and biodiversity conservation that decision makers will consider as they evaluate projects from forest restoration to watershed management said Jefferson Hall Smithsonian staff scientist and project director.
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
The study's first author biology doctoral student Jo Varner says: Some fiber is good
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
Funding for the study came from the National Science Foundation University of Utah the Wilderness Society Southwestern Association of Naturalists Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology and American Society of Mammalogists.
Three biologists in 2011 and five in 2012 used binoculars in two-hour shifts watching
Overall the biologists watched 220 hours of pika behavior including 1577 individual bouts of foraging.
to coastal biodiversity. In a study conducted by WCS and the University of Queensland evaluating the effects of terrestrial protected area designs on Fiji's coral reefs it turns out that
When designing terrestrial protected areas the key is to consider not only how much they benefit terrestrial biodiversity
or timber value of forests than on any desire to protect biodiversity. Fiji's current terrestrial protected areas which cover less than 3 percent of land area in the country neither adequately protect Fiji's sensitive island habitats
#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
and are able to retain expression of the inserted genes for at least 14 years a report in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research just announced.
The trees are one of the best successes to date in the genetic modification of forest trees a field that is much less advanced than GMO products in crop agriculture.
and pulp industries and in an emerging biofuel industry that could be based on hybrid poplar plantations.
In terms of wood yield plantation health and productivity these GMO trees could be said very significant Steven Strauss a distinguished professor of forest biotechnology in the OSU College of Forestry.
A large-scale study of 402 trees from nine insertion events tracked the result of placing the cry3aa gene into hybrid poplar trees.
and reproduce in order to prevent any gene flow into wild tree populations researchers said. 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
Compared to the controls the transgenic trees grew an average of 13 percent larger after two growing seasons in the field and in the best case 23 percent larger.
The research was supported by the Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative at OSU. Annual crops such as cotton and corn already are grown routinely as GMO products with insect resistance genes.
Trees however have to grow and live for years before harvest and are subjected to multiple generations of insect pest attacks.
and why extended tests were necessary to demonstrate that the resistance genes would still be expressed more than a decade after planting.
Agencies are likely to require extensive studies of gene flow and their effects on forest ecosystems
Strauss said he advocates an approach of engineering sterility genes into the trees as a mechanism to control gene flow
The nanocrystals might be used to create a new class of biomaterials with wide-ranging applications such as strengthening construction materials and automotive components.
Applications for biomaterials made from the cellulose nanocrystals might include biodegradable plastic bags textiles and wound dressings flexible batteries made from electrically conductive paper;
Cellulose could come from a variety of biological sources including trees plants algae ocean-dwelling organisms called tunicates
Biomaterials manufacturing could be a natural extension of the paper and biofuels industries using technology that is already well-established for cellulose-based materials.
Some of the byproducts of the paper industry now go to making biofuels so we could just add another process to use the leftover cellulose to make a composite material Moon said.
The cellulose crystals are more difficult to break down into sugars to make liquid fuel. So let's make a product out of it building on the existing infrastructure of the pulp and paper industry.
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)
The study appears in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Imperial College London.
Dendrochronology methods appliedan interdisciplinary group of scientists including biologists climatologists and ecologists from Switzerland Norway and the US debuts in applying existing methods of tree-ring research (dendrochronology*)to analyze annual horn growth rates of the Alpine ibex (Capra ibex**)
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
and document its hunting explains wildlife biologist Lucie Greuter of the Wildlife and Fishery Department in Chur.
Kurt Bollmann wildlife biologist at WSL and co-author of the study remarks: Until now we have not found any conceivable indication that hunting may influence horn growth.
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
work developing bio-based materials to support the green energy infrastructure. Wool was recognized We during a presentation at EPA headquarters in Washington D c. on Dec 11.
Wool UD professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources (ACRES) program is a world leader in developing safer chemical substances from renewable resources through processes that require less water
In 2012 Dixie Chemical began producing Wool's bio-based composite resins for a worldwide market.
