The Dartmouth-led study published in the January issue of the journal Population Ecology confirmed for the first time that the abundance of a certain animal species--in this case the southern pine beetle--fluctuates innately between extremes with no middle ground.
A key part of saving these animals is ensuring that they stay healthy as environmental conditions in their island home continue to shift Barrett said.
Jason Brown of Duke university and Randall Junge of the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium were also authors of this study.
We are familiar with how animals use a fight or flight strategy to face external challenges.
The study took into account the state of different breeds the multiple implications of their conservation the interaction with other animal species (wild and domestic) and the consequences of goat grazing from an environmental point of view.
Strangely enough the biggest loss in the genetic resources of indigenous animals has been observed in Europe although the situation is unknown in many areas as explained to SINC by Rocã o Rosa Garcã a researcher at SERIDA and coauthor of the study.
It is a reality that the grazing of these animals can cause damaging effects on the environment
and often the goat is the only source of animal protein in their diet explains Rosa Garcã a. The team led by Koldo Osoro Otaduy manager of the Animal Production Systems Area at SERIDA
and analysing to what extent the goat competes with local fauna in each region and whether it interferes with the survival of the most sensitive species outlines Rosa Garcã a. Story Source:
We could potentially strengthen the immune system by providing this bacterium to animals at a stage
and grassland-dwelling herbivore with the trunk-like snout--living in a network of remote national parks spanning the Peru-Bolivia border.
the Beneficia Foundation the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund Woodland Park Zoo and other generous supporters.
As trying to catch the howlers to examine them would in itself be highly stressful for the animal the best way of evaluating stress levels in wild primates is by analysing their faeces for glucocorticoid stress hormones which are general to all vertebrates.
They are interested many animals in this fruit some of them even before they ripen and fall into the ground.
and are reachable for the rest of animals that seek this fruit during the autumn days (wild boar deer and mice among others).
The knowledge of multiple existing interactions among animals and plants are essential to know what should be protected
which inhabit areas where the animals live. Carnivores such as tigers pose a risk to humans
and their livestock and can be killed because of this potential risk. Previous research has found that killing of animals can be motivated as much by social and psychological factors such as perception of danger as by any actual real risk posed by a species. A new study published in the Springer journal Human ecology has identified several key factors
which may contribute to perceptions of risk from tigers in a conservation area in Bangladesh.
because it is composed of just three herbivores in the winter--the wild Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) the Svalbard rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta hyperborea)
However the arctic fox which mainly relies on reindeer carcasses as its terrestrial winter food source didn't see a decline in its population size until a year after the herbivore die offs.
At the same time none of the other herbivores is able to recover in the summer after the icing.
and a strong reduction in the arctic fox population size one year after the herbivore die offs.
and strong climate signals in the population dynamics of herbivores are the likely explanations for how such clear climate effects can be observed at the ecosystem level.
The die offs among resident herbivores shape predator abundance which could in turn affect the migratory prey that reside in the area in the summer such as sea birds and barnacle geese.
As the name implies infected animals lose strength do not produce milk and eventually die.
We hope that potential therapies will be equally applicable to animals and that it will have a positive impact on the area's economic outlook.
Although the cells within humans and animals are more complex than trypanosomes they do carry organelles that function in similar ways to the ones they hope to block in the parasite.
Animals make choices based upon their knowledge of the environment and their own phenotype to maximize their ability to reproduce
Changes in the timing of flowering have broad implications for the animals and insects that depend on the plants.
and promotes research programs based at Front Royal the National Zoo in Washington D c . and at field research stations and training sites worldwide.
and shells of animals made of calcium carbonate. Such'calcareous'microfossils are critical for using the radiocarbon technique to determine the age of the sediments
While polar bears represent a sad disclaimer for a warming Arctic the recent count of almost 1000 wild yaks offers hope for the persistence of free-roaming large animals at the virtual limits of high-altitude wildlife.
and compared the predicted values for lysine digestibility with results obtained in the animals. Results indicated that the concentration of analyzed lysine in the sample was a good predictor of lysine digestibility (r2=0. 849)
The completed genome sequencing of DBM will lay a solid foundation for tracking the evolutionary mechanisms of how an insect evolves to become a successful herbivore that can defense many insecticides. said Professor Minsheng You Vice president of FAFU and leader of the research team.
and glucosinolate sulfatase GSS) genes may be crucial for DBM to become a successful cruciferous herbivore.
Insecticide tolerance or resistance may have contribution to the option of detoxification pathway in insect herbivores.
Surprisingly this also applies to non-herbivores. This finding lends support to earlier theories that postulate that the richness of species increases in correlation with the diversity of plant life.
To lose the Sundarbans would be to move a step closer to the extinction of these majestic animals.
and identify a gene (called NSS) involved in protecting the virus against the immune response of infected animals.
