probably agree that it takes a male and female duck to make a baby duck. Add another male and maybe you'll increase your chances of getting a baby duck out of the deal. At least, that's what the folks at the Arundel Wetland Center on the southern coast of England thought. Blue ducks (the whio, or Hymenolanimus malacorhynchos) is a unique threatened species of waterfowl endemic to New Zealand, according to the NZ Department of Conservation. "It is the only member of…

Colorful poison frogs in the Amazon owe their great diversity to ancestors that leapt into the region from the Andes Mountains several times during the last 10 million years, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin suggests. This is the first study to show that the Andes have been a major source of diversity for the Amazon basin, one of the largest reservoirs of biological diversity on Earth. The finding runs counter to the idea that Amazonian diversity is the result of evolution only within the tropical forest itself.  It has been assumed that much of the evolution of…