#First in depth deer census highlights need for increased culls, UK research showscurrent approaches to deer management are failing to control a serious and growing problem according to new research by the University
and muntjac deer in a unique study spanning the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. The results published today in the Journal of Wildlife Management show for the first time that present management efforts are not enough to stop populations spreading out of control.
There are more deer in the UK than at any time since the ice age. In the absence of natural predators populations are continuing to expand--causing a serious threat to biodiversity as well as road traffic accidents and crop damage.
The research team investigated the numbers sex ratio and fertility of roe and muntjac deer across 234 km2 of forested land and heathland in Breckland East Anglia to measure the effectiveness of deer management.
It is the first time that such a landscape-scale study has been carried out in Europe and the first time that control efforts have been compared to known numbers.
while deer management appeared to control numbers at a stable level this was only because thousands of deer are pushed out'to the surrounding countryside each year helping drive the further spread of deer.
In the Breckland study area researchers identified a necessary cull of 1864 muntjac from an estimated population of 3516 (53 per cent)
and 1327 roe deer out 2211 (60 per cent) just to offset productivity with greater numbers needing to be culled
if populations are to be reduced. These figures greatly exceed previous cull recommendations for muntjac (30 per cent) and roe (20 per cent.
Lead researcher Dr Paul Dolman from UEA's school of Environmental sciences said: Deer management is often based on guesswork.
This is the first time that a population has been quantified and studied in terms of how the deer are breeding--to measure the effectiveness of deer management.
Dr Kristin Wäber who conducted the study while a Phd student at UEA said:
Native deer are an important part of our wildlife that add beauty and excitement to the countryside but left unchecked they threaten our woodland biodiversity.
Trying to control deer without a robust understanding of their true numbers can be like sleepwalking into disaster.
In Thetford Forest despite an active programme of professional management culling thousand of deer the numbers culled did not offset productivity.
This is a particular problem for nonnative invasive species like muntjac. In recent years people have become more and more concerned about the impacts deer are having in North america Britain
and elsewhere in Europe Increasing deer populations are a serious threat to biodiversity--particularly impacting on woodland birds such as migrant warblers and the nightingale.
They also carry diseases such as Lymes and if numbers are managed not properly they can cause damage to crops as well as road traffic accidents.
when woodlands are under so much pressure from deer. Current approaches to deer management are failing to contain the problem--often
because numbers are being underestimated. Cull targets are often too low. This research shows that an annual cull of 53 per cent for muntjac
and 60 for roe deer is necessary to curb their continuing increase and spread. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by University of East Anglia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The U s. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently implemented a formal methodology for evaluation of weediness
Pankaj Jaiswal Assistant professor of Botany and Plant pathology at Oregon State university Samuel Fox a Postdoctoral Associate in Jaiswal's laboratory and colleagues assembled transcriptomes of a noxious weed Brachypodium sylvaticum
Fox and colleagues have assembled the transcriptomes for two slender false brome populations from its native range (Greece Spain) and one population from its invasive range (Oregon.
Fox and Cruzan note The seed and genomic resources are publicly available so it would be relatively easy for any research group to establish a research program focused on slender false brome.
A team led by Rice physicist Ching-Hwa Kiang found that shear forces like those found in small arteries of patients with atherosclerosis cause snippets of nonclotting VWF to change into a clot-forming shape for hours at a time.
When I first heard what Dr. Kiang's team had found I was shocked said blood platelet expert Dr. Joel Moake a study co-author who holds joint appointments at Rice and BCM.
Kiang associate professor of physics and astronomy and of bioengineering studies the forces involved in protein folding.
Proteins are the workhorses of biology. Tens of thousands are produced each second in every living cell and each of these folds into a characteristic shape within moments of its creation.
Kiang is a pioneer in the use of atomic force microscopes (AFM) to shed light on the fundamental physical processes involved in protein folding.
Kiang's team uses the bobbing needle to grab and pull apart individual protein molecules. By stretching these like rubber bands her team has shown it can measure the precise physical forces that hold them in their folded shape.
we used those measurements to see what state the molecule was said in Kiang. In this way we were able to study the dynamics of the molecule to see how it changed over a period of time.
That is why Dr. Kiang's research is so important and makes it more likely that therapeutic interventions can be designed more rationally.
