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Tag: "extinctions" at biology news

The secret lives of whales

...on can do—we must understand these habitats before extinctions occur.?/p> Blue Voices from the Deep Cornell researcher Christopher W. Clark studies ocean voices. Using the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine listening system from the cold war, and customized systems developed at Cornell, Clark is investigating how t...

Low level of extinction during ice age linked to adaptability

...an say is that it is worrisome." Powell looked at extinctions during an age when glaciers reached to within 35 degrees of the equator, roughly as far south as a line between present-day Raleigh, Memphis and Albuquerque or nearly as far north as Buenos Aires. Powell tackled the question of why extinction rates w...

Super predators and mass extinctions

Mass extinctions seem to occur on Earth roughly every 26 million years, leading some scientists to propose that they may be caused by rare collisions with comets or asteroids. A researcher in Poland thinks it may be possible that extraordinary predators are at fault ...

Primates on the brink

...at failure to respond will bring the first primate extinctions in more than a century. The golden-headed langur ...ave threat. "All evidence tells us that the first extinctions among Africa's primates will occur among the red colobus," said Thomas Butynski, director of CI's Ea...

Space matters: Estimating species diversity in the fossil record

...ause an important metric for understanding current extinctions relies on descriptions of past extinction events, controlling for a paleodiversity¡Varea effect may provide a better frame of reference for understanding the current biodiversity crisis. Thanks to the innovative text-mining tools and approach present...

Secrets of the deep may hold key to life on other planets

...rs them from almost all major events, such as mass extinctions or climate change. "Their evolutionary history is likely to be radically different to other, photosynthesis-based communities ?they may even mirror life forms on other planets." Very little is known about the geological history of these animals, ...

Did humans cause ecosystem collapse in ancient Australia?

Massive extinctions of animals and the arrival of the first humans in ...alian National University, and Bates College.* The extinctions occurred 45,000 to 55,000 years ago. The researchers traced evidence of diet and the environment con...

India's smoking gun: Dino-killing eruptions

...sm started before the impact." In fact, most mass extinctions over the past 300 million years have coincided wit...ke the Deccan Traps correlates with all major mass extinctions in Earth's history, she said. "In only one case is there evidence for both volcanism and impact," s...

Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2

... the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine environment. When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells of marine organisms and can interfere with the oxygen supply. If current trends continue, the scientists believe the acidic wate...

Study shows big game hunters, not climate change, killed off sloths

... extinction of ground sloths, you would expect the extinctions to occur at about the same time on both the island... Steadman's study "clearly shows that ground sloth extinctions in the New World didn't happen after serious changes in climate or vegetation ?and that the first ap...

Computer models aid understanding of antibody-dependent enhancement in spread of dengue fever

... larger increases in transmission resulted in more extinctions of the enhanced virus. "Dengue dynamics are similar to predator-prey systems in ecology. Antibody-dependent enhancement makes a virus a better predator. But there comes a point where the predator gets so good it runs out of prey," explained lead aut...

New study pinpoints epicenters of Earth's imminent extinctions

...han natural rates. In recent history, most species extinctions have occurred on isolated islands following the introduction of invasive predators such as cats and rats. This study shows that the extinction crisis has now expanded to become a full-blown assault on Earth's major land masses, with the majority of a...

Pretreating rogue cancer cells with aspirin cripples their resistance to targeted therapy

...han natural rates. In recent history, most species extinctions have occurred on isolated islands following the introduction of invasive predators such as cats and rats. This study shows that the extinction crisis has now expanded to become a full-blown assault on Earth's major land masses, with the majority of a...

Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species

...nd tropical South America can be explained by mass extinctions caused by the glaciations. Most species living in North America and Europe are relatively recent arrivals because the original inhabitants were wiped out by those ice ages. They haven't had time to evolve into multiple species yet, whereas in the tro...

Extinctions linked to climate change

...h America. That fungus, in turn, led to widespread extinctions of harlequin frogs at middle elevations of mountai...te paradox' will probably dominate explanations of extinctions until we develop a better understanding of the relationships between global change, pathogens and th...

'Dead zone' summer killed billions of ocean state mussels

...es from forming," Altieri said. "So these sorts of extinctions may trigger a downward spiral, with coastal zones less able to handle environmental degradation." According to a 2004 United Nations Environment Program report, the number of areas hit by hypoxia worldwide has doubled since 1990. "Dead zones" can be...

Crucial site for endangered frogs and birds saved

...an alliance of conservation groups battling global extinctions has saved one of the world's most important sites for endangered species. American Bird Conservancy (ABC), Conservation International (CI), and Fundación ProAves of Colombia stepped in to protect the 1,600-acre site on the northwest slope of the Sie...

Wild bees and the flowers they pollinate are disappearing together

...nes in some species may trigger a cascade of local extinctions amongst other associated species." The research may not yet prove a global decline in pollination, but in two countries at least there is strong evidence that both wild pollinators and the wildflowers that they visit are in serious trouble. ...

A new look at the state of the oceans

...or this include an increasing concern over species extinctions and habitat destruction on the one hand, and the improvement of detailed recording methods for existing species on the other. Particularly genetic methods have been used ever more frequently for species identification. In many regions, genetic tools ...

Agriculture and tropical conservation: rethinking old ideas

... necessary migrations from patch to patch as local extinctions occur, which they inevitably do?" If forest patches are separated by barren pastures or fields of single crops, such as soybeans, then monkeys, birds, and other forest animals probably won't travel through them to repopulate areas where extinction ...

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