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About Animals / Wildlife is a blog that explores a wide range of research topics about animals of all sizes, shapes, and demeanors, from mites to blue whales.
Laura Klappenbach
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- September 17, 2009
- 12:45 AM
- 1,135 views
Scanning DNA Barcodes in Sea Turtles
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Little chunks of DNA can act as unique barcodes that enable scientists to identify an organism. This fact, which underpins a scientific technique known as DNA barcoding, is now helping conservationists who want to better understand sea turtles, a threatened group of marine reptiles. Since sea turtles are pelagic (they roam the open ocean and migrate vast distances), they are notoriously challenging study subjects. DNA barcoding of sea turtles offers clues about their diversity and in turn reveals the effects trends such as climate change, habitat destruction, and bycatching are having on them.... Read more »
NARO-MACIEL, E., REID, B., FITZSIMMONS, N., LE, M., DESALLE, R., & AMATO, G. (2009) DNA barcodes for globally threatened marine turtles: a registry approach to documenting biodiversity. Molecular Ecology Resources. DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-0998.2009.02747.x
- March 30, 2010
- 01:52 PM
- 1,065 views
Chilly Chameleons Don't Miss Meals
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
For cold-blooded animals, the colder it gets—the harder life gets. As temperatures fall, lizards sprint slower, fish swim slower, and frogs jump shorter distances. Life-sustaining skills such as outrunning predators and foraging for food become insurmountable challenges. So it's not surprising that most cold-blooded animals, also known as ectotherms, remain inactive during the cooler parts of the day or avoid frosty habitats altogether. Most cold-blooded animals that is, except for chameleons.... Read more »
Anderson, C., & Deban, S. (2010) Ballistic tongue projection in chameleons maintains high performance at low temperature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(12), 5495-5499. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0910778107
- December 14, 2009
- 11:15 AM
- 997 views
Bird Calls: Scolding Predators or Warning Fellow Birds?
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
When approached by a predator, birds often cry out—they produce what is known as a 'call'. But why would a bird do such a thing? A call draws attention to the caller and might reveal it's location, making it more vulnerable to attack. What is the purpose of such a risky vocal outburst? And when a bird calls out, to whom is the bird communicating? Predators or fellow birds?
A team of scientists from the University of California Davis conducted a series of experiments to find out more about the motives behind bird calls. They caught an assortment of wild birds—dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, house finches. They placed the birds in a birdcage around which they set up a ring of microphones. The researchers then tricked the caged birds into thinking a predator was in their midst by showing showed them a stuffed owl. The calls the birds made in response to the owl's appearance were recorded and analyzed.
Read more...Bird Calls: Scolding Predators or Warning Fellow Birds? originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 16:15:41.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Yorzinski, J., & Patricelli, G. (2009) Birds adjust acoustic directionality to beam their antipredator calls to predators and conspecifics. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1519
- December 3, 2009
- 09:04 PM
- 945 views
The Decline of the Megafuana
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Something dramatic happened to a lot of very big animals between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago. During this time period, 34 major groups of large animals died-out. Among those that disappeared, were ten species that weighted more than a ton. Giant sloths, mammoths, mastodons, giant kangaroos, and moa were just a few of the fast-vanishing fauna.
It has long been clear that these large animals, also known as "megafauna", perished in a short period of time. But scientists disagree about what caused their rapid decline. One explanation was that the humans that moved into the area about 13,000 years ago hunted the large animals to extinction. Another eplanation attributes the decline of large animals to an extraterrestrial object hitting the earth about that same time.
To better understand what brought about the demise of large land animals, a team of scientists set out to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. The team, led by Jacquelyn Gill of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, went to Appleman Lake in Indiana. There they sampled the sediments that lined the lake looking for clues about the animals and ecology that once thrived in that region.
Gill and her colleagues sought three basic artifacts: fungal spores, pollen, and charcoal. Each of these clues held different bits of information. The fungal spores, distributed in the dung of large herbivores, provided a way of estimating how many "mega" animals were present in the region (more spores meant more dung and more dung meant more animals). Pollen grains provided scientists with to reconstruct the type of vegetation that existed in the region. The third clue, charcoal, held information about the fires that raged (or didn't rage) through the region in prehistoric times. More charcoal meant more fires.