To study the problem Kiang's lab worked closely with Moake's team at Rice's Bioscience Research Collaborative
Kiang's team used AFMS to test the samples. Through a combination of experiments and deductive reasoning her team determined exactly
and initiate clot formation Kiang said. That will tell us even more about the physical properties of the proteins
and insect resistance but it can stand in the way of enzymes that want to get at the sugars locked up in the carbohydrates.
since the phenomenon was discovered in fruit flies 50 years ago. A new study a highlight in the March issue of the journal Genetics provides the latest plot twist.
A gene exploits a rival gene's excesses sabotaging any sperm that bear a rival's chromosome.
When male flies make their sperm the SD gene (call it A) manages to rig meiosis--the specialized cell division that makes sex cells
--so that maturing sperm that bear chromosomes with the susceptible allele (call that one a) end up defective and discarded.
Similar selfish systems occur in mammals including humans. In the Genetics study conducted at Brown University scientists uncover new clues about how the SD gene might be gaming the system against a. It's a plot
Humans flies all of us have been attacked for millennia by selfish genetic elements that want to make as many copies as possible Reenan said.
Sometimes as in SD flies there are no apparent ill effects but when the selfish genes come in the form of viruses
#Monopoly of the male orangutan: Comparative field observations on Sumatra and Borneothe sexual development mating habits and social hierarchy of the orangutans are more heavily dependent on their environment than had previously been assumed:
where the rain forest supplies more food the influence of the dominant male increases. In order to escape his attention many other males remain small.
In Malay the word orangutan means man of the woods. In fact however these rain forest dwellers clad in a reddish-brown coat are our most distant relatives within the great ape family.
The orangutan differs from all of the others because the male can go through two different phases of development.
It is for this reason that there are two types of sexually mature males the smaller appearing externally like the female and the larger developing secondary sexual characteristics such as cheek pads and throat pouches.
which is home to the orangutans. On Sumatra the researchers observed twice as many small males as adults with cheek pads.
which the smaller ones never prevail the advantages of developmental arrest disappear The fact that food supply in the forest has such a strong impact on the mating behaviour of the orangutan came as a surprise to Dunkel.
It goes to show she says that the organisation of these great apes --and perhaps that of our ancestors as well--is more variable than we had assumed hitherto.
but mammals such as horses rhinos and gazelles evolved long strong teeth that are up to the task.
New research led by the University of Washington challenges the 140-year-old assumption that finding fossilized remains of prehistoric animals with such teeth meant the animals were living in grasslands and savannas.
Instead it appears certain South american mammals evolved the teeth in response to the gritty dust
and mostly up in the animals'gums when they are young. As chewing surfaces of the teeth wear away more of the tooth emerges from the gums until the crowns are used up.
In Argentina mammals apparently developed specialized teeth 20 million years or more before grasslands appeared Strã mberg said.
and western Eurasia where she found the emergence of grasslands coincided with the early ancestors of horses
and other animals evolving specialized teeth. The cause and effect however took 4 million years considerably more lag time than previously thought.
In the case of Argentine mammals Strã mberg and her co-authors hypothesize that the teeth adapted to handle volcanic ash
--when ancient mammals in that part of the world developed specialized teeth--were overwhelmingly from tropical forests Strã mberg said.
The emergence of grasslands and the evolution of specialized teeth in mammals are regarded as a classic example of co-evolution one that has occurred in various places around the world.
#Extinction looms for forest elephants: 60 percent of Africas forest elephants killed for their ivory over past decadeafrican forest elephants are being poached out of existence.
A study just published in the online journal PLOS ONE shows that across their range in Central africa a staggering 62 percent of all forest elephants have been killed for their ivory over the past decade.
The analysis confirms what conservationists have feared: the rapid trend towards extinction--potentially within the next decade--of the forest elephant says Dr. Samantha Strindberg of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) one of the lead authors of the study.
Saving the species requires a coordinated global effort in the countries where elephants occur--all along the ivory smuggling routes and at the final destination in the Far east.
We don't have much time before elephants are gone says the other lead author Dr. Fiona Maisels also of WCS.
The study which examines the largest ever amount of Central African elephant survey data comes as 178 countries gather in Bangkok to discuss wildlife trade issues including poaching and ivory smuggling.
