#Meet the rainforest diversity policea new study has revealed that fungi often seen as pests play a crucial role policing biodiversity in rainforests.
and insects would have an effect on the tree species'said Professor Rob Freckleton of Sheffield University who co-led the study.'
but eliminating insects didn't. Ours is the first study to unpick the effects of the different natural enemies.'
Instead management practices focused on maintaining the complex web of ecological interactions among coffee plantation organisms--including insects fungi plants birds
and abundance of beneficial insects and opens the plantations to winds that help disperse coffee rust spores according to U-M ecologist John Vandermeer
what pest control specialists have come to call'autonomous pest control.''Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Michigan.
#Salamanders help predict health of forest ecosystems, inform forest managementwoodland salamanders are small lungless amphibians that live in moist forest habitats throughout the U s. and the world.
Salamanders often serve as vital links in forest food chains; their population size and recovery from major disturbances can help predict the health of forest ecosystems.
Now researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that salamander population size reflects forest habitat quality
and can predict how ecosystems recover from forest logging activity. MU researchers believe these findings can be translated to other species within forest ecosystems throughout the world.
One of our primary interests is in conservation of amphibians and the habitats that they utilize said Ray Semlitsch Curators'Professor of biological sciences in the College of Arts and Science at MU.
and particularly forest management affects the survival of amphibians on the landscape. We also determined that salamander recovery
--or the amount of time it takes for salamanders to repopulate a cut forest area--can help forest managers determine appropriate logging schedules.
Semlitsch and fellow researcher Grant Connette a graduate student in the Division of Biological sciences chose to study a forest area in the southern Appalachian mountains that has the highest diversity of salamanders in the world.
Although seldom seen in the daytime these animals breathe using their wet skin and forage at night.
The researchers conducted surveys of terrestrial salamanders which don't rely on water or streams to examine patterns of their abundance relative to timber harvest and species movement behavior.
They discovered that forests logged more than 100 years ago may still be affecting salamanders today.
Most conservation biologists study the pattern of change within a species--for example how they decline
We're finding that population fluctuations depend on the animal's behavior like their ability to disperse following a major event like logging a forest
Their research Life history as a predictor of salamander recovery rate from timber harvest in southern Appalachian forests U s a. was published in Conservation Biology.
#Wolf predation of cattle affects calf weight in Montanaa recent study by University of Montana faculty
and graduate students found that wolf predation of cattle contributes to lower weight gain in calves on western Montana ranches.
This leads to an economic loss at sale several times higher than the direct reimbursement ranchers receive for a cow killed by wolves.
The study found that wolves living on the landscape with cattle have no effect on herd weight
but once a ranch has confirmed a wolf kill average calf weight decreases relative to if that ranch had experienced not a wolf depredation.
Ranchers have been saying for years that wolves cause weight loss in cattle but nobody ever had done any research on the topic said Derek Kellenberg a co-author on the study and UM associate professor and chair of the Department of economics.
Kellenberg worked with UM Associate professor Mark Hebblewhite from the Wildlife Biology Program and graduate students Joseph Ramler and Carolyn Sime.
The study quantifies the economic impact of weight loss after a confirmed wolf kill for an average ranch consisting of 264 head of calves.
while the economic impact of lower herd weights caused by wolf depredation is not insignificant to ranchers other ranch-specific husbandry practices
and climatological and environmental variables such as annual precipitation average temperature and snowfall explain a much larger proportion of variance in calf weight over the years than do wolf affects.
and ranchers as they work on issues related to wolf management. This study helps quantify some of the indirect costs that have not previously been accounted for he said.
#Old bird, New world: Did the South american hoatzins originate in Europe? The oldest fossil discoveries from France show that hoatzins once existed in Europe.
These unusual birds only one species of which exists in South america today originated in the Old world.
Studies of the oldest known fossils of Hoatzin ancestors have shown now that these birds existed around 34 million years ago in Europe.
Its relationship among birds is as unclear as its evolutionary history. Until recently South america was considered to be the area of origin of these birds.
Then however fossils from Africa were described and new discoveries from Africa and Europe now prove conclusively that hoatzins reached South america from the Old world.
