Species

New species from old data

In a new study, researchers present a “cautionary tale?about what may go wrong when using the fledgling science of proteomics to devise a diagnostic test for cancer. In the February 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center detail why an experimental test intended to identify early ovarian cancer from a...

New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species

Nearly 40 years after an historic anthropology expedition to Ethiopia's Lake Turkana basin, researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting human bones found at that time are roughly 195,000 years old. The researchers believe the findings may bolster the “Out-of-Africa?hypothesis that suggests we all trace to an ancient line that first evolved in Africa and then displaced other hominids as recent...

Ants Genetic Engineering Leads To Species Interdependency

Findings reported last week reveal how anevolutionary innovation involving the sharing of genes between two antspecies has given rise to a deep-seated dependency between them for thesurvival of both species populations.The new work illustrates how genetic exchange through interbreedingbetween two species can give rise to a system of interdependence at ahigh level of biological organization...

Same mutation aided evolution in many fish species, Stanford study finds

After decades of laboratory work studying how animals evolve, researchers sometimes need to put on the hip waders, pull out the fishing net and go learn how their theory compares to the real world. According to a Stanford University School of Medicine study published in the March 25 issue of Science, Mother Nature is more predictable than lab experiments suggest. In a diverse group of fish...

Fibril Shape Is The Basis Of Prion Strains And Cross-species Prion Infection

New research on prions, the infectious proteins behind "mad cow" disease and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans, suggests that the ability of prions in one species to infect other species depends on the shape of the toxic threadlike fibers produced by the prion. Two studies on the topic appear in the 8 April issue of the journal Cell. Although research suggests that prions from one specie...

Reservoirs may accelerate the spread of invasive aquatic species, researchers say

Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of Southwest Missouri State University and Carol Eunmi Lee and M. Jake Vander Zanden of the University of Wi...

Small species back-up giant marsupial climate change extinction claim

Thinking small in a time when everything was big has helped Queensland researchers to unearth new evidence that climate change, instead of humans, was responsible for wiping out Australian giant marsupials or megafauna 40,000 years ago. Instead of only excavating 'trophy specimens' such as giant kangaroos and wombats, the researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Quee...

Aggressive aquatic species invading Great Lakes

Foreign species, such as zebra mussels and carp, are invading the Great Lakes and changing the ecology of this vital ecosystem. A study from McMaster University published in the March issue of the Journal of Great Lakes Research suggests that for the round goby, a recently introduced fish species, their ability to wrest territory from native fish plays a key role in their dominance of the Great L...

A New Species of Monkey is Discovered in Tanzania: The First in Africa for More Than 20 Years

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, working in conjunction with other partners, have discovered Africa’s first new species of monkey in over 20 years, marking the third monkey WCS...

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now species of slime-mold beetles -- but strictly in homage

Drinking water during a long-distance race may do serious harm rather than keep you safe from injury if you're drinking too much, according to a cardiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Runners or any long-distance athletes who drink too much water during a race could put themselves at jeopardy for developing hyponatremia, a condition marked by a loss in the body's sodium content th...

Internet viruses help ecologists control invasive species

Studying how computer viruses spread through the internet is helping ecologists to prevent invasions of non-native species. New research published today in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, describes the use of network theory to predict how the spiny water flea - a native of Russia - will spread through the Canadian lake system. Ecologists Jim Muirhead and Profe...

An (ecological) origin of species for tropical reef fish

Dealing a new blow to the dominant evolutionary paradigm, Luiz Rocha and colleagues from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Harvard University the University of Florida and the University of Hawaii, report coral reef fish from neighboring habitats may differ more from one another than from fish thousands of miles away. An ecological speciation model for coral reef organisms may spur the...

New Species of Coral Discovered Off Southern California

A working group of virologists headed by Professor Hans-Georg Kräusslich at Heidelberg University Hospitals, jointly with Professor Hanswalter Zentgraf, Division of Applied Tumor Virology of the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ), have been the first to label Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) for visual investigations without inhibiting the functional charac...

Ancient DNA helps clarify the origins of two extinct New World horse species

The Patagonian Hippidion horse genus and North American stilt-legged horses have found a new place on the evolutionary tree, according to a new article in the open access journal PLoS Biology. In the paper, Jaco Weinstock, Alan Cooper, and colleagues use ancient DNA to argue that the Hippidion genus is younger than previously thought and that American stilt-legged horses were American endemics, n...