This also results in muscular defects such as abnormally flexed legs often seen in stillborn animals
It is found in the animal kingdom in insects inside sea shells and in feathers and is seen also in some plants.
An estimated 35 per cent of global crop production depends on petal-mediated animal pollination but a decrease in pollinator numbers across the world has started to limit the odds of pollination
Flowers and the animals that pollinate plants interact at the petal surface. The surfaces of many petals have produced regular patterns from folds of the waterproof cuticle layer that covers all plant surfaces.
These patterns can interfere with light to produce strong optical effects including iridescent colours and might also influence animal grip.
We used this to demonstrate that mechanical buckling of the outermost waxy cuticle layer can create the ridge patterns observed in nature on petals and leaves.
London Zoo is interested also in collaborating to record animal movements. The academics from the University's School of Computer science have run a series of workshops for schoolteachers aiming to transform the teaching of computing in schools.
and wheat bran used as animal Feed in Finland the proportion of forest biomass and conifer biomass in particular is significant.
Feeding pregnant cows and suckling calves typically requires pasture or rangeland and represents a substantial maintenance cost.
A number of endangered plants and animals call this salt marsh home. One of them is the light-footed clapper rail a cinnamon-and-gray long-legged wading bird that lives only in Southern California and the northern Baja Peninsula.
Very easily says Alex Greenwood from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.
Researchers have found within every species a close relationship between cuticle permeability and foliar absorption although this relationship can vary depending on the fertilizer used.
Adjuvants such as wetting agents spreaders stabilizers defoamers stickers and solvents may produce synergistic effects to essential oils by improving penetration through insect cuticle and translocation of the active ingredients within insect body.
#New increase in antimicrobial use in animals in Denmarkantimicrobial usage in animals in Denmark continued to increase in 2013--mainly due to an increased use in pigs.
Distributed by species pigs account for around 78%of antimicrobial use in 2013 cattle 10%aquaculture 3%poultry 1%fur animals 4
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:
Companion animals and horsesoverall the consumption of antimicrobials in the treatment of companion animals and horses increased in 2013 compared to the year before.
However companion animals account for nearly 40%of the combined veterinary consumption of fluoroquinolones. While it is unfortunate that we continue to see an increase in the total use in companion animals it is encouraging to see a drop in the use of antimicrobials that are critically important to humans.
This suggests that the treatment guidelines put out by the Danish Veterinary Association in November 2012 has had some effect.
Therefore it is important to have an overall focus on using as few antimicrobials as possible for the treatment of both animals and humans.
As such the use of antimicrobials in both animals and humans is a global problem. Not all antimicrobials are the same.
#Zoos exonerated in baby elephant deaths; Data support new branch of herpesvirus familyelephants are among the most intelligent nonhumans arguably on par with chimps
In 1995 16-month old Kumari the first Asian elephant born at the National Zoo in WASHINGTON DC died of a then-mysterious illness.
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.
whereas some identical herpesvirus strains infected both healthy and diseased animals concurrently at particular facilities the majority were different strains
Therefore the viruses have not spread between zoos and the sources of the viruses were most likely wild-born elephant herdmates.
and wild calves and showed that the EEHV1 strains in India displayed the same genetic diversity as those in Western zoos.
and nearly ubiquitous infections of Asian elephants that are shed occasionally in trunk washes and saliva of most healthy asymptomatic adult animals.
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
whereas symptomatic disease is extremely rare in African elephant calves under the same zoo conditions says Hayward.
More than 30 species of reef corals were found growing in Hurricane Hole a mangrove habitat within the Virgin islands Coral reef National monument in St john. Corals are animals that grow in colonies forming reefs over time as old corals die
This sort of reef attracts fish and other animal species . What's more we're also acting to help the environment.
and the U s. The dark orange color of these corn varieties also makes them more culturally acceptable to consumers in African countries where yellow corn is fed generally only to animals Rocheford said.
Since these animals are key ancestors they carry most of the genetic variations present in the three races.
Currently the database contains genomes of more than 1200 animals of different cattle breeds but as more scientists from other countries gradually join the project there is a continual inflow of data.
and growth allowing the identification of genetic variatiants that result in differences between animals. In the past we had mapped only approximately two percent of the variation.
We can predict the genotypes of all animals on the basis of the resource that we have created here.
#Herbivores play important role in protecting habitats from invasive speciesherbivores (species that eat plants; e g. caterpillars) consume more nonnative (introduced from other places) oak leaf material in areas with diverse native plant communities than in less diverse communities.
Researchers from the Illinois Natural history Survey and the Morton Arboretum have been examining the potential role of herbivores on the invasion of nonnative plant species in diverse plant communities.
The researchers examined herbivore damage on leaves of nonnative oak trees in arboreta across the United states. They found that nonnative oaks in regions with high oak species diversity showed more leaf damage than those in regions with low diversity.