A study published in January 2014 in the ornithological journal The Auk provided the very first evidence of largely modern Hoatzins from the Miocene (15 million years ago) in Africa.
In the opinion of Dr Vanesa De Pietri of Flinders University in Australia it is a further impressive example that the South american avian fauna contains numerous relicts that were once much more widespread.
The disappearance of these birds might be connected to a period when numerous new animal species migrated from Asia to Europe during the so-called Grande Coupure around 34 million years ago.
These included tree-dwelling carnivorous mammals who may have posed a threat to hoatzin nestlings which are raised in open nests.
Because hoatzins can fly short distances only the adult birds are also easy prey. In Africa by contrast similar tree-dwelling carnivorous mammals are shown to have existed much later.
Digestion specialist and climbing artistthe present-day Hoatzin exhibits a special mode of digestion. These herbivores predigest their food in this crop before further processing in the stomach and intestines.
Similar to the rumen of a cow--a digestive knack that has not been mastered by any other bird.
Skeletal features show that Old world hoatzins already had a large crop. Another special feature of the Hoatzin are the claws on the wings of the chicks
which enable the hatchlings to climb trees. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural history Museum.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal References c
#Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees, may explain bee population declinea viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
and could help explain their decline. Researchers working in the U s . and Beijing China report their findings in mbio the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The routine screening of bees for frequent and rare viruses resulted in the serendipitous detection of Tobacco Ringspot Virus
or TRSV and prompted an investigation into whether this plant-infecting virus could also cause systemic infection in the bees says Yan Ping Chen from the U s. Department of agriculture's Agricultural research service (ARS) laboratory in Beltsville Maryland an author on the study.
The results of our study provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected
We already know that honeybees Apis melllifera can transmit TRSV when they move from flower to flower likely spreading the virus from one plant to another Chen adds.
Toxic viral cocktails appear to have a strong link with honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a mysterious malady that abruptly wiped out entire hives across the United states
Bee Virus (DWV) Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are known other causes of honeybee viral disease.
TRSV was detected also inside the bodies of Varroa mites a vampire parasite that transmits viruses between bees while feeding on their blood.
However unlike honeybees the mite-associated TRSV was restricted to their gastric cecum indicating that the mites likely facilitate the horizontal spread of TRSV within the hive without becoming diseased themselves.
The fact that infected queens lay infected eggs convinced these scientists that TRSV could also be transmitted vertically from the queen mother to her offspring.
Thus they call for increased surveillance of potential host-jumping events as an integrated part of insect pollinator management programs.
#Exposure to pesticides results in smaller worker beesexposure to a widely used pesticide causes worker bumblebees to grow less
which is used on flowering crops to prevent insect damage reduces the size of individual bees produced by a colony.
The researchers Gemma Baron Dr Nigel Raine and Professor Mark Brown from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway worked with colonies of bumblebees in their laboratory and exposed half of them to the pesticide.
and weighing bees on micro-scales as well as monitoring the number of queens and male bees produced by the colony.
We already know that larger bumblebees are more effective at foraging. Our result revealing that this pesticide causes bees to hatch out at a smaller size is of concern as the size of workers produced in the field is likely to be a key component of colony success with smaller bees being less efficient at collecting nectar
The study is the first to examine the impact of pyrethroid pesticides across the entire lifecycle of bumblebees.
Bumblebees are essential to our food chain so it's critical we understand how wild bees might be impacted by the chemicals we are putting into the environment.
We know we have to protect plants from insect damage but we need to find a balance
although it would be required further trials of these two molecules with animal to verify its effectiveness in the treatment for allergy to peach.
The two female castes workers and queens are diploid like humans. They contain two copies of each chromosome.
and feeding like the workers they are responsible for mating with queens so that the next generation of honey bees can be produced within a colony.
Without strong fit drones the chance of successful matings with queens could be compromised severely.''Recent studies mainly coming out of the United states suggest that queen failure is a major cause of colony death.
Early death of queens could be the result of queens not obtaining sufficient quantity and quality of sperm from drones during mating.
Honey and pollinationhoney bees as all insect pollinators provide crucial ecosystem and economic service which is relevant for our food security.
