Latest Ecology Stories
As digital cameras become better and cheaper, ecologists are turning these ubiquitous consumer devices into scientific tools to study how forests are responding to climate change. And, they say, digital cameras could be a cost-effective way of visually monitoring the spread of tree diseases. The results – which come from 38,000 photographs – are presented at this week's British Ecological Society's Annual Meeting at the University of Birmingham. Because trees fix carbon dioxide (CO2)...
Foundation Honors Birthday Milestone Through "45 Days of Giving" Aimed At Raising $450,000 In Vital Support For Parks At www.nationalparks.org/Give45 WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America's national parks, celebrates 45 years of support for our nation's most sacred places. On December 18th, 1967 the United States Congress recognized the critical need for an official organization tasked with ensuring...
Pew applauds protection of area three times the size of Yellowstone QUEBEC CITY, Dec. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mathew Jacobson of the Pew Environment Group's boreal campaign issued the following statement in response to the Province of Quebec's announcement today that it has created a 6.5-million-acre park. The new Tursujuq National Park spans Quebec's boreal and arctic territory. "We commend the government of Quebec for the creation of the Tursujuq National Park, which...
Insights from Characterizing Extinct Human Gut Microbiomes A University of Oklahoma-led study has demonstrated that ancient DNA can be used to understand ancient human microbiomes. The microbiomes from ancient people have broad reaching implications for understanding recent changes to human health, such as what good bacteria might have been lost as a result of our current abundant use of antibiotics and aseptic practices. Cecil M. Lewis Jr., professor of anthropology in the OU College...
University of Georgia Fish play a far more important role as contributors of nutrients to marine ecosystems than previously thought, according to researchers at the University of Georgia and Florida International University. In a pair of papers in the journal Ecology, they show that fish contribute more nutrients to their local ecosystems than any other source-enough to cause changes in the growth rates of the organisms at the base of the food web. Jacob Allgeier, a doctoral student in...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to a new study by a trio of Australian and American researchers, large, old trees, which provide shelter for a multitude of animals, are declining in record numbers around the world. “It’s a worldwide problem and appears to be happening in most types of forest,” said lead author David Lindenmayer, an environmentalist with the Australian National University. “It is a very, very disturbing trend. We are talking...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of scientists comprised of members from Penn State, UMass Amherst, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and University College London has revealed that an invasive grass species may be one reason that fires are bigger and more frequent in certain regions of the western U.S. Using satellite imagery, the team identified cheatgrass – a plant species accidentally introduced by western settlers during the 1800s – in a...
While science has often focused on big-scale, global climate change research, a study recently released in the journal Bioscience suggests that long-term, integrated and site-specific research is needed to understand how climate change affects multiple components of ecosystem structure and function, sometimes in surprising ways. “Long-term ecological research is important to understanding the effects of a changing climate on our natural resources and so much more,” said Michael T....
Carnegie Institution Researchers from the Carnegie Institution are rolling out results from the new Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System, or AToMS, for the first time at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meetings in San Francisco. The groundbreaking technology and its scientific observations are uncovering a previously invisible ecological world. To watch a video about how AToMS is helping researchers look at the world in a whole new way, click here. AToMS, which launched in June 2011,...
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dynastar Ventures, Inc. ("Dynastar"), a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Dynastar Holdings, Inc. (OTC Markets: DYNA) focused on the direct selling market, announced today an agreement with Ducks Unlimited, Inc. (www.ducks.org), a leader in wetlands conservation, pursuant to which Ducks Unlimited will license Dynastar's ConnectionPlus(®) software platform for use by its members. "This partnership with Dynastar will enable the...
Latest Ecology Reference Libraries
The Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) was occasionally previously known as Man O’War or man of War, a reflection of its rakish lines, aerial piracy of other birds, and speed. It’s widespread in the tropical Atlantic, breeding colonially in the trees in Florida, the Caribbean and the Cape Verde Islands. In addition, it breeds along the Pacific coast of the Americas from Mexico to Ecuador including the Galapagos Islands, as well. It is known as a vagrant as far from its...
The Guadalupe Storm Petrel is an extinct species of the Hydrobatidae family. It was a small seabird, almost undistinguishable from its relative, Leach’s Storm Petrel. The only ways to tell them apart was their circannual rhythm and the fact that the Guadalupe Storm Petrel is larger in size and its paler under coverts. They bred only on Guadalupe Island off Baja, California. The breeding season was set between the local subspecies of Leach’s Storm Petrel, the winder breeding Oceanodroma...
Profilicollis is a genus of acanthocephalan parasites that are found in crustaceans and shorebirds. Profilicollis parasites use decapod crustaceans as intermediate hosts and species of shorebirds as definitive hosts. The parasite first develops in mole crabs of North and South America. After it infects a mole crab, it becomes dormant until the crab is eaten by a suitable bird, such as a Surf scoter or Herring Gull. Once the parasite has passed through the stomach of the bird, it develops...
The oriental small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea) is also known as the Asian small-clawed otter. The range of this otter includes Burma, Bangladesh, India, Taiwan, Laos, southern China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. This otter was thought to be a single member in the genus Amblonyx, but it has been recently classified as Aonyx due to research on its mitochondrial DNA. The oriental small-clawed otter prefers to live in freshwater wetlands and mangrove swamps...
Conservation Biology is a peer-reviewed academic journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. It was established in 1987 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell. Conservation Biology was originally developed to provide a global voice for an emerging discipline. It quickly became the most important journal dealing with the topic of biological diversity. Editor-in-chief is Gary Meffe; managing editor is Ellen Main. Stanley A. Temple, President of the SCB from 1991-1993, said: “The...
