The forest had become an artificial reef attracting fish crustaceans sea anemones and other underwater life burrowing between the roots of dislodged stumps.
and during migration they eat marine invertebrates including polychaete worms and shrimp. Another video by Vyn shows a mated Spoon-billed sandpiper pair foraging along the edge of a snowmelt pond in Chukotka.
The pigs'embryos were injected with a molecule from bioluminescent jellyfish that carries instructions to make green fluorescent protein or GFP.
Dr. Chris Kellogg who studies the microbiomes of deep-sea corals works at the United states Geological Survey (USGS). She's one of about 8500 scientists at the agency
Earthworms flee the vibrations of oncoming moles. Listen to caterpillars communicate with their butts Of course there may be another explanation for the apparent response to sound reported by Gagliano.
and sulfuric acid gives the worms an odd flavor. If it weren't for the sulfur who knows they might even be told tasty Girguis Livescience.
Watson brought home some bioluminescent ctenophores (comb jellies) to show his wife then left them on the lawn.
Glass sponges for instance produce a skeleton of glass spicules tiny spike-like structures but not a hard shell.
Imagine Hercules fighting a Hydra that grows heads like a tree. If he cuts off one head the<a href=http://www. livescience. com/11320-top-10-beasts-dragons-reality-myth. html>mythic monster</a>simply grows back a certain number
Amazingly Hercules will always prevail against the Hydra eventually and chop off all of the Hydra'
and chooses the most efficient strategy the Hydra will first grow more than a googolplex of heads (or 10 raised to the power of 10 raised to the 100 power).<
People associate complex behavior usually with large animals usually vertebrates animals with backbones so it is unexpected very to see a similar behavior in much smaller invertebrates in particular spiders that most people hate so much.
This means even invertebrates are capable of making complex and adaptive decisions. Our results show that the capacity to respond adaptively to difficult choices is not unique to large brained mammals
The First Space Tourists Of course not all space-based animal experiments have fundamental scientific value said Nathaniel Szewczyk a biologist at the University of Nottingham who has studied 24 generations of nematodes in space.
Shared genes Animal experiments can also reveal how changes across the life span may translate to other species from earthworms all the way up to humans Szewczyk said.
 For instance nematodes and humans show similar changes in the expression of genes that regulate blood sugar Szewczyk said.
but thought they were a new kind of jellyfish. However a closer look revealed no stinging cells the hallmark of true jellyfish.
No tentacles dangle from the Dendrogramma and their tiny hairless bodies also lack the swimming cilia that define comb jellies another type of translucent ocean blob.
They lack all of the characteristics that would put them in one phylum or another Just told Live Science.
I think their closest relatives are probably the Cnidaria true jellyfish and the comb jellies even if we can't place them in either of those phyla.
A phylum is a taxonomic group one level below a kingdom. Humans and jellyfish are both in the Kingdom animalia for instance.
Instead both of the strange new species bear an uncanny resemblance to several 600-million-year-old Ediacaran fossils the earliest animals.
Many of the creatures with expanded ranges are invasive pests like the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) and the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) both
The emerald ash borer which burrows beneath the bark of ash trees to feed on the water
I spend my days were talking about a metallic green insect called the emerald ash borer
or worms they scoop it up in their bills store it in their cheek pouches and swim to the surface.
Specifically they have known the largest mushroom body (a brain structure found in some invertebrates) of any arthropod relative to their body size.
The record cold snap sweeping much of the United states blasted states hit hard by the emerald ash borer an invasive beetle that was detected first in 2002.
borer larvae living under the bark of ash trees the USDA wrote today in a Facebook post.
Fossils of the shallower coastal waters around the Pangaea continental shelf indicate that reefs were large and diverse ecosystems with numerous sponge
and coral species. Ammonites similar to the modern nautilus were common as were brachiopods. The lobe-finned
Sussman endured leech bites coral stings a broken wrist a solo drive along the Pan-American Highway
She also photographed 2000-year-old brain corals off the coast of Tobago and 13000-year-old underground forests of dwarf mobola trees with crowns of leaves poking above the surface of South african soil.
The mid-to late Triassic period shows the first development of modern stony corals and a time of modest reef building activity in the shallower waters of the Tethys near the coasts of Pangaea.
They also received wet sponges at regular intervals to keep them hydrated. They Kwong and Bennett justturned up the air conditioning all the way and wore sweaters Moran says.
Sea turtles depending on the species may eat seagrasses algae sponges sea squirts squid shrimp crabs jellyfish cuttlefish or sea cucumbers.
