and the hidden nature of their webs which are built in palmetto shrubs. Red widows conceal their funnel-shaped retreats in unopened palmetto leaves making them difficult to spot.
and in May 2003--have enough webs been located to study the dietary habits of these elusive spiders.
Sometimes beetles hit the web strands between tips of palmetto fronds and tumble into the denser tangle of threads below catching them in the red widows'webs.
Carrel has monitored red widow spider populations at the Station since 1987 but has found enough webs to study red widows'dietary habits only twice.
During both time periods Carrel worked alongside Deyrup to collect and identify prey from spiders'webs.
Carrel's study entitled Red widow spiders prey extensively on scarab beetles endemic in Florida scrub appeared in the March issue of the Florida Entomologist.
Ants promote the regeneration of these forests by dispersing seeds to safe sites for tree establishment.
The researchers deposited 1440 Clusia seeds in 72 depots at six sites. At each site they studied three habitat types:
forest interior degraded habitat close to the forest and degraded habitat far from the forest edge.
Eliminating the redundancies leaves the computer with 100 times less sequence data to deal with.
#Web tool successfully measures farmsâ##water footprinta new University of Florida web-based tool worked well during its trial run to measure water consumption at farms in four Southern states
Agroclimate is a web resource aimed primarily at agricultural producers that includes interactive tools and data for reducing agricultural risks.
and wet weather found their habitats reduced by 30 to 50 percent according to a Cornell University study that used computer models
By proceeding with the caveat that physiological tolerance has remained constant--species tend to be evolutionarily conservative about shifting their niches--the researchers used computer models to simulate past bee distributions based on climate conditions in the Pleistocene.
Climate and ecological niche computer model simulations were matched closely by genetic data of the two less-tolerant orchid bee species. The genetic data included mitochondrial markers
#Radiation damage at the root of Chernobyls ecosystemsradiological damage to microbes near the site of the Chernobyl disaster has slowed the decomposition of fallen leaves
They set out to assess the rate at which plant material decomposed as a function of background radiation placing hundreds of samples of uncontaminated leaf litter (pine needles and oak maple and birch leaves) in mesh bags throughout the area.
and corridors out of a longleaf pine plantation around the Savannah-river National Laboratory near Jackson S. C a network of sensors was erected to provide observations on wind speed turbulence temperature
Bohrer ran the dataset through a high-resolution atmospheric model that he had developed on OSC's IBM Opteron 1350 Glenn Cluster.
The Glenn Cluster provides users with a total peak performance of 54 teraflops (tech-speak for making 54 trillion calculations per second)
Through funding from USDA and the South dakota Wheat Commission he has identified biomarkers that will allow breeders to screen for this resistance.
To see whether other bees could learn from the experienced foragers Mirwan confined inexperienced bees in a mesh container near the artificial flowers where they could observe the experienced bees.
Unlike the notorious Mediterranean fruit fly or Medfly Drosophila flies are generalists with a wide range of food sources and breeding sites and a generation time of less than two weeks.
and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community
and Chris Kratt hosts and creators of Kratts'Creatures and Wild Kratts both of which provide children with entertaining and accurate programming on animal biology.
The researchers conducted a series of one-on-one interviews at those sites to get an array of community contributors thinking
Suarez'laboratory originally became concerned about H7n9 after sequences from several isolates were made available in public databases early in the outbreak.
The course covered 11 broad topics and approximately five core concepts per topic. Questions on the midterm and final exams covered specific concepts and topics so by comparing how the two groups fared on those questions the research team could compare
whether an intervention had a significant effect said Baraniuk the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of Rice's RDLS.
The software used in the test was developed in Baraniuk's lab and is an academic research tool that has many of the same features as powerful learning aids that are currently on the market.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and by Google's Faculty Research Award program.
