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A trio of researchers, two with the University of Illinois, the other Auburn University, has found that the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on farm crops leads to reductions in some bird populations. In their paper published in the journal Nature Sustainability, Yijia Li, Ruiqing Miao, and Madhu Khanna describe their study of neonicotinoid use and its effects on local bird populations. View the full article -
Sparrows show increased stress when exposed to more numerous and more severe winter storms, says a Western study that tested the songbirds' resilience to the effects of climate change. View the full article
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Behold a treat for the eyes! Tens of thousands of pink flamingos have amassed in the wetlands of southern France along with their offspring still lacking flamboyant plumage. View the full article
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Unlike the many charismatic mammals, fish and birds that receive our attention, parasites are thought of as something to eradicate—not something to protect. View the full article
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The barrier islands of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras National Seashore are among the most popular recreational destinations on the Atlantic coast. Park managers strive to integrate the needs of wildlife with recreational use of the area's beaches, but in some cases, they impose restrictions on the latter in order to preserve the former—sometimes even completely closing portions of beaches to pedestrian and off-road vehicle traffic to protect nesting birds. These closures are controversial, but a new independent report from the American Ornithological Society (AOS) finds evidence that despite complaints from the public, they provide significant benefits for vulnerable beach-nesting birds and sea turtles. View the full article
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Seabird species such as gulls and pelicans are often overlooked when it comes to conservation and can struggle to capture the public eye. To raise awareness of their importance to people and the ecosystems we depend on, a Science & Society article appearing August 6 in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution looks at something that most of us find off-putting: their poop. The researchers say that the poop, which is also known as guano and serves as a source of fertilizer and a key contribution to coastal and marine ecosystems, could be worth more than $470 million annually. By calculating this direct benefit to people, they hope to quantify the importance of seabirds and illustrate the monetary cost of declining populations. View the full article
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There's a reason why blue fruits are so rare: the pigment compounds that make fruits blue are relatively uncommon in nature. But the metallic blue fruits of Viburnum tinus, a popular landscaping plant in Europe, get their color a different way. Instead of relying solely on pigments, the fruits use structural color to reflect blue light, something that's rarely seen in plants. Researchers reporting August 6 in the journal Current Biology show that the fruits use nanostructures made of lipids in their cell walls, a previously unknown mechanism of structural color, to get their striking blue—which may also double as a signal to birds that the fruits are full of nutritious fats. View the full article
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One million years ago, the extinction of large-bodied plant-eaters changed the trajectory of life on Earth. The disappearance of these large herbivores reshaped plant life, altered fire regimes across Earth's landscapes, and modified biogeochemical cycling in such a way that Earth's climate became slightly colder. A new study out today by Utah State University Assistant Professor of Watershed Sciences, Trisha Atwood, suggests that modern-day megaherbivores (plant-eaters weighing more than 1000 kg) could soon suffer the same fate as their ancient ancestors, with unknown consequences for Earth and all of its inhabitants. View the full article
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Ecologists at the University of Turku, Finland, have discovered that the food hoards pygmy owls collect in nest-boxes ("freezers") for winter rot due to high precipitation caused by heavy autumn rains if the hoarding has been initiated early in the autumn. The results of the study show that climate change may impair predators' foraging and thus decrease local overwinter survival. The study has been published in the internationally esteemed Global Change Biology journal. View the full article
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A team of researchers from the University of London and Monash University has found that pigeon pecking order is driven by weight and that a given pecking order can be artificially changed. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the group describes their study of the pecking order of domesticated pigeons and what they learned about them. View the full article
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A new study using satellite mapping technology reveals there are nearly 20% more emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica than was previously thought. The results provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird. View the full article
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Flying insects and parasites are often vectors for disease, but a mosquito needs to first find someone before they can bite them. In a recent study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, researchers examined bird nests in order to understand how insects and parasites detect gases such as carbon dioxide and methane as a way to locate their hosts. View the full article
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Researchers from Frankfurt and Tübingen say the skull of a very large crane found at the Hammerschmiede fossil site in Allgäu, Bavaria, is more than eleven million years old. It is the earliest evidence of such a large crane in Europe, the paleontologists say. The fossil most closely resembles the skull of today's long-beaked Siberian crane, according to Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt, and Thomas Lechner and Professor Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen. Late last year Hammerschmiede made headlines with the discovery of the bipedal great ape Danuvius guggenmosi, nicknamed Udo. The newly-discovered crane may well have been the largest bird around at the time. View the full article
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A half-century of controversy over two popular bird species may have finally come to an end. In one corner: the Bullock's Oriole, found in the western half of North America. In the other corner: the Baltimore Oriole, breeding in the eastern half. Where their ranges meet in the Great Plains, the two mix freely and produce apparently healthy hybrid offspring. But according to scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, hybridization is a dead end and both parent species will remain separate. Findings from the new study were published today in The Auk. View the full article
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The Trump administration is moving to restrict what land and water areas can be declared as "habitat" for imperiled plants and animals—potentially excluding locations that species could use in the future as climate change upends ecosystems. View the full article
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Biologists have long known that inbreeding can be detrimental. Inbreeding results in less genetic variation, making species more vulnerable if changes occur that require them to adapt. View the full article
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A research team led by Dr. Alida Bailleul from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has put one controversy to rest: whether or not remnants of bird ovaries can be preserved in the fossil record. View the full article
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The ongoing decline of global biodiversity has prompted policies to protect and restore habitats to minimize animal and plant extinctions. However, biodiversity forecasts used to inform these policies are usually based on assumptions of a simple theoretical model describing how the number of species changes with the amount of habitat. View the full article
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Scientists have mapped the genome of the black swan in an effort to understand immune responses to the deadly 'bird flu' virus and better protect public health. View the full article
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Discoveries from the early stages of owl evolution are exceedingly rare. An approximately 60-million-year-old leg bone is the oldest fossil that can be assigned to an owl. "Other owls from this time period are also only known on the basis of individual bones and fragments. Therefore, I was especially pleased when I received a largely complete owl skeleton from the North American Willwood Formation for study, which my colleague and the study's co-author, Philip Gingerich, had discovered 30 years ago," explains Dr. Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. View the full article
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Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia's unprecedented 2019-20 wildfires in "one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history", according to a report released Tuesday. View the full article
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An international team of scientists has completed the first ever study into the potential impact of naturally occurring and man-made nanoparticles on the health of all types of the major living species of animals. View the full article
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Taxonomy, or the naming of species, is the foundation of modern biology. It might sound like a fairly straightforward exercise, but in fact it's complicated and often controversial. View the full article
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The journal Nature has issued a retraction for a paper it published March 11th called "Hummingbird-sized dinosaur from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar." The editorial staff was alerted to a possible misclassification of the fossil embedded in amber, and after review, agreed with the assessment and issued the retraction. View the full article
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Researchers are urging city-dwellers to switch off their garden lights at night-time after a study of magpies and pigeons revealed the harmful impact artificial light is having on the birds' sleep patterns. View the full article