For instance leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) which can reach a whopping 1100 pounds (500 kilograms) use their scissorlike jaws to munch on a jellyfish-only diet according to the Sea turtle Conservancy.
just as and may include worms snails insect larvae aquatic insects crustaceans water plants algae and fallen fruit.
Terrestrial turtles also eat a variety of foods from earthworms grubs snails beetles and caterpillars to grasses fruit berries mushrooms and flowers.
Commercial turtle pellets and fish pellets as well as gut-loaded insects (bugs with nutrient-rich diets) earthworms and small fish are sold often as turtle food at pet stores.
Life evolved into evermore complex forms invertebrates vertebrates reptiles and so on with dinosaurs gaining dominance midway through the Mesozoic era several hundred million years ago.
heaps of neon-pink sea stars glow-in-the-dark jellies floating spookily by yellow sea spiders breathing through holes in their bodies amphipods toothfish and yes hundreds of swirling seals.
#Explorers Eat Fried Tarantulas at Black-tie Gala NEW YORK Goat testicles earthworms python and jellyfish were on the menu here at the Waldorf Astoria hotel Saturday night (March 15).
But that wasn't out of the ordinary. The Explorers Club Annual Dinner has become famous for a cocktail hour that dares its adventurous attendees to be daring with their palettes though not all were up for the challenge.
I want to look at this clonal desert organism and this coral and these bacteria. That's the benefit of coming at something from a different angle.
The pink and reddish colors of a flamingo's feathers come from eating pigments found in algae and invertebrates.
which allow them to eat insects invertebrates and small fish. To eat flamingos will stir up the bottom of the lake with their feet
The oldest Schistosoma egg found previously in Egyptian mummies was dated to 5200 years ago. The parasite egg hails from the Fertile Crescent a region around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the middle East where some of the first irrigation techniques were invented about 7500 years ago.
That suggests that advances in farming technologies caused the rise of human infections with the waterborne worm Mitchell told Live Science. 7 Stunning Archaeological Sites in Syria Bloody worms Schistosoma parasites live in freshwater snails
and eventually bladder cancer while in Africa the flatworm typically infects the bowels where it causes bleeding and anemia as well.
if the flatworm has evolved since it began infecting humans Mitchell said. The findings were published today (June 19) in the journal Lancet Infectious diseases.
Reef ecosystems contained numerous brachiopods still numerous trilobites tabulate and horn corals. Placoderms (the armored fishes) underwent wide diversification
and became the dominant marine predators. Placoderms had simple jaws but not true teeth. Instead their mouths contained bony structures used to crush
A closer look revealed sea anemones their bodies burrowed into the ice and tentacles extended to filter-feed from the water below.
and builds a shell out of them then extends armlike appendages out to feed on tiny invertebrates. S. oceana like any respectable giant lives in a cave.
Invasive insects such as the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) and the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) both of which have decimated native tree populations in the Northeast may have had their march across America slowed
but usually those with simple body plans like the planarian worm Gilroy said. Intelligent plants?
Masses of dead barnacles and starfish proved the land had just been underwater. Plafker concluded the pattern could only have been caused by a hidden fault releasing tension about 9 miles (15 km) below the surface.
For example while many corals have been decimated as ocean temperatures rise some have become quite resilient to acidifying waters.
Worms have already been seen in six towns in Guinea and moths have been spotted in some regions of Liberia,
farmers who could not get hold of pesticides set fire to worms and crops, says Tucker. Government teams are now spraying pesticides imported from Accra in Ghana,
The virus attacks the worms every year, but usually occurs too late in their outbreak cycle to prevent serious crop damage.
Nature Newsresearchers have created transgenic maize plants that fight off pests by emitting a chemical to attract insect-killing nematode worms. 1the method,
which attracts nematodes that kill western corn rootworm an insect whose larvae are major maize pests in North america.
and infested the plots with rootworm before releasing around 600,000 nematode parasites. Root damage by rootworm larvae was less in the transgenic maize,
future studies should address the effects that enhancing natural chemical signals might have on a whole ecosystem including the resident populations of insect-killing nematodes.
if it were not being emitted continually by the plants it would be better to guide the nematodes to the plants most in need of protection,
which can be sprayed on the worms and, if successful, would reduce the need to use chemical insecticides.
Even though benthic creatures eventually eat the whale carcasses (see'Bone-devouring worms discovered), 'the carbon will remain in the depths,
The mammal model also fails with some marsupials and invertebrates like fruitflies. The problem is
Intestinal roundworms, including hookworms and whipworms, infect well over one billion people, lowering immune systems for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis and debilitating both physically and cognitively.
