A new study by the Catalina Island Conservancy scientists published in the December supplement of the Journal of Zoo
But with no natural predators the herd grew to some 600 animals. The Catalina Island Conservancy which protects 88%of Catalina Island had conducted previously studies that found the Island could support only about 150 to 200 bison.
and it raised concerns about the stress on the animals during shipment and the expansion of the herd beyond ecologically sustainable numbers between shipments said Julie King director of conservation
Beginning in 2009 the Conservancy's scientists injected the female bison with porcine zona pellucida (PZP) a contraceptive that had been used for fertility control in zoos wild horses and white tail deer.
and gene interaction networks may have evolved differently in sugar beet compared to other species. The researchers also studied disease resistance genes (the equivalent to the immune system in animals)
Their results lend credence to a controversial phenomenon known as the sponge effect which is at the center of a debate about how to minimize flood damage
Evidence to support the sponge effect was lacking for tropical forests leading some to question its validity.
One of reasons why there isn't more scientific evidence for the sponge effect is that you have to take
what nature dishes out said Stallard a staunch proponent of the sponge effect who is seen often wearing Sponge Bob socks.
#A roly-poly pika gathers much moss: High-fiber salad bar may help lagomorphs survive climate changein some mountain ranges Earth's warming climate is driving rabbit relatives known as pikas to higher elevations
or wiping them out. But University of Utah biologists discovered that roly-poly pikas living in rockslides near sea level in Oregon can survive hot weather by eating more moss than any other mammal.
Our work shows pikas can eat unusual foods like moss to persist in strange environments says biology professor Denise Dearing senior author of the new study published online today in the February 2014 issue
of Journal of Mammalogy. It suggests that they may be more resistant to climate change than we thought.
By consuming mosses that grow on the rockslides where they live the pikas are released from foraging outside the safety
or be killed by weasels and hawks says Varner. Few herbivores consume moss because it's so nutritionally deficient.
The pikas in our study actually set a new record for moss in a mammal's diet:
60 percent. The study also found the low-elevation pikas build much smaller food caches to survive the winter compared with pikas in typical high-elevation habitat she adds.
The biologists believe they know how the cute critters do it: Like rabbits and hares pikas produce a fraction of their feces in the form of caecal (pronounced see-cull) pellets
and reingest them to gain nutrition. Caecal pellets look like dark wet blobs versus normal feces that are hard individual pellets.)
Pikas and rabbits and their gut microbes are the ultimate recycling factory Dearing says. They ingest low-quality food over and over again
and turn it into high-quality protein and energy. The end product is six times more nutritious than the moss.
Pikas in the Mistthe Order lagomorpha has two families: one with rabbits and hares the other with pikas.
Pikas are native to cold alpine climates--often above 8200 feet elevation--in North america Asia and Eastern europe.
Although a few species dig burrows they usually live in rocky areas and crevices near meadows or in talus slopes.
and weigh one-third pound with grayish-brown fur small rounded ears and very little tail.
and Oregon and to a lesser extent Colorado--pikas have gone extinct in some mountain ranges and moved to higher elevations in others.
In the gorge--which runs roughly 30 miles east-to-west--these American pikas--Ochotona princeps--live among the rocks on moss-covered talus slopes.
The existence of these low-elevation pikas--which also inhabit the Washington side--has been known
A 2009 study documented these pikas lived in a warmer wetter climate than usual. But until now no one had looked at exactly how they survive.
Monitoring the Pika Salad Barvarner and undergraduates conducted the study on two talus slopes--each about 3. 5 acres--surrounded by a forest of Douglas fir western red cedar and bigleaf maple near the Gorge Trail near Wyeth Ore.
Each site had at least eight resident pikas. They studied the sites in 2011 and 2012 mainly during June through August
when the pikas were most active. The scientists surveyed the abundance of lichens mosses ferns grasses sedges rushes forbs shrubs and trees along the two rockslides.
and counting exactly what species of plants the pikas ate. Each pika was observed at least five times.
The diet analysis included only adult pikas although juveniles from new litters were seen. We counted the numbers of mouthfuls of food they ate
and then collected samples of those foods in the amount we saw them eating per mouthful Varner says.
