{"id":5691,"date":"2011-08-17T15:06:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T19:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=5691"},"modified":"2011-08-17T15:06:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T19:06:55","slug":"tracking-pacific-walrus-impacts-of-early-life-stress-and-plant-traits-matter-more-than-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/08\/17\/tracking-pacific-walrus-impacts-of-early-life-stress-and-plant-traits-matter-more-than-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking Pacific walrus, impacts of early-life stress, and plant traits matter more than origin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>Monitoring Pacific Walrus<\/strong>: With the end of summer fast approaching, US Geological Survey (USGS) researchers are once again gearing up to radio-tag walruses on Alaska\u2019s northwestern coast as part of the agency\u2019s ongoing study of how the marine mammals are coping with declining sea ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea ice is an important component in the life cycle of walruses.\u00a0 These tracking studies will help us to better understand how top consumers in the arctic ecosystem may be affected by changes in sea ice habitats,\u201d said USGS Alaska Science Center research ecologist Chad Jay in yesterday\u2019s USGS press release.<\/p>\n

Walruses, which can dive hundreds of feet in search of food, rely on sea ice to rest between dives.\u00a0 When sea ice is not available, the animals haul out on beaches, something they have been doing more frequently as the extent of sea ice has decreased in recent summers.\u00a0 Read more at www.usgs.gov\/blogs\/features\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Far-reaching impact of stress<\/strong>: A new study<\/a> published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. shows that when zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata<\/em>) are briefly exposed to stress early in life, the jolt of stress hormones reduced not only their own lifespan, but that of their breeding partner as well.\u00a0 Pat Monaghan (University of Glasgow) and co-authors report that \u201conly 5 percent of control birds with control partners had died after 3 years, compared with over 40 percent in early stress pairs. Interestingly, a pair\u2019s reproductive success did not seem to be compromised by the early-life exposure to stress.<\/p>\n

Traits trump plant origins<\/strong>: Nonnative plants often get a bad rap as being a potential threat to wildlife habitat and many state agencies spend time and energy getting rid of them.\u00a0 An In Press study with Ecological Applications<\/em> suggests that might be a misplaced effort in some cases.\u00a0 Jillian Cohen (Cornell University) and colleagues compared the impacts of native and nonnative wetland plants on three species of native larval amphibians.\u00a0 They found no difference in metamorphosis rates and length of larval period between habitats dominated by native and nonnative plants.\u00a0 Say the authors: \u201cWe suggest that to improve habitats for native fauna managers should focus on assembling a plant community with desirable traits rather than only focusing on plant origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising sources of nitrate to Gulf of Mexico<\/strong>:\u00a0 The results of a new study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) published in Environmental Science and Technology<\/em> found that in spite of decreases along some portions of the Mississippi River Basin, overall efforts to curb this nutrient have been unsuccessful.\u00a0\u00a0 Excessive nitrate contributes to the Gulf of Mexico\u2019s dead zones\u2014areas unable to support marine life because of minimal oxygen.\u00a0 The USGS study found that nitrate transport to the Gulf was 10 percent higher in 2008 than in 1980 and that increases of nitrate in groundwater is contributing to the transport of nitrate to the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Also, a look at how climate change may result in mismatched timing between plants and pollinators<\/a>, how vampire bats hone in on veins<\/a>, bacterial attack strategy<\/a>, and MacArthur Fellow Marla Spivak talks about her work on honey bees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Monitoring Pacific Walrus: With the end of summer fast approaching, US Geological Survey (USGS) researchers are once again gearing up to radio-tag walruses on Alaska\u2019s northwestern coast as part of the agency\u2019s ongoing study of how the marine mammals are coping with declining sea ice. \u201cSea ice is an important component in the life cycle of walruses.\u00a0 These tracking studies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,155,365,638,661,991,60,465,55,1117,1123,737,526,1187,138,660],"class_list":["post-5691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-alaska","tag-amphibians","tag-arctic","tag-bacteria","tag-bees","tag-climate-2","tag-climate-change","tag-groundwater","tag-gulf-of-mexico","tag-larva","tag-marine-life","tag-marine-mammals","tag-mississippi-river","tag-pollinators","tag-usgs","tag-zebra-finch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691","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\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}