Search

A recent global study conducted by over 50 scientists has found that mosses play a crucial role in ecosystems by providing essential services to the environment. The scientists collected samples of mosses from 123 different ecosystems around the world and analyzed how other plants and soils benefit from them. They discovered that moss-covered soil had higher levels of soil health, nutrient cycling, decomposition of organic matter, and control of harmful pathogens compared to soil without mosses. With approximately 12,000 species worldwide, mosses are considered the "lifeblood" of many ecosystems. [Extracted from the article]

According to an article in National Wildlife, researchers at The Ohio State University have found that white-tailed deer in Ohio are being infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The virus is evolving about three times faster in deer than in humans. The researchers collected nasal swabs from wild deer and found that over 10 percent of the animals carried the virus, with many of the infections being passed from humans. This discovery suggests that humans can potentially contract COVID-19 from deer, and understanding how the virus is mutating in deer populations is important for human health. [Extracted from the article]

DEPARTMENTSVANISHING AMPHIBIANSA team of international scientists reports in Nature that two in five of the planet’s amphibian species are now threatened with extinction (including the webbed harlequin frog, left), making them among Earth’s most imperiled animal groups.PHOTO (COLOR)PHOTO (COLOR) [Extracted from the article]

A recent study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) suggests that cracking down on poaching in tropical forests could help combat climate change. The research found that many of the mammals and birds frequently targeted by hunters play important roles in maintaining the carbon storage capacity of forests. Animals such as elephants, apes, hornbills, and toucans help disperse seeds from big trees with high carbon storage capacity and thin the underbrush, allowing these trees to thrive. As hunters reduce the populations of these animals, smaller-seeded or wind-dispersed trees with lower carbon storage capacity may become more prevalent. The study emphasizes the importance of maintaining intact faunas in order to conserve forests and address climate change. [Extracted from the article]

Howard Ruby, who won Conservation Photographer in 2007, uses images of polar bears and other wildlife to demonstrate the effects of climate change. Ruby also founded the Global Warming Crusade to encourage students and parents in Los Angeles to fight climate change. Other information on Ruby and on his initiatives are presented.

A recent study conducted in the city of Leeds by scientists from the University of Sheffield has found that nectar-feeding moths play a crucial role in pollinating urban flowering plants, including crops and trees. These moths carry more pollen and visit more plant species than previously thought. The study also revealed that moths feed on different plant communities, including night-blooming species, compared to bees. The scientists recommend including plants that benefit both moths and native bees, such as borage and comfrey, in residential gardens and green spaces to support the health of urban ecosystems. [Extracted from the article]

A team of British and Australian researchers have found that backyard ponds and other water features can be just as beneficial for urban wildlife as lakes. In a survey conducted in England's Hertfordshire county, the researchers discovered that 70% of respondents had water sources in their yards. They compared the wildlife visiting these sources with the wildlife in community lakes and found few differences in terms of quantity and variety. The researchers concluded that garden water sources can supplement water-dependent biodiversity in urban areas, especially during hot and dry weather. [Extracted from the article]

According to a report by the Institute of Geography at the Universidad Nacional Autonama de Mexico nearly 2,83,000 hectares of forested land in the country's main coffee growing areas were destroyed between 1993 and 2000 resulting in erosion and flooding costing Mexican taxpayers millions of dollars. To slow deforestation in coffee growing areas the coffee producers have to be rewarded for the ecological services their farms have been providing for so many years.

Each of us carries around a brainful of images that are visible only through the mind's eye. They are recurring pictures of the past--incidents that remain as vivid in our [...]

High on a mountain in Maui, one of Hawaii's most biologically rich areas is now protected forever under a landmark agreement Randy bartlett is a soft-spoken, mild-mannered man who hardly [...]

Off the coast of Maui, an artist teams up with filmmakers to capture the essence of giant humpbacks John Seerey-Lester suspected his mind was playing tricks on him. Traveling with [...]

JAY KEMP has some unusual ideas about how to have a good time. Consider the three days he spent inside a blind watching cardinals and other birds visit a feeder. [...]

The results of a post-election poll reveal that an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters foes not want Congress to weaken our environmental laws When they emerged from the voting booths [...]

The giant clams inhabiting the remote Palauan reef were sitting ducks. In a matter of days, divers from a Taiwanese fishing boat illegally uprooted nearly 15,000 of the creatures from [...]

Ron Boender was bored. The year was 1985, and the entrepreneur had recently sold his Fort Lauderdale communications firm. He began puttering around the garden. 'I always enjoyed watching butterflies,' [...]