Overall the biologists watched 220 hours of pika behavior including 1577 individual bouts of foraging.
The food samples were analyzed for how much the pikas ate and for nutrition and fiber content.
and Livesixty percent of the pikas'diet by dry weight came from moss at both sites with the rest from grasses lichens ferns forbs shrubs and some fir needles.
The pikas favored two species: hoary rock moss and big red-stem moss. Varner is unaware that pikas have been seen eating moss elsewhere and certainly not in this quantity.
To our knowledge this study represents the highest degree of voluntary moss consumption reported for a mammalian herbivore in the wild
although wood lemmings have survived on a pure moss diet in a laboratory Varner and Dearing write.
Svalbard reindeer consume up to 54 percent moss in winter but most reindeer eat only 22 percent to 30 percent moss.
Brown lemmings can consume up to 40 percent moss during Arctic winters. And Soay sheep can eat up to 30 percent moss in winter.
Analysis of the pikas'caecal pellets showed they contained six times more protein than the moss they ate.
Less snow cover low in the Columbia Gorge--only about 20 days per winter--means the pikas there collect smaller haypiles (about 10 pounds per animal per year by dry weight) for winter than do pikas at high elevations
in Colorado (about 60 pounds per animal per year in a 1997 Dearing study. The haypiles contained little moss but had forbs shrubs
and fir needles high in phenol to preserve the food cache through the winter. Yet in both places the haypiles equaled about three ounces per animal per day of annual snowpack also showing the low-elevation pikas didn't need to prepare for winter as much because of the availability of their year-round salad bar.
The researchers wondered if nitrogen air pollutants from the Portland area might be absorbed by the moss making it more nutritious.
But the analysis found no support for that idea. In cooperation with the Oregon Zoo and local wildlife agencies Varner has helped begin a citizen science program in the Columbia river Gorge so local hikers can help monitor the pikas.
Pikas also exist in some other low-elevations places including in California's Sierra nevada and in lava flows in Idaho and Washington state.
How they survive there remains unknown Varner says. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Utah.
what's best for land ecosystems is also best for coastal corals. The study appears in the online edition of Marine Policy.
#Significant advance reported with genetically modified poplar treesforest geneticists at Oregon State university have created genetically modified poplar trees that grow faster have resistance to insect pests
With this genetic modification the trees were able to produce an insecticidal protein that helped protect against insect attack.
This method has proven effective as a pest control measure in other crop species such as corn
Insect attack not only can kill a tree it can make the trees more vulnerable to other health problems said Amy Klocko an OSU faculty research associate.
In a really bad year of insect attack you can lose an entire plantation. Hybrid poplar trees which are grown usually in dense rows on flat land almost like a food crop are especially vulnerable to insect epidemics the researchers said.
Manual application of pesticides is expensive and targets a wide range of insects rather than only the insects that are attacking the trees.
A number of the GMO trees in this study also had improved significantly growth characteristics the researchers found.
Annual crops such as cotton and corn already are grown routinely as GMO products with insect resistance genes.
and are subjected to multiple generations of insect pest attacks. That's why engineered insect protection may offer even greater commercial value
and why extended tests were necessary to demonstrate that the resistance genes would still be expressed more than a decade after planting.
#Rainforest rodents risk their lives to eathungry rodents that wake up early are much more likely to be eaten than rodents getting plenty of food and shut-eye according to new results from a study at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
The study was published in the journal Animal Behavior early online edition Dec. 2013. Scientists equipped agoutis common rainforest rodents and ocelots their feline predators with radio collars
and tracked them 24/7 via an automated telemetry system on Barro Colorado Island. Agoutis were most active in the daytime.
Ocelots were most active at night. Agoutis eat tree seeds. Ocelots eat agoutis said Patrick Jansen research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and assistant professor at Wageningen University.
Where food is hard to find agoutis spend more time foraging and are more likely to be eaten by an ocelot.
To determine when it was dangerous for agoutis to be active scientists first recorded daily activity patterns of agoutis as well as ocelots.
