#Ants plant tomorrows rainforesttropical montane rain forests are threatened highly and their remnants are surrounded often by deforested landscapes.
Most tree species are dispersed by birds and mammals but also by ants. A study published today in the Journal of Ecology by a team from the LOEWE Biodiversity
The study reveals that ants reduce seed predation by rodents and increase germination success --which confirms the importance of this ecosystem function for forest regeneration.
To quantify the effect of rodents in addition to the impact of ants half of the depots where equipped with wire exclusion cages.
Under the leaf litter the seeds were less likely to be detected by rodents or other seed predators and benefited from the humid conditions favorable for germination.
Indeed by the mid-1990s the Tiburã n herd had grown to a stable population of 500 animals one of the most successful large mammal introductions in the world.
#Sometimes less is more for hungry dogshungry dogs would be expected to choose alternatives leading to more food rather than less food.
But just as with humans and monkeys they sometimes show a less is more effect. Thus conclude Kristina Pattison
and Thomas Zentall of the University of Kentucky in the US who tested the principle by feeding baby carrots and string cheese to ten dogs of various breeds.
The research was conducted on dogs that would willingly eat cheese and baby carrots when offered
or the cheese together with a piece of carrot nine of the ten dogs chose the cheese alone.
It appears that the dogs averaged the quality of the cheese plus carrot rather than sum up the quantity of food.
This quick decision making was demonstrated first in humans and later in monkeys. People for instance tend to place greater value on a set of six baseball cards that are in perfect condition than on the same set of six perfect cards together with three more cards in fair condition.
A similar effect was reported also in studies of monkeys where the animals would eat both grapes and cucumbers but preferred one grape over one grape plus a slice of cucumber when given the option.
when members of the same species such as a pack of dogs feed together. The one that hesitates may lose food to faster-choosing competitors.
But the fact that one in ten dogs did choose the cheese -and-carrot combination suggests that levels of motivation may play a role in this effect.
The outlier dog for instance had a history of living in shelters and fending for himself.
and other primates but can occur in other mammalian species at least those that are organized socially such as carnivores like wolves dogs
and jackals says Pattison. She believes that further research is needed to find out if the less is more effect also occurs in less socially organized species such as rats or non-mammalian species such as birds.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Springer. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and say we need to develop a better mouse trap--to develop better storage. Our point is that
and economic incentives the best mouse trap still won't help. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
James Cook University Cairns Australia; U s. Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry Puerto rico; EMBRAPA Satellite Monitoring Center Campinas Brazil;
#Reindeer grazing may counteract effects of climate warming on tundra carbon sinklocal reindeer grazing history is an important determinant in the response of an ecosystem's carbon sink to climate warming say researchers at the Arctic
A major portion of the Arctic is grazed by reindeer. In northernmost Europe the reindeer was domesticated a few centuries ago.
In a field experiment in northern Norway the effects of experimental warming were compared between lightly and heavily grazed tundra.
The significance of reindeer grazing history to tundra carbon balances has not been studied previously. The present results may modify climate models that predict the effects of global warming on global carbon cycles.
Different tundra systems possess highly varying grazing histories as a result of past and present reindeer management practices.
#Do elephants call human!?Low rumble alarm call in response to the sound of human voicesafrican elephants make a specific alarm call in response to the danger of humans according to a new study of wild elephants in Kenya.
Researchers from Oxford university Save the Elephants and Disney's Animal kingdom carried out a series of audio experiments in
which recordings of the voices of the Samburu a local tribe from North Kenya were played to resting elephants.
The elephants quickly reacted becoming more vigilant and running away from the sound whilst emitting a distinctive low rumble.
When the team having recorded this rumble played it back to a group of elephants they reacted in a similar way to the sound of the Samburu voices;
running away and becoming very vigilant perhaps searching for the potentially lethal threat of human hunters.
