and 82 dog breeds and already found some interesting results. For example boxer and basenji breeds of dogs trace a large portion of their DNA (nine percent
and 25 percent respectively) back to wolves after domestication meaning that these breeds interbred with wolves again after humans had begun to domesticate dogs.
What I like about this is that it's starting to give us some resolution on relationships that are just much more complicated than you can capture using the standard tree approach Pritchard said.
The project's results include lignin-tolerant enzymes and enzyme cocktails for processing spruce straw corn cob and wheat bran.
The raw materials studied in the project were spruce straw corn cob and wheat bran used as animal Feed in Finland the proportion of forest biomass
since about 1930--during the Smokey Bear era--aggressive forest-fire suppression has had a far greater influence on shifts in dominant tree species than minor differences in temperature.
Which viruses infect the elephant? Which type of bacteria causes severe lung disease in European brown hare?
On the day of discovery Tsangaras only wanted to compare a particular sequence of DNA enclosed in the mitochondria of different southeast Asian rodents.
Analysis of the sequences and comparison with reference data demonstrated that the complete mitochondrial genome of the rodents had been retrieved from the DNA pool.
As their next task his team wants to retrieve simple and well characterised DNA VIRUSES such as the elephant herpes virus.
Greenwood's colleagues successfully applied Capflank to samples from koalas kept in museums. Capflank is at its most efficient though with fresh DNA.
The researchers suspect that a MERS-Cov in camels may have mutated two and half years ago allowing the virus to infect humans.
Societies in North africa and the Middle east have strong cultural connections to camels where there are a lot of activities that expose people to raw camel products--milk urine
#How beavers have affected ecosystem at Voyageurs National Parkfelling trees building dams and creating ponds--beavers have a unique ability to alter the landscape in ways that are beneficial to other organisms according to South dakota State university professor Carol Johnston of the natural resource management department.
That's why they are known as a keystone species. The ecologist received a two-year National Science Foundation grant for more than $143000 to compile a book based on her previous NSF-funded research on how beavers have affected the ecosystem at Voyageurs national park near
International Falls Minnesota. Beavers influence the environment at a rate far beyond what would be expected given their abundance said Johnston who has been doing beaver research
since the 1980s and authored or co-authored 28 of the 37 articles in the compilation.
Beavers create patchiness because they cut down big trees and make dams that flood the landscape creating wet meadows
However historical and aerial photos from 1927 and 1940 showed solid forests meaning little evidence of beaver activity.
From the 1940s through the 1980s the beaver population in the nearly 218000-acre park increased steadily according to Johnston.
By 1986 13 percent of the landscape was impounded by beavers. We saw lots of ponds where before there were none she said.
In addition to duck and amphibians moose and upland mammals use this habitat extensively. Having beaver on the landscape creates a lot of biodiversity.
Since 1991 the number of beavers has begun to decrease Johnston pointed out. However thanks to National park service officials mapping the active beaver lodges she can now relate the population data to changes in the landscape.
It's unusual to have both those types of data for such a large area she said.
That will allow her to track what happens to the landscape when beaver numbers are reduced.
Both predation and depleted food supply may account for the beavers'decline. Aspen is preferred the food she said noting beavers don't hibernate
and must rely on having a large supply of edible food in their underwater cache to survive the winter.
Beavers forage up to 110 yards from the pond edge creating what Johnston calls a bathtub ring of conifers
when most of the aspen and deciduous trees have been harvested. Venturing beyond that comfort zone makes them susceptible to predators she pointed out.
Beavers are preferred a prey for wolves. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by South dakota State university.
%and pets horses and other companion animals the remaining 3%.Increased use in pigs and poultryantimicrobial consumption in pigs measured in doses has increased in all three age groups:
and horses increased in 2013 compared to the year before. This increase was not due to an increase in the use of critically important antimicrobials as the consumption of both cephalosporins
#Zoos exonerated in baby elephant deaths; Data support new branch of herpesvirus familyelephants are among the most intelligent nonhumans arguably on par with chimps
but both African and Asian elephants--separate species--are endangered. In 1995 16-month old Kumari the first Asian elephant born at the National Zoo in WASHINGTON DC died of a then-mysterious illness.
