and South america--will settle for fish when fruits (its main food) are no longer on the menu according to the Wildlife Conservation Society
and partners revealing the first-ever photos of fish-eating peccaries. The images of fish consumption by white-lipped peccaries were taken by Douglas Fernandes in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands one morning back in 2011.
A short description of the observations along with the digital photographs taken will appear in the latest edition of Suiform Soundings (IUCN Peccary Specialist Group Newsletter.
As far as we know these are the first images of fish consumption by white-lipped peccaries said Dr. Alexine Keuroghlian of the Wildlife Conservation Society and an expert on peccaries.
While there was one reported account by Dr. Joe Fragoso of the white-lipped peccary dining on fish in the Amazon the behavior has been seen rarely
It was then that Fernandes noticed three of the peccaries eating traira or wolf fish from the oxygen-starved ponds.
and small invertebrates such as insect larvae worms and snails when fruits are said scarce Dr. Keuroghlian.
and low-oxygen conditions that endanger fish and other aquatic life. At Tanguro Ranch however the soils are old
Those are also rivers that people use for water supplies fishing and transportation. Finally the study showed that the agricultural streams were warmer than the forested streams caused both by a reduction in bordering forest
Warmer water has implications for the fish Neill says because it holds less oxygen. Warmer water also increases fish metabolism
so fish need more food. We don't know if warming and other changes associated with expanding cropland also increase fish food supply
--if they don't some fish may not have enough energy to survive. Neill has been working at Tanguro Ranch since 2007 with collaborators from Woods Hole Research center Brown University the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and the University of SãO Paulo.
Other authors in this journal issue include MBL Senior Scientist Linda Deegan; Shelby Riskin and Gillian Galford both of whom graduated from the Brown-MBL Graduate Program in Biological and Environmental sciences;
and Brown-MBL faculty members Stephen Porder Leah Vanwey and Jack Mustard. Tanguro Ranch is the focus of a huge amount of the science on land transitions
Largest and most comprehensive studies of fish phylogenyfishes account for over half of vertebrate species but while groups such as mammals birds and reptiles have been understood fairly well by scientists for decades knowledge about relationships among many types of fishes was essentially unknown--until now.
A team of scientists led by Richard Broughton associate professor of biology at the University of Oklahoma published two studies that dramatically increase understanding of fish evolution and their relationships.
They integrated extensive genetic and physical information about specimens to create a new tree of life for fishes.
The vast amount of data generated through large-scale DNA sequencing required supercomputing resources for analysis. The result is the largest and most comprehensive studies of fish phylogeny to date.
Broughton notes The scope of the project was huge in terms of the number of species examined
and the number of genes analyzed and the new patterns of relationships among fish families result in
what may be the broadest revision of fish systematics in history. While some of the findings provide new support for previously understood fish relationships others significantly change existing ideas.
Many different groupings are proposed in this new tree. For example tunas and marlins are both fast-swimming marine fishes with large streamlined bodies yet they appear on very different branches of the tree.
Tunas appear to be more closely related to the small sedentary seahorses whereas marlins are close relatives of flatfishes
which are bottom-dwelling and have distinctive asymmetric heads. Beyond a better understanding of fishes themselves the potential implications of this research are said wide reaching Edward Wiley curator of ichthyology at the University of Kansas. Our knowledge about one group can be extended to closely related species
if we understand those relationships Wiley said. He noted that knowledge of evolutionary relationships among fishes improves scientists'ability to predict how closely related species might react to environmental factors such as climate change.
It helps identify and target potential biomedically beneficial substances and has broader applications related to exploring disease-causing genes
and developmental processes shared with humans. The fish tree is the result of years of work among a collaborative team of scientists as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Euteleost Tree of Life project.
Researchers involved in the project include Broughton Wiley and Guillermo Ortã George washington University; Kent Carpenter Old Dominion University;
and a dog tracking team working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have captured 37 lions to date.
The most significant near-term promise he believes is in growing algae and other stock for biofuels.
#Turning algae into clean energy and fish food; helping Africans to irrigate cropscould algae that feast on wastewater produce clean biofuels and a healthful supply of fish food?
Can impoverished African community gardeners learn to use and maintain a simple centuries-old nonelectric water pump to grow more vegetables?