The study--the largest ever conducted on the African forest elephant--includes the work of more than 60 scientists between 2002 and 2011
and an immense effort by national conservation staff who spent 91600 person-days surveying for elephants in five countries (Cameroon Central african republic the Democratic Republic of congo Gabon
and the Republic of congo) walking over 13000 kilometers (more than 8000 miles) and recording over 11000 samples for the analysis. The paper shows that almost a third of the land where African forest elephants were able to live 10 years ago has become too dangerous
for them. Co-author Dr. John Hart of the Lukuru Foundation says: Historically elephants ranged right across the forests of this vast region of over 2 million square kilometers (over 772000 square miles)
but now cower in just a quarter of that area. Although the forest cover remains it is empty of elephants demonstrating that this is not a habitat degradation issue.
This is almost entirely due to poaching. Recent surveys from Democratic Republic of congo showed a major decline of elephants in the Okapi Faunal Reserve considered the last stronghold for elephants in the region.
Results show clearly that forest elephants were increasingly uncommon in places with high human density high infrastructure density such as roads high hunting intensity
and poor governance as indicated by levels of corruption and absence of law enforcement. Distinct from the African savannah elephant the African forest elephant is slightly smaller than its better known relative
and is considered by many to be a separate species. They play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of one of Earth's critical carbon sequestering tropical forests.
A rain forest without elephants is a barren place. They bring it to life they create the trails
and keep open the forest clearings other animals use; they disperse the seeds of many of the rainforest trees--elephants are forest gardeners at a vast scale.
Their calls reverberate through the trees reminding us of the grandeur of primeval nature. If we do not turn the situation around quickly the future of elephants in Africa is doomed.
These new results illustrate starkly just how dramatic the situation has become. Our actions over the coming decade will determine
This has resulted in escalating elephant massacres in areas previously thought to be safe. We have been carrying out surveys in the forests of Gabon for over a decade
and seen an increasing number of elephant carcasses over the years say co-authors Mr. Rostand Aba'a of the Gabon National parks Service and Mr. Marc Ella Akou of WWF Gabon.
Earlier this month the government of Gabon announced the loss of approximately 11000 forest elephants in Mink b National park between 2004 and 2012;
previously holding Africa's largest forest elephant population. President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon says:
Gabon's elephants are under siege because of an illegal international market that has driven ivory prices in the region up significantly.
If we do not reverse the tide fast the African elephant will be exterminated. Dr. George Wittemyer of Save the Elephants and Colorado State university says:
This study provides unequivocal evidence of the rapid demise of one of the planet's most charismatic and intelligent species. The world must wake up to stem this destruction of species due to conspicuous consumption.
Effective rapid multilevel action is imperative to save elephants. A drastic increase of funding and an immediate focus on the most effective protection strategies are essential to avoid future huge losses to the remaining elephant populations.
Dr. Stephen Blake of the Max Planck Institute says: Forest elephants need two things: they need adequate space in
which to range normally and they need protection. Unprotected roads most often associated with exploitation for timber
or other natural resources push deeper and deeper into the wilderness tolling the death knell for forest elephants.
if forest elephants are to survive. ZSL's West and North africa Programme Manager Mr Chris Ransom says:
if elephants are to survive. The authors of the paper--titled Devastating Decline in Forest Elephants in Central africa--are:
Fiona Maisels Samantha Strindberg Stephen Blake George Wittemyer John Hart Elizabeth A. Williamson Rostand Aba'a Gaspard Abitsi Ruffin D. Ambahe Fidel
) Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation International the Jane Goodall Institute Lukuru Foundation Zoological Society of London Fauna and Flora International Max Planck Institute San diego
Zoo African Wildlife Foundation University of Liege and University of Stirling. Funding was provided by Nancy Abraham the African Wildlife Foundation Beneficia Foundation Busch Gardens CITES-MIKE Columbus Zoo Conservation International Daniel K. Thorne Foundation Diane
Fossey Gorilla Foundation International Espã ces Phares (European union) Ecosystã mes Forestiers d'Afrique Centrale ECOFAC) Fauna and Flora International Frankfurt Zoological
Society IUCN Netherlands John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation KFW Lifeweb (Spain) National Fund for Scientific research (FNRS Belgium) Offield Family Foundation
International Development (USAID CARPE) USFWS Great ape Conservation Fund USFWS African elephant Conservation Fund Wildlife Conservation Society World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society
and the important pollinator services they provide. The results are published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Eighty-seven percent of the world's flowering plants including most of the leading global food crops are pollinated by animals.
Bees are considered the most important pollinators because of their efficiency specificity and ubiquity. However despite concerns about pollinator declines long-term data on the status of bee species are scarce.