This bacterium is a natural soil predator of nematodes, says author Raffi Aroian from the University of California,
San diego. The bacterium can kill the worm, he adds, and it has a great track record for safety around vertebrates.
Hookworms and some other parasitic nematodes have shown signs of resistance to albendazole, the current treatment approved by the World health organization.
Compared to the best drugs people have developed to treat human parasitic worms this natural protein is at least three times better,
The parasitic worm Heligmosomoides bakeri naturally infects mice and is a common laboratory model organism for studying human diseases caused by roundworms, such as river blindness and elephantiasis.
the two in vivo studies have shown significant therapeutic activity of a crystal protein against two species of nematode,
Nearly all of the current drugs to treat nematode diseases were invented for veterinary purposes, he says,
or whether there is an equal distribution of numbers between species. The team looked at the bugs, nematodes and fungi that attack the hated Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata).
Poulin says she is addressing this concern in a second study on the impacts on invertebrates living in reeds beds in the same national park
says Ed Spevak, curator of invertebrates at the Saint louis Zoo, who also helped organize the conference.
screw-worms in the United states, Central america and Libya; and tsetse flies on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Africa.
The long-spined sea urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii, for example, has moved from the warming seas off mainland Australia
Sure, the sea urchin is probably shifting due to warming waters. As it shifts, it's been devastating local ecosystems.
over how radiation affects the fitness of birds and invertebrates. A recent study2 that reports reduced survival in barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where dose rates are now barely above natural values,
of which has potential for use in fighting devastating diseases such as the potato cyst nematode and the potato blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans, famous for causing The irish potato famine of the 1840s.
The invertebrate, named Eoandromeda octobrachiata because its body plan resembles the spiral galaxy Andromeda, suggests that the earliest branches in the tree need to be reordered,
believe that Eoandromeda is the ancient ancestor of modern ocean dwellers known as comb jellies gelatinous creatures similar to jellyfish,
it would be known the oldest fossil of a comb jelly. And that would support a rewrite of the animal tree.
Comb jellies sit alongside two other major groups near the base of the tree, but their relative positions remain contentious.
Normally, sponges are identified as the first to evolve, followed by the cnidaria jellyfish, sea anemones and their kin and then by the comb jellies.
Eoandromeda puts a little piece of weight in favour of a more basal position for comb jellies,
says Stefan Bengtson, a palaeontologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural history and a co-author on the paper.
This is in stark contrast to modern comb jellies, which, like humans, flies and sea anemones, have biradial
or bilateral symmetry their body plan can be sliced into only two identical pieces. If Eoandromeda appeared after the cnidarians,
the authors argue, bilateral symmetry would have to have evolved twice once for the cnidarians and again for the bilateral organisms that came after Eoandromeda.
Far simpler is the idea that Eoandromeda evolved first (see'Simplest solution'.'This model of animal relationships calls for the least number of origins of bilateral symmetry,
The proposal is in tune with DNA studies that place comb jellies closer to the root of the evolutionary tree.
His team recently sequenced the genome of the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi, and is now comparing it to sequences from sponges,
cnidarians, worms and other animals to sort out which lineages came first. So far, he says,
the results suggest that sponges and comb jellies appeared before cnidarians2. The matter is settled far from, however.
Some scientists even doubt that the fossil is in fact that of a comb jelly. The eight spiral arms are reminiscent of the eight iridescent rows,
or combs, along the sides of modern comb jellies, but the fossil lacks some key characteristics of modern comb jellies, such as tentacles and a mouth.
Differences between living animals and ancient fossils are expected, but the differences also allow for debate. Eoandromeda fossils are excellent and very important
but the trouble is that the interpretation reflects the ideology of the person giving it,
says Dolph Seilacher, a retired palaeontologist at the University of T Â bingen in Germany who studies fossils from Eoandromeda's time.
Bengtson says he can't prove the fossil is a comb jelly but its comb-like arms indicate that it is one.
The only reason to suggest they are vendobionts, he says, is that they happen to be of that age.
Claus Nielsen, a retired evolutionary biologist at the Natural history Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, doesn't think Eoandromeda represents comb jellies either.
A bloody boon for conservationbloodsucking leeches are offering the best hope of finding one of the world s rarest animals.