In certain bacteria this communication system also controls the release of toxins which affects the bacteria's pathogenicity or their ability to cause disease.
and Ruth Nussinov a researcher at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick Md. and a professor at the Sackler School of medicine at Tel aviv University pulls together current thinking on how an explosion of data combined with ever more powerful computers is bringing about a second
and perhaps other sites where these species still persist. â #In addition to conservation efforts in the field WCS also works to conserve maleos at its Bronx Zoo headquarters where curators have reared successfully maleo chicks by recreating the specialized conditions needed for successful reproduction and incubation.
and transferred to the fiber-optic cable system--similar in some ways to a data transmission line--can heat up the reaction chamber to over 600 degrees Fahrenheit to treat the waste material disinfect pathogens in both feces and urine and produce char.
The second att 1 aids in the insects'immune response. These genes have been found to play a role in rootworm resistance to crop rotation.
They further employed a unique set of data bases and filters to streamline their search and screen out false positive results
Although many strategies for coping with the condition exist--taking lactase enzyme tablets choosing lactose-free foods--none of them fully eliminates the problem.
and removing harmless straw-like cores from living ones. They found that some trees had lived for more than 1100 years
Moreover the vegetation leads to a better overall wetting mesh which adds to the greening
That's the key finding of a five-year study carried out at 40 different sites around the world
More than 50 scientists belonging to the Nutrient Network a team of scientists studying grasslands worldwide co-authored the study.
Gruner a member of the Nutrient Network (which participants have nicknamed Nutnet) since its founding in 2006 helped plan the worldwide study
To do that the Nutnet scientists ran essentially the same experiment worldwide marking off test plots in groups of four at each of 40 sites.
The researchers did not try to alter the test sites'animal populations. In some places native animals were abundant.
The researchers'data analysis concluded that the grazers improved biodiversity by increasing the amount of light reaching ground level.
and management and research technician Scott Morris gathered soil cores--from both within and outside of fenced deer exclosures
They found the soil cores from outside of the exclosures contained many more seeds from nonnative species. Deer select forests for their trees
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.
This predation hotspot effect extends far away from the feeding site itself: in a radius of 1-km the probability of nest survival is lowered.
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
It could also be incorporated into new plant designs to further reduce operating costs. We hope to move from the laboratory scale to a commercially available technology within four to six years.
and plants can remediate contaminated sites. Ramakrishna Wusirika of Michigan Technological University has determined that how you add bacteria to the mix can make a big difference.
That has implications for land managers trying to remediate contaminated sites or even for farmers working with marginal soils Wusirika said.
Their results--obtained from analysing stable isotope ratios of three elements in the bone collagen of 49 adults buried at the Teouma archaeological site on Vanuatu's Efate Island--suggest that its early Lapita settlers ate reef fish
Isotopic analysis of the ancient pig bones found at the site also suggests that they were free-ranging rather than penned and given fodder from harvested crops.
A global network of research farms--known as farm platforms--can evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of these
whereas lettuce and gai lan had similar risk profiles. The viral decay rate also varies depending on the plant.
Turn your old milk jugs into 3-D printer filamentmaking your own stuff with a 3d printer is vastly cheaper than
and a third time to be made into products said Pearce an associate professor of materials science and engineering/electrical and computer engineering.
The model uses satellite data to determine the amount of soil moisture present and then estimates yields based on available moisture.
Moisture data are derived from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES GOES data are inputted into the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) model previously developed by Dr. Mecikalski and others.
The result is input into the Decision Support system for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) program a software application program that comprises crop simulation models for over 28 crops
But the continuing work to pinpoint the areas of measurement could result in an online database that farmers in Alabama
#Predators delay pest resistance to Bt cropscrops genetically modified with the bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) produce proteins that kill pest insects.
Steady exposure has prompted concern that pests will develop resistance to these proteins making Bt plants ineffective.