One of Wool's more recent inventions is a breathable bio-based eco-leather that avoids the traditional leather tanning process.
These results will be presented as part of international research published in the journal Global Change Biology. Researchers from the Finnish Environment Institute and the Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) participated in this research
#Biorefinery business could put South Australian forest industry back on growth trackvtt Technical Research Centre of Finland at the request of the South Australian state Government studied the condition of the forest sector
and establish specialised biorefinery business in the longer term. The South Australian government invited VTT to identify ways of increasing the productivity of the region's forest
Implementation of VTT's long-term recommendations requires the construction of new biorefineries for manufacturing highly refined products such as absorbing materials and membranes cellulose-based textiles bio-based chemicals
They were present in several orders of magnitude higher than anywhere else It's because of this biological filter that we rarely get explosions above the ground.
It examines the impact of social and economic organisation on The english landscape biodiversity the agricultural revolution landed estates the coming of large-scale industry and the growth of towns and suburbs.
But we must also strive to preserve what remains of our'traditional'countryside for cultural reasons as much as for biological ones.
#Work with Brazilian citrus greening genome could aid Florida industrya University of Florida researcher has mapped the DNA genome of a new strain of citrus greening that could further threaten Florida's beleaguered $9 billion citrus industry.
Knowing the genetic makeup of the various strains is critical to finding a cure. Dean Gabriel a plant bacteriology specialist with UF/IFAS helped sequence
and map the genome of the most prevalent form of the disease in Florida and now he and colleagues have done the same for a new strain of the disease discovered in Brazil.
There is no cure for either strain although researchers believe that knowing the genetic makeup of the disease is critical to finding one.
Gabriel said by having that roadmap of the bacteria genome they will be certain there are no surprises in the Brazilian species
which has now been found in Texas . In addition the mapping should help guide them to improvements in control methods and toward more usable genes and treatments.
What the genome does it lets you know everything that the organism has and doesn't have in its artillery for offense
and defense--and it lets you design a strategy to control it Gabriel said. Researchers often liken having the genetic sequence for an organism to having its list of parts.
Having all the genetic information is like having a detailed roadmap of the organism said Jackie Burns director of the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.
Citrus greening was discovered first by farmers in China in 1911 and made its first appearance in Florida in 2005.
The genome map is already available online at Genbank. To map the bacteria's DNA genome Gabriel's Brazilian colleagues first diced up
and crushed tissue from the veins of infected citrus trees where the organism was concentrated most highly.
which fall into an order to encode genes specific to an organism. Gabriel likened it to examining beads on a necklace:
and the color sequence determines each gene--in this case the DNA greening necklace held 1195201 beads or 1044 genes.
To obtain the nucleotide sequence from the purified BACTERIAL DNA they used state-of-the-art sequencing machines at the UF Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research.
similar to roosters cresta rare mummified specimen of the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosauraus regalis described in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 12 shows for the first time that those dinosaurs'heads were adorned with a fleshy comb most
#Young tropical forests contribute little to biodiversity conservationa satellite image of a green swath of tropical forest does not tell the whole story.
These ephemeral secondary forests may contribute little to tree-biodiversity conservation according to a new report by scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Perhaps the most extensive of its kind in the tropics van Breugel's study suggests that forests subjected to regular human disturbance may undergo profound long-lasting tree biodiversity loss.
Whereas fallow forests can have a surprisingly high tree-biodiversity a large proportion of tree species only occur as seedlings and saplings.
Horse expert Raymond L. Bernor from the Laboratory of Evolutionary Biology at the Howard University college of Medicine in Washington D c. led the fossil analysis. The bones
Gina M. Semprebon a Bay Path College biology professor; and Semaw now a research associate at Centro Nacional de Investigaciã n sobre la Evoluciã n Humana Spain;
Also we get a unique chance to stimulate the discussion with input from expertise of other disciplines such as economy biodiversity and health.
and are important for biodiversity; they are a nursery ground for many fish species and host a variety of plants that have adapted to grow in salt water.
and cool because highly flammable dead biomass is allowed not to accumulate for many years at a time. This gives animals ample escape routes
Camelina seeds have very high oil content leading researchers at the Danforth Center to focus on Camelina to develop biodiesel and other industrial products.