Pearse conjectures Diverse plant communities are more likely to contain herbivores that are able to consume a nonnative species which may help to explain why diverse communities are able to resist invaders
and their associated herbivores may become critical to guarding against the nonnative species invaders. Story Source:
They probably wouldn't pay much attention to the animals living in the soil. But a new Yale-led study shows the critical importance of earthworms beetles
During a 3-year study researchers found that removing these small animals from the soil of a replicated Scottish sheep meadow altered the plant species that grew in the ecosystem reduced overall productivity
We know these soil animals are important controls on processes which cause nutrients and carbon to cycle in ecosystems but there was little evidence that human-induced loss of these animals has effects at the level of the whole ecosystem on services such as agricultural yield said Mark Bradford an Associate professor at the Yale
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&es) and lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
During the first six months the researchers found that removing the animals did not affect plant yield or the rate of carbon dioxide loss from the system.
or forest remember that the tiny animals immediately beneath your feet are likely responsible for much of
Animals can move around but things like plants and trees are rooted in the ground and must withstand climate change or die.
and animals that are able to live in a particular biome like the desert are determined largely by the climate.
and animals living above ground. Co-authors of the study from other institutions are Scott Bates of the University of Minnesota;
and health of food-producing animals consuming genetically engineered feed first introduced 18 years ago has been comparable to that of animals consuming non-GE feed.
or other food products derived from animals that ate genetically engineered feed. The review led by UC Davis animal scientist Alison Van Eenennaam examined nearly 30 years of livestock-feeding studies that represent more than 100 billion animals.
Titled Prevalence and Impacts of Genetically Engineered Feedstuffs on Livestock Populations the review article is now available online in open-access form through the American Society of Animal Science.
Food-producing animals such as cows pigs goats chickens and other poultry species now consume 70 to 90 percent of all genetically engineered crops according to the new UC Davis review.
In the United states alone 9 billion food-producing animals are produced annually with 95 percent of them consuming feed that contains genetically engineered ingredients.
and eggs derived from animals that have consumed GE feed are indistinguishable from the products derived from animals fed a non-GE diet Van Eenennaam said.
and on welfare technologies will increasingly target at early detection of signals that predict a health problem of an animal.
and his colleagues found that a pair of the hungry herbivores could reduce phragmites cover from 94 percent to 21 percent on average by the end of the study.
because as trees expand into these grassland areas people who are using grassland for cattle production have less grass for animals too Dodds said.
Now livestock such as sheep offer an intriguing animal to examine adaptation to climate change with a genetic legacy of centuries of selected breeding and a wealth of livestock genome-wide data available.
The research stems from a look at the function of a large family of lipid-derived molecular signals that regulate differential processes in humans animals and plants according to Kolomiets
The molecular signals are understood less in plants than in animals and humans he noted. â#oepeople take certain drugs such as aspirin to suppress the activity of these signals
They come to the plant that is being chewed up by insect herbivores and lay eggs in the caterpillarâ##s body. â#oewe have proven that
There are all sorts of other things that are changing in the environment that affect animals
Paratuberculosis mainly affects ruminants and causes treatment-resistant diarrhea and wasting among affected animals. The disease can cause considerable economic losses for commercial farms.
The animals produce less milk exhibit fertility problems and are more susceptible to other conditions such as udder inflammation.
Affected animals must be reported and sacrificed. The meat of affected animals is not suitable for consumption
and must be disposed of. The disease usually manifests two to three years after the initial infection.
During this time infected animals shed the bacteria putting the health of the entire herd at risk.
and is passed to the animal's macrophages. These immune cells then migrate through the lymphatic fluid into the lymph nodes the blood and other organs.
and blood of animals suspected of being infected. 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.
For the test Khol takes fluid from the lymph vessels at the udder of the animals.
After one year about 70 percent of all animals which were tested positive via lymph-PCR had been culled from their herds.
These animals had developed various diseases or a reduced performance that made it necessary to remove the animals from the farm.
In comparison cows with a negative lymph result showed a 27 percent culling rate after one year only.
and lower reproductive success for seabirds underscoring the importance of upwelling for the conservation of endangered animals and management of commercially important fisheries.
and when animals begin feeding (either on plants or animals that eat plants) and reproducing said Schwartz who is familiar with the research
but had no role in it. In the western United states particularly water availability is affected by plants
The train of the peacock is one of the most iconic examples of sexual selection in the animal kingdom.
which the animal was painted always black or in reddish tones. We were also able to establish that it is very closely related to today's Iberian pig species and specifically to the'Lampiã o del Guadiana'strain.
which are very rare or absent in wild boars (the precursor animals to the domestic pig);
which are presumably the descendents of the animals Spanish colonizers brought to America. Researchers demonstrate that this hypothesis is incorrect
and that there is very little remaining of those first Spanish animals in today's creole pigs
which their research has found to be the victim of herbivorous Sesarma purple marsh crabs run amok.