One of the Johns Hopkins student projects focuses on growing large masses of algae to address three sustainability issues:
Their goal is to deploy algae at wastewater treatment facilities to feed on hard-to-remove pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus
If algae can flourish while dining on these pollutants the plant-like organisms could then be used to produce renewable biofuels or food for fish farms.
But the process is not as simple as it sounds. Wastewater can contain pathogens and dangerous metals like mercury chromium and arsenic said Pavlo Bohutskyi an environmental engineering doctoral student and leader of this team.
If algae grow in these materials and then are eaten by fish is it safe for us to eat these fish?
At the same time the pathogens in wastewater such as viruses fungi and bacteria could destroy the algae themselves
and thwart the plans to produce biofuels and fish food. With an initial EPA grant the student team tested 20 species of algae.
We found two strains that can grow well alongside pathogens and one that is already present in wastewater samples Bohutskyi said.
If the team receives one of the additional EPA grants he said the students plan to do further studies to see
or biofuel production is the most economically viable use for algae grown in wastewater. Their faculty advisers are Edward Bouwer professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Michael Betenbaugh professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering.
Both departments are within the university's Whiting School of engineering. The other Johns Hopkins team aims to improve the irrigation of vegetable gardens that provide nutrition and income for families in remote rural communities in South africa.
protein from beef chicken or shrimp; onions or chopped scallions; and sliced hard-boiled egg. Vendors often sell the soup from sidewalk carts during New orleans festivals
#oethe Dead Zone is a vast expanse of water sometimes as large as the state of Massachusetts that has so little oxygen that fish shellfish
and soybeans grow it stimulates the growth of plants in the water#algae in the Gulf.
The algae bloom and eventually die and decay removing oxygen from the water. The result is water too oxygen-depleted to support life.#
Fish and shellfish either leave the oxygen-depleted water or die causing losses to commercial and sports fisheries in the Gulf she noted.
Dead fish sometimes wash up onto beaches with a negative impact on recreational activities and tourism.
Joan B. Rose1 Phd Michigan State university Department of Fisheries and Wildlife 480 Wilson Road Natural resources Bldg Rm 13 East Lansing MI 48824
Producing custom-tailored oils starts with optimizing the algae to produce the right kind of oil
which algae grow in open ponds Solazyme grows microalgae in total darkness in the same kind of fermentation vats used to produce vinegar medicines and scores of other products.
#Engineering algae to make the wonder material nanocellulose for biofuels and moregenes from the family of bacteria that produce vinegar Kombucha tea and nata de coco have become stars in a project
--which scientists today said has reached an advanced stage--that would turn algae into solar-powered factories for producing the wonder material nanocellulose.
While producing nanocellulose the algae will absorb carbon dioxide the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming.
Brown explained that algae have multiple advantages for producing nanocellulose. Cyanobacteria for instance make their own nutrients from sunlight
UNH graduate students Lindsay Green and Hannah Traggis discovered the rapid southern expansion of Colpomenia peregrina also known as sea potato or oyster thief during a SCUBA DIVING trip in Kittery Maine in the summer
The seaweed earned its oyster thief nickname after its introduction to France in the early 1900s led to significant damage to the oyster industry.
The seaweed was like a balloon attached to the oysters. Literally whole oyster beds disappeared because they floated away says Traggis a master's student from Buzzards Bay Mass.
While no negative effects have been reported on New england's shellfish industry the researchers note that the region's oyster industry is valued at $117. 6 million The researchers
#Invasive crabs help Cape cod marshesecologists are wary of nonnative species but along the shores of Cape cod where grass-eating crabs have been running amok
and destroying the marsh an invasion of a predatory green crabs has helped turn back the tide in favor of the grass.
The counter-intuitive conclusions appear in a new paper in the journal Ecology. Long vilified invasive species can sometimes become an ecosystem asset.
There the invasive green crab Carcinus maenas is helping to restore the marsh by driving away the Sesarma reticulatum crabs that have been depleting the marsh grasses.
The observations and experiments of the research show that the green crab has filled the void left by the decline of native predators of sesarma crabs the authors said.
In previous research they showed that predator decline has come about because of recreational fishing. Humans have had far-reaching impacts on ecosystems said author Tyler Coverdale a researcher in the lab of lead author Mark Bertness chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
When we started seeing this recovery we started seeing loads of green crabs at the marshes that were recovering.