Annually in Europe more than 24 million honey bee colonies contribute to the production of 130000 tons of honey
#Bigheaded fossil flies track major ecological revolutionsimon Fraser University's Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes are part of a team of biologists including Christian Kehlmaier from Germany's Senkenberg
Natural history Collections that has discovered three new extinct fossil species of bigheaded flies. According to their research published recently by The Canadian Entomologist these fossils show their early evolution parallels an ecological revolution one that formed the character of our modern natural communities.
The three new species of fossil bigheaded flies are members of the living family Pipunculidae.
Bigheaded flies are a group of bizarre insects whose round heads are covered almost entirely by their bulging compound eyes
which they use to hunt for mainly leafhoppers and planthoppers renowned common garden insect pests says Archibald.
The newly discovered species were preserved in Eocene epoch fossil beds that are 49 million to 52 million years old
By the time of these flies in the Eocene however forests had diversified again but this time with many new kinds of flowering plants that are familiar to us today such as birches maples and many others.
Along with these new rich forests came an expanding diversity of pollinators and herbivorous insects and with them diversification of their insect predators including these bigheaded flies.
With these new discoveries we see that the early history of these oddly shaped insect predators provides a part of the puzzle revealing the broad ecological-evolutionary revolution of expanding predator-prey relationships
and increasing biodiversity during the formation of new ecosystems says Archibald. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Simon Fraser University.
and pests. â#oefor a long time cotton breeders have been trying to develop upland cotton with the fiber qualities of barbadense cottonâ#Pepper said. â#oeglobally everybodyâ##s trying to do it.
#Ants protect acacia plants against pathogensthe biological term symbiosis refers to what economists and politicians usually call a win-win situation:
The mutualistic association between acacia plants and the ants that live on them is an excellent example:
and accommodation in the form of food bodies and nectar as well as hollow thorns which can be used as nests.
The ants return this favor by protecting the plants against herbivores. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany have now found that ants also keep harmful leaf pathogens in check.
The presence of ants greatly reduces bacterial abundance on surfaces of leaves and has a visibly positive effect on plant health.
Study results indicate that symbiotic bacteria colonizing the ants inhibit pathogen growth on the leaves.
Myrmecophytes are plants which live in a symbiotic relationship with ants. The acacia species Acacia hindsii which is native to tropical dry forests in Central america is such a myrmecophyte.
Its inhabitants are ants of the genus Pseudomyrmex. The ants depend completely on their host plants for nectar
and the food bodies rich in proteins and lipids which they require. The acacia also provides shelter the so-called domatia in the hollows of its swollen thorns.
In return for room and board mutualistic Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus ants become bodyguards protecting their host against herbivores and competing plants.
However some ants also benefit from the plant's services without giving anything in return such as the parasitic ant species Pseudomyrmex gracilis.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have looked now more deeply into the insect-plant interaction asking
whether the tiny bodyguards also provide protection against microbial pathogens. They compared the leaves of acacia plants
which were inhabited by either mutualistic or parasitic ants to leaves from which ants had been removed. Intriguingly the leaves of acacia colonized by parasitic ants showed more leaf damage from herbivores
and microbial pathogens than did the leaves that had mutualistic ants. The presence of the right symbiotic partner seemed to have a positive effect on the plant's health.
Analysis of the surfaces of the leaves revealed that the number of plant pathogens as well as of necrotic plant tissues increased considerably
when mutualistic Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus ants were absent. These plants also showed strong immune responses in the form of an increased concentration of salicylic acid a plant hormone
which regulates defense against pathogens. Detailed analysis of the bacterial composition on the surfaces of the leaves suggested that the presence of mutualistic ants changed the bacterial populations and reduced harmful pathogens.
Although far less pronounced this effect could also be observed in parasitic ants. How antimicrobial protection is transferred from ants to plant is still unclear.
Chilean researcher Marcia Gonzã¡lez-Teuber first author of the publication suspected that microorganisms associated with the ants might play a role.
