{"id":4061,"date":"2010-09-28T16:03:37","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T20:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=4061"},"modified":"2010-09-28T16:03:37","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T20:03:37","slug":"from-the-community-the-wisdom-of-birds-felines-and-spores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2010\/09\/28\/from-the-community-the-wisdom-of-birds-felines-and-spores\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Community: the wisdom of birds, felines and spores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Birkhead explains what song bird research can contribute to human health, Surprising Science <\/em>describes the evolution of a feline\u2019s roar (or meow), a Geophysical Research Letters<\/em> study assesses the world\u2019s dwindling groundwater supply, Nature News <\/em>interviews Gabriela Chavarria\u2014the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s top science adviser\u2014and Chris Palmer\u2019s book reveals faking in nature videos. Here are stories in ecology from the last week in September.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wisdom of birds:<\/strong> In the above video from \u201cThe Do Lectures,\u201d Tim Birkhead of the University of Sheffield\u2014and author of The Wisdom of Birds<\/em>\u2014<\/span>recounts the evolution of ornithology and bird song, and how \u00a0bird behavior can inform \u00a0our understanding of human behavior and health. Commenting on the government\u2019s current attention to \u201cfrivolous spending\u201d in basic research, Birkhead said,<\/span> \u201c\u2026in fact, bird song is one of the most powerful examples of why you should fund \u2018frivolous research\u2019; because the study of bird song holds the promise of a cure for Alzheimer\u2019s [disease].\u201d<\/span> Read more<\/a><\/span> at \u201cTim Birkhead: Author of<\/span> The Wisdom of Birds<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Family of felines:<\/strong> A recent study<\/a> published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society<\/em><\/a> reported that size may not be the most important factor contributing to the evolution of feline acoustic signaling, such as roaring or meowing. \u00a0As Sarah Zielinksi explained in Smithsonian\u2019s<\/span> Surprising Science<\/em><\/span> blog, researchers from the Zoological Research Museum in Bonn, Germany \u201cfound that cats that lived in open habitats like the African plains tended to communicate with deep-sounding calls. Kitties that lived in forested habitats, such as clouded leopards, produced high-pitched calls.\u201d The results are contrary to previous research on animal acoustic signals; that is, high-frequency sounds tend to be disrupted by vegetation whereas low-frequency sounds can be disrupted by air turbulence in open spaces.<\/span> Read more<\/a> at \u201cWhy Some Kitties Meow and Others Roar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Savvy spore dispersal: <\/strong>Researchers from Harvard, Cornell and the University of California, Berkeley compared the launch speed and trajectory of spores of the omnivorous fungus of <\/span><\/span>Sclerotinia sclerotiorum<\/em><\/span> <\/em>in a recent study<\/a> published in <\/span>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/span> <\/em>They found that multiple spores dispersed farther than a single spore, and together, the spores could twirl around objects, such as leaves, to optimize \u00a0their landing site (see above video). \u201cSpores sprung singly were quickly brought down by drag, traveling a mere 0.1 inches before decelerating to zero. But when the fungus ejected waves of spores in quick succession, it created currents that carried spores farther at a slow but steady pace of just over 1 mile per hour,\u201d wrote Rachel Ehrenberg of<\/span> Science News<\/em>.<\/span> Read more<\/a><\/span> at \u201cBeing Single Is a Drag for Exploding Spores.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Groundwater depletion:<\/strong> According to a comprehensive study on the world\u2019s groundwater supply, published in an upcoming issue<\/a> of<\/span> Geophysical Research Letters<\/em>,<\/span> groundwater depletion rose in 2000 to 75 trillion gallons per year. The researchers claimed that the steep rise in water depletion could be due in part to escalating groundwater use in China and India. Sandra Postel wrote on<\/span> National Geographic<\/em>\u2019s NewsWatch<\/em> blog:<\/span> \u201cMarc Bierkens of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues estimate that the rate at which humanity is pumping dry the underground reservoirs that hundreds of millions of people depend upon for food and drinking water more than doubled between 1960 and 2000.\u201d<\/span> Read more<\/a> at \u201cGroundwater Depletion Raises Likelihood of Global Food Crises.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Communicating climate science:<\/strong> Chris Mooney\u2014science and policy journalist\u2014recently asked at a Media and Climate Change<\/span> briefing<\/a> in Washington, D.C. how scientists and journalists can communicate climate science without appearing to be advocates (in the case of scientists) or becoming too specialized (a concern among journalists). As a follow up to a number of recent events he has been attending on the topic, and, as he said on his blog<\/span> The Intersection<\/em><\/span>: \u201cBecause I\u2019ve done much preparing for these events, but have hardly gotten to say everything I wanted to say, I plan on blogging some of my further thoughts over the coming week or more.\u201d\u00a0 In the above video from<\/span> Climate Science Watch<\/em>,<\/span> Mooney briefly recommends turning to specialized mediators for bridging the scientist-journalist gap and outlines some of the other points he will likely address on his blog.<\/span> Read more<\/a> at \u201cCommunicating About Climate Science, Part I.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For additional information on communicating science, see the recent<\/span> article<\/a><\/span> by Maywa Montenegro of<\/span> Seed Magazine<\/em> describing an initiative to train \u201cyoung researchers with the skills and drive to reach out, communicate their science and lead society towards evidence-based solutions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, an interview<\/a> with Gabriela Chavarria who was recently named top science adviser for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,<\/span> deforestation<\/a><\/span> contributing to Kilimanjaro\u2019s diminishing ice, endangered<\/span> yams<\/a>, <\/span>faking nature videos<\/a>, another antibiotic resistant bacterium<\/a><\/span> Klebsiella pneumonia<\/em><\/span>, the autumn weather bringing in the<\/span> <\/em>stink bugs<\/a><\/span>,<\/span> <\/em>examining geothermal <\/span>power<\/a><\/span> and mercury and energy-efficient<\/span> <\/em>light bulbs<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/blogs.nationalgeographic.com\/blogs\/news\/chiefeditor\/2010\/09\/groundwater-depletion-food-crisis.html<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Birkhead explains what song bird research can contribute to human health, Surprising Science describes the evolution of a feline\u2019s roar (or meow), a Geophysical Research Letters study assesses the world\u2019s dwindling groundwater supply, Nature News interviews Gabriela Chavarria\u2014the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s top science adviser\u2014and Chris Palmer\u2019s book reveals faking in nature videos. Here are stories in ecology from the last week in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,48],"tags":[638,324,101,978,60,275,979,980,272,703,465,969,919],"class_list":["post-4061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-in-policy","category-research","category-ecology-and-society","tag-bacteria","tag-bird-song","tag-birds","tag-bugs","tag-climate-change","tag-communicating-science","tag-deforestation","tag-felines","tag-fungus","tag-fws","tag-groundwater","tag-songbirds","tag-spores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}