Cornell research shows that the combination of natural enemies such as ladybeetles with Bt crops delays a pestâ##s ability to evolve resistance to these insecticidal proteins. â#oethis is demonstrated the first example of a predator being able
to delay the evolution of resistance in an insect pest to a Bt cropâ#said Anthony Shelton a professor of entomology at Cornell University's New york state Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva N y
Bt is a soil bacterium that produces proteins that are toxic to some species of caterpillars
Bt genes have been engineered into a variety of crops to control insect pests. Since farmers began planting Bt crops in 1996 with 70 million hectares planted in the United states in 2012 there have been only three clear-cut cases in agriculture of resistance in caterpillars
and one in a beetle. â#oeresistance to Bt crops is said surprisingly uncommonâ Shelton. To delay or prevent insect pests from evolving resistance to Bt crops the U s. Environmental protection agency promotes the use of multiple Bt genes in plants
and the practice of growing refuges of non-Bt plants that serve as a reservoir for insects with Bt susceptible genes. â#oeour paper argues there is another factor involved:
the conservation of natural enemies of the pest speciesâ#said Shelton. These predators can reduce the number of potentially resistant individuals in a pest population and delay evolution of resistance to Bt.
In the study the researchers set up large cages in a greenhouse. Each cage contained Bt broccoli and refuges of non-Bt broccoli.
They studied populations of diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) larvae a pest of broccoli and their natural enemies ladybird beetles (Coleomegilla maculata) for six generations.
Cages contained different combinations of treatments with and without predators and with and without sprayed insecticides on the non-Bt refuge plants.
Farmers commonly spray insecticides on refuge plants to prevent loss by pests but such sprays can kill predators and prey indiscriminately.
The results showed that diamondback moth populations were reduced in the treatment containing ladybird beetles and unsprayed non-Bt refuge plants.
Also resistance to Bt plants evolved significantly slower in this treatment. In contrast Bt plants with no refuge were defoliated completely in treatments without ladybirds after only four to five generations showing rapid development of resistance in the pests.
In the treatment with sprayed non-Bt refuge plants and predators diamondback moth populations were reduced
but the larvae more quickly evolved resistance to the Bt plants. â#oethese results demonstrate the effectiveness of Bt plants in controlling the pest population the lack of effect of Bt on the predators
and the role predators play in delaying resistance to Bt plants in the pest populationâ#said Shelton.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cornell University. The original article was written by Krishna Ramanujan.
#Virtual bees help to unravel complex causes of colony declinescientists have created an ingenious computer model that simulates a honey bee colony over the course of several years.
The visit to the dietitian was followed by planned follow-up by secure messaging (through Group Health's website for patients) to report their blood pressure weight
when people checked their blood pressure at home and received Web-based care from pharmacists they were nearly twice as likely to get their blood pressure under control (under 140/90 Mm hg)--and cost-effectively without office visits.
The data from fieldwork were put into a computer model which resulted in a conclusive picture. Using computer model calculations scientists were able to demonstrate how those plants subjected to stress from parasite infestation reacted very differently from those without stress.
If the Barberry aborts a fruit with only one infested seed then the entire fruit would be lost.
and browsers of the past created a mosaic of varied landscapes consisting of closed and semi-closed forests and parkland.
The composition of the beetles in the fossil sites tells us that the proportion and number of the wild large animals declined after the appearance of modern man.
To a large extent it supports the idea that the rewilding-based approach to nature management should be incorporated to a far greater degree in nature policy in Europe-especially in the case of national parks and other large natural areas.
who directs the online Arthropod Pesticide Resistance Database and who also serves as the Entomological Society of America's Liaison to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs.
and cotton plants genetically engineered to produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These proteins kill some key pests
Organic growers have used Bt toxins in sprays for decades and conventional farmers have adopted widely transgenic Bt crops since 1996.
In 2013 Bt corn and Bt cotton were planted on 187 million acres worldwide and accounted for 75%of all cotton
and 76%of all corn grown in the U s. Recognizing that resistance is not all
and use them to classify 13 cases of resistance to five Bt toxins in transgenic corn
and cotton based on monitoring data from five continents for nine major pest species. Emerging resistance of the western corn rootworm to Bt corn exemplifies the urgent need for well-defined
and cut back on soil insecticides U s. farmers began planting Bt corn that kills rootworms. The first evidence of rootworm resistance to Bt corn was discovered in Iowa in 2009 said Dr. Bruce Tabashnik the study's lead author
and head of the entomology department at the University of Arizona. Nearly five years later the resistance has spread
Although some scientists have expressed concern that reports of pest resistance to Bt crops provide'ammunition'to anti-biotech activists Tabashnik said Pests are remarkably adaptable.
and the Nigerian warning label uses only a vague text message (The Federal Ministry of Health warns that smokers are liable to die young.)