The data Gill and her team collected indicated that large animals started to disappear from the region 14,800 years ago. This finding was surprising, archeologists previously thought that humans did not arrive to the region until 13,300 years ago. Gill and her team also showed that the dominant habitat, open savanna, gradually gave way to mixed woodlands. Fires became increasingly more common, a measure of how dramatically the landscape was changing as the megafuana vanished.
Refs:
Gill, J., Williams, J., Jackson, S., Lininger, K., & Robinson, G. (2009). Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America Science, 326 (5956), 1100-1103 DOI: 10.1126/science.1179504
Johnson, C. (2009). Megafaunal Decline and Fall Science, 326 (5956), 1072-1073 DOI: 10.1126/science.1182770
Image courtesy of Barry Roal Carlsen / University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Decline of the Megafuana originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 02:04:02.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Gill, J., Williams, J., Jackson, S., Lininger, K., & Robinson, G. (2009) Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America. Science, 326(5956), 1100-1103. DOI: 10.1126/science.1179504
Johnson, C. (2009) Megafaunal Decline and Fall. Science, 326(5956), 1072-1073. DOI: 10.1126/science.1182770
- September 8, 2009
- 02:33 PM
- 911 views
Rare Freshwater Fish Hold Clues to Conservation
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
As the saying goes, there are lots of fish in the sea. But that's only a half-truth. Scientifically speaking, there are also lots of fish in rivers, lakes, streams and ponds as well. Of the more than 32,500 species of fish, 43 percent inhabit freshwater habitats. Taking into account the fact that the water held in rivers, lakes, streams and ponds accounts for only a tiny fraction of the Earth's water—a mere 0.01 percent—freshwater fish are exceptionally diverse.... Read more »
Magurran, A. (2009) Threats to Freshwater Fish. Science, 325(5945), 1215-1216. DOI: 10.1126/science.1177215
- September 8, 2009
- 02:45 AM
- 892 views
Young Lemon Sharks Stay Close to Home
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
It seems young lemon sharks that live in the waters around the Bahamas are homebodies. Recent research has revealed that these "teenage" sharks stay close to their birthplace as they mature. Previously, little was known about the wanderings of the sharks after they reached 3 years of age. Scientists were uncertain whether they dispersed into new territory as they gained experience or if they lingered close to their nursery sites. These new findings reveal that more than half of teenage lemon sharks hang-out in the waters near their former nurseries.... Read more »
CHAPMAN, D., BABCOCK, E., GRUBER, S., DIBATTISTA, J., FRANKS, B., KESSEL, S., GUTTRIDGE, T., PIKITCH, E., & FELDHEIM, K. (2009) Long-term natal site-fidelity by immature lemon sharks ( ) at a subtropical island . Molecular Ecology, 18(16), 3500-3507. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04289.x
- November 19, 2009
- 10:00 PM
- 847 views
Scorpionflies: The Oldest Known Animal Pollinators
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
A new study suggests that scorpionflies that lived during the Jurassic Period fed on the nectar-like juices of seed ferns, conifers, and other primitive plants. As the scorpionflies feasted on the sweet liquid from these plants, they may have also acted as animal pollinators—couriers of pollen grains that are vitally necessary to the reproductive cycle of their host plants. If this scenario is true, scorpionflies represent the earliest known animal pollinators.... Read more »
Ren, D., Labandeira, C., Santiago-Blay, J., Rasnitsyn, A., Shih, C., Bashkuev, A., Logan, M., Hotton, C., & Dilcher, D. (2009) A Probable Pollination Mode Before Angiosperms: Eurasian, Long-Proboscid Scorpionflies. Science, 326(5954), 840-847. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178338
Ollerton J, & Coulthard E. (2009) Paleontology. Evolution of animal pollination. Science (New York, N.Y.), 326(5954), 808-9. PMID: 19892970
- November 29, 2009
- 12:28 PM
- 847 views
Leaf-cutting Ants Tend Vast Fungal Gardens
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Leaf-cutting ants have the power to slice, dice, and pilfer the foliage of an entire grove of trees in a matter of days. With impressive efficiency, swarms of leaf-cutters clip and carry leafy material in vast quantities back to their subterrainean colony. There they process the clippings into compost piles, atop which the ants cultivate crops of fungi. The ants tend these fungal gardens and in return the fungi provide a constant source of food for the ant colony.