In 1999 Gary Hayward of Johns hopkins university and collaborators published their results identifying a novel herpesvirus EEHV1 as the cause of Kumari's sudden death.
They now show that severe cases like this one are caused by viruses that normally infect the species rather than by viruses that have jumped from African elephants
which was their original hypothesis. Hayward's latest research appears ahead of print in two concurrently published papers in the Journal of Virology.
At the time of Kumari's death anti-zoo activists seized on the situation to call for abandoning all efforts to breed Asian elephants in zoos as they claimed that zoos were spreading the deadly herpesvirus says Hayward.
Therefore the viruses have not spread between zoos and the sources of the viruses were most likely wild-born elephant herdmates.
and African elephants says Hayward. In the process they identified seven different species of EEHVS and multiple different chimeric subtypes and strains of each.
Later by also examining benign lung nodules from culled wild African elephants we determined that EEHV2 EEHV3 EEHV6
and EEHV7 are natural endogenous viruses of African elephants whereas EEHV1A EEHV1B EEHV4 and EEHV5 are apparently natural
and nearly ubiquitous infections of Asian elephants that are shed occasionally in trunk washes and saliva of most healthy asymptomatic adult animals.
Hayward notes that only one example of a lethal cross-species infection with EEHV3 into an Asian elephant calf has been observed
Close monitoring of Asian elephant calves in zoos has enabled so far lifesaving treatment for at least nine infected Asian calves says Hayward suggesting that such monitoring may ultimately enable determining why some animals become susceptible to severe disease after their primary EEHV1 infections
About 20%of all Asian elephant calves are susceptible to hemorrhagic disease whereas symptomatic disease is extremely rare in African elephant calves under the same zoo conditions says Hayward.
In another paper in the same issue of Journal of Virology Hayward et al. demonstrate that the many highly diverged species
and subtypes of EEHVS are ancient viruses that evolved separately from all other known subfamilies of mammalian herpesviruses within the ancestor of modern elephants beginning about 100 million years ago.
Elephant populations have been plummeting. African elephants declined roughly from 10 million to half a million during the 20th century due largely to habitat destruction
and intense poaching has decimated since further their numbers. Asian elephants once in the millions now number less than 50000.
They are threatened mostly by habitat fragmentation. Poaching is not an issue since they lack tusks.
However inhalation exposure to 1-bromopropane in rodents caused tumors in several organs including the skin lungs and large intestine.
Inhalation exposure to cumene caused lung tumors in male and female mice and liver tumors in female mice.
It also caused tumors in the liver and other organs in mice. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS.
The study focused on commercial pet foods marketed for dogs and cats to identify meat species present as well as any instances of mislabeling.
Of the 52 products tested 31 were labeled correctly 20 were mislabeled potentially and one contained a nonspecific meat ingredient that could not be verified.
beef goat lamb chicken goose turkey pork and horse. Pet food safety was another area of concern particularly with pet foods that are formulated specifically to address food allergies in both cats and dogs continued Dr. Hellberg.
The pet food industry is a substantial market in the United states. Nearly 75 percent of U s. households own pets totaling about 218 million pets (not including fish.
The nondigestible compounds in the Granny smith apples actually changed the proportions of fecal bacteria from obese mice to be similar to that of lean mice Noratto said.
Because they grow underground people use trained dogs or pigs to find them. But the distinctive smell of truffles is not only of interest to gourmets.
Dogs and pigs are able to find truffles underground thanks to the slightly sulphuric smell.
In the U s. In virginia overabundant deer eat trees before they reach maturity while nitrogen pollution has changed soil chemistry in Canada and Panama.
and seed production collect insects survey mammals quantify carbon stocks and flows within the ecosystem take soil samples
Separate trials showed that horses and cows would also readily eat the invasive grass. In addition to restoring views the controlled grazing allowed native plant species to reestablish themselves in the test plots over time.