Camera traps placed across the island photographed all animals that passed in front of the lens and recorded the time.
During the day thousands of agoutis were active but few ocelots prowled the island. Around sunset as agoutis sought the shelter of their burrows the ratio of ocelots to agoutis jumped
and then droped again around sunrise. Radio signals produced by an animal's transmitter collar were picked simultaneously up by radio towers around the island.
Researchers could watch the animals'activity online. When an animal stopped moving scientists saw a flat line much like the electrocardiogram of a heart-attack victim on their screens.
When agoutis died researchers quickly arrived on the scene to determine the cause of death.
Placing a video camera at the scene allowed them to know if a predator returned to eat the remains.
Seventeen of 19 dead agoutis found in the study were killed by ocelots. Most kills happened just before sunrise and just after sunset
when relatively few agoutis are active. Scientists compared daily activity patterns of agoutis between parts of forest with contrasting abundance of palm seeds.
First they determined at what times agoutis entered and exited their burrows based on changes in radio signals.
Second they placed camera traps at the entrances and recorded the time an agouti entered
and exited. Both methods showed that agoutis in areas with less food left their burrows earlier
and entered their burrows later than agoutis in food-rich areas. Hungry agoutis were much more active at twilight
and were more likely to get killed by an ocelot. We knew that hungry animals tend to take more risks said Jansen.
But this is the first study to so thoroughly document the behavior of both predator and prey.
Next Jansen will examine what the differences in predation risk mean for seed dispersal by agoutis which bury seeds as food reserves in numerous scattered caches.
Once an ocelot kills an agouti the agouti can no longer eat its food reserves Jansen said.
These seeds may germinate and establish a new tree. Hungry agoutis plant trees but may never see the fruit of their labor--a fascinating feedback loop.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Economically valuable sweet-gum trees: Taxonomy and nine new combinationsthe sweet-gum family Altingiaceae is a small group of wind-pollinated trees that produce hard woody fruits that contain numerous seeds.
This widespread tree family has been puzzling botanists for a while due to its complicated taxonomic structure and the morphological similarities between the different genera
which makes their separation and description a challenge. Best known for their biogeographic intercontinental disjunction between E Asia
and E North america recent molecular analysis have shown that Altingia and Semiliquidambar are nested within Liquidambar. A new taxonomic synopsis published in the open access journal Phytokeys formally transfers all Altingia and Semiliquidambar taxa to Liquidambar
which has nomenclatural priority and provides a new analysis including nine new combinations. Traditionally classified into members with a predominantly temperate distribution (Liquidambar) those with a largely tropical to subtropical distribution (Altingia) are presented also in the new study including the taxonomic enumeration and distribution of 15 recognized species based on studies of 1500 specimens
from 24 herbaria throughout the distributional range of the taxa. Despite the difficulties in their taxonomy sweet gum trees are in fact widely distributed and well known due to their varied uses by people.
They are valued for their high quality timber and they produce fragrant resin (styrax). Some species are cultivated also as ornamentals
while others are prized locally highly for the roots and bark used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Some species are local endemics and Liquidambar chingii is listed as near-threatened by the IUCN.
Cellulose could come from a variety of biological sources including trees plants algae ocean-dwelling organisms called tunicates
Zavattieri plans to extend his research to study the properties of alpha-chitin a material from the shells of organisms including lobsters crabs mollusks and insects.
and the impacts of farm animals on environments vary dramatically depending on the animal the type of food it provides the kind of feed it consumes
and the International Institute for Applied Systems analysis (IIASA) shows that animals in many parts of the developing world require far more food to produce a kilo of protein than animals in wealthy countries.
and beef and greenhouse gas emissions vary widely depending on the animal involved and the quality of its diet.
so that the debate over the role of livestock in our diets and our environments and the search for solutions to the challenges they present can be informed by the vastly different ways people around the world raise animals said Herrero.
They modelled only the emissions linked directly to animals--the gases released through their digestion and manure production.