The new research recently reported in PLOS ONE builds on previous Oxford university research showing that elephants call'bee-ware
Whilst the'bee'and'human'rumbling alarm calls might sound similar to our ears there are important differences at low (infrasonic) frequencies that elephants can hear
but humans can't.'Elephants appear to be able to manipulate their vocal tract (mouth tongue trunk and so on) to shape the sounds of their rumbles to make different alarm calls'said Dr Lucy King of Save the Elephants
'We concede the possibility that these alarm calls are simply a by-product of elephants running away that is just an emotional response to the threat that other elephants pick up on'Lucy tells me.'
and that elephants voluntarily and purposefully make those alarm calls to warn others about specific threats.
Our research results here show that African elephant alarm calls can differentiate between two types of threat
'Elephant'human'alarm call rumblesignificantly the reaction to the human alarm call included none of the head-shaking behaviour displayed by elephants hearing the bee alarm.
When threatened by bees elephants shake their heads in an effort to knock the insects away as well as running
--despite their thick hides adult elephants can be stung around their eyes or up their trunks whilst calves could potentially be killed by a swarm of stinging bees as they have yet to develop a thick protective skin.
''Elephants use similar vowellike changes in their rumbles to differentiate the type of threat they experience
and so give specific warnings to other elephants who can decipher the sounds.''This collaborative research on how elephants react to
and communicate about honeybees and humans is being used to reduce human-elephant conflict in Kenya.
Armed with the knowledge that elephants are afraid of bees Lucy and Save the Elephants have built scores of'beehive fences'around local farms that protect precious fields from crop-raiding elephants.'
'In this way local farmers can protect their families and livelihoods without direct conflict with elephants and they can harvest the honey too for extra income'says Lucy.'
'Learning more about how elephants react to threats such as bees and humans will help us design strategies to reduce human-elephant conflict
and protect people and elephants.''Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Oxford.
The original article was written by Pete Wilton. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Honey offers new approach to fighting antibiotic resistancehoney that delectable condiment for breads and fruits could be one sweet solution to the serious ever-growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics
researchers said in Dallas*today. Medical professionals sometimes use honey successfully as a topical dressing
The distinct geographic patterns in which these variants were present correlate in many cases with historic human migrations mixing between populations as well as the spread of cattle camels or sheep.
And a variant G-13915 found at high frequencies in the Arabian peninsula and also present in northern Kenya and northern Sudan dates to roughly 5000 years ago around the time that archaeological evidence suggests that camels were domesticated in the region.
*Sowell's short-tailed bat (Carollia sowelli) belongs to the large family of Phyllostomidae or leaf-nosed bats.
and then eat it as humans eat corn on the cob. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Forschungsverbund Berlin e. V. FVB.
Grass production must have boomed as did vast numbers of war horses and other livestock that gave the Mongols their power.
In just a matter of years he united the tribes into an efficient horse-borne military state that rapidly invaded its neighbors and expanded outward in all directions.
or more horses and ever-moving herds of livestock provided nearly all food and other resources.
At the same time grasslands worldwide are being converted to pastures for domestic animals with native grazers like elk and antelope giving way to cattle and sheep.
cattle pronghorn and elk on North america's Great plains; wildebeests and impala on Africa's Serengeti;
and horses sheep and ibex in rural India. In places where the only grazers were small animals like rabbits voles
and gophers the grazers'effect was weak and variable. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Maryland.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Deer proliferation disrupts a forests natural growthby literally looking below the surface and digging up the dirt Cornell researchers have discovered that a burgeoning deer population forever alters the progression of a forest's natural future by creating environmental havoc in the soil
and disrupting the soil's natural seed banks. The study Deer Browsing Delays Succession by Altering Aboveground Vegetation and Belowground Seed Banks was published online March 7 in PLOS ONE.
Deer are slowing down forest succession or natural establishment. In fact the deer are preventing forests from establishing says Anurag Agrawal Cornell professor of ecology
and evolutionary biology a co-author on the paper. Deer typically prefer to eat native woody plants
and rebuff invasive species. The study showed that when deer consume native plants the nonnative species are left to flourish dropping seed in the soil.
As forests normally mature their grasses give way to herbs and shrubs and then new trees eventually take root.
Expanding deer populations in the Northeast however stall forest development and promote the growth of thorny thickets of buckthorn viburnum and multiflora rose bushes.