#Search for better biofuels microbes leads to human gutscientists have scoured cow rumens and termite guts for microbes that can efficiently break down plant cell walls for the production of next-generation biofuels
The human microbes appear to be endowed with enzymes that break down a complex plant fiber component more efficiently than the most efficient microbes found in the cow rumen the researchers report.
In looking for biofuels microbes in the cow rumen we found that Prevotella bryantii a bacterium that is known to efficiently break down (the plant fiber) hemicellulose gears up production of one gene more than others
In addition to finding microbes in the cow rumen and termite gut it looks like we can actually make some contributions ourselves he said.
And our bugs seem to have some enzymes that are even better than those in the cow rumen.
Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns may get the lion's share of our climate change attention
Think of a wolf or coyote. Larger predators hunting by scent--and the prey trying to detect their predators--may be affected by less wind moving scents around.
Paratuberculosis mainly affects ruminants and causes treatment-resistant diarrhea and wasting among affected animals. The disease can cause considerable economic losses for commercial farms.
First author Lorenz Khol of the Clinic for Ruminants at the Vetmeduni Vienna in cooperation with the College of Veterinary medicine at the University of Florida developed a possible alternative method for early diagnosis of the infection.
Along the west coast of North america winds lift deep nutrient-rich water into sunlit surface layers fueling vast phytoplankton blooms that ultimately support fish seabirds and marine mammals.
if the train restricts escape from predators such as tigers and leopards in their natural environment Dr Askew said.
He filmed the take-offs of birds carrying full plumage in 3d and then filmed the same birds taking off without their trains.
and made way for the rise of the mammals. But what happened to the plants on which the dinosaurs fed?
#Tigers, pandas and people: Recipe for conservation insightthe first big revelation in conservation sciences was that studying the people on the scene as well as nature conservation was crucial.
Or more accurately tigers and pandas. In the journal Ecology & Society Michigan State university scientists show that useful insights
They compare the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China home to about 150 wild endangered giant pandas and the Chitwan National park in Nepal
which shelters 125 wild endangered tigers. People and wildlife are coupled tightly human and natural systems said Jianguo Jack Liu Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at MSU.
Over many years interdisciplinary studies on pandas tigers and the people who live amongst them are revealing some universal truths about conservation around the globe.
The lead author is Neil Carter who did his doctoral work at MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) studying tigers in Nepal.
CSIS also is known for two decades of work understanding how pandas and people coexist in Wolong.
This week's paper has Team Panda and Team Tiger essentially comparing notes on the academic frontier.
They show that it isn't always necessary to reinvent a methodology that works. Wildlife researchers and conservation practitioners in Nepal can keep a framework of coupled human
and conservation policies represent a constant struggle to balance the residents'need to eke out a living with the pandas'full reliance on a specific lifestyle that centers on vast access to bamboo.
Tigers can venture out to attack livestock and also can pose a threat to the people who walk through the woods.
On the surface pandas and tigers seem to have different impacts. Pandas eat bamboo. Tigers sometimes eat livestockâ#and even people though rarely.
Both of these animals bring advantages too which range from the tangible such as attracting tourists to more esoteric benefits such as spirituality and national pride.
But the authors note that issues of telecoupling processes such as tourism and migration can loom large in many flagship nature reserves as do issues of how policy is executed
This stemmed from an increase in the elk population which flourished on the pioneer flora growing on the newly emerged land.
which could not maintain the large elk population. After the end of the last ice age postglacial rebound caused the Earth's crust in eastern Fenno-Scandinavia to tilt increasing the amount of water
The archaeological study of bones in the area reveals that the significance of elk as game was much greater in the emerging culture compared with the cultures that came before or after it.