Crab vs. Crabthe most elementary finding of the paper is that the green crabs are much more abundant (as many as 2. 8 green crabs per square meter) in distressed
-but-healing marsh areas where can they take over sesarma burrows. In healthy marsh areas with few sesarma burrows the green crabs found no quarter (there were only 0. 2 per square meter.
Bertness and Coverdale's measurements of cordgrass regrowth also showed that locations with high green crab density correlated positively with locations of grass regrowth.
The next steps were experiments to test whether all this was a mere coincidence of coexistence
or whether there was a dynamic between the green crabs and the sesarma crabs that would plausibly defend the grass.
At select sites Bertness and Coverdale enclosed the two crabs together within a wire cage at a burrow.
After a set period of time they came back to observe the results and always found the same story.
Green crabs won the struggle for the burrows. In fact sesarma crabs survived the tussle only 15 percent of the time.
As a control they caged in other sesarma crabs without green crabs and those sesarma crabs always survived.
Finally they tested whether green crabs had to eat the sesarma crabs to protect the grass
or whether their mere presence had a deterrent effect. They did this by fencing in some sesarma crabs by themselves some with a free roaming green crab (a clear and present danger)
and some with a caged green crab (physically harmless but still plainly evident). Sesarma left alone ate lots of grass in their fenced in area.
Sesarma who faced a free-roaming or a caged green crab both ate far less grass.
In other words the presence of a green crab was as effective a deterrent to sesarma herbivory as actual attacks by green crabs.
Bertness likened the green crabs to scarecrows which model what ecologists have begun recently to account for as non-consumptive effects.
Lay people already call that effect scaring things away. Non-consumptive effects can be much more powerful
because whereas a consumptive effect is one crab eats another crab a non-consumptive effect is one crab scares dozens of crabs Bertness said.
The ecological effect can be much greater much quicker. In two ways therefore the new study provides evidence for two newer views in ecology Bertness said.
The little crustacean grazers some resembling tiny shrimp are critical in protecting seagrasses from overgrowth by algae helping keep these aquatic havens healthy for native
and economically important species. Crustaceans are tiny to very large shelled animals that include crab shrimp and lobster.
The researchers found that these plant-eating animals feast on the nuisance algae that grow on seagrass ultimately helping maintain the seagrass that provides nurseries for seafood.
In seagrass systems tiny grazers promote healthy seagrasses by ensuring algae is consumed quickly rather than overgrowing the seagrass.
Not only do these areas serve as nurseries for commercially important fish and shellfish such as blue crabs red drum and some Pacific rockfish but they also help clean our water
and buffer our coastal communities by providing shoreline protection from storms Grace said. These tiny animals by going about their daily business of grazing are integral to keeping healthy seagrass beds healthy.
In fact the authors wrote if not for the algal munching of these grazers algae could blanket the seagrasses blocking out sunlight
just as important as good water quality in preventing nuisance algae blooms and keeping seagrass beds healthy.
Other flavorings like fish and oyster sauces tabasco and soy sauces and black bean sauces showed minimal p53 effects in Kern's tests as did soybean paste kim chee wasabi powder hickory smoke powders and smoked paprika.
Their diet should include cereals fruit vegetables dairy products lean meats fish poultry eggs and nuts.
Hillis who raises Longhorns of his own out at the Double Helix Ranch said that the winds of history now seem to be blowing in the Longhorns'direction.
The U s. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to hold another public comment period this spring before voting on the issue Sept. 30.
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. He has been involved in LPC research since 2007; prior to that Dave Haukos a former Texas Tech professor now at Kansas State had been conducting studies at Texas Tech since the 1980s.
Colorado Kansas Oklahoma New mexico and Texas. About tall structures Boal explained the structures may provide perches for predators
Unless the needs of these people are addressed in a more sustainable way overuse of wetland resources through farming fishing
The survey revealed that more than 80%of people in these areas use wetland resources including collecting water catching fish hunting bush meat (Sitatunga a type of antelope
Their study shows that one type of marine algae that has received little attention till now--dinoflagellate microalgae--is highly suitable for cultivation with the aim of producing biodiesel.
Firstly algae offer the same production levels while taking up only between 4 and 7 per cent of the area occupied by crops on land thanks to their high concentration of energy per cell.
Finally marine algae are not a priori sources of food for human consumption which avoids the ethical problem of monoculture to provide fuel rather than food.