If deer leave the forests alone such trees as cottonwood locust and sumac can sprout
and grow unimpeded. The researchers found that the impacts of deer grazing on vegetation were resulted severe
and in bare soil and reduced plant biomass less recruitment of woody species and relatively fewer native species. And the deer's negative impact on seed banks resulted in significantly decreased overall species richness and relatively more short-lived species
of both annual and biennial plants. Co-author Antonio Ditommaso Cornell associate professor of weed ecology and management and research technician Scott Morris gathered soil cores--from both within and outside of fenced deer exclosures
--and germinated the seed. They found the soil cores from outside of the exclosures contained many more seeds from nonnative species. Deer select forests for their trees
but in doing so disrupt forest system growth trajectories concludes the study. It's obvious that the deer are affecting the aboveground species
but it's like an iceberg. There are major effects below the soil surface. We are seeing a divergence of seeds contained within the soil from what should be there says Ditommaso We are not seeing the seeds of woody plants.
Instead we're seeing an escalation of nonnative seed and the virtual elimination of woody plant seeds.
The multiyear study was conducted on Cornell land near Freese Road in Ithaca where the deer density is about 39 animals per square kilometer--about 10 times greater than it was before European settlement in the late 1700s.
#Teen elephant mothers die younger but have bigger familiesasian elephants that give birth as teenagers die younger than older mothers but raise bigger families during their lifetime according to new research from the University of Sheffield.
Experts from the University's Department of Animal and Plant sciences studied the reproductive lives of 416 Asian elephant mothers in Myanmar Burma
and found those that had calves before the age of 19 were almost two times more likely to die before the age of 50 than those that had their first offspring later.
However elephants that entered motherhood at an earlier age had more calves following their teenage years than those that started reproducing after the age of 19.
The team's findings will help maximise fertility in captive and semi-captive elephants reducing the strain on the endangered wild population.
Research found that Asian elephants which can live into their 70s could give birth from the age of five.
The team also found elephants that gave birth twice in their teenage years had calves three times more likely to survive to independence than those born to mothers who had their first young after the age of 19.
Asian elephants are endangered in the wild and low fertility in captivity necessitates acquisition of elephants from the wild every year to maintain captive populations.
Our research was carried out on semi-captive Asian elephants working in timber camps in Myanmar. As religious icons in Southeast asia and a key species of the forest ecosystem their decline is of serious cultural and ecological concern.
Our results will enable the management of captive and semi-captive elephants to be tailored to maximise fertility reducing strain on the wild population.
This study represents a unique analysis of the ageing process in a similarly long-lived mammal.
#Deer feeding puts birds at risk, research showsby comparing the fate of artificial nests close
and far away from supplementary feeding sites located in the forest for ungulates such as deer and wild boar researchers found that those nests in the vicinity of feeding sites were depredated twice more.
These sites attract not only deer and wild boar--the boar is also a nest predator--but also corvids rodents bears and other species of nest predators
which are not the target of feeding. Therefore this management practice widespread in Central europe comes into conflict with the conservation of ground-nesting birds such as grouse species
The study recommends to avoid ungulate feeding in the breeding areas of bird species of conservation concern such as capercaillie
The spread of diseases for instance is one of the reasons why deer feeding has been banned in many regions of North america.
marine turtles fruit bats free-range pigs and chickens rather than primarily relying on growing crops for human food and animal fodder.
and consuming wild animals--especially fruit bats--and that whatever horticultural food they produced was relied not heavily on she says.
Some of this could indeed be avoided by capitalising on ruminants'ability to digest food that humans cannot eat such as hay silage and high-fibre crop residues.
Supplements can boost the productivity of ruminant animals by encouraging microbes in the rumen to grow quickly
and as a result of the pressures brought to bear by people close to them and doctors 10%of women smokers give up smoking
#Large mammals were the architects in prehistoric ecosystemsresearchers from Denmark demonstrate in a study that the large grazers
An important way to create more self-managing ecosystems with a high level of biodiversity is to make room for large herbivores in the European landscape--and possibly reintroduce animals such as wild cattle bison and even elephants.
Because many of the identified compounds are known to be water soluble using a smoke solution is a convenient alternative to direct fumigation of seeds explains Dr. Janice Coons lead author of the study.