We are beginning to understand how pioneer growth on the emerging land increased the elk population
which provided a less ideal elk habitat than the recently-emerged land. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Helsinki.
but also infects cattle and goats as well as deer and other wild ruminants. In the U s. the virus'greatest economic impact is in the cattle industry
Human intelligence has a physical basis in the huge size of our brains--some seven times larger than would be expected for a mammal with our body size said Steven Gaulin UCSB professor of anthropology
#Cat bites dog: In Indias human dominated landscapes, top prey for leopards is dogsa new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society reveals that in India's human dominated agricultural landscapes where leopards prowl at night
it's not livestock that's primarily on the menu--it is man's best friend.
The study which looked at scat samples for leopards in India's Ahmednagar's district in Maharashtra found that 87 percent of their diet was made up of domestic animals.
Seventeen percent of the leopard's diet consisted of assorted wild animals including rodents monkeys and mongoose and birds.
Livestock despite being made more abundant up a relatively small portion of the leopard's diet.
Domestic goats for example are seven times more common than dogs in this landscape yet only make up 11 percent of leopard's prey.
while dogs are allowed largely to wander freely. Cows sheep and pigs were eaten also but collectively made up less than 20 percent of leopard's food.
Most domestic cattle in this region are too large to be preyed on by leopards. The author's of the study say that the selection of domestic dogs as prey means that the economic impact of predation by leopards on valuable livestock is expected lower than.
Thus human-leopard conflict is more likely to be related to people's fears of leopards foraging in the proximity of their houses and the sentimental value of dogs as pets.
Study co-author Ullas Karanth WCS Director for Science-Asia said: During the past two-to-three decades legal regulation of leopard hunting increased conservation awareness and the rising numbers of feral dogs as prey have led all to an increase in leopard numbers outside
of nature reserves in agricultural landscapes. While this is good news for conservation and a tribute to the social tolerance of Indian people it also poses major challenges of managing conflict that occasionally breaks out.
Only sound science can help us face this challenge. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wildlife Conservation Society.
They are called elephant mosquitoes and they don't feed on blood. In fact their larvae feed on other mosquito larvae
while other species may prefer birds dogs sheep etc. However Pitts argues that these insects are opportunists rather than true specialists.
and domestic animals (dogs and pigs) rest below found that only 20 percent of the A. gambiae females contained human blood while the rest contained animal blood.
The study which focused on laboratory rats was published today in the online peer reviewed journal Nature Communications.
such as mongoose rats and domestic cats serve as unnatural predators and take a huge toll on native species
Until now lab-built kidneys have been sized rodent and have functioned for only one or two hours after transplantation because blood clots developed said Anthony Atala M d. director and professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a senior author on the study.
While the effect on human bacteria has only been tested in a lab environment thus far the lactic acid bacteria has been applied directly to horses with persistent wounds.
and applied to ten horses; where the owners had tried several other methods to no avail.
All of the horses'wounds were healed by the mixture. The researchers believe the secret to the strong results lie in the broad spectrum of active substances involved.
#Asian camel crickets now common in U s. homeswith their long spiky legs and their propensity for eating anything including each other camel crickets are the stuff of nightmares.
And now research from North carolina State university finds that nonnative camel cricket species have spread into homes across the eastern United states. The good news is that camel crickets don't bite
whether they had camel crickets (also known as cave crickets) in their homes and if so to send in photos or mail in physical specimens.
The most common species reported by more than 90 percent of respondents was the greenhouse camel cricket (Diestrammena asynamora.
Instead the researchers found that it is now far more common than native camel crickets in and near homes east of the Mississippi.
though it's possible that the greenhouse camel cricket could be driving out native camel cricket species in homes Epps says.
They found large numbers of greenhouse camel crickets with higher numbers being found in the areas of the yards closest to homes.
if they find camel crickets in their homes. Because they are scavengers camel crickets may actually provide an important service in our basements
or garages eating the dead stuff that accumulates there says Dr. Holly Menninger director of public science in the Your Wild Life lab at NC State
We know remarkably little about these camel crickets such as their biology or how they interact with other species Menninger says.
and lemurs to ants use various parts of their bodies to avoid hard landings on the ground.
