~ecology-news-biolog | Bookmarks (484)

Community scientists in Pennsylvania have reported multiple new species of bees never before found in the commonwealth through a monitoring program led by Penn State.

A team of researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) has discovered that aoudad—an animal in the sheep and goat family—can catch and spread many of the same respiratory pathogens that can impact desert bighorn sheep, a native species in Texas that often shares its habitat with aoudad.

In the face of threats from other groups, humans, chimpanzees, and a selection of other species get closer to their own. Now an international team led by Kyoto University has shown that even our more peaceful cousins, bonobos—who have never been observed to kill outsiders—show a moderated version of this effect, hinting that this behavior may have emerged several million years ago, before our...

Primate ornamentation plays a crucial role in communication not only within social groups but also between them, according to a new study. The research, published in Evolution Letters, reveals that the males of species with overlapping home ranges often display vibrant colors or elaborate features, traits that may help reduce intergroup aggression by enabling quick assessment of potential rivals.

Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada is known for its towering tufa formations, abundant brine shrimp and black clouds of alkali flies uniquely adapted to the salty, arsenic- and cyanide-laced water.

Many fish stocks around the world are either threatened by overfishing or have already collapsed. One of the main reasons for this devastating trend is that policymakers have often ignored the catch limits calculated by scientists, which were intended to be strict thresholds to protect stocks. But it has now become clear that even these scientific recommendations were often too high.

A study led by scientists from the University of Bristol reveals what animals do after they have feigned death in order to avoid being killed by a predator and what the context of this behavior is. The work has been published in PLoS ONE.

A new collaborative study has found that bees are increasingly under threat due to environmental degradation caused by changes in land use.

Humans are having a devastating effect on biodiversity, but the impacts might be worse than we thought.

An article published in Journal of Natural History reviews the mutually beneficial ecological relationships and evolutionary adaptations of tarantulas. The study reveals that the infamous spiders are actually often on friendly terms with amphibians, reptiles, and even army ants, which are known to feed on spiders.

Antarctica's unique ecosystems could be threatened by the arrival of non-native marine species and marine pollution from Southern Hemisphere landmasses, new oceanographic modeling shows.

Honey bees may play a role in increasing virus levels in wild bumble bees each spring, according to researchers at Penn State who analyzed seasonal trends of parasite and virus transmission in bees.

While distinct languages and dialects are common to human societies, most people are unaware that other species may similarly have culturally significant dialects. New research conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and New Mexico State University has revealed the dialects of the yellow-naped amazon parrot in its natural range in Costa Rica over a 22-year span.

In a study published in Royal Society Open Science, researchers at the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP) at UH Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF) consider a new designation of the humpback whales they study: tool wielders.

As the human population grows, more than half of Earth's land will experience an increasing overlap between humans and animals by 2070, according to a University of Michigan study.

A new study on songbirds sheds light on the power of social interaction to facilitate learning, insights that potentially apply to human development.

A study conducted across 30 field sites in the southwest UK has revealed the importance of incorporating varied habitats into the landscape at large.

An invasive insect with an insatiable appetite can cause serious problems for a favorite native moth that likes the same food source—even though the two are never in direct competition for a meal, according to new research, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, from University of Wisconsin–Madison ecologists.

In a study published in Current Biology on August 9, a research team led by Prof. Wei Fuwen from Jiangxi Agricultural University and the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revealed the mechanism and process of giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) recovery.

A new study at Tel Aviv University found that sponges in the Gulf of Eilat have developed an original way to keep predators away. The researchers found that the sponges contain an unprecedented concentration of the highly toxic mineral molybdenum (Mo). In addition, they identified the bacterium that enables sponges to store such high concentrations of this precious metal and unraveled the symbiosis between...

Together with a European team, researchers from Senckenberg am Meer in Wilhelmshaven have described a new fish species. Gaidropsarus mauritanicus is only about 73 millimeters long and lives in the deep-water coral reefs off the coast of Mauritania.

Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and Kobe University discovered populations of female brown algae that reproduce from unfertilized gametes and thrive without males. In a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, they used "Amazon" algae to shed light on the phenotypic and genetic consequences of the shift from sexual to asexual reproduction.

Large-scale genomic analysis of darkling beetles, a hyper-diverse insect group of more than 30,000 species worldwide, rolls back the curtain on a 150-million-year evolutionary tale of one of Earth's most ecologically important yet inconspicuous creatures, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) and CSIRO.

A new species of tarantula spider, Aphonopelma jacobii, has been discovered from the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. This small, black and gray tarantula species has fiery red hairs on its abdomen and can be found in the high-elevation habitats of the Chiricahua Mountains, where it survives through bitterly cold winters.