Ecology & Zoology

In humans, if we spend time beneath the ocean and then travel to the surface, we can suffer decompression sickness, known as "the bends" - when the nitrogen in compressed air that dissolved into our blood during a dive does not have time to clear and forms bubbles in tissues.  Why don't sea creatures? Using three trained male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), custom-made equipment to measure the lung function of the animals, and electrocardiogram (ECG) sensors they found that the animals, trained for a long breath-hold, a short one, and one where they could do whatever…

Only a few species, less than 0.1 percent, of parasitoid wasps enter water at all but now one in the family Braconidae, subfamily Microgastrinae, has been found to not only enter water but actually dive in order to attack and pull out caterpillar hosts, so that it can lay its eggs inside them before releasing them back in the water. During research work in Japan, Dr. Jose Fernandez-Triana of the Canadian National Collection of Insects and colleagues found and filmed the first microgastrine parasitoid wasp to do so. The wasp was given the name Microgaster godzilla, because it is a…

Every dog owner knows that personality changes over time, but these changes occur unevenly during the dogs' life, and each trait follows a distinct age trajectory, according to a new study.  Human personality is characterized by a peculiar dualism: it is both stable and malleable, depending on the point of reference. If we compare ourselves to our peers, it is stable as our personality rankings relative to others remain consistent over time. However, personality changes became obvious if we compare ourselves across time, as people become more conscientious, more emotionally stable,…

It's no secret how dogs came to evolve. A wolf trusted a human, a human fed a wolf, and this happened enough times that hostile animals were killed off and friendlier ones were not and those traits were passed down. A new study finds it does not take generations. Tame socialized grey wolves form individualized social bonds with their human handlers. And they don't like being separated any more than dogs do. "Attachment is a so-called behavior-complex, what has several manifestations. For instance, dogs seek protection from their owners in threat or they are calmer in new situations when…

A new study shows there is even more reason to worry about the Zika and chikungunya viruses and the pests that spread them; increased risk of neurological diseases like stroke. Aedes aegypti, the mosquito most commonly associated with spread of Zika and Chikungunya, are essentially ecologically useless disease vectors. Nothing they do in nature wouldn't be done by other creatures except transmit these diseases most often to humans.  Stroke occurs when one of the arteries supplying blood to the brain becomes blocked. The risk of stroke is known to be increased after some types of…

When you think of shrimp, lobster, or crabs, you don't think of the hottest place on Earth, but a new freshwater Crustacea has been discovered during an expedition of the desert Lut, which is the record-holder for temperature on land. The Lut desert, Dasht-e Lut in Farsi, is the second largest desert in Iran. Almost deprived of vegetation, the Lut desert harbors a diverse animal life, but no permanent aquatic biotops, such as ponds. Instead, after rain falls, non-permanent astatic water bodies are filled including the Rud-e-Shur river from north-western Lut. And that is when these new…

One problem with studies that create an outcome and then find data to support it is they don't have real world application. International Agency for Research on Cancer epidemiologists, for example, have been caught creating a desired warning label for chemicals and then hand-picking studies to support that goal - the opposite of what scientists do. Harvard TS Chan School of Public Health is frequently criticized for data dredging, where they take questionnaires with so many foods and outcomes they are sure to be able to link something and claim it has statistical power. Yet in the real world…

In recent years, the notion of an insect apocalypse has become a hot topic in the conservation science community and has captured the public’s attention. Scientists who warn that this catastrophe is unfolding assert that arthropods – a large category of invertebrates that includes insects – are rapidly declining, perhaps signaling a general collapse of ecosystems across the world. Starting around the year 2000, and more frequently since 2017, researchers have documented large population declines among moths, beetles, bees, butterflies and many other insect types. If verified, this trend…

What does a pandemic smell like? If dogs could talk, they might be able to tell us. We’re part of an international research team, led by Dominique Grandjean at France’s National Veterinary School of Alfort, that has been training detector dogs to sniff out traces of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since March. These detector dogs are trained using sweat samples from people infected with COVID-19. When introduced to a line of sweat samples, most dogs can detect a positive one from a line of negative ones with 100% accuracy. Across the globe, coronavirus detector dogs are being trained in…

The world's most species-rich temperate alpine biota occurs in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Himalaya, and the Hengduan Mountains. It has continuously existed far longer than any other alpine flora on Earth, which can infer how modern biotas have been shaped by past geological and climatic events. The researchers from connected the dynamic tectonic and climatological history of the region to the biological processes that have driven the development of its alpine biota. Then they focused on whether phylogenetic estimates of alpine ancestry are temporally and spatially consistent with geological…