Domestication of animals started as early as 9000 to 15000 years ago and initially involved dogs cattle sheep goats and pigs.
When domestication occurred the wild ancestor the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was confined to the Iberian peninsula and southern France.
because they are hunted by eagles hawks foxes and humans and therefore must be very alert
Jean paul Metzger from the University of SãO Paulo collected data on birds mammals and amphibians living in the forest.
Using mist nets to capture birds as well as pitfall traps to capture mammals and amphibians they painstakingly recorded information on 25000 individuals made up of 140 species of birds 43 species of mammals and 29 species of amphibians.
They collected data in 79 different forest regions across 150 kilometres and estimated that to maintain a similar level of biodiversity
The authors also describe the global game of cat -and-mouse as crops are introduced to pest free regions
and briefly thrive before their pursuers catch up with them. Professor Sarah Gurr of Biosciences the University of Exeter added:
The gene was identified in Arabidopsis thaliana a small unassuming plant related to cabbage and canola that is the lab rat of plant research.
#Cheetah menu: Wildlife instead of cattlescientists from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) can give the all-clear:
in a recent study they showed that cheetahs primarily prefer wildlife on their menu. The cheetah is a vulnerable species that only exists on Namibia's commercial farmland in large populations.
Here local farmers see cheetahs as a potential threat for their cattle. The conflict is an old one:
wherever there are carnivorous wild animals farmers are concerned about their livestock. In Namibia the concern refers to the possible threat from cheetahs on cattle.
When farmers in Namibia are missing a bovine calf cheetahs are regularly under suspicion--nowhere else in the world are there as many animals of this vulnerable species as on commercial farmland in Namibia.
But the suspicion can rarely be confirmed without demur. In their recent study scientists of the IZW investigated
whether cattle is on top of the cheetahs'menu. For this purpose they used an indirect method with
One cannot therefore conclude which food items cheetahs devour in the long run explains Christian Voigt from the IZW.
Instead the scientists used samples of cheetah hair to determine the stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen.
The study shows that herbivores of the C4 food chain to which cattle belong are nearly irrelevant to the cheetah's diet.
The farmers passed on their experience in dealing with these big cats as cheetahs cannot be lured simply with bait like many other carnivores she adds.
This is owed to the fact that cheetahs only eat prey they brought down themselves. Thus aided by the farmers the scientists installed box traps at marking trees
Once a cheetah is captured it is sedated and thoroughly examined: body length and weight are determined samples of blood
and then the scientists release the cheetah equipped with a tracking collar. We conclude that the farmer's problems are smaller than they had assumed before this study Voigt sums up.
This study published in the scientific online journal PLOS ONE will contribute to the protection of cheetahs--but not in adversity to the interest of the farmers.
therefore an important mile stone to resolve the conflict between farmers and cheetahs. Story Source:
and welfare of beef cattle and other ruminant animals suffering from lameness and following castration dehorning and other painful but necessary management procedures.
The most recent data were taken with the Green Bank Telescope's high frequency imaging camera MUSTANG.
MUSTANG-1. 5 the even more-sensitive successor to MUSTANG and ARGUS a camera designed for mapping the distribution of organic molecules in space.
#Sheepdogs use simple rules to herd sheepsheepdogs use just two simple rules to round up large herds of sheep scientists have discovered.
For the first time scientists used GPS technology to understand how sheepdogs do their jobs so well. Until now they had no idea how the dogs manage to get so many unwilling sheep to move in the same direction.
NERC fellow Dr Andrew King of Swansea University fitted a flock of sheep and a sheepdog with backpacks containing extremely accurate GPS devices designed by colleagues at the Royal Veterinary College London.
Daniel Strã mbom of Uppsala University and colleagues then used data from these devices together with computer simulations to develop a mathematical shepherding model.
The team found that sheepdogs likely use just two simple rulesl: to collect the sheep
'If you watch sheepdogs rounding up sheep the dog weaves back and forth behind the flock in exactly the way that we see in the model'says King.'