Meat v. dairy grazing animals v. poultry and porkthe study shows that ruminant animals (cows sheep
and goats (ruminants) and it further found that this is the case regardless of the product involved
or where the animals are raised. Globally pork produced 24 kilos of carbon per kilo of edible protein
which provide high-quality balanced concentrate diets for animals of high genetic potential. But these systems also pose significant public health risks (with the transmission of zoonotic diseases from these animals to people)
and environmental risks notably greenhouse gases produced by the energy and transport services needed for industrial livestock production
Feed quality in the developing worldthe study shows that the quality of an animal's diet makes a major difference in both feed efficiency and emission intensity.
In arid regions of Sub-saharan africa for example where the fodder available to grazing animals is of much lower quality than that in many other regions a cow can consume up to ten times more feed--mainly in the form of rangeland grasses--to produce a kilo of protein than a cow
For example the low livestock feed efficiencies and high greenhouse gas emission intensities in Sub-saharan africa are determined largely by the fact that most animals in this region continue to subsist largely on vegetation inedible by humans especially by grazing on marginal lands
#Cat domestication traced to Chinese farmers 5, 300 years agofive-thousand years before it was immortalized in a British nursery rhyme the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt was doing just fine living alongside farmers in the ancient Chinese village of Quanhucun a forthcoming study
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed. At least three different lines of scientific inquiry allow us to tell a story about cat domestication that is reminiscent of the old'house that Jack built'nursery rhyme said study co-author Fiona Marshall Phd a professor of archaeology in Arts
& Sciences at Washington University in St louis. Our data suggest that cats were attracted to ancient farming villages by small animals such as rodents that were living on the grain that the farmers grew ate
and stored. Set for early online publication in PNAS during the week of Dec 16 the study provides the first direct evidence for the processes of cat domestication.
Results of this study show that the village of Quanhucun was a source of food for the cats 5300 years ago
and the relationship between humans and cats was commensal or advantageous for the cats Marshall said.
Even if these cats were domesticated not yet our evidence confirms that they lived in close proximity to farmers
and that the relationship had mutual benefits. Cat remains rarely are found in ancient archaeological sites
and little is known about how they were domesticated. Cats were thought to have first been domesticated in ancient Egypt where they were kept some 4000 years ago
but more recent research suggests close relations with humans may have occurred much earlier including the discovery of a wild cat buried with a human nearly 10000 years ago in Cyprus
. While it often has been argued that cats were attracted to rodents and other food in early farming villages and domesticated themselves there has been little evidence for this theory.
The evidence for this study is derived from research in China led by Yaowu Hu and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Hu and his team analyzed eight bones from at least two cats excavated from the site.
Using radiocarbon dating and isotopic analyses of carbon and nitrogen traces in the bones of cats dogs deer
and other wildlife unearthed near Quanhucan the research team demonstrated how a breed of once-wild cats carved a niche for themselves in a society that thrived on the widespread cultivation of the grain millet.
Carbon isotopes indicate that rodents domestic dogs and pigs from the ancient village were eating millet
but deer were not. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes show that cats were preying on animals that lived on farmed millet probably rodents.
At the same time an ancient rodent burrow into a storage pit and the rodent-proof design of grain storage pots indicate that farmers had problems with rodents in the grain stores.
Other clues gleaned from the Quanhucun food web suggest the relationship between cats and humans had begun to grow closer.
One of the cats was aged showing that it survived well in the village. Another ate fewer animals and more millet than expected suggesting that it scavenged human food
or was fed. Recent DNA studies suggest that most of the estimated 600 million domestic cats now living around the globe are descendants most directly of the Near Eastern Wildcat one of the five Felis sylvestris lybica wildcat subspecies
still found around the Old world. Marshall an expert on animal domestication said there currently is no DNA evidence to show
whether the cats found at Quanhucun are descendants of the Near Eastern Wildcat a subspecies not native to the area.
If the Quanhucun cats turn out to be close descendents of the Near Eastern strain it would suggest they were domesticated elsewhere
and later introduced to the region. We do not yet know whether these cats came to China from the Near east
whether they interbred with Chinese wildcat species or even whether cats from China played a previously unsuspected role in domestication Marshall said.