Leaf-cutter ants and their fungal crops are among the most impressive symbiotic pairings known in the animal kingdom. This ant-fungus relationship is estimated to be between 8 and 12 million years old. But leaf-cutting ants are not the only type of ants to rely on fungus as a food source. There are, in fact, over 230 species of fungus-farming ants, a group referred to as the "attine ants".
The first ants to cultivate fungal gardens lived over 50 million years ago. These ants practiced what is referred to as "lower agriculture", operating small-scale fungi gardens consisting of parasol mushrooms or coral fungi.
The symbiotic relationships in the lower agriculture systems are characterized by a looser symbiotic relationship than later evolving systems. Fungi in lower agricultural systems rely less on their ant hosts and can grow outside of the ant colony. Additionally, the ants are not as particular about the type compost they collect for their fungal garden. They don't harvest leave cuttings but instead settle for decaying material and insect feces.
The agriculture of later-evolving attine ants is more specialized though and their symbiosis with their cultivar is more intimately intertwined. These fungal species in these "higher agriculture" systems, including the fungi grown by leaf-cutting ants, must be tended by ants to ensure their survival. Additionally, the fungi pay the ants back well for their work by sprouting nutritious nodules called "gongylidia" that serve as a food source for the ants.
Refs:
Schultz, T., & Brady, S. (2008). From the Cover: Major evolutionary transitions in ant agriculture Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (14), 5435-5440 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0711024105
Photos © Bandwagonman / Wikipedia.
Leaf-cutting Ants Tend Vast Fungal Gardens originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 17:28:03.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Schultz, T., & Brady, S. (2008) From the Cover: Major evolutionary transitions in ant agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(14), 5435-5440. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0711024105
- September 14, 2010
- 08:22 AM
- 827 views
Moonlight and Mild Temps Inspire Owl Monkeys
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Azara's owl monkeys move to the rhythm of the moon. On nights when a full moon floods the evening sky with light, Azara's owl monkeys cannot sit still. They are so active that by dawn the next morning, they are worn out. But when the lunar cycle wanes and the moonlight fades, Azara's owl monkeys grow less active at night. On mornings after moonless nights, they are more active during the dawn hours.
The owl monkey genus is unique among anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) because it is the only group whose members are nocturnal. Owl monkeys inhabit a range that extends from Central into South America and stretches from Panama to Paraguay.
Read Full PostMoonlight and Mild Temps Inspire Owl Monkeys originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 12:22:49.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Fernández-Duque, E., de la Iglesia, H., & Erkert, H. (2010) Moonstruck Primates: Owl Monkeys (Aotus) Need Moonlight for Nocturnal Activity in Their Natural Environment. PLoS ONE, 5(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012572
- September 22, 2009
- 05:30 AM
- 825 views
Photo Monitoring Ningaloo's Whale Sharks
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Whale sharks are anything but camera shy. Between 1995 and 2006, scientists, tourists, divers, and tour guides snapped more than 5100 underwater photographs of these gentle giants at Ningaloo Marine Park, off the coast of Western Australia. The photographs weren't random portraits of fish. They were all captured as part of a long-term survey of the region's whale sharks.... Read more »
Holmberg J, Norman B, & Arzoumanian Z. (2008) Robust, comparable population metrics through collaborative photo-monitoring of whale sharks Rhincodon typus. Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America, 18(1), 222-33. PMID: 18372568
- July 28, 2010
- 03:21 PM
- 815 views
Climate and the Lion's Magnificent Mane
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
A lion's mane is more than just a bushy bunch of fur framing its face. It's a declaration of a lion's vitality, fighting prowess and dominance as well as an acknowledgement of the climate in which the lion lives. This is the conclusion made by scientists who studied nearly 300 lions in Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park.
Only male lions (Panthera leo) grow manes—females lack the long fur around their face and neck. This difference in appearance between the sexes mean that lions are sexually dimorphic.
It was long thought that manes were shaped largely on the anvil of sexual selection. Males with more impressive manes won more mates and left more offspring. Of course, there were other tentative explanations as well. One was that a lion's mane creates an illusion of bulk, making a male lion appear bigger and fiercer than it would if it lacked a mane—the mane thus serves to discourage challengers or entice mates. Another explanation was that the mane provides a lion with protection during a fight. Although there may be truth in all of these explanations, there's yet more to the story of the lion's mane.