The absence of archaeological sites and the inhospitable nature of open treeless landscape known as tundra steppe mean that archaeologists have not given much credence to the idea there was a population that lived on the Bering land bridge
which contrary to the name's implication really was a huge swath of land north between and south of Siberia and Alaska at the present sites of the Chukchi sea the Bering strait and the Bering sea respectively.
But in recent years sediment cores drilled in the Bering sea and along the Alaskan coast--the now-submerged lowlands of Beringia--found pollens of trees and shrubs.
O'Rourke says the idea hasn't been used before to explain the scarcity of archaeological sites in Alaska
But O'Rourke and his colleagues say archaeological sites must be found in Beringia if the long human layover there is to be confirmed.
Although most such sites are underwater some evidence of human habitation in shrub tundra might remain above sea level in low-lying portions of Alaska and eastern Chukotka (in Russia.
The units also boast antenna arrays--Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO--different from the Wifi router philosophy)--that allow the researchers to construct 3d images of the ice.
That provision is designed to help stop honey transshipments by requiring CBP to compile a database of the individual characteristics of imported honey to verify country of origin
and engage foreign governments for assistance in creating the database. The CBP would also be required to consult with the honey industry to develop industry standards for honey identification
This powerful analytical method using mass spectrometric detection is called CI-API-TOF (chemical ionization--atmospheric pressure interface time-of-flight mass spectrometry.
Euan G. Nisbet Foundation Professor of Earth sciences at Royal Holloway maintains an Atlantic network of greenhouse gas measurements.
The subsequent step in facilitating adoption of this technology has been the on-farm implementation of soil moisture-based irrigation hardware
and software developed as part of the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) Specialty Crops Research Initiative Project. Chappell and colleagues at the University of Georgia's Department of Horticulture reported on the implementation and use of these WSNS at three commercial nursery and greenhouse operations in Georgia. The report focused on the use of capacitance-based
They said that improved software and hardware have resulted from the challenges and successes experienced by growers
and grower confidence in WSNS has improved subsequently. Growers are using WSNS in a variety of ways to fit specific needs resulting in multiple commercial applications Chappell noted.
Other growers use components of WSNS specifically the web-based graphical user interface (GUI) to monitor grower-controlled irrigation schedules.
The researchers concluded that the main factor limiting wide-scale adoption of is the lack of a commercially available WSN hardware
and software designed specifically for the ornamental plant industry. The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS Horttechnology electronic journal web site:
http://horttech. ashspublications. org/content/23/6/747. abstractstory Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Horticultural Science.
The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS Horttechnology electronic journal web site: http://horttech. ashspublications. org/content/23/6/770. abstractstory Source:
Her second paper co-authored with Grab Dave Thompson (South african Environmental Observation Network) and Reza Rowshan (University of Golestan Iran) titled:
Wake Forest biology professor Miles Silman and a team of researchers who are affiliated not with Duke energy used images taken from the drone to create a 3d model of the ash pond spill site.
The software uses multiple camera viewpoints to build the 3d model in much the same way that your brain infers 3d structure using your two eyes Messinger said.
Silman Messinger and Marcus Wright a chemistry lab manger and key developer of Wake Forest's environmental drone program are also applying their drone technology to explore climate change in the Peruvian Amazon.
X-ray crystallography of the protein coded by the gene illustrated exactly how the mutation conferred resistance by opening up the'active site'where DDT molecules bind to the protein so more can be broken down.
Previous work by the group produced a detailed database highlighting the differences in the efficiency
Torquato and Jiao developed a computer-simulation model that went beyond standard packing algorithms to mimic the final arrangement of chicken cones
'Ginn says. â#¢Turn off the TV phones and anything else that makes noise. They create distractions that can throw off any family's mealtime routine Ginn says.