This question is now being pursued by researchers based in China and in France. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Washington University in St louis. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Climate change puts 40%more people at risk of absolute water scarcity, study sayswater scarcity impacts people's lives in many countries already today.
Future population growth will increase the demand for freshwater even further. Yet in addition to this on the supply side water resources will be affected by projected changes in rainfall and evaporation.
Dr Simon Gosling from the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham co-authored four papers in this unique global collaboration.
For the project--'Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP)'-Dr Gosling contributed simulations of global river flows to help understand how climate change might impact on global droughts water scarcity and river flooding.
Dr Gosling said: This research and the feature in PNAS highlights what could happen across several sectors
Another paper co-authored by Dr Gosling shows that without reductions in global greenhouse-gas emissions 40 per cent more people are likely to be at risk of absolute water scarcity than would be the case without climate change.
Dr Gosling said: The global-level results are concerning but they hide important regional variations.
Dr Gosling said: More water under climate change is not necessarily always a good thing.
Dr Gosling's 23-volume report Climate: observations projections and impacts commissioned by the Department of energy and Climate Change (DECC) which he jointly led with the UK Met Office addressed an urgent international need for scientific evidence on the impact of climate change to be presented in a consistent format
The evaluation of eight ibex populations in the Grison Alps showed that the North Atlantic Oscillation
Biological parameter were documented for each animal hunted in October. Since the Alpine ibex is protected a highly species it is particularly important to strictly control
More than 20.000 animals were harvested since the revival of the ibex hunt in Grison where professional gamekeepers consequently measure
and digitize each specimen. The resulting record offers exceptional insight into the relationship between large-scale climate conditions local trophic interactions and the animals'overall performance states Ulf BÃ ntgen head of this study.
Nevertheless the authors call attention to the complexity of possible correlations between ibex vitality and climate variability and emphasize the importance of other factors.
Further analyses are necessary to fully understand the complete potential of the ibex dataset in Grison.
After drinking a cup of soy milk as he had done regularly for months Liam immediately started coughing vomiting developed hives all over his body
#No fluke as parasites nuked with innovative toolkittyndall National Institute Ireland has announced the development of a new diagnostic toolkit--Flukeless--to help in the fight against liver fluke in cattle and sheep.
and immunity and DNA testing to tackle the common liver fluke parasite--a scourge that causes annual losses of around. 5billion to the livestock and food industries worldwide.
Speaking about Flukeless Dr O'Riordan said The World organization for Animal health (OIE) estimates that approximately 20%of animal production is lost due to unhealthy animals.
At a time when some EU member states (including Ireland) are reporting a 12-fold increase in the prevalence of liver fluke infection over recent years it is crucial to find innovative new ways to maintain animal health
Turning chicken feathers and plant fiber into eco-leather, bio-based circuit boardsthe Environmental protection agency has honored the University of Delaware's Richard Wool with its Presidential Green chemistry Challenge Award for his extensive
He created several high-performance materials using biobased feedstocks including vegetable oils lignin chicken feathers and flax.
and colleagues in UD's fashion and apparel studies department has resulted in collaborations with well-known companies such as Nike Puma
There have been recent studies demonstrating that even healthy dairy animals in good facilities carry some of these organisms on their udders
In addition to many species of bacteria the list includes giardia rabies and norovirus. According to the U S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention norovirus is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United states causing 19-21 million illnesses
In Northern Finland reindeer grazing is the key factor in lichen reduction. Slow-growing lichens in Southern Finland can also suffer due to the rapid growth of
Ethanol and gasoline separate into distinct plumes as they spread underground from the site of a spill.
when there is no generation of methane from a plume benzene would not be a problem--even for sources less than a meter below a foundation.
and fauna but a less uniformly negative one than is assumed often. The book describes the changing ways in which various wild plants
and animals were regarded controlled and exploited by England's human inhabitants and explains how the environments in
Above all globalization and perhaps climate change bring not only more foreign plants and invertebrates to these shores but also--more worrying by far--new pests and diseases especially of trees such as the recent ash chalara.
and wetlands are required certainly simply to ensure healthy populations of birds like the stone curlew as well as to sustain a wide range of endangered plants.
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