Tag: "butterfly" at biology news

Amino acids in nectar enhance butterfly fecundity: A long awaited link

...s about the significance of nectar amino acids for butterfly fitness and insinuated that butterflies have acted...esearchers from the University of Basel raised map butterfly caterpillars on both nitrogen poor and nitrogen rich stinging nettle. After the butterflies emerged,...

South America's vast pantanal wetland may become next everglades, UNU experts warn

...90 species of mammal, 50 reptiles, more than 1,100 butterfly species and 270 fish species. It is also the wintering grounds for a large number of migratory birds that summer in North America. According to an analysis by UNU-PREP and the Japan-based UNU Institute for Advanced Studies: "While large parts of the...

How monarch butterflies are wired for navigation

...ifornia at Irvine, have explored the infinitesimal butterfly brain to uncover new insights into that machinery.... an anathema to cancer-wary humans is critical for butterfly navigation. Also, the researchers were surprised to discover a key wiring connection between the lig...

Expanding forests darken the outlook for butterflies, study shows

...lt of human activities--are diminishing the alpine butterfly gene pool, creating a pattern that could lead to t... doctoral student Nusha Keyghobadi used samples of butterfly dispersal and genetic variability taken from the Kananaskis region in Alberta to show a correlation ...

Female butterflies go for sparkle -- not size -- when choosing to mate

...to explore some of the evolutionary reasons behind butterfly wing patterns in the African satyrid butterfly, Bi...rough time in any one species in nature?" In this butterfly species, females make the ultimate decision about whether to mate. The UB researchers altered wing-...

Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species

...Amazon rainforest are home to some 7500 species of butterfly compared with only around 65 species in Britain. U...ock" using the mitochondrial DNA of nine different butterfly species groups [genera] on the eastern side of the Andes in Eastern Peru. By using a "DNA clock" the...

New discovery: Molecular variation in one gene affects the growth of natural populations

... the population growth of the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) is affected by the allelic compo...tillary in the Åland Islands in Finland, where the butterfly has a large metapopulation that has been studied for 15 years. ...

CU, USDA team to curb two invasive, poisonous vines

...sts and fields, threatening reforestation, fragile butterfly populations and bird habitats. The vines are pale...mid-1990s. The plants are lethal hosts for monarch butterfly larvae and alter ground cover and affect habitat for grassland birds. And, if that is not enough, th...

Butterflies lose body fat during metamorphosis

...ournal. "The transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly is one on nature's great mysteries," says William ...eat deal of metabolic activity is occurring in the butterfly chrysalis." Because of this energy expenditure, Connor and his colleagues surmised that butterflies...

Butterfly farming to help save rain forest

...ed a £295,000 Darwin initiative grant to develop a butterfly farming industry in Guyana that will help support ... butterflies that are sought after by many western butterfly farms and other institutions that exhibit collections of live butterflies. Each individual butterfly...

Global warming may have damaged coral reefs forever

...he survey showed that four fish species (a type of butterfly fish, two types of wrasses and a type of damsel fi...ly low levels (a type of file fish, three types of butterfly fish and two damsel fish), although their decline probably started to happen soon after 1998. The ...

Where have all the butterflies gone?

...nd changing land use. In the short term, he said, butterfly species that breed several times a year may rebound quickly to take advantage of improving conditions. But for species with only one brood per year, a catastrophic season will have repercussions for up to a decade. More butterflies may still emerge ...

USC team reveals structure of APOBEC family protein

...aid. "It's significant because this non-canonical, butterfly shape provides new, plausible explanations of an immune deficiency disease at the molecular level." With the Apo2 structure in hand, the team was able to deduce what likely goes wrong in patients with the rare, serious immune disorder hyper-IgM im...

Some butterflies travel farther, reproduce faster

...ion history-dependent reproductive physiology in a butterfly metapopulation," will be presented on Oct. 10 at C... The researchers studied the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) on the Åland Islands of Finland, located between Finland and Sweden in the Baltic ...

Some caterpillers just don't want to grow up

...igated the ecology of Maculinea rebeli, a Lycaenid butterfly whose caterpillars live as parasites inside colonies of Myrmica ants, where they feed on regurgitations from the nurse ants. One of the peculiar features of this species' ecology is that only about 25% of the caterpillars complete development within ...

Secret of worm's poison pill box protein could produce new natural insecticide

... caterpillars Pieris Brassicae ?(The cabbage white butterfly caterpillar which are pests for many growers). Th...ly selective in that it bound to the cabbage white butterfly caterpillar, there were variants of this family of toxic proteins (such as XptA2) that targeted ot...

Male-killing bacteria makes female butterflies more promiscuous

... drops -- killed off by the bacteria -- the female butterfly becomes more sexually rampant. Males on the other ...t into mating. In some populations of tropical butterfly the entire mating system is determined by a group of bacteria known as Wolbachia, according to the s...

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