In the new study the researchers used new web-based software to compile 30000 museum specimen records representing 438 bee species. A novel aspect of this study was the use of collaborative
Historically we've seen symptoms similar to IBDS associated with viruses spread by large-scale infestations of parasitic mites says Dr. David Tarpy an associate professor of entomology at North carolina State university
But now we're seeing these symptoms--a high percentage of larvae deaths--in colonies that have relatively few of these mites.
That suggests that IBDS is present even in colonies with low mite loads which is not what we expected.
While the study found that IBDS was the greatest risk factor a close runner-up was the occurrence of a so-called queen event.
Honey bee colonies have only one queen. When a colony perceives something wrong with its queen the workers eliminate that queen
and try to replace her. This process is not always smooth or successful. The occurrence of a queen event had a risk factor of 3. 1. This is the first time anyone has done an epidemiological study to repeatedly evaluate the health of the same commercial honey bee colonies over the course of a season Tarpy says.
It shows that IBDS is a significant problem that we don't understand very well. It also highlights that we need to learn more about what causes colonies to reject their queens.
These are areas we are actively researching. Hopefully this will give us insights into other health problems including colony collapse disorder.
The paper Idiopathic brood disease syndrome and queen events as precursors of colony mortality in migratory beekeeping operations in the eastern United states is published in the February issue of Preventive Veterinary medicine.
and bean--most species have specialized highly butterfly-shaped flowers with bilateral symmetry fused stamens and strongly differentiated standard wing
And you could give yourself a gold medal for being a bona fide recycling polar-bear-saving rock star.
and ostrich biltong was actually springbok or ostrich. The rest was horse impala hartebeest wildebeest waterbok eland gemsbok duiker giraffe kangaroo lamb pork or beef.
Worryingly one sample labelled zebra was actually mountain zebra a'red listed'species threatened with extinction.
Maria Eugenia D'Amato from the University of the Western cape commented The delivery of unidentifiable animal carcasses to market
and the general lack of regulations increases the chances of species mislabelling and fraud. This has implications for species safety
This technique is also able to provide new information about the identity of animals and meant that we found several animals whose DNA had been misidentified in the scientific libraries.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biomed Central Limited. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#when theres nowhere elseecologists have evidence that some endangered primates and large cats faced with relentless human encroachment will seek sanctuary in the sultry thickets of mangrove
and peat swamp forests. These harsh coastal biomes are characterized by thick vegetation--particularly clusters of salt-loving mangrove trees
when keeping tabs on the distribution of threatened animals such as Sumatran orangutans and Javan leopards according to a recent Princeton university study in the journal Folia Primatologica.
and mangrove swamps as current--and possibly future--wildlife refuges Katarzyna Nowak a former postdoctoral researcher of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton compiled a list of 60 primates
and 20 felids (the large-cat family that includes tigers and leopards) known to divide their time between their natural forest habitats and some 47 swamp forests in Africa and Asia.
Because swamp forests often lack food sources fresh water and easy mobility few mammals are exclusive to these areas Nowak reported.
Consequently conservation groups have not intensely monitored the animals'swamp use. But the presence of endangered cats and primates in swamp forests might be overlooked seriously Nowak found.
About 55 percent of Old world monkeys--primates such as baboons and macaques that are native to Africa
and Asia--take to the swamps either regularly seasonally or as needed. In 2008 the Wildlife Conservation Society reported that the inaccessible Lake T l swamp forest in the Republic of the Congo was home to 125000 lowland gorillas--more than were thought to exist in the wild.
Among big cats the Bengal tiger for instance holds its sole ground in Bangladesh in the Sundarbans the world's largest mangrove forest.
Life in the swamps can still be harsh for some animals. Species such as the crab-eating macaque and fishing cat can adapt somewhat readily to a life of swimming
and foraging for crustaceans. Meanwhile Zanzibar's red colobus monkey--driven to coastal mangroves by deforestation--can struggle to find the freshwater it needs as Nowak reported in the American Journal of Primatology in 2008.
Such a trend could result in local extinction of the red colobus nonetheless she said.
Nowak concludes that swamp forests beg further exploration as places where endangered species such as lowland gorillas
and flat-headed cats have preserved their numbers --and where humans could potentially preserve them into the future.
