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Tag: "predators" at biology news

Ongoing collapse of coral reef shark populations

... Current Biology. Reef sharks are so-called apex predators on tropical coral reefs and are therefore of significant potential importance to the functioning of coral reef ecosystems. The reproductive biology of reef sharks makes them particularly vulnerable to fishing, but until now, there have been no studie...

Tarantula venom and chili peppers target same pain sensor

... have evolved the same molecular strategy to deter predators -- triggering pain by activating a specific receptor on sensory nerves. The research provides new tools to understand how these pain- and heat-sensing neurons work, and to help develop drugs that ease persistent pain, the scientists report. Their fin...

Fishy cooperation

...nvestigators were able to demonstrate that the two predators seek each other's company, spending more time toge...he observed role division comes "naturally" to two predators with different hunting specializations, and is therefore far simpler to achieve than for members of ...

Scientist's persistence sheds light on marine science riddle

...deep sea is much larger. Also, the competitors and predators of a species often don't reach an island, but competition and predation in the deep sea can be intense. A lot more study needs to be done on the relative importance of these factors, but clearly resource limitation is a key factor in the evolution of...

For crickets, parasitic flies can stop the music

... the density of crickets and the presence of other predators that prey on walking crickets. Walkers may do better when mates are abundant and other predators are few, while singers may have better luck when mates are relatively rare and fly populations are l...

New moth variety disarms plants guarded by selenium

...tation potentially echoes in the food web as other predators and parasites may in turn evolve to deal with high levels of the toxic element. The findings, reported by Elizabeth Pilon-Smits of Colorado State University and colleagues there and at the University of California, Berkeley, appear in the November 21...

New dwarf buffalo discovered by chance in the Philippines

...lutionary factors. This may occur due to a lack of predators (the animal no longer needs to be large to avoid being eaten) and/or limited food (smaller animals require less food). The research could provide insights into debates on the evolution of small-bodied species elsewhere in the tropics such as the p...

Too mellow for our predatory world

...ine iguanas on the Galápagos Islands live without predators - at least this was the case up until 150 years ag...ility to successfully escape from newly introduced predators (Proceedings of the Royal Society, FirstCite Early Online Publishing December 2006). Who of us has...

Singing for survival

...bbons have developed an unusual way of scaring off predators ?by singing to them. The primatologists at the Un... pairs 'duet' every morning. Songs in response to predators ?mostly large cats, snakes and birds of prey ?have been previously noted, but no extensive research ...

Squid skin reveals hidden messages

...also contain information regarding the presence of predators (i.e., a warning signal) is speculation, but it may be possible," she adds. Mäthger and Hanlon maintain that the mechanism behind the transmission of polarized light through squid pigment cells warrants further study. Likewise, investigation of thi...

Save the whales? Sure, but how many?

...roviding marine-derived nitrogen to watersheds, or predators reducing pest species, or birds dispersing seeds. 'Sustainable human use' represents the next tier, where there are enough animals that they can be used by humans, consumptively (as in hunting or fishing) or non-consumptively (as in tourism.) Most...

Cougar predation key to ecosystem health

... But the evidence is now accumulating that primary predators not only have direct effects in influencing the po...systems in the U.S. and around the world where key predators have been removed, the researchers said, and high populations of native herbivores such as deer or e...

The secret lives of sea slugs

...al navigational behaviors, including escaping from predators by swimming up into water currents that hurl them (un-sluggishly) end over end downstream and away from harm, as well as crawling aggressively (for slugs) upstream to breed and feed. The observations also correlated with earlier studies suggesting th...

Scientists describe new African monkey genus ?first in 83 years

...gmented, the authors note in their paper. The main predators of Kipunji are crowned eagles and possibly leopards. But humans also hunt and kill Kipunji, and eat their meat. "Any hunting of the Kipunji or loss of its vulnerable habitat, with the latter probably increasing the frequency of the former, will fur...

Predators prefer to hunt small-brained prey

...from the School of Biological Sciences, focused on predators from Africa and South America such as the jaguar, ... red river hog were more susceptible to attacks by predators compared with larger-brained prey. The report showed a strong correlation between the brain size of ...

Female guppies risk their lives to avoid too much male attention

...eir advantage, venturing into the deep water where predators lurk. The males' bright coloring also attracts pre...y this social characteristic. "In many ecosystems, predators are the first to go extinct, and our work shows that this may have many, perhaps unexpected, effects...

Leptin found to control appetite and limb development in frogs

... being more prone to drying out, to being eaten by predators and reaching sexual maturity at a later age. Denver speculates that leptin is probably important to gauge whether the tadpole has adequate energy reserves---in the form of body fat - to start metamorphosis at an appropriate time. Finding leptin in t...

Jellyfish dominate fish in over-harvested Namibian waters

...s. The authors also note that jellyfish have few predators and that jellyfish abundance has significant potential consequences for oceanic ecosystems--such consequences include slowed or attenuated fish-stock recovery and alterations in the nature of carbon cycling. ...

Global warming may have damaged coral reefs forever

...ollapse of the reefs removed food and shelter from predators for a large and diverse amount of marine life - in 2005 average coral cover in the area surveyed was just 7.5 per cent. The survey showed that four fish species (a type of butterfly fish, two types of wrasses and a type of damsel fish) are possibly...

Exxon Valdez oil found in tidal feeding grounds of ducks, sea otters

...t half of it was found in the low tide zone, where predators could encounter it while searching for prey. More than 90 percent of the surface oil and all of the subsurface oil was from the Exxon Valdez, Short says. Based on these findings, the researchers estimated that in a given year, a sea otter ?digging ...

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