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Posts posted by PhysOrg
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Russian scientists sounded the alarm on Wednesday over a huge oil slick in the Black Sea, with the World Wildlife Fund saying at least 100 tonnes of oil have leaked off the city of Novorossiysk.
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Research from Charles Darwin University (CDU) has identified ways to improve management of magpie geese to better assist mango growers as the Northern Territory goes into mango season.
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Darwin's finches on the Galápagos Islands are once again providing insights into the theory of evolution, with two Flinders University studies investigating their dealings with a parasitic fly.
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Avian illnesses are a perennial topic of interest for researchers. These viruses can spread between birds, and sometimes even humans, and evolve rapidly.
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Federal and state mandates to conserve 30% of the nation's lands and waters by 2030 are intended to protect biodiversity. But do protected areas actually work?
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The Arctic tern—which has the world record for the longest annual migration—uses just a few select routes, a key finding that could help efforts to conserve the species, according to a new University of British Columbia study.
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A team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Stanford University, and the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) has uncovered new clues as to how poisonous frogs and birds avoid intoxicating themselves. Their study, which will be published August 5 in the Journal of General Physiology (JGP), suggests that, rather than evolving resistant versions of the toxin's target protein, the animals produce "toxin sponges" that can mop up the poison and prevent it from exerting its deadly effects.
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Giant bird-eating centipedes may sound like something out of a science-fiction film—but they're not. On tiny Phillip Island, part of the South Pacific's Norfolk Island group, the Phillip Island centipede (Cormocephalus coynei) population can kill and eat up to 3,700 seabird chicks each year.
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Innovation arises through the transfer of research results into practice.
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When animals become parents, they often need to change their behaviors in ways that allow them to protect and ensure the survival of their offspring. What happens in the brain when an animal becomes a new parent?
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New Zealand's endemic tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) are the sole survivors of an ancient reptile order called Rhynchocephalia. Once widespread across New Zealand, tuatara survive in only a fraction of their historic range, on small offshore islands and in fenced eco-sanctuaries.
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A new study published today in Global Change Biology provides valuable new data that highlights how species extinction risk is accelerating due to rapid climate change and an increase in extreme climate events, such as glacial calving and sea ice loss. The study, led by Stephanie Jenouvrier, associate scientist, and seabird ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and co-authored by an international team of scientists, policy experts, ecologists, and climate scientists, provided pivotal research and projections tailored for use by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). Their work proposed that emperor penguins be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and this week, USFWS submitted that listing proposal.
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Today, being "birdbrained" means forgetting where you left your keys or wallet. But 66 million years ago, it may have meant the difference between life and death—and may help explain why birds are the only dinosaurs left on Earth.
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Dozens of online videos document an unusual behavior among tufted titmice and their closest bird kin. A bird will land on an unsuspecting mammal and, cautiously and stealthily, pluck out some of its hair.
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The growth of cities with their streetlights and illuminated buildings has led to brighter nights. This has consequences for animals: the artificial light illuminates them directly, but also lights up the sky, making the stars invisible. Yet many animals rely on the stars as their compass for orientation.
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Wildlife worldwide is facing a housing crisis. When land is cleared for agriculture, mining, and urbanization, habitats and natural refuges go with it, such as tree hollows, rock piles and large logs.
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Madagascar is renowned for its unique and varied biodiversity, which spans dry grasslands, wet rain forests, mangroves and deserts. This variety, combined with the island's isolation and size, has fostered distinctive assemblages of plants and animals, including the country's famous lemurs and baobab trees.
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An interdisciplinary group of scientists from the universities of Cologne, Koblenz, Tübingen, and Stuttgart has studied the characteristics determining the maximum running speed in animals. The model they developed explains why humans cannot keep up with the fastest sprinters in the animal kingdom. Based on these calculations, the giant spider Shelob from "The Lord of the Rings" would have reached a maximum speed of 60 km/h.
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For the first time, a team of international scientists have proven that cockatoos, an iconic Australian bird species, learn from each other a unique skill—lifting garbage bin lids to gather food. The world-first research published today in Science, confirms that cockatoos spread this novel behavior through social learning. Led by Barbara Klump and Lucy Aplin (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior), along with John Martin (Taronga Conservation Society) and Richard Major (Australian Museum), the team have shown that this behavior by cockatoos is actually learned, rather than a result of genetics.
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Over the last forty years, the agricultural intensification, as well as the urban and farming development in the Lleida Plain, have reduced the expansion and quality of the available habitat for the steppe birds of this area, which covers a great part of species of such kind in Spain. The report on the State of Nature in Catalonia shows that this is one of the most threatened bird groups in the territory, with a decline of 27% in the populations in the 2000–2019 period.
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A mysterious ailment has sickened and killed thousands of songbirds in several mid-Atlantic states since late spring. While scientists are still racing to confirm the cause, it seems juvenile birds may be most susceptible. The U.S. Geological Survey, which oversees responses to some natural hazards and risks, has recommended that people temporarily take down bird feeders and clean out bird baths to reduce places that birds could closely congregate and potentially spread disease.
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A 17-year study in Oregon, Washington and California found that removal of invasive barred owls arrested the population decline of the northern spotted owl, a native species threatened by invading barred owls and the loss of old-forest habitats.
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The nation's largest wildfire torched more dry forest in Oregon and forced the evacuation of a wildlife research station Monday as firefighters had to retreat from the flames for the ninth consecutive day due to erratic and dangerous fire behavior.
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It's been a tough year for elegant terns in Southern California.
Birds that disperse more types of seed have better evolutionary chances
in Bird Research in the Media
Posted
More than 70% of plant species that produce flowers depend on birds to disperse their seeds. Birds feed on fruit from a wide array of different plants, and bird-plant interactions configure a welter of complex networks.
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