The author team led by Dr. Roberge from the Department of Wildlife Fish and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) calls for studies addressing cost-effectiveness of different retention and agroforestry systems in relation to biodiversity conservation argues for a stronger
and a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species. They are also a vital fishing grazing and traditional rice farming resource for around 1. 1 million people.
and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram
which corresponds exactly with the swimming speed of bowhead whales skimming through shoals of copepods. However when he compared the porosity of the baleen of both species he was surprised by the similarity of the performances despite the whales'different feeding styles.
Using genetically-modified cyanobacteria the team linked butanol production to the algae s natural metabolism says Paul Hudson a researcher at the School of Biotechnology at KTH who leads the research.#
Already there is a demonstrator facility in New mexico U s. for producing biodiesel from algae which is advanced a more process Hudson says.
#Earliest tobacco use in Pacific Northwest discoverednative American hunter-gatherers living more than a thousand years ago in what is now northwestern California ate salmon acorns
It is of course feasible for people to diversity their diets to increase the consumption of other selenium-rich foods such as meat poultry fish
The late monsoon in 2005 hindered summer grass development to the point that U s. ranchers had to buy supplemental feed for their cattle Andrea Ray a researcher at the National Oceanic
and although they are largely being decimated by ivory poachers there's little support for elephant conservation in rural villages because of the enormous damage they cause to crops.
or algae it's all about the cell walls of the plants. Will they make it hard
whether it's switchgrass remnants of corn stalks fast-growing trees or algae. The traditional strategy had been a multistep approach involving sample dissolution and chromatographic analysis
Among big cats the Bengal tiger for instance holds its sole ground in Bangladesh in the Sundarbans the world's largest mangrove forest.
Species such as the crab-eating macaque and fishing cat can adapt somewhat readily to a life of swimming
and foraging for crustaceans. Meanwhile Zanzibar's red colobus monkey--driven to coastal mangroves by deforestation--can struggle to find the freshwater it needs as Nowak reported in the American Journal of Primatology in 2008.
Before Robertson said co-author John Marlin Phd a research affiliate at the University of Illinois's Prairie Research Institute who had recollected part of Robertson's network in the 1970s almost all insect collecting was done independently of the plant.
That person turned out to be Marlin. All through high school I studied bees and ants he said
One of the plants Marlin studied was Claytonia virginica commonly known as'spring beauty.''We were interested very in Claytonia virginica
Marlin's dataset gave us visitation rate a quantitative measure of pollination we otherwise wouldn't have had.
Comparing the visitation rates we measured to Marlin's we discovered that the bees were making fewer trips to the flowers than they had in the 1970s.
Marlin counted 0. 59 bee arrivals per minute and we counted 0. 14 arrivals. So even those some interactions are still present they're weaker.
Both Robertson and Marlin had collected their bees pinned them and deposited them in the Illinois Natural history Survey often still fuzzy with pollen.
and Knight picked six bee species that frequently visited Claytonia virginica two named by Robertson and washed Robertson's archival specimens of those bees Marlin's specimens and their own.
The fraction of the pollen on the bee contributed by Claytonia virginica was highest in Robertson's time lower in Marlin's time and much lower in 2010.
Funding for the three censuses came from the United states Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) a US Agency for International Development (USAID) initiative for biodiversity
Coprolites also showed that fish mostly anchovies did provide the primary protein in the diet but not the calories.
For these comparisons the researchers relied on accounts from Zebulon Pike's 1806-1807 expedition and from Stephen H. Long's 1820 exploration.
and often refer to themselves as#mache bhathe Bangali which can be translated roughly as fish
Salmon/tuna--Especially white or albacore tuna and salmon are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids
and canned salmon contains soft bones that give an added boost of calcium intake. Flaxseeds--Choose either brown
Other food sources include beans nuts some shellfish whole grains fortified cereals and dairy products. The nutrient is also available in supplement form.
) The survey was funded by ANPN the CITES MIKE (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants) Program and the United states Fish and Wildlife Service.
A small camp of 300 artisanal gold miners had expanded to over 5000 miners poachers and arms and drugs dealers.
and arresting poachers who had entered illegally the country from neighboring Cameroon. Gabon's National park staff recently engaged in a firefight with armed poachers in Minkebe National park after arresting two individuals carrying six tusks.
Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba announced that Gabon will pass new legislation to further dissuade commercial ivory poachers even more by increasing prison terms to a minimum of three years for ivory poachers
and 15 years for poaching and ivory trafficking involving organized crime. Speaking in a cabinet meeting the president urgently called for a strong coordinated and decisive response to this national emergency from all of the security and wildlife management services.
Richard Ruggiero Chief of the Branch of the Near east South Asia and Africa Division of International Conservation U s. Fish & Wildlife Service said:
As a society Americans'consumption of fish especially fish that contributes to these omega-3 fats is quite low compared to other proteins Drouillard said.
Reasons for this include cost access to fish and personal preference. Americans do however like hamburgers.
During the morning hours on Sunday Feb 3 the chick was observed pipping its way into the world by U s. Fish
Everyone continues to be inspired by Wisdom as a symbol of hope for her species said Doug Staller the Fish
longline fishing where the birds are hooked inadvertently and drowned though conservation groups have banded with fishermen
and dramatically lowered the number of deaths from this cause; and pollution especially from garbage floating on the ocean.
and subsequently develop the aquaculture and agriculture--mainly rice cultivation--the coastal swamp areas have been transformed into polders (3). To this end dikes have been built reducing the 1km mangrove strip to just a few dozen metres wide.
Increasing fishing pressure has shrunk the size of harvested species partly due to the progressive depletion of high-value large-bodied species. A century ago the mean maximum body length of the main species
if uncontrolled such hydrological alterations could disrupt fish migrations and associated fishery yields threatening riverine livelihoods and food security.
Adequate protection of Amazon freshwater ecosystems requires broadening the forest-centric focus of prevailing environmental management
Bertness published the Stress Gradient Hypothesis in Trends in Ecological Evolution with Ray Callaway then a graduate student at the University of California-Santa barbara. Callaway is now a professor at the University of Montana.
The hypothesis suggests for example that marine ecosystem managers who want to help tropical fish should focus on sustaining foundational species in the ecosystem such as corals.
With the ecosystem's foundation shored up the natural tendency among species toward greater positive interactions under stress should allow the fish to weather stress better.
To find out U-M biochemist Ray Barbehenn and several of his undergraduate research assistants compared the protein quality of red oak
My career in nutrition research began in Ray's lab she said. I am looking forward to seeing where it leads me.
I can trace my interest in this subject back to my time working in Ray's lab. Our research involves a true partnership Barbehenn said.
and colleagues found that men who reported eating French fries fried chicken fried fish and/or doughnuts at least once a week were increased at an risk of prostate cancer as compared to men who said they ate such foods less than once a month.
The erosion is a consequence of an unexpected synergy between recreational over-fishing and Great depression-era ditches constructed by Works Progress Administration (WPA) in an effort to control mosquitoes.
When fishermen hook too many predatory fishes out of the marsh's ecosystem the fishes'prey go on fruitfully multiplying unchecked.
The problem for Cape cod is the native purple marsh crab (Sesarma reticulatum) which burrows in the mud along the inner shorelines of the marshes
The unchecked multitudes of purple marsh crabs have taken a visible toll on the developed areas of the Cape.
The purple marsh crabs need tidal creek edge habitat to thrive and do not venture into the inner heart of the marsh where a shorter cordgrass species (the closely related
but squattier Spartina patens) and other high marsh plants dominate The old WPA mosquito ditches also fulfill the crabs'habitat requirements.
Once benign the ditches nucleated dramatic reconstruction of the landscape with the loss of blue crab striped bass and smooth dogfish and the subsequent boom of purple marsh crabs.
The pattern cued the researchers to the possibility that recreational fishing was the trigger Coverdale says.
Few people wade into the swamp to fish. Marshes are excellent model systems for observing the intersection of human impacts that can trigger environmental degradation the authors say
and provide shellfish fuel baitfish and opportunities for recreational anglers. A lot of those harvests are probably sustainable.
The additional pressure of recreational fishing changed that equilibrium. How do Cape cod residents and local fishing enthusiasts feel about this news?
Coverdale says the area has a strong conservation ethic. People remember what the Cape looked like
As a fishing enthusiast himself Coverdale does not see ecologists and fishermen as opposing forces.
People enjoy catching fish today but they come back year after year. They want to see the fish there tomorrow Coverdale said.
He has faith that the tendency of residents and long-time visitors to take the long view will make a solution possible.
and allow the local community to retain its fishing heritage. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Ecological Society of America.
The original article was written by Liza Lester. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
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