Conservationists are now planning to trawl tropical leeches for saola DNA. Prompted by research published this week2 showing that the bloodsuckers can store DNA from their meals for several months,
the saola search is at the vanguard of an approach to gauging biodiversity that could prove much more efficient than conventional methods.
and sequence DNA left in the environment, in everything from soil to leeches stomachs.""I am almost sure that in ten years all the research on biodiversity will be done with DNA,
describing his experiments with leeches. Gilbert, his colleague Mads Bertelsen and their team had fed goat blood to medicinal leeches (Hirudo spp.
something that is"a lot harder than it sounds, says Gilbert. The team resorted to tempting the creatures with blood-filled condoms warmed under a heat-lamp,
and putting the leeches into syringes attached to blood-filled test tubes sealed by a thin film.
After killing the leeches over the course of several months, the team identified goat DNA in every one of them.
Gilbert asked Wilkinson to ship him some tropical leeches (Haemadipsa spp.).Wilkinson collected them on the Vietnamese side of the Annamite Range
but 21 of the 25 leeches they tested contained DNA from other mammals, including the Truong Son muntjac deer (Muntiacus truongsonensis) and the Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timinsi),
Leeches are impossible to avoid in tropical forests, and they can be collected by the dozen by simply peeling them off intrepid researchers clothes.
The plummeting cost of DNA sequencing makes leech surveys cheap, and DNA from hundreds of the animals could be combined
but leeches should help to pin down its range. The Vietnam field trial suggests that leeches preserve DNA from only their most recent blood meal
so an animal s range is likely to include the location where the leech was found.
Surveying leech blood is just one of many ways to collect environmental DNA that have emerged in recent years.
In the Molecular Ecology special issue, various research teams worked out the diet of a leopard by sequencing DNA in its faeces3;
tracked earthworm communities in soil4; and reconstructed ancient Siberian habitats from DNA preserved in permafrost5.
His team found that DNA surveys of water samples from a Canadian river identified the same invertebrate species as visual surveys7.
In Vientiane last month, leeches were the talk of the IUCN s Saola Working group meeting. Wilkinson says that the group hopes to offer rewards to villagers who bring in leeches with saola DNA,
Wilkinson and his colleagues at the WWF plan to gather leeches from the Vietnamese side of the Annamites
and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New york intends to include leeches in its upcoming surveys of Laos."Everyone is excited, unsurprisingly,
The liver fluke Fasciola hepatica was known already to affect the standard skin test for btb, but it was unclear
questions whether the liver fluke hides infections.""Cattle carcasses are inspected in abattoirs and we would see evidence of TB in the slaughtered animals
Eradicating liver fluke could increase the sensitivity of the skin test and allow better control of infected cattle,
Human liver flukes are rife in tropical and subtropical regions, and btb causes 10%of human tuberculosis deaths in Africa."
Liver fluke could also explain epidemiological mysteries, such as why btb has gained never a foothold in northwest England."
Until the past few years, most researchers had thought that Greenland contributed at least half of the 6-8 Â metres of Eemian sea-level rise that has been deduced from records of ancient corals and other markers2.
Genome reveals comb jellies'ancient originanimals evolved gradually, from the lowly sponge to the menagerie of tentacled,
This idea makes such intuitive sense that biologists are stunned now by genome-sequencing data suggesting that the sponges were preceded by complex marine predators called comb jellies.
Although they are gelatinous like jellyfish, comb jellies form their own phylum, known as ctenophores. Trees of life typically root the comb jellies'lineage between the group containing jellyfish
and sea anemones and the one containing animals with heads and rears which include slugs, flies and humans.
Comb jellies paddle through the sea with iridescent cilia and snare prey with sticky tentacles. They are much more complex than sponges they have nerves, muscles, tissue layers and light sensors, all of which the sponges lack."
"It s just wild to imagine that comb jellies evolved before sponges, says Billie Swalla, a developmental biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a leading member of the team sequencing the genome of the comb jelly Pleurobrachia bachei.
But the team is suggesting just that, in results they presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology,
held on 3-7 january in San francisco, California. Despite comb jellies'complexity, DNA sequences in the Pleurobrachia genome place them at the base of the animal tree of life, announced Swalla's colleague Leonid Moroz
a neurobiologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Another team presented results from genome sequencing for the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi,
and found that the phylum lands either below, or as close to the base as, sponges on the tree."
"We ve always thought that predator-prey interactions and sensory adaptations evolved long after the origin of sponges,
Swalla says.""Now we need to imagine early life as a sponge, ctenophore and everything in between.
Because millions of species have gone extinct since animals appeared some 542 million years ago, Swalla says,
the ancestor of all animals might look different from modern comb jellies and sponges. Gene families, cell-signalling networks and patterns of gene expression in comb jellies support ancient origins as well.