Native species often require special conditions to break seed dormancy explains Coons. This new system allows researchers to produce smoke solutions from any plant species they wish.
Solutions made using the method described by Coons and colleagues on the other hand provide researchers with the means to distinguish the effects of smoke compounds from other additives.
and will allow future researchers to produce smoke solutions from a wide range of plant species found in the habitats they are investigating says Coons.
Dr. Devi Stuart-Fox and Jennifer Goode both of the Zoology Department at the University of Melbourne Australia attempted to determine what was more important in driving courtship:
Large herd animals like bison or mammoths likely lived on the highland steppe tundra because they graze.
Many smaller animals birds elk and moose (which browse shrubs instead of grazing on grass) would have been in the shrub tundra he adds.
#Livestock beating pandas to the bamboo buffetpandas it turns out aren't celebrating the Year of the Horse.
Livestock particularly horses have been identified as a significant threat to panda survival. The reason: They're beating the pandas to the bamboo buffet.
A paper by Michigan State university panda habitat experts published in this week's Journal for Nature Conservation explores an oft-hidden yet significant conflict in conservation.
Across the world people are struggling to survive in the same areas as endangered animals
In this case something as innocuous as a horse can be a big problem. China invests billions to protect giant panda habitat
and preserve the 1600 remaining endangered wildlife icons living there. For years timber harvesting has been the panda's biggest threat.
Pandas have specific habitat needs--they eat only bamboo and stay in areas with gentle slopes that are far from humans.
Conservation programs that limit timber harvesting have chalked up wins in preserving such habitat. Vanessa Hull a doctoral student in MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) has been living off and on for seven years in the Wolong Nature Reserve most recently tracking pandas she's equipped with GPS collars.
She has been working to better understand how these elusive and isolated animals move about and use natural resources.
Over the years she started noticing it wasn't just pandas chowing on bamboo. It didn't take particular panda expertise to know that something was amiss
when we'd come upon horse-affected bamboo patches. They were in the middle of nowhere and it looked like someone had been in there with a lawn mower Hull said.
Alarmed by the growing devastation she learned that some of Wolong's farmers who traditionally hadn't kept horses had been talking to friends outside of the reserve who had been cashing in by raising them.
A horse there Hull said is kind of a bank account. Horses were barred from designated grazing areas
because they competed with cattle so farmers would let them graze unattended in the forests.
When funds were needed they would track the animals down and sell them. It was an idea
In 1998 only 25 horses lived in Wolong. By 2008 350 horses lived there in 20 to 30 herds.
To understand the scope of the problem Hull and her colleagues put the same type of GPS collars they were using to track pandas on one horse in each of the four herds they studied.
Then over a year they compared their activity with that of three collared adult pandas in some of the same areas
and combined it with habitat data. They discovered that horses are indeed big on bamboo
--and also are drawn to the same sunny gently sloped spots as pandas. Pandas and horses eat about the same amount of bamboo
but a herd of more than 20 horses made for a feeding frenzy decimating areas the reserve was established to protect.
Jack Liu (left) and Jindong Zhang talk to a farmer in the Wolong Nature Reserve about the impact livestock can have on panda habitat.
This horse problem has been resolved. The researchers presented their findings to Wolong's managers who have banned
since horses from the reserve. But Hull and Liu note that this work has shed light on how competitive livestock can be in sensitive habitat--an issue that is repeated across the globe.
Livestock affect most of the world's biodiversity hotspots Liu said. They make up 20 percent of all of Earth's land mammals
and therefore monopolize key resources needed to maintain Earth's fragile ecosystems. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Methane leaks from palm oil wastewater are a climate concernin recent years palm oil production has come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the deforestation of land in the tropics to make way for new palm plantations.
This year global methane emissions from palm oil wastewater are expected to equal 30 percent of all fossil fuel emissions from Indonesia where widespread deforestation for palm oil production has endangered orangutans.
#Controlling zebra chip disease from the inside outzebra chip disease in potatoes is currently being managed by controlling the potato psyllid with insecticides.
and Agriculture-sponsored Zebra Chip Specialty Crop Research Initiative. We are looking at three different approaches:
when psyllid populations in the field and the instances of zebra chip were said significant French.