-and phone-free zone except for emergencies of course. Instead put on some background music played at low volume to add a relaxing atmosphere.
and cut back on cakes cookies ice cream cheese and fatty meats like sausages hot dogs and bacon she says.
but find ways to enjoy small amounts occasionally Beauvais says Visit the Academy's website to view a library of recipes designed to help you Enjoy the Taste of Eating Right at http://www. eatright. org/Public/list. aspx?
and seeds scattered over a large area could be washed away from the restoration site. Instead RTC researchers tested the Buoy Deployed Seeding (Buds) restoration technique.
Headed by an expert from Kingston University and St george's University of London the investigation will scrutinize the way stakeholders are involved throughout the research process
Called SEE-IMPACT it will be led by Dr Annette Boaz a respected expert in the use of evidence in policy making who is based at Kingston and St george's Faculty of health Social Care and Education in London.
The above story is provided based on materials by Kingston University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length c
Honeybees and bumblebees were collected then from 26 sites across the UK and screened for the presence of the parasites.
and honeybees and bumblebees at the same sites share genetic strains of DWV. We have known for a long time that parasites are behind declines in honeybees said Professor Brown.
So this arrest allowed us to uncover regulatory networks that are required for differentiation and development Messing said.
and are used probably for creating starch-filled turions specialized buds produced by aquatic plants for overwintering enabling them sink to the bottom of ponds
The researchers utilized the Data analysis and Visualization Cyberinfrastructure (DAVINCI supercomputer supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and administered by Rice's Ken Kennedy Institute for Information technology and the NSF-supported Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) supercomputer.
or reduced-price lunches yet less than 10%of those children participate in the Department of agriculture's Summer Food Service program.
It's especially rare to have so many exquisite plant fossils preserved at ancient ape sites.
and fossil primates preserved in the same ancient soil that there was a strong link between the ape and its habitat at the site.
Additional evidence from the excavation site has shown that the landscape was stable for many years
Additionally by studying fossil leaves at the site we were able to estimate that there was about 55 to 100 inches of rainfall a year
Since 2011 the research team's work at the fossil forest site has resulted in the collection of several additional new primate fossils.
Dunsworth said that her work at the site is continuing. We don't know exactly what we're going to find
and then narrowed this down to two via a series of tests on detached fruit.
The tree's surface area and the volume of space it occupies are nearly the same said physicist Jayanth Banavar dean of the UMD College of Computer Mathematical and Natural sciences.
or branching form that is common to tree limbs and animals'blood vessels but added in new assumptions about the volume of fluids contained in those fractal networks.
My longtime collaborator Andrew Rambaut implemented in the computer what I had been doing with a plastic ruler.
We developed software that allows the clock to tick at different rates in different host species. Once we had that it produces these very clear and clean results.
What we're finding is that the avian virus has an extremely shallow history in most genes not much older than the invention of the telephone Worobey explained.
Out here in the West the U s. Cavalry was fighting the Apaches on foot because all the horses were sick.
and more powerful batteries for products like cell phones tablets and electric cars said Yi Cui an associate professor at Stanford
Using a network of natural grassland research sites around the world called the Nutrient Network the study represents the first time such a large experiment has been conducted using naturally occurring sites.
The researchers collected plants from each of the sites then sorted dried and weighed them to monitor the number of species of plants
and stability and the similarities to data collected from artificial grasslands as part of a research effort called Biodepth indicating that the results from natural grasslands of the Nutrient Network could be predicted from the results of artificial grasslands.
This study was made possible due to the formation of the Nutrient Network also known as Nutnet. Borer and Seabloom led a small group of scientists who created Nutnet to standardize the way that ecology research is conducted.
There are now 75 sites around the world that are run by more than 100 scientists participating in the Nutnet experiment.
Nutnet scientists collected data for this study for three years measuring plant growth in 41 sites on five continents so the researchers feel confident that their results have global applications.
To assemble an expert database of information about locations of potato hotspots Zimmerer uses a two-pronged approach.
For those comfortable with computers he asks them to delineate on Google earth maps the regions of concentrated agrobiodiversity.
For those uncomfortable with computers the same tasks can be performed using paper maps. Once the regional hotspot locations are on the electronic map other information such as elevation socioeconomic characteristics
and geographic information systems can supply important information for sustainability and conservation. Combining the top-down and bottom-up information provides novel knowledge
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