The paper Mangrove and Peat Swamp Forests: Refuge Habitats for Primates and Felids was published in the journal Folia Primatologica.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Princeton university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Historic datasets reveal effects of climate change and habitat loss on plant-pollinator networksare plant-pollinator networks holding together as the insects and plants in the network are jostled by climate change and habitat loss?
The question is difficult to answer because there is no baseline: few historic datasets record when plants first bloomed
or insects first appeared and almost none follow both plants and insects. Which is why biologist Tiffany Knight
and her then postdoctoral research associate Laura Burkle were delighted to discover meticulous data on a plant-pollinator network recorded by Illinois naturalist Charles Robertson between 1887 and 1916.
Recollecting 26 spring-blooming flowers from Robertson's network Knight Phd professor of biology at Washington University
and Burkle Phd now assistant professor of ecology at Montana State university discovered that the network had weakened.
Half the bee species associated with these flowers in Robertson's lifetime had disappeared some pollinators were active before their plants had bloomed plants weren't visited as often
The bees still have food plants are still getting pollinator service. But the service has declined the network's structure is weaker
The study the first to look at human disruption of plant-pollinator networks through the lens of historical data appears in the Feb 28th online edition of Science.
Robertson's astonishing legacya professor of biology and Greek at Blackburn College in Carlinville Illinois Charles Robertson collected flower-visiting insects near Carlinville between 1887 and 1916.
Over 20 years Robertson recorded visits from 1429 pollinators (including flies beetles and butterflies as well as bees) to 456 plant species. He identified
and described several hundred insects previously unknown to science. So respected is he among entomologists that roughly 20 additional species have been named for him.
Robertson's meticulous database is probably the oldest of its type for flower-visiting insects.
Before Robertson said co-author John Marlin Phd a research affiliate at the University of Illinois's Prairie Research Institute who had recollected part of Robertson's network in the 1970s almost all insect collecting was done independently of the plant.
Robertson was one of the first to record the insect the plant it was collected on to the extent possible
what the insect was doing and other factors which led to an explosion of information on insect-plant relationships.
Burkle said she particularly enjoyed the sleuthing needed to figure out Robertson's methods so that they could replicate them.
It was like solving a mystery she said trying to deduce what he had done from old ledgers specimen
i. d. tags and his privately published book Flowers and Insects. How Robertson's network is studied doingrobertson it all Knight said.
and the insects flew for 22.5 fewer days. Because everything was compressed more there was less overlap and less time for successful pollination.
All through high school I studied bees and ants he said and when I came to college the Illinois Natural history Survey hired
me to help collect insects around the state. In my senior year I was asked to collect bees at Carlinville to try to duplicate as much as possible Robertson's efforts.
We can't just kick these plant-pollinator networks forever and expect them to keep functioning Knight said.
#Loss of wild insects hurts crops around the worldresearchers studying data from 600 fields in 20 countries have found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects primarily wild bees suggesting the continuing
loss of wild insects in many agricultural landscapes has negative consequences for crop harvests. The study which prompts an urgent call to maintain
and manage pollinator diversity for long-term agricultural production is published today in the journal Science. The 50 international researchers including Lawrence Harder professor in the Department of Biological sciences in the Faculty of science at the University of Calgary analysed data from 41 crop systems around the world including fruits seeds nuts
and coffee to examine the consequences of having abundant wild pollinators for crop pollination. Our study demonstrates that production of many fruit
but that increased service by wild insects would help. Flowers of most crops need to receive pollen before making seeds
and fruits a process that is enhanced by insects that visit flowers. These pollinators including bees flies butterflies
and beetles usually live in natural or semi-natural habitats such as the edges of forests hedgerows or grasslands.
As these habitats are lost primarily owing to conversion to agriculture the abundance and diversity of pollinators decline and crops receive fewer visits from wild insects.
The study found that the proportion of flowers producing fruits was considerably lower in sites with fewer wild insects visiting crop flowers.
Therefore the reduction of wild insects in agricultural landscapes will likely impact both our natural heritage and agricultural harvest.
Paradoxically most common approaches to increase agricultural efficiency such as cultivation of all available land and the use of pesticides reduce the abundance
and variety of wild insects that could increase production of these crops says Harder. Our study highlights the benefits of considering this paradox in designing
and wild insects will enhance global yields of animal-pollinated crops and promote long-term agricultural production.
or restoration of natural or semi-natural areas within croplands promotion of a variety of land use addition of diverse floral and nesting resources and more prudent use of insecticides that can kill pollinators.
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