Discoveries about the impact of G proteins on seed production and size were published in the September 2013 issue ofplant Biotechnology Journal.
and how biochemical reactions involving G proteins evolved in plants. The research we've completed to date is just the tip of the iceburg said Pandey.
This is the conclusion reached by the UPV/EHU's Landscape Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services group in its research carried out on the pine plantations of Bizkaia.
as a result of the fall in the profitability of the plantations of exotic rapid-growth species says Ibone Ametzaga member of the UPV/EHU's Landscape Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services group.
In these aspects native forests provide a better service maintaining local biodiversity or accumulating carbon more.
Research and Infection Biology and the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology in Jena have taken now a closer look at the plant-nematode interactions in the context of resistance versus susceptibility.
Kiri Daust's research on plant disease started the same way many biologists'projects start: with a walk in the woods.
Generally speaking biodegradability is supposed to be the top priority when deploying pesticides says Prof. Dr. Matthias Kästner Director of the Department Environmental biotechnology at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research--UFZ in Leipzig.
Worldwide today approximately 5000 pesticides are utilized as substances for plant protection and for pest control.
--and tracked it in various biomolecules with the aid of a mass spectrometer after completion of the experiment timeframe.
and the carbon contained therein was transported into the microbial biomass. For these kinds of residues we can give the all-clear signal
and bioenergy compared to wind solar and nuclear energy because the combination of the two can lead to negative emissions says IIASA researcher Volker Krey lead author of the study published last week.
CCS is a yet-unproven technology that would remove carbon from fossil fuel or bioenergy combustion and store it underground.
In combination with bioenergy this results in carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere (owing to the previous carbon uptake of plants through photosynthesis)
The future availability of bioenergy and CCS technologies would also take some pressure off other sectors in terms of required mitigation effort says Krey.
Unless stringent mitigation action in transport and other end-use sectors is implemented almost immediately the only way to still achieve the 2 degree target will be to rely on carbon dioxide removal technologies such as bioenergy with CCS.
Bioenergy is an especially valuable energy resource because unlike solar wind and hydro power it can be converted into liquid and gaseous fuels
and therefore valuable supplies of biomass across the globe by reducing the need for biofuels Based on our analysis this freeing up of biomass is one of the key system-wide consequences of electrifying transport says Mccollum.
Available biomass could then be used for example in plastics manufacturing or steel production which are otherwise challenging to decarbonize.
in order to secure boreal biodiversity and ecosystem services and adaptation to climate change. These jointly created recommendations concern the northern areas of Finland Sweden Norway and Northwest Russia.
in order to bring a halt to the destruction of species and ecosystems in line with goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
and the Conference of Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as at various events held in the Barents Region.
The paper'Octocoral gardens in the Gulf of Maine (NW Atlantic) by Peter Auster et al published in Biodiversity studied Octocorals a type of fragile deep-sea coral reef that grow
Stein said that the variation in digestibility among the sources of camelina expellers might be due to genetic differences between the seeds or differences in the oil extraction procedures.
Malama has detected a large degree of genetic variation amongst M. tuberculosis in humans in this area of Zambia
Malama used a standard 15 MIRU-VNTR loci-method for the genotyping of M. tuberculosis
because some loci recommended by the European Reference Laboratory (EURL) for M. bovis are not suitable for genotyping the bacterium in Zambia.
Finds of similar genotypes of M. tuberculosis in humans and cattle and of M. bovis in humans cattle and Kafue lechwe in Namwala indicate that the same tuberculosis bacteria are circulating between humans and animals.
and crop and pathogen genotypes affect salmonella's ability to multiply in the fruit. They grew three types of tomatoes--Bonny Best Florida-47 and Solar Fire during three production seasons over two years in Live oak and Citra.
in order to document their rapid spread do genetic analyses and examine the parasites which accompany them as stowaways in the bumblebee intestines.
which is controlled not by commercial transgenic hybrids that express Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry1ab but partial control has been observed by corn varieties that express Cry1 F toxins.
