Research and Field Notes – Page 9 – Ecotone | News and Views on Ecological Science

A male broad-tailed hummingbird sips nectar. The phenology of the early-season nectar plants the bird favor is changing more rapidly than the birds, leading to the potential for a mismatch that could affect both birds and their nectar resources. Credit, David Inouye.

GLOBAL CHANGE IS NOW. Ecology can help.

Third US National Climate Assessment released today.

Crocodile tears please butterflies and bees

A Julia butterfly (Dryas iulia) and a solitary bee (Centris sp.) sip tears from the eyes of spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) on Costa Rica’s Puerto Viejo River. Credit, Carlos de la Rosa

Nash Turley milkweed natureselfie earth day. Nash Turley milkweed natureselfie earth day

Celebrating Earth Day in 2014

Me and milkweed fruit – my #NatureSelfie for #EarthDay. Nash Turley, a naturalist, photographer, musician, and PhD student in evolutionary ecology at the University of Toronto, snapped this shot in Ithaca, NY, in 2011. He tweeted, “Everyday is Earth Day; the fact that the calendar says today is ‘Earth Day’ doesn’t really mean anything to me. Sort of like how aboriginal cultures don’t have a word for ‘nature’ because they didn’t see themselves as separate from nature….the fact that we have a day for the Earth shows how disconnected modern societies are from ‘nature’.”
Earth Day started as a grassroots protest movement in 1970 and has solidified into an annual event. What does Earth Day mean in 2014?

A greater sage grouse male, photographed by Jeanne Stafford, US Fish and Wildlife Nevada office.

Sage grouse struts his stuff

Like gyms or bars, lekking grounds are social performance spaces, where males spread their tail-feathers, inflate their impressive chests, and strut about, calling amorously to the lady birds. Ecologist Gail Patricelli of UC Davis captured this video of a lek near Hudson, Wyoming. US Fish and Wildlife Service named the grouse’s habitat, the Great Plains sage-steppe, one of the most imperiled ecosystems in America.

A sea of non-native crested wheatgrass (left) fills the path of the Poison Creek fire, which burned on the remote Owyhee High Plateau, tucked into the southwest corner of Idaho, in 1996. Nearly two decades later, an abrupt transition to healthy sagebrush marks the edge of the fire. The Jarbidge Mountains sit on the horizon. Credit, Robert Arkle, June 2011.

Sage grouse losing habitat to fire as endangered species decision looms

Wildfire is the predominant cause of habitat loss in the Great Basin. Reseeding burned land to stabilize soils has not restored sagebrush habitat for the endangered greater sage grouse, according to a report in the journal Ecosphere. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering protecting the grouse under the Endangered Species act, which could affect the management of 250,000 square miles of land in the western US.

Strawberry poison dart frog, Costa Rica. Credit, Yannick Ott.

Strawberry poison frogs feed their babies poison eggs

The Strawberry poison frog lavishes care upon its offspring. It’s just that kind of frog. In the March issue of Ecology, Stynoski et al. report that it also feeds its progeny poison. Also in this issue: P value debates, arctic warming, and estimating the success of biological invasions.

George Beadle crossed an Argentine popcorn varietal with teosinte (left) and selected the smallest progeny to create a ‘reconstructed’ ear of ancient maize(right). Beadle, a winner of the Nobel Prize in 1958 for his work uncovering the expression of genes as enzymes, had posed the “teosinte hypothesis” in his youth, and spent his retirement on an elaborate crossbreeding project to persuade skeptics that maize was domesticated from teosinte, producing evidence of selection on as few as four or five major genes. Genetic sequencing of Zea mays has confirmed his hypothesis. Credit, John Doebley.

Popcorn origins glimpsed in the ruins of antiquity and the greenhouse time machine

Before there was corn (Zea mays subsp. mays), and corn ruled the world, there was the wild grass, teosinte. Corn, known as maize outside the Americas, easily hybridizes with its wild sibling, but these two incarnations of Z. mays do not look alike. Subtle genetic alterations in the regulation of development change Z. mays profoundly, turning an edible wild weed…

The dense urban life of Queens surrounds Jamaica Bay, NY, where Timothy Hoellein and Chester Zarnoch measured the effect of oysters on the nitrogen cycle. Oysters once clustered thickly in Hudson River estuaries, but disappeared in the twentieth century under the combined effects of harvesting, habitat loss, and pollution, especially sewage. Public interest in oyster restoration and ecosystem services has opened many research questions. Hoellein and Zarnoch fixed cages of oysters below the low-tide line (top left) and returned twice a month to sample carbon and nitrogen in the sediment. A natural-gas-burning power plant flanked the moderately nutrient-loaded study site at Mott’s Basin (right panel). Credit, Timothy Hoellein and Chester Zarnoch.

Oysters of New York

Denitrification heroes?
The dense urban life of Queens surrounds Jamaica Bay, NY, where Timothy Hoellein and Chester Zarnoch measured the effect of oysters on the nitrogen cycle. Can oysters help remove an excess of the nutrient from the bay?

Making room for prairie STRIPs in Iowa’s cornbelt

A Field Talk interview with Lisa Schulte Moore (Land Sharing/Sparing #1) digs into how integrating STRIPs of prairie into conventional row crops helps farms, waterways, and wildlife.

Mangrove islands like these along the upper Lostman’s River in Everglades National Park protect coastlines from stormy waves, storm surge, and erosion – expected to increasingly threaten coastal cities and townships as sea levels rise. Investments in “soft” engineering protections against storm damage, like wetlands and oyster reef restoration, can be cheaper in the long run than seawalls, breakwaters, and groins, and also offer benefits for wildlife, fisheries, and recreation. Credit, Paul Nelson, USGS.

President issues executive order to prepare for impacts of climate change

Special Issue of ESA Frontiers assesses the impacts of climate change on people and ecosystems, focusing on on biodiversity, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, the combined effects of climate and other pressures, and preparation for change.

A tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) photographed in Hawaiian waters by Wayne Levin.

Female tiger sharks migrate from Northwestern to Main Hawaiian Islands during fall pupping season

A partial migration of adult female tiger sharks coincides with pupping season and the months of increased incidences of shark bite in Hawaii, according to a report currently in preprint in ESA’s journal Ecology.

Using fire to manage fire-prone regions around the world

Inaugural online-only Special Issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs The Ecological Society of America’s first online-only Special Issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment showcases prescribed burns around the globe, some of them drawing on historical practices to manage forests and grasslands in fire-prone regions. The Online Special Issue…

Research and Field Notes — Page 9