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Caribou, whooping crane, Gibson's big sand tiger beetle and dwarf western trillium are among the estimated 80,000 known species (not including viruses and bacteria) in Canada. Of these, scientists have enough information on almost 30,000 species to know that about 20 percent are imperiled to some degree.
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In the 1950s, researchers made the first unexpected discoveries of dinosaur remains at frigid polar latitudes. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on June 24 have uncovered the first convincing evidence that several species of dinosaur not only lived in what's now Northern Alaska, but they also nested there.
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Along with climate change, species extinction is one of the greatest threats to life on earth. For about 50 years, researchers have been documenting the population trends of different animal and plant groups in so-called Red Lists. The new Red List of Breeding Birds in Germany shows that the decline of birds in Germany continues unabated. More than half of the 259 permanently breeding bird species are endangered. Fourteen species have become extinct in Germany so far, and six more will probably have to be listed as extinct in the next Red List of breeding birds. This means that breeding bird species are threatened with extinction on an unprecedented scale. Birds of the agricultural landscape as well as insectivores and migratory birds are most threatened. Birds living in forests or residential areas, on the other hand, are on the increase. Success stories for white storks, white-tailed eagles and cranes show that conservation measures can halt the decline of birds. The authors of the Red List therefore call for a national bird rescue program in which effective bird conservation measures are developed and implemented. In addition, the causes of the declines of the various species should be investigated through dedicated research.
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An invasive species known as the yellow crazy ant has been eradicated from a remote U.S. atoll in the Pacific.
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Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a 120-million-year-old partial fossil skeleton of a tiny extinct bird that fits in the palm of the hand and preserves a unique skull with a mix of dinosaurian and bird features.
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Humans perceive the world around them with five senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Many other animals are also able to sense the Earth's magnetic field. For some time, a collaboration of biologists, chemists and physicists centered at the Universities of Oldenburg (Germany) and Oxford (UK) have been gathering evidence suggesting that the magnetic sense of migratory birds such as European robins is based on a specific light-sensitive protein in the eye. In the current edition of the journal Nature, this team demonstrate that the protein cryptochrome 4, found in birds' retinas, is sensitive to magnetic fields and could well be the long-sought magnetic sensor.
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Migratory birds carry most seeds in the wrong direction to help plants cope with climate change, new research shows.
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Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues have shown that adaptation to similar environments hardly involves similar genomic positions when species are distantly related. The team investigated recurrent adaptations of wildlife birds' mitochondria to high altitude, migration, diving, wintering, and flight. Repeatable substitutions are rather a coincidence than adaptation, which confirms the scientific opinion that distant species "choose" different ways of similar trait evolution. The paper was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
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Vast, treeless paddocks and fields can be dangerous for wildlife, who encounter them as "roadblocks" between natural areas nearby. But our new research found even one lone tree in an otherwise empty paddock can make a huge difference to an animal's movement.
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Sperm size varies dramatically among different animal species. But why is sperm size so variable when they share the same job—to fertilize eggs? In a new article published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers from Stockholm University show that animal sperm evolution become supercharged only when sperm swim inside females.
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The sharp eyes of an eagle, the extraordinary hearing of an owl—to successfully find food, the eyes and ears of birds have adapted optimally to their living conditions. Until now, the sense of smell has played a rather subordinate role. When meadows are freshly mowed, storks often appear there to search for snails and frogs. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Radolfzell and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have now studied the birds' behavior and discovered that the storks are attracted by the smell of the mown grass. Only storks that were downwind and could thus perceive the smell reacted to the mowing. The scientists also sprayed a meadow with a spray of green leaf scents released during mowing. Storks appeared here as well. This shows that white storks use their sense of smell to forage and suggests that the sense of smell may also play a greater role in other birds than previously thought.
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Birds build nests to keep eggs and baby nestlings warm during cool weather, but also make adjustments in nest insulation in such a way the little ones can keep cool in very hot conditions. Mammals, such as rabbits or groundhogs, sleep or hibernate in underground burrows that provide stable, moderate temperatures and avoid above-ground conditions that often are far more extreme outside the burrow.
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Charles Darwin was a careful scientist. In the middle of the 19th century, while he was collecting evidence for his theory that species evolve by natural selection, he noticed it didn't explain the fancy tails of male peacocks, the antlers paraded by male deer, or why some the males of some species are far larger then their female counterparts.
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Playing recordings of regent honeyeater songs to young honeyeaters before they are released can significantly improve the critically endangered species' chance of survival in the wild, a study involving UNSW has found.
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During flock encounters, a single vocal interaction seems to be sufficient for making the decision of whether to recruit an individual or flock. Parrots are known for their splendid ability to imitate, including the contact calls of other individuals during vocal interactions. Such rapid vocal matching is hypothesized to precede and mediate the formation of new flocks. But how are such interactions perceived by others?
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Chemical additives used in plastic production have been found in herring gull eggs, new research shows.
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The lush forests and more than 7,000 islands of the Philippines hold a rich diversity of life, with 258 bird species who live nowhere but the Philippine archipelago. A new study from University of Utah researchers suggests that due to deforestation and habitat degradation, more bird species may be endangered that previously thought—including species that may not have been discovered yet. The study is published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
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The Amazon rainforest holds around 50% of all remaining rainforests on the planet, while hosting more than 400 species of mammal, 1700 species of bird and an unknown number of insect species numbering in the millions. It is also vital for maintaining life on Earth. Amazonian forests mitigate climate change by soaking up around 560 million tons of carbon per year and support agriculture by stimulating rainfall at both local and continental scales.
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It's not every day that someone discovers a new-to-science bird migration spectacle. It's even more unexpected that such an encounter—in this case, tens of thousands of shorebirds gathering during their annual journey north—would be just a stone's throw from a metropolitan area. But two years ago, that's exactly what happened in coastal South Carolina.
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Young birds support their parents in raising youngsters, defending the territory and keeping predators at bay. This social behavior, exhibited by birds such as the mousebird, appear to contradict the prevailing theory of evolution: young birds even surrender their food to younger siblings. This is the result of a study conducted by Wageningen University & Research scientists in Swaziland.
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Most sensible air travelers dread turbulence. A little atmospheric hiccup can shake airplanes, rattle nerves and spill beverages. A Cornell University-led study found that birds don't mind at all.
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A Canada goose's brain is smaller than its pile of droppings, but the ubiquitous bird is no dummy.
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With many innovations in technology focused on meeting humans' wants and needs, often times at an ecological cost, there lies a field of research focused on designing systems to influence users to live more sustainably.
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Georgetown University ecologist Emily Williams first became fascinated with birds not because of their beauty, or their sweet songs. She was riveted by their extraordinary travels.
Predators kill kererū, but it's lack of food that stops them bouncing back
in Bird Research in the Media
Posted
Historically, kererū (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) used to occur in massive flocks that numbered hundreds of birds. But over the past 200 years, numbers have declined rapidly due to habitat loss and predation by introduced mammals. To what extent are these factors still affecting kererū today? A team of researchers from Manaaki Whenua, led by Dr. Jo Carpenter, gathered and analyzed data from three different sources to find out. The results have just been published in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology.
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