Press Releases — Page 49

Lionfish in Florida are an underwater force to be reckoned with. The biggest threat they pose is not their venomous spines – it is the alarming speed and ferocity with which they invade new waters.

ESA 2019 Preview: Human-induced land use change is the primary driver of EIDs, including those carried by mosquitoes such as malaria, dengue, Zika, EEE, and West Nile. Why, then, does land-use planning often fail to recognize the effects these changes have on the risk of spreading disease?

By Florida State University 6/11/2019 Research by an evolutionary biologist from Florida State University has shown parasites have important and far-reaching effects on predatory fish and the ecosystems they inhabit. These findings, published this week in the journal Ecology, provide important evidence for the little-studied role of parasites in trophic cascades, which are powerful, indirect interactions that can affect entire…

By Manchester Metropolitan University 7/4/2019 A rare tree has been re-discovered in a remote area of Indonesia decades after it was thought to be extinct. Liam Trethowan, an ecology PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University, spotted a cluster of ‘Kalappia’ trees some 200 km from where it was last seen in the 1970s while conducting fieldwork in the Indonesian rain…

New research on damselflies in northern Africa suggests that females may facilitate the reproductive success of inferior males when their health is at risk.

By Villanova University 6/19/2019 Three Villanova University researchers, part of a team that through a five-year study in Alberta, Canada determined the “critical load”—or recommended maximum amount of nitrogen that can enter the region’s peat bogs through precipitation without causing damage to its ecosystem—have released their findings in an article published June 18 in Ecological Monographs. Titled “Experimental Nitrogen Addition Alters…

The following selected sessions and events at the Annual Meeting delve into this year’s meeting theme.

By University of Göttingen 6/18/2019 For a long time, ecologists have relied on their senses when it comes to recording animal populations and species diversity. However, modern programmable sound recording devices are now the better option for logging animal vocalisations. Scientists lead by the University of Göttingen have investigated this using studies of birds as an example. The results were…

By São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) 5/15/2019 Plants in the Brazilian savanna, the Cerrado, have evolved to deal with fire. When fire is used intelligently as part of a carefully planned land management method, it is indispensable to the conservation of this superb ecosystem, the world’s most biodiverse savanna. Two months suffice for the Cerrado to burst into flower after…

By University of Rennes, Earth Sciences and Astronomy Observatory (OSUR) 6/12/2019 Demographic and health factors that condition female dispersal decisions. In an article entitled “Disease avoidance, and breeding group size and dispersal patterns of western lowland gorilla females” published in the journal Ecology in June 2019, Alice Baudouin, Pascaline Gouar, Jean-Sebastien Pierre and Nelly Ménard (ECOBIO) explore the mechanisms of social dispersal…

By University of Illinois 6/18/2019 If current climate and crop-improvement trends continue into the future, Midwestern corn growers who today rely on rainfall to water their crops will need to irrigate their fields, a new study finds. This could draw down aquifers, disrupt streams and rivers, and set up conflicts between agricultural and other human and ecological needs for water,…

By Zoological Society of London 6/12/19 Six different colour morphs of the elusive Asiatic golden cat have been discovered in Northeast India – with the findings being hailed as “an evolutionary puzzle” – as the world’s greatest number of different coloured wild cat species in one area are reported. The Indian scientists from ZSL and UCL discovered the colour morphs, during…

By University of Jyväskylä 6/10/2019 Reproducing in a fearful world is tricky. How do rodents get information of prevailing risk of death, and how do they respond to the information? A research team of evolutionary biologists from University of Jyväskylä, Finland and University of Vienna, Austria reported that rodent mothers are more likely to become pregnant after smelling odors produced…

By University of Guelph 6/7/2019 Call it the “Little Bog of Horrors.” In what is believed to be a first for North America, biologists at the University of Guelph have discovered that meat-eating pitcher plants in Ontario’s Algonquin Park wetlands consume not just bugs but also young salamanders. In a paper published this week in the journal Ecology, the research…

By Wildlife Conservation Society 6/5/2019 A new analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment shows that the world’s protected areas (PAs) are experiencing major shortfalls in staffing and resources and are therefore failing on a massive scale to safeguard wildlife. The analysis looked at more than 2,100 protected areas around the world and found that less than a…

By Macquarie University 6/4/2019 New Guinea is one of the only places in the world where frogs are safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus. An international team of scientists has published a new paper that shows how to keep it that way, but they need help to carry out their plan. The chytrid fungus has wiped out more than 90…

By Florida State University 6/3/2019 Every beachgoer can spot seaweed in the ocean or piling up on the beach, but Florida State University researchers working with colleagues in the United Kingdom have found that these slimy macroalgae play an important role in permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Their work is published in the journal Ecological Monographs by the Ecological Society…

In her new role, Cottingham will lead Ecology in publishing research articles from across the biological and ecological sciences.

“Pop-up parks” serve important conservation functions by providing small-scale habitat refuges in urban environments and deliver a suite of ecosystem services to urban residents and wildlife alike.

In a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a team of researchers gain further insight into the dynamics of the exotic pet trade and the role it plays in the introduction of invasive vertebrate populations across the globe.