Alcatraz island is a surprising premier location for getting a close look at the breeding behavior of seven species of seabirds. The Brandt's cormorant and the western gull can be seen by bird watchers on this former prison colony in San Francisco, California.

A study published in the journal National Wildlife reports that the increase in European honey bee populations in Montreal, Canada may be harming native North American bees. Researchers compared data collected on 180 wild bee species in 2013 with data from the same sites in 2020, during which honey bee colonies in the city increased significantly. The study found that sites with the largest increase in honey bee populations had the fewest wild bee species. The researchers suggest that urban beekeeping, often marketed as a solution to biodiversity loss, may be more detrimental to native bees than beneficial. They recommend planting pollinator gardens instead of adding more hives of nonnative honey bees. [Extracted from the article]

A study conducted by Swedish scientists and published in the Journal of Animal Ecology has found that providing seeds, nuts, and other bird-feeder foods to small birds during winter can help them survive the cold months. The researchers monitored the health of two groups of wild great tits and found that the birds with regular access to feeder food were able to maintain lower body temperatures, which helped them fight off infection and conserve energy. The scientists suggest that winter feeding not only supports the health of small birds but also provides people, especially in urban areas, with more opportunities to engage with nature. [Extracted from the article]

microscope Rising global temperatures have reduced offspring production in migratory and large-bodied birds (such as Adeliepenguins, left) but not in small and sedentary species, scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.PHOTO (COLOR) [Extracted from the article]

A recent study conducted by Christopher Clark, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, has found that great gray owls have the ability to locate and capture voles hidden beneath up to 2 feet of snow with remarkable accuracy. The owls use sound to pinpoint their prey, with lower-frequency sounds being able to penetrate deep snow. Great gray owls have large "facial discs" that are sensitive to these low-frequency sounds, and they use their faces to funnel the sounds of buried voles towards their ears before using their talons to punch through the snow and catch their prey. This hunting technique is unique to great gray owls and makes them the most extreme birds in terms of hunting beneath the snow cover. [Extracted from the article]

How to help hummers Of the more than 350 hummingbird species, 16 breed in the United States, with just one, the ruby-throated hummingbird, nesting regularly east of the Mississippi River. Because species such as rufous and ruby-throated hummingbirds are highly territorial - and will fight to protect a feeder - add additional sugar-water feeders in different parts of your property for other hummers to enjoy. For bathing, hummers, such as this Anna's hummingbird in Arizona, are particularly attracted to moving water. [Extracted from the article]

Caminada Headland is the largest project completed to date using money from the $16.5 billion damage settlement between British Petroleum (BP), its drilling partners and the U.S. government as a result of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. "There were oil spills in the Gulf before, during and after the BP spill", says Amanda Fuller, deputy director of NWF's Gulf Restoration Program. "If there was one thing good that came out of the disaster, it was Louisiana's decision to use its BP penalty funds on restoring and protecting coastal areas", says Rebecca Triche, executive director of NWF affiliate Louisiana Wildlife Federation. In the weeks following the Gulf oil spill, the National Wildlife Federation trained volunteers to conduct on-theground surveys to help authorities locate oiled wildlife. [Extracted from the article]

Often isolated from larger waterways, seasonal wetlands such as prairie potholes (left) are frequently drained for agriculture or development. "Being disconnected can be better because the wetlands are catching the pollutants and retaining them as opposed to leaking them back into streams", says lead author Frederick Cheng, now at Colorado State University. Draining wetlands also destroys wildlife habitat and increases the risk of floods, drought and other impacts of climate change. [Extracted from the article]

In newer secondary forests, such spring ephemerals tend to be scarce - and in recent research published in Ecology, scientists say one explanation may be a lack of woodland ants. The scientists say low numbers of woodland ants in regenerated forests stems from several factors, including competition with invasive slugs that thrive on former agricultural lands. [Extracted from the article]

Microscope WIDE-OPEN SPECTRUM After analyzing vision research on nearly 450 species, University of Arkansas biologists report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that wildlife adapted to open habitats (such as prairie dogs, left) see a wider range of colors than forest animals. Unfortunately, these "small pockets of deciduous forest are often neglected in conservation planning", says Princeton ecologist and lead author Fengyi Guo, who hopes the new migration stopover map will help to change that. The map, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "gives us a powerful new tool for identifying the key habitats these birds are using during their epic migrations", says Princeton ecologist and co-author David Wilcove. [Extracted from the article]

Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ferraro's paper is far from the only study finding that the presence of wild birds - particularly multiple bird species - can lift people's spirits. NATURE AND HEALTH For as long as she can remember, Danielle Ferraro has been captivated by birds. In a subsequent analysis of medical data provided by German authorities for 30,000 residents, Methorst and his colleagues confirmed that the larger the number of bird and plant species in a region, the more content people are. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the most spectacular wildlife gatherings sights sure to inspire awe and a passion for conservation including two dozen northern elephant seals hauled out of the Pacific Ocean to start a breeding colony at Piedras Blancas, California coast; hundreds of thousands of geese, ducks and other migratory birds heading north on the Pacific Flyway; and hungry elk set off every autumn on a 50-mile trek to the valley of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Fifteen years ago, a local resident discovered a female American crocodile living on a lush, sparsely populated barrier island along the Lee Island Coast in southwest Florida. Considered among the [...]

Scientists at Columbia University used high-resolution imagery to map urban vegetation and calculate the daily and seasonal changes, or "flux", in carbon the plants capture during photosynthesis. They found that on some summer afternoons, carbon absorbed by vegetation may temporarily equal up to 40 percent of the area's carbon emissions from all sources, or almost all carbon dioxide generated at those times by motor vehicles. During summer, trees, grasses and other vegetation in New York City (left) and nearby communities may play a larger than expected role counteracting human-caused carbon emissions. [Extracted from the article]

To make this discovery, Swedish zoologists broadcast a variety of songs to some 2,000 wild flycatcher nestlings from seven populations - each with its own distinct dialect - then observed the baby birds' responses. Because flycatcher hatchlings hear surprisingly few songs, Wheatcroft says the results also raise the intriguing possibility that the birds innately recognize their own dialects. When they are as young as 12 days old, nestling pied flycatchers (right) will respond - by begging for food - to songs from adult males that live in their own population, scientists have found. [Extracted from the article]

By analyzing brain tissue from 94 species - including solitary, pair-living and group-living mammals - the researchers also identified 31 genes linked both to longevity and a species' social system. The finding, published in Nature Communications, held true for a wide array of species, from group-dwelling and long-lived golden snub-nosed monkeys (above), naked mole rats and horseshoe bats to solitary and shorter-lived giant armadillos and short-tailed shrews. In an analysis of scientific papers on the body masses, life spans and lifestyles of 974 species, Chinese zoologists found that mammals living in groups generally outlive solitary mammals. [Extracted from the article]

Working as a nutrition assistant at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Maretta Champagne has learned all about the dietary deficiencies of her fellow Oglala Sioux tribe members. 'We [...]

AT THE END of the last century, the notion of conservation was a mere whisper in the popular consciousness. Although it was generally known that a few prominent naturalists condemned [...]

When Brenda Salgado arrived in northern Belize five years ago to begin field studies of black howlers, she quickly realized that her task involved more than just observing monkey behavior. [...]

The article discusses the success of the U.S. wildlife conservation in Alaska, the history of the state and its wealth of natural and wildlife resources. Topics include how the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia, the many species of wildlife that reside in Alaska including the Bald Eagle, harbor seals and the Alaskan bull moose, and the international agreement the U.S. made with other countries to protect the Pribilof seals.

Writing in eLife, the scientists explain that larger bull's-eyes contain more UV-absorbing compounds called flavonols that prevent excessive water loss. Scientists have long known that sunflower petals produce ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing pigments that create bull's-eye patterns invisible to humans but not to insects such as bees (longhorn bee, left). Now, in a study of nearly 2,000 wild sunflowers, researchers at the University of British Columbia find that sunflower UV patterns also help the plants survive by regulating water loss. [Extracted from the article]

"There was a big gap in the literature on this topic", says João Vitor de Alcantara Viana, a behavioral ecologist at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, who led an investigation into which strategies work best. Though scientists have spent more than a century observing and studying the camouflage tactics animals use to deter detection by predators, few of those efforts have compared the effectiveness of different concealment strategies. In general, the ecologists report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, predators must spend about 60 percent more time finding camouflaged prey than noncamou-flaged prey. [Extracted from the article]

"Our results support the idea that nest types can be important factors in the ecological success of birds", writes lead author Iliana Medina in Ecology Letters. A bout a third of the planet's roughly 11,000 bird species build elaborate domed nests with roofs that would appear to provide better protection for eggs and hatchlings than open nests. [Extracted from the article]

People's appreciation for the natural world maybe increased through travel, but travel itself contributes to global warming. A flights generate tons of greenhouse gas pollutants. To offset the pollution generated by these travels, consumers can buy carbon offsets to help fund projects that support environmental projects.