Tuber symptoms associated with zebra chip were only as high as 3 percent in 2012 and 10 percent in 2013
He said he hoped to get some products labeled if not specifically for zebra chip at least for potato health quality but
which could still be useful on potato production fields where yields may be affected by zebra chip.
and structure of the brain's reproductive center is conserved highly among mammals. In goats the researchers already knew it is the hair of males not the urine that shows male effect pheromone activity.
The study focused on the bird-cherry ermine moth and the orchard ermine moth--two insects that feed on the leaves of orchard trees
and as caterpillars can strip trees of their bark. Durrett helped the Swedish researchers use enzymes from plants
%The introduction of this oilseed preparation into the diet of ruminants also improves efficiency in the use of digestible organic matter by between 4. 4%and 10.1
The epicenter of China's devastating Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 was in the Wolong Nature Reserve a globally important valuable biodiversity hotspot and home to the beloved and endangered giant pandas.
and roads but the earth split open and swallowed sections of the forests and bamboo groves that shelter and feed pandas and other endangered wildlife.
They also noted that such efforts could benefit from more targeting of areas most favored by pandas.
when it seemed like everyone in the target areas were said out planting co-author Vanessa Hull a CSIS doctoral candidate who studies panda habitat in Wolong.
and pandas shy from human contact. That meant that some of the best assisted-forest recovery was in areas not favored by pandas.
Hull noted however that there could be an upside to that. Healthier forests could mean local residents have need less to venture into more far-flung panda-friendly forests.
We wanted to know if the benefit of this effort was matching up to the investment
#Fruit-loving lemurs score higher on spatial memory testsfood-finding tests in five lemur species show that fruit-eaters may have better spatial memory than lemurs with a more varied diet.
and Kerri Rodriguez and Brian Hare of Duke compared spatial memory skills across five species of lemurs living in captivity at the Duke Lemur Center--fruit-eating red-ruffed
and black-and-white ruffed lemurs leaf-eating Coquerel's sifakas and ring-tailed and mongoose lemurs that eat a mix of fruit leaves seeds flowers nectar and insects.
A total of 64 animals took part in the studies which measured their ability to remember the locations of food treats in mazes and boxes.
In the first experiment the lemurs learned the location of food hidden in one of two arms of A t-shaped maze.
A week later the fruit-eating ruffed lemurs were the only species able to retain and recall the right spot.
whether the lemurs were recalling the exact spot or just remembering the turns they took along the way First the lemurs learned how to find a piece of food hidden in one wing of a symmetrical cross-shaped maze.
Ten minutes later the lemurs were moved to a new starting position in the maze and released to find their way again.
The ruffed lemurs were most likely to set off again to the right spot in the cross-maze
even though they had to take new turns to get there. Before they might have turned right
The results suggest that ruffed lemurs primarily rely on a memory of the place rather than a memory of what turns they took.
The other species showed a mix of both strategies Finally to better reflect the situations lemurs face
when foraging in the wild a third experiment tested the lemurs'ability to remember multiple locations.
In the initial session a lemur was allowed to explore a room containing eight open boxes each marked with a distinct visual cue.
After the lemur learned which boxes contained food and which didn't all eight boxes were baited with food
Ten minutes later when each lemur searched the room again only the ruffed lemurs preferentially searched spots where they found food before.
In their native Madagascar ruffed lemurs'diets can exceed 90%fruit--especially figs. Remembering when and where to find food from one season to the next requires keen spatial skills and good powers of recall.
And ring-tailed lemurs and mongoose lemurs--who finished in second and third place in many of the memory tests--can grab a snack pretty much anywhere anytime Rosati explained.
The study is part of a long history of research aimed at understanding the origins of primate intelligence.
and other primates owe their smarts to the demands of getting along in a group.
But far fewer studies have examined the idea that some aspects of primate intelligence arose because they helped the animals deal with other challenges such as foraging for food.
The researchers point out that the most social species in this study--the ring-tailed lemurs--fell in the middle of the pack in terms of spatial memory skills.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011