With the ability to rear western bean cutworm in the laboratory it may be possible in the future to select strains with varying levels of Cry1f toxin susceptibilities which could in turn be used to investigate the genetic basis of resistance.
rdenas head of the Project said that the intention is to implement a permanent monitoring system with the help of satellite images to quantify the biomass
The specialist at Centro Geo indicated that satellite images allow to monitor different biophysical variables including forest biomass.
rdenas explained that currently the most popular method for measuring trees biomass is by field sampling by the Forest National Commission
and height expecting to build maps of each region's biomass. He added that this results hope to support public conservation politics
Dr Knapp says The biological effects of altered biochemical concentrations may not be manifested over a short time period
and at great cost by eliminating some of the trial and error in identifying new sites on proteins that could be manipulated more easily to treat disease said Rice biological physicist Jos Onuchic.
Onuchic and his colleagues at the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics based at Rice's Bioscience Research Collaborative are working to fix that.
Protein sequences are built by ribosomes from genetic data conveyed by MESSENGER RNA molecules. DCA also allows researchers to compare genetic data across protein families
and determine which residues in those families co-evolved. This information guides the physics-based simulation toward functional conformations that have been conserved through evolution.
--or services that nature provides to humans that have both economic and biological value such as drinking water
The researchers note that increased timber harvesting may harm biodiversity and other ecosystem services so they recommend forest managers take those factors into account as they try to maximize the flow of timber carbon storage and albedo in mid-and high-latitude temperate and boreal forests.
It is fascinating that a complex behaviour such as choosing an egg-laying site can be broken down into multiple subroutines that have such a simple genetic basis says Marcus Stensmyr.#
Team reports on US trials of bioenergy grassesthe first long-term U s. field trials of Miscanthus x giganteus a towering perennial grass used in bioenergy production reveal that its exceptional yields
though reduced somewhat after five years of growth are still more than twice those of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) another perennial grass used as a bioenergy feedstock.
The new findings appear in the journal Global Change Biology: Bioenergy. University of Illinois plant biology and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Stephen P. Long who led the study founded
and edits the journal. The Energy Biosciences Institute at the U. of I. supported the research.
Miscanthus does almost as well in poor soils as in fertile cropland Long said. That was the earlier finding in Europe
and now we can confirm this for the Midwest Long said. It takes a little bit longer to establish Miscanthus in poorer soils
However the expected long-term and larger market for Miscanthus is in digesting the celluloses in the biomass to sugars for fermentation to ethanol
In another study published in Bioenergy Research Long and his colleagues report that adding nitrogen to Miscanthus and switchgrass significantly improved yields over time (by 25 percent and 32 percent respectively).
Sauther co-directs the Beza Mahafalay Lemur Biology Project in southwestern Madagascar with Cuozzo a former CU-Boulder doctoral student.
Centered at the roughly 1500-acre Beza Mahafalay Special Reserve the research focuses on how climate-and human-induced change affects lemur biology behavior and survival.
and cherries and other fruits in the United states Canada and Europe is itself being targeted thanks to groundbreaking genome sequencing at the University of California Davis
Officially published Dec 1 in the journal G3 (Genes Genomics Genetics) the open-access research has been available online for several weeks and drawing global attention.
To enable basic and applied research of this important pest Drosophila suzukii we sequenced the genome to obtain a high-quality reference sequence said molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
and Ecology led the genomics team of collaborative researchers from four institutions. The posting of the genome and comparative sequence analysis on the publicly accessible Spottedwingflybase Web portal could lead to more species-specific weapons to combat the destructive pest Chiu said.