'We had to think about what the dog could see to develop our model. It basically sees white fluffy things in front of it.
If the dog sees gaps between the sheep or the gaps are getting bigger the dog needs to bring them together'he explains.'
'At every time step in the model the dog decides if the herd is cohesive enough or not.
If not cohesive it will make it cohesive but if it's already cohesive the dog will push the herd towards the target'says Strã mbom.'
'Other models don't appear to be able to herd really big groups--as soon as the number of individuals gets above 50 you start needing multiple shepherds
or sheepdogs'he says.''There are numerous applications for this knowledge such as crowd control cleaning up the environment herding of livestock keeping animals away from sensitive areas
#Pig pheromone proves useful in curtailing bad behavior in dogsa professor at Texas Tech discovers Androstenone can stop dogs from barking jumping.
He simply wanted to keep his Cairn terrier from barking incessantly. Then again Mcglone is not like most dog owners in that he is a professor at Texas Tech University who just happens to specialize in animal welfare and behavior.
And in that capacity he just happened to have a product on hand at his house from a previous research study called Boar Mate an odorous concoction which helps farmers with swine breeding.
So he gave one little spritz to his dog Toto and immediately the dog stopped barking.
Right on the spot.''It was said completely serendipitous Mcglone who works in the Animal and Food Sciences department of the College of Agriculture and Natural sciences.
One of the most difficult problems is that dogs bark a lot and it's one of the top reasons they are given back to shelters or pounds.
It has been met with tremendous success by pet owners who were on their last legs in trying to curtail bad behavior in dogs.
My dogs were focused instantly and silenced with one spritz said one product reviewer on Amazon com.
and also affects dogs through their olfactory system. Androstenone is produced by pigs in their saliva
Mcglone contacted a canine research site he had worked with on previous experiments knowing this site had a wide array of adult dogs both mixed and pure breeds.
He also knew that about half of the 100 dogs there barked constantly and would be perfect for testing.
It doesn't mean it's going to work on a lot of dogs just because it worked on one dog Mcglone said.
It might have been the noise of the spray that stopped them and not the chemical. Mcglone asked Sergeant's to make several spray cans that had the androstenone in different concentrations
Mcglone had four different groups of barking dogs in separate kennels. The first group of dogs simply had a person with another dog stand in front of the kennels.
The second group of dogs was sprayed with a placebo that made the startling spritz noise.
The third group of dogs was sprayed with the noise and a lower concentration(.01â g/ml) of androstenone in isopropyl alcohol.
The fourth group was sprayed with a higher concentration (1. 0 Â g/ml) of androstenone in isopropyl alcohol that also made the spritz sound.
In the first group 25 percent (3 out of 12 dogs) stopped barking. In the second group 44 percent (4 of 9 dogs) stopped barking.
In the third group sprayed with the lower concentration of the pheromone 78 percent (7 of 9 dogs) stopped barking.
In the fourth group sprayed with the higher concentration of androstenone 100 percent (6 of 6 dogs) stopped barking.
We sprayed it in their nose or toward their head while they were barking â#barking
'Mcglone and his group also tested the dogs to see if there were any physiological effects from the spray on the dogs observing them for 10 minutes before
and after being sprayed after outfitting the dogs with telemetry jackets and transmitters to monitor heart rate.
The androstenone had no effect on the dogs'heart rates either before or after being sprayed. Having shown its effectiveness Mcglone was able to classify androstenone not only as a pheromone
but also as an intermone a term developed by him and his team that refers to a product that is a pheromone in one species
and hit the stores as Stop That for both dogs and cats available at Petsmart or through Amazon com.
But Mcglone warns it's not an end-all beat-all to stopping dogs from barking as the effects last just about a minute.
If you continue to spray the dog again it will stop Mcglone said. If you (show the can) they will stop.
either as he is testing those from dogs cats pigs and horses. For now though there are quite a few pet owners relieved to be able to stop their pets'bad behavior
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