In 2002, Peyton West and Craig Packer from the University of Minnesota published a paper in the journal Science exploring the many factors that influence lions' manes. The details they gathered about lions' manes revealed that the mane communicates important information—it hints of its nutrition, testosterone levels, fighting ability, health, age and the climate in which it lives.
Read Full PostClimate and the Lion's Magnificent Mane originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 19:21:53.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
West, P. (2002) Sexual Selection, Temperature, and the Lion's Mane. Science, 297(5585), 1339-1343. DOI: 10.1126/science.1073257
- September 7, 2010
- 06:58 PM
- 813 views
How Christmas Island Red Crabs Fuel Their Migration
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
For most of the year, Christmas Island red crabs can be classified as pretty lazy crabs. During the dry season, these small land crabs spend long hours resting in their burrows. They emerge at dawn to feed for about 10 minutes and then return underground to escape the heat of the day. But when the dry season ends and the monsoons turn the island soggy, the crabs abandon their hermitic lifestyle. ...Read Full Post... Read more »
Morris, S., Postel, U., Mrinalini, ., Turner, L., Palmer, J., & Webster, S. (2010) The adaptive significance of crustacean hyperglycaemic hormone (CHH) in daily and seasonal migratory activities of the Christmas Island red crab Gecarcoidea natalis. Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(17), 3062-3073. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.045153
- August 11, 2010
- 05:00 AM
- 805 views
Bearded Gobies to the Rescue
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
The bearded goby is an ecological superhero. In less than five decades, this six-inch fish managed to revive an entire marine ecosystem—one that had careened to the brink of collapse. Now scientists are beginning to unravel how the bearded goby stabilized the communities around it and capitalized on conditions seemingly too harsh for life.... Read more »
Utne-Palm AC, Salvanes AG, Currie B, Kaartvedt S, Nilsson GE, Braithwaite VA, Stecyk JA, Hundt M, van der Bank M, Flynn B.... (2010) Trophic structure and community stability in an overfished ecosystem. Science (New York, N.Y.), 329(5989), 333-6. PMID: 20647468
- July 25, 2009
- 12:55 AM
- 791 views
Heating Bills Help Keep Toucans Cool
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Relative to its body size, the toco toucan dons the largest bill of any bird. This magnificent hood ornament serves the toucan well. It functions as a refined feeding tool that enables the toucan to skin fruit and snare prey. It can be wielded as a warning flag to discourage rivals and ward off predators. And, as Charles Darwin noted, the enormity of the toucan's beak may serve as a bright beacon of virility to potential mates.... Read more »
Tattersall, G., Andrade, D., & Abe, A. (2009) Heat Exchange from the Toucan Bill Reveals a Controllable Vascular Thermal Radiator. Science, 325(5939), 468-470. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175553
- August 1, 2009
- 10:51 PM
- 788 views
Are Jellyfish Mixing Up the Oceans?
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
In the world's oceans, water circulates in currents that stretch between the continents and glide along coastlines. Water from the deep mixes with shallower water through vertical movements called upwellings and downwellings. This complex ebb, flow, rise, and fall of seawater—also known as ocean mixing—transports energy, churns nutrients, and stirs dissolved gasses. To understand the driving forces behind ocean mixing is to understand a key element of marine environments.... Read more »
Katija K, & Dabiri JO. (2009) A viscosity-enhanced mechanism for biogenic ocean mixing. Nature, 460(7255), 624-6. PMID: 19641595
- August 3, 2009
- 12:30 PM
- 758 views
Rats! Are Rodents Getting Bigger?