Scientists are looking at its biology behavior food and odor preferences and pesticide resistance. Many researchers are working hard to study the biology of this insect through basic and applied projects
and we hope our efforts in presenting our genomic data in a user-friendly Web portal will democratize the sequence data
and help facilitate everyone's research especially those who do not have expertise in genome
and sequence analysis she said. The spotted wing drosophila a native of Asia that was detected first in the United states in 2008 is wreaking economic havoc on crops such as blueberries cherries blackberries and raspberries.
Chiu teamed with scientists at UC Davis Oregon State university the China National Gene Bank and the American Museum of Natural history as part of a $5. 8 million project on the biology and management of spotted wing drosophila funded by a U s. Department of agriculture Specialty Crops Research Initiative grant
to OSU entomologist Vaughn Walton and a team of investigators including Professor Frank Zalom of the UC Davis Department of Entomology
Zalom recently inducted as president of the nearly 7000-member Entomological Society of America said that the G3 article presents a high-quality reference sequence of Drosophila suzukii examination of the basic properties of its genome
and transcriptome and description of patterns of genome evolution in relation to its close relatives. The Spottedwingflybase Web portal has drawn more than 3000 page views from 20 countries including the United states France Italy Belgium China Spain Japan Germany and Great britain.
Scientists from all over the world are interested in knowledge locked inside the fly's genetic material.
He also pointed out that the genome work may relieve the fears of countries wishing to import American fruit but not the pest.
By finding the fly's unique genetic signature scientists hope that DNA testing will quickly determine
and the Frank Zalom lab both in Department of Entomology and Nematology and David Begun's drosophila evolutionary genetics lab in the Department of Evolution and Ecology.
and research technician Perot Saelao of the Begun lab. The Spottedwingflybase is dedicated a online resource for Drosophila suzukii genomics
Curculionidae) in Orchardgrass of Virginia presents an overview of the biology of orchardgrass and its associated billbug pests and reviews the control options for these pests.
Although a number of cultural biological and chemical control methods have been suggested for billbugs in turfgrass
and scientific attention needs to be paid to deserts noting that 2014 is the halfway point in the United nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification and the fourth year of the United nations Decade for Biodiversity.
The scientific community can make an important contribution to conservation in deserts by establishing baseline information on biodiversity and developing new approaches to sustainable management of desert species and ecosystems.
In a study published in the Journal of Ecology biologists from Monash University and RMIT University have investigated the evolution of flower colors due to the bee's color vision.
Then with Associate professor Martin Burd of the School of Biological sciences they did phylogenetic analyses to identify how altitude zones affected results.
& Food Research and the University of Otago has identified the gene controlling bulb development the first step in discovering genetic markers that can be used as tools to screen conventional breeding programmes for new onion varieties with the right genetic
The research is published in the online journal Nature Communications with related research published in Theoretical and Applied Genetics.
This research is an excellent example of how new genome technologies can enable major discoveries that in the past have been difficult says Associate professor Richard Macknight of the University of Otago Department of Biochemistry.
By understanding how these plants control development of the bulb we can support the breeding of new cultivars that have the right genetic profile to respond to specific growing conditions ensuring each plant produces a bulb for sale on the market.
but genetic studies of onions have been limited. Our research is now beginning to link genetics and physiology of onions allowing industry to tap into more diverse genetic resources
and breed products adapted to different and changing environments. Onion is the second largest vegetable crop in New zealand with 586000 tonnes produced each year
and generating $62 million in export revenues. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Otago.
Researchers from the Foundry Institute of the RWTH Aachen University in Germany and Plant Biomechanics Group of the University of Freiburg Germany have developed an aluminum hybrid that could be used to optimize technical components and safety materials.
The new aluminum hybrid is the product of a bioinspired approach combining metals with different mechanical properties that reflect these naturally occurring structures and mimic the strength of the pomelo peel.
and most obvious use for the new bioinspired composite material they've created. The demands of designers and consumers on forthcoming components will be increased in the future said Sebastian F. Fischer of RWTH Aachen University lead author of the study.
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