Because acacia leaves are touched mainly by ants'legs she extracted the legs of mutualistic and parasitic ants and tested the effect of the extracts on the growth of bacterial pathogens in the lab. Plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae was sensitive to the application of leg extracts of both ant species
and its growth was inhibited. In the next step the scientist isolated and identified bacteria from the legs of the ants.
In lab tests bacterial strains of the genera Bacillus Lactococcus Pantoea and Burkholderia effectively inhibited the growth of Pseudomonas bacteria isolated from infected acacia leaves.
Interestingly some of the bacterial genera associated with the ants are known to produce antibiotic substances.
The Jena researchers have added thus another level of interaction to the symbiosis between ants and their host plants.
Such mutualistic relationships are much more complex than previously thought. In the future we will have to include bacteria
and other microorganisms in our considerations says Wilhelm Boland head of the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute.
Studies on symbiotic relationships between ants and myrmecophytic plants should not overlook the role of bacterial partners that help the ants protect their plants.
The researchers are part of the Modelling Animal Decisions team at the University of Bristol which aims to understand mental mechanisms from an evolutionary perspective.
However Merck Animal health manufacturer of Zilmax voluntarily suspended sales of the product last September when major U s. meat packer Tyson announced it would stop buying cattle fed Zilmax due to an animal welfare concern
are trained the truckers to properly transport these animals? How long do they wait at the slaughter facility?
However Merck Animal health manufacturer of Zilmax voluntarily suspended sales of the product last September when major U s. meat packer Tyson announced it would stop buying cattle fed Zilmax due to an animal welfare concern
or muscle damage in these big heavily muscled animals. Regardless of beta-agonist use in feeding pigs Thomson said the swine industry went from having about a 250-lb. average out weight to a 300-lb. average out weight on market hogs.
and work in a particular management system to improve efficiency of animals and profitability then it is fine to use them he said.
#How electricity helps spider webs snatch prey and pollutantsspider webs actively spring towards prey thanks to electrically-conductive glue spread across their surface Oxford university scientists have discovered.
The researchers found that the electrostatic properties of the glue that coats spider webs causes them to reach out to grab all charged particles from pollen and pollutants to flying insects.
which may enable insects to spot the webs with their antennae'e-sensors'.'The study published in Naturwissenschaften shows how a quirk of physics causes webs to move towards all airborne objects regardless of
This explains how webs are able to collect small airborne particles so efficiently and why they spring towards insects.
According to the researchers common garden spider webs around the world could be used for environmental monitoring as they actively filter airborne pollutants with an efficiency comparable to expensive industrial sensors.'
Many spiders recycle their webs by eating them and would include any particles and chemicals that are drawn electrically to the web.
We already know that spiders spin different webs when on different drugs for example creating beautiful webs on LSD and terrible webs on caffeine.
if any airborne chemicals affect the animal's behaviour.''Working with Dr Donald Edmonds from Oxford university's Department of physics Professor Vollrath showed that webs like that of the garden cross spider also cause local distortions in Earth's electric field
since they behave like conducting discs. Many insects are able to detect small electrical disturbances including bees that can sense the electric fields of different flowers and other bees.'
'Pretty much all flying insects should be capable of sensing electrical disturbances'said Professor Vollrath.''Their antennae act as'e-sensors
'when the tips are connected to the body by insulating materials meaning the charge at the tip will be different from the rest of the insect.
As insects approach charged objects the tips of their antennae will move by a small amount
which they may be able to feel. Bees already use e-sensors to sense flowers and other bees so it now remains to be seen
'Electrical disturbances caused by spider webs are ranged extremely short so it is not yet clear whether insects would be able to sense them before the web snaps out to grab them.
Either way it is clear that electrostatic charges play an important role in the insect world.'
'People often underestimate the static electricity that builds up in airborne objects but it is important at all scales'said Professor Vollrath.'
so it's fascinating to see how spider webs make use of this to actively catch prey.
'Video of spider webs moving towards positive and negative electrodes by Fritz Vollrath: http://d3qk4vw19t7z2n. cloudfront. net/Electrostatic%20positive%20and%20negative hd. mp4story Source:
animals fed a fiber-rich diet become less fat and are less likely to develop diabetes than animals fed a fiber-free diet.