These new habitats created by humans open new paths for the expansion of the slugs into areas that are normally inhospitable for animals
In principle all areas with a temperate climate can serve as potential habitat for these animals says Hutchinson and offers the following recommendation:
Our laboratory has ongoing research with the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service into remote-reporting Internet-based technologies
Instead of being diploid with two sets of chromosomes like humans and most other living things it became polyploid with in the case of bread wheat seven sets of six related chromosomes.
Starting in 1958 just five years after the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure researchers suspected that a specific gene controls the orderly pairing of wheat chromosomes during reproduction.
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.
By conducting this epidemiological study on a commercial dairy farm in Northern California we were able to demonstrate that the virus overwinters in female midges that had fed on an infected animal during the previous season said lead author Christie Mayo a veterinarian
and can cause heavy diarrhea in the animals. The parasite Cystoisospora suis damages the intestinal mucosa to such a degree that it threatens the growth and survival of the pigs.
For the purpose of the study 25 animals aged three days were infected and observed in comparison with another 26 healthy non-infected animals.
The researchers analysed various different immune cells in the intestines of both groups over the course of the first days of life.
Both types of T cells were detected significantly earlier in infected piglets than in non-infected animals.
Their exact role in the intestines of the animals however remains unclear Gabner says. Cystoisospora suis affects epithelial cells in the intestine
Just four days after infection the researchers found increased expression of certain pathogen receptors (TLR-2 and NOD2) and signalling molecules involved in inflammatory reactions (TNF-Î) in the intestine of the infected animals.
They deliberately infected sows with the parasites during gestation in order to increase the antibody levels in the maternal animals.
Seventeen percent of the leopard's diet consisted of assorted wild animals including rodents monkeys and mongoose and birds.
and these studies were done in areas where people keep their animals outside. A similar study conducted in another part of Africa where the people live in houses built on stilts
but they will use many available warm-blooded animals as hosts he said. Despite all the time and effort that researchers have spent studying mosquitoes there still is a tremendous amount that they don't understand Pitts said.
While habitat loss and fragmentation are the most consistent and widespread threats across habitats they are followed closely on the list by invasive species. Introduced species have a particularly strong impact on islands where native birds have a greater restriction on where they can Live in Hawaii introduced animals
The copper-containing enzyme is present in animals and humans and is essential for the protective pathway against UV radiation it also simultaneously provides the elucidation and potential means with
The enzyme responsible for the mechanism of food spoilage is formed within eukaryotes (organisms that have a nucleus) as an inactive precursor during the developmental phase of an organism.
and believe it stems from random spatial processes including seed dispersal by animals. The stochastic spatial processes interfere with the classic ecological theory of predictable dependence resulting in de facto independence.
#Hog workers carry drug-resistant bacteria even after they leave the farma new study suggests that nearly half of workers who care for animals in large industrial hog farming operations may be carrying home livestock-associated bacteria in their noses
Animals that eat it can experience intestinal damage and their milk and meat becomes bitter and useless.
The next step is further studies to investigate wider clinical use against topical human infections as well as on animals.
In general animal-based foods are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions per pound than plant-based foods.
and he believes that animals need to be part of a sustainable agricultural system. However reduced consumption would have both health and environmental benefits.
New mushroom-shaped animals from the deep sea discovered which could not be placed in any recognized group of animals.
and current evidence suggest that they represent an early branch on the tree of life with similarities to the 600 mill old extinct Ediacara fauna.
management optionsthe brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) is an invasive herbivorous insect species that was introduced accidentally to the United states from Asia.
Because they are scavengers camel crickets may actually provide an important service in our basements
It does not belong to the original fauna of the country but survives in Finland as it finds suitable overwintering habitats in greenhouses.
Whitefly is a generalist herbivore which feeds on many plant species but it may also specialize in feeding on greenhouse crops.
%and as we eat more meat more arable cultivation is turned over to producing feedstock for animals that provide meat for humans.
and learn to flap their forelimbs to avoid crashing? Or did they run along the ground
and allowed the ancestors of today's birds to effectively use their forelimbs as rudimentary wings.
But once animals without wings have this innate aerial righting behavior when wings came along it became easier quicker and more efficient.
however and Dudley favors the scenario that flight developed in tree-dwelling animals falling and eventually evolving the ability to glide and fly.
He has documented many ways that animals in the wild from lizards and lemurs to ants use various parts of their bodies to avoid hard landings on the ground.
Practically every animal that has been tested is able to turn upright and a great many even ones that do not look like fliers have some ability to steer
This experiment illustrates that there is a much broader range of aerodynamic capacity available for animals with these tiny tiny wings than has been realized previously.
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