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
It's the stuff of low-budget sci-fi movies: rodents around the globe are growing ever larger at astonishing rates. But B movie it's not—as UIC ecologist Oliver Pergams has demonstrated, the trend is real. In a recently published report Pergams details how rodents are showing signs of rapid, worldwide changes in size and shape. Of course, the timescale and magnitude of this size change is not alarming enough to cause movie-goers to flee the cinema (we're talking about decades and millimeters here—and in some cases size decreases were observed). But it is significant enough to capture the attention of scientists and to merit further investigation into its causes.... Read more »
Pergams, O., & Lawler, J. (2009) Recent and Widespread Rapid Morphological Change in Rodents. PLoS ONE, 4(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006452
- February 15, 2010
- 05:00 AM
- 747 views
Leaf-Cutter Ants Dabble with Nitrogen Fixation
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Leaf-cutter ants are crafty cultivators. They tend vast gardens of fungus that they harvest to feed their minions. In return, the ants care for the fungus. They constantly clip and compost bits of leaves to form a rich substrate on which the fungus thrives. When the fungus is attacked by pathogens, the ants fight back, armed with bacteria that counteract the pathogen.... Read more »
Pinto-Tomas, A., Anderson, M., Suen, G., Stevenson, D., Chu, F., Cleland, W., Weimer, P., & Currie, C. (2009) Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation in the Fungus Gardens of Leaf-Cutter Ants. Science, 326(5956), 1120-1123. DOI: 10.1126/science.1173036
- April 15, 2010
- 06:07 AM
- 710 views
Ancient Snake Dined on Dinos
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
↑ Click to enlarge image
A fossil unearthed from a remote corner of western India reads like an ancient crime scene. The fossil depicts a dinosaur nest containing two unhatched dinosaur eggs and the broken pieces of shell from a third egg. Next to the shattered shell lies the remains of a hatchling dinosaur. The fossil also features the remnants of a rather more sinister creature: an ancient snake lies coiled around the broken egg, as if caught in the act of raiding the nest.
The fossil, originally discovered in 1984, is described by Jeffrey Wilson from the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology and his colleagues in a paper published in the journal PLoS Biology.
Read Full PostAncient Snake Dined on Dinos originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 10:07:22.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Wilson, J., Mohabey, D., Peters, S., & Head, J. (2010) Predation upon Hatchling Dinosaurs by a New Snake from the Late Cretaceous of India. PLoS Biology, 8(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000322
- June 21, 2010
- 07:58 AM
- 700 views
How Caribbean Anoles Filled So Many Niches
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
↑ Click to enlarge image
Imagine a hungry group of youngsters bursting into a candy store where sweets are free for the taking—no cashiers asking for money, no one at the counter putting lids on the candy jars. Children flock to all corners of the store, spreading out evenly so each can claim an entire row of candy jars as their own. As more and more children flood into the shop, they fill the open spaces, packing themselves ever tighter until each child claims just a single jar of candy, not an entire row. As available candy jars dwindled, fewer and fewer children came into the candy store.
The first anole lizards who made their way from South America to the islands of the Caribbean forty thousand years ago encountered their own version of such a candy store.
Anoles, a group of lizards most closely related to iguanas, are among the most diverse groups of reptiles. There are more than 400 species of anoles and of those, nearly 100 species inhabit the islands of the Caribbean.
Read Full PostHow Caribbean Anoles Filled So Many Niches originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 11:58:14.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
Mahler, D., Revell, L., Glor, R., & Losos, J. (2010) ECOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITY AND THE RATE OF MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN THE DIVERSIFICATION OF GREATER ANTILLEAN ANOLES. Evolution. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01026.x
- May 11, 2010
- 07:25 AM
- 690 views
Three Teeth: The First Fossil Remains of Chimpanzees
by Laura Klappenbach in About Animals / Wildlife
Until recently, there were no known fossil remains of chimpanzees. Then in 2005, anthropologists Sally McBrearty and Nina Jablonski published a paper in the journal Nature describing three fossil chimpanzee teeth that had been unearthed from the Kapthurin Formation, a basalt outcrop west of Lake Baringo in Kenya. This discovery offered new insight into the lives ancestral chimpanzees.
Today, chimpanzees inhabit the tropical forests of West and Central Africa and are absent from the dryer habitats in East Africa. Scientists have long speculated that when chimpanzees and ancestral humans diverged between 5 and 8 million years ago, each went their separate way. Chimpanzees favored the wetter climes and tropical forests common to West and Central Africa. Human ancestors preferred the dryer savanna habitats of the East African Rift Valley, a lowland trench that stretches from Ethopia to Mozambique. But the fossil chimpanzee teeth found in the Kapthurin Formation contradict this view. Instead, these fossils indicate that ancient chimpanzees lived within the East African Rift Valley and that a clear-cut "splitting" of chimpanzee and human ranges did not occur.
Read Full PostThree Teeth: The First Fossil Remains of Chimpanzees originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 11:25:58.Permalink | Comment | Email this... Read more »
McBrearty, S., & Jablonski, N. (2005) First fossil chimpanzee. Nature, 437(7055), 105-108. DOI: 10.1038/nature04008
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