For example, Moroz and his team found that comb jellies grow their nerves with unique sets of genes."
"These are aliens, Moroz jokes. He suggests that comb jellies might be descendants of Ediacaran organisms,
mysterious organisms that appear in the fossil record before animals. Indeed, in 2011, palaeontologists claimed that one of these 580-million-year-old fossils resembled comb jellies1.
Andy Baxevanis, a comparative biologist at the US National Human genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland,
and a leader on the Mnemiopsis genome project, says that comb jellies are the only animals that lack certain genes crucial to producing microrna short RNA chains that help to regulate gene expression.
Moreover, he points out sponges and comb jellies lack other gene families that all other animals possess2,
3. If comb jellies evolved before sponges, the sponges probably lost some of their ancestors'complexity.
Alternatively, says Sally Leys, a biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, sponges may have complexity that scientists have yet to appreciate."
"A lot of sponges are more exquisite than a lump on a rock, she says. Sceptics wonder whether a high rate of genetic mutation in comb jellies might be causing the lineage to seem closer to the bottom of the tree than it really is."
"In the analyses I ve done, ctenophores are the most problematic taxon. They jump around depending on
which genes you use and which animals you include, says Gert WÃ rheide, a molecular palaeobiologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.
At the meeting, WÃ rheide presented a tree of life created by comparing ribosomal protein sequences.
In it, sponges remained rooted in their bottommost spot
Bumblebees sense electric fields in flowersas they zero in on their sugary reward, foraging bumblebees follow an invisible clue:
electric fields. Although some animals, including sharks, are known to have an electric sense, this is the first time the ability has been documented in insects.
Pollinating insects take in a large number of sensory cues, from colours and fragrances to petal textures and air humidity.
Pesticides spark broad biodiversity lossagricultural pesticides have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss in two new research papers.
Pesticide use has reduced sharply the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
because invertebrates are an important part of the food web. Emma Rosi-Marshall, an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook
and suggests that neonicotinoids accumulate in soil at levels that can kill soil invertebrates such as Eisenia foetida, a type of earthworm.
and burrowing invertebrates, eating mudflats and drying up wetlands. At Dongtan,"this has had devastating consequences for many bird species,
and other birds significantly reduce damage by a devastating coffee pest, the coffee berry borer beetle.
The borer beetle is originally from Africa, but has spread to nearly every coffee-producing region.
in the rainy season peak time for beetle activity borer infestation almost doubled when birds were excluded from foraging on coffee shrubs,
He and his colleagues have previously found that birds help to protect the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee crop from the borer beetle2,
Karp and colleagues'results show only a very modest drop in borers as forest coverage grows,
whereas viruses and nematode worms shifted to lower latitudes. Other groups showed no detectable change."
that those pest groups seen moving towards the equator largely nematode worms and viruses are the most poorly understood,
Fungus discovery offers pine-wilt hopethe pine-wood nematode is a major pest in the forests of China.
The worm, which causes pine-wilt disease, has killed more than 50 million trees and resulted in economic losses of US$22 billion since 1982.
a team of Chinese ecologists has made a discovery that could halt the march of the nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus).
Sun Jianghua and his colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology in Beijing have identified a fungus that has a crucial role in the worm s life cycle,
In Asia, pine-wood nematodes spread with the help of Japanese pine sawyer beetles (in the Monochamus genus). The worms enter the respiratory system of hatching beetle pupae in the trunks of diseased trees
As the young beetles feed, the nematodes leave through the insects'mouths. Once infected trees often die within a year
"While the nematodes have invaded China for more than  three decades, pine forests are affected not equally,
at least as far as the pine-wood nematode is concerned. In an eight-year survey, at six sites in southern China, Sun and his colleagues found that tree infestation was higher in the presence of a previously unknown species of tree fungus,
"Although we knew that pine-wood nematodes feed on not only the vascular tissue of pines but also tree fungi,
says Sun. Â To examine the fungi s role in the relationship, the team fed nematodes and beetles with different types of fungus in a Petri dish.
The nematodes feeding on Sporothrix sp. 1 mated more, had more offspring and developed faster than those feeding on other species of fungi."
which increases growth and reproduction in the beetles and nematodes. The key now, says Mota,
The nematode, which is native in North america, also wreaks havoc in other Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea.
called fatty acid ethyl ester, induces juvenile nematodes into a dispersal stage a prerequisite for the hitchhiking step3.
and reproduction of the nematode as well as its dispersal are now"two potentially promising strategies to prevent the nematodes from infecting trees,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011