Nevertheless the mechanism behind this effect has remained until now a mystery. The team headed by Gilles Mithieux CNRS researcher in the Nutrition et Cerveau unit (Inserm/Universitã Claude Bernard Lyon 1) wondered
and the production of glucose by the intestine the researchers subjected rats and mice to diets enriched with fermentable fibers or with propionate or butyrate.
They then observed a strong induction of the expression of genes and enzymes responsible for the synthesis of glucose in the intestine.
They showed that the intestine of these animals used propionate as precursor to increase the production of glucose.
Mice fed a fat -and sugar-rich diet but supplemented with fibers became less fat than control mice
and were protected also against the development of diabetes thanks to significantly increased sensitivity to insulin.
The researchers repeated the experiment with mice whose intestine's ability to produce glucose had been suppressed by genetic engineering.
these mice became fat and developed diabetes like those fed a fiber-free diet. It is therefore the production of glucose by the intestine from propionate and butyrate that is behind the positive effects of fermentable fibers on the organism.
#And that is how the desert locust lost its memorythe desert locust (a type of grasshopper) much like Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde goes from being an innocuous solitary-living individual to become a voracious gregarious animal
Although gregarious animals later recover this capacity their diet is affected not because at this point the food taste is no longer an important deciding factor.
The research provides new insights on how the environment can affect gene expression and on insects'extraordinaire adaptability.
since food is a crucial survival tool and an adaptation to the animal's specific life story and ecology.
Although the new diet improved the survival chances of the animal in the swarm by increasing the range of food available
and its protection against predators (toxic plants make locusts unpalatable) how could such major adaptation occur in just a few hours?
but already show the behaviors of gregarious animals). They used a protocol similar to the one in Pavlov's dog experiments (where a dog is conditioned to associate a bell with being fed) using vanilla (the locusts'favourite) and lemon odours.
But in this case the locusts were taught to link a vanilla odour with unpalatable nicotine food (so with a negative/aversive stimulus) or instead lemon with a nutritious diet (positive stimulus).
although it took much longer to gregarious animals transiens locusts could not do it. In contrast all 3 stages gained without problems the positive/appetitive memories (to link the lemon odour to nutritious food.
On the other hand if the animals were trained first then crowded and only after tested crowding had no effect on (old) memories
This showed that during the locusts'initial period of gregarization/crowding (transiens form) the animals can not acquire new negative memories.
but they still did not explain how the gregarious animals changed their diet so fast.
To start the animals were taught to associate vanilla with hyoscyamine but this time while solitarious locusts learned to avoid vanilla--so gained the negative memory--neither transiens nor gregarious locusts could do it.
After training animals were divided into two groups--one half was kept in a cage the other half crowded
This capacity to override previous memories which only occurs during the initial stages of gregarization/crowding is crucial for survival in the swarm because with increasing numbers of individuals also raises not only competition for food but also exposure to predators.
In fact while solitarious locusts acquire aversive memories in about 4 hours most probably through a taste-controlled mechanism gregarious animals take 24 hours to show a reaction
Simå es and colleagues'research shows for the first time how the same animal can adapt its learning
and memory abilities to suit different life stages in a remarkable show of insects'survival skills.
Luckily swarms only last days with those locusts not eaten by predators turning back to their solitarious form.
They measured the diversity of plants pest and beneficial insects birds and microbes that consume methane a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
Methane consumption pest suppression pollination and bird populations were higher in perennial grasslands. In addition the team found that the grass crops'ability to harbor such increased biodiversity is linked strongly to the fields'location relative to other habitats.
For example pest suppression which is already higher in perennial grass crops increased by an additional 30 percent
when fields were located near other perennial grass habitats. This suggests that in order to enhance pest suppression
and other critical ecosystem services coordinated land use should play a key role in agricultural policy
If high commodity prices continue to drive conversion of these marginal lands to annual crop production it will reduce the flexibility we have in the future to promote other critical services like pollination pest suppression and reduction of greenhouse gasses.
Ben Werling Timothy Dickson Rufus Isaacs Katherine Gross Carolyn Malmstrom Leilei Ruan Philip Robertson Thomas Schmidt Tracy Teal and Julianna Wilson.
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