Invasive parasite destroying fish species

Assistant Professor Mark Pagani in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale and his colleagues mapped the first detailed history of atmospheric carbon dioxide between 45 - 25 million years ago based on stable isotopes of carbon in a National Science Foundation study reported in Science Express. "Through the energy we consume, each of us makes a contribution to increasing greenhouse...

Multi-species genome comparison sheds new light on evolutionary processes, cancer mutations

An international team that includes researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has discovered that mammalian chromosomes have evolved by breaking at specific sites rather than randomly as long thought ?and that many of the breakage hotspots are also involved in human cancer. In a study published in the July 22 iss...

Cattle grazing may help rather than hurt endangered species

An article published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology finds that cattle grazing plays an important role in maintaining wetland habitat necessary for some endangered species. Removing cattle from grazing lands in the Central Valley of California could, inadvertently, degrade the vernal pool habitat of fairy shrimp and tiger salamanders. Cattle grazing influences the rates of evaporati...

Space matters: Estimating species diversity in the fossil record

Estimates for the number of living species on earth range from 3.5 million to over 30 million but only 1.9 million species have been classified and described. Estimating historical biodiversity from the fossil record is an even more daunting task. One tool ecologists - but not paleontologists - have traditionally relied on to identify patterns of existing biological diversity is a long-est...

Primate virus jumps species barrier to humans for first time in Asia

Scientists have identified the first reported case in Asia of primate-to-human transmission of simian foamy virus (SFV), a retrovirus found in macaques and other primates that so far has not been shown to cause disease in humans. The transmission of the virus from a monkey to a human took place at a monkey temple in Bali, Indonesia, the researchers report in the July issue of the journal Emerging...

Time and money make a difference in endangered species recovery

Since passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, over 1,300 endangered species have been protected in the United States and its territories. In the forthcoming issue of Ecology Letters, Male & Bean assess 14 years of endangered plant and animal status trends and show that the length of time species are protected, and the amount of money spent on their conservation are key variables in exp...

Picky female frogs drive evolution of new species in less than 8,000 years

Picky female frogs in a tiny rainforest outpost of Australia have driven the evolution of a new species in 8,000 years or less, according to scientists from the University of Queensland, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. "That's lightning-fast," said co-author Craig Moritz, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and director of...

Costly breeding programs for endangered species pay off

Comparative studies of captive breeding strategies conducted at Rice University bolster the case for costly and sometimes troublesome breeding programs that preserve maximum genetic variability in small populations of endangered species. Worldwide, zoos spend millions of dollars each year transporting rare animals thousands of miles in order to breed them with their most distantly related...

New amphibian species result from exploration, not from rule changes

Researchers have discovered amphibian species at an accelerating rate in recent decades, with over 1,000 new ones recognized between 1992 and 2003. At the same time, amphibians are, for reasons not entirely clear, declining more rapidly than either mammals or birds, underscoring the importance of an accurate evaluation. An analysis published in the August 2005 issue of BioScience, the mont...

Multiple genes permit closely related fish species to mix and match their color vision

Vision, like other biological attributes, is shaped by evolution through environmental pressures and demands, and even closely-related species that are in other ways very similar might respond to their particular environments by interpreting the visual world slightly differently, using photoreceptors that are attuned to particular wavelengths of light. By studying a special group of closely-relat...

Performing monkeys in Asia carry viruses that could jump species to humans

Some urban performing monkeys in Indonesia are carrying several retroviruses that are capable of infecting people, according to a new study led by University of Washington researchers. The results indicate that contact with performing monkeys, which is common in many Asian countries, could represent a little-known path for viruses to jump the species barrier from monkeys to humans and eventually...

Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species

Tropical areas of south and central America such as the Amazon rainforest are home to some 7500 species of butterfly compared with only around 65 species in Britain. UCL scientists have ruled out the common theory that attributed this richness of wildlife to climate change, in a paper published on 7th December by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences). Instea...

New study explores beetle species with two forms of females

A fascinating new study from the forthcoming issue of The American Naturalist attempts to explain the mysterious persistence of two forms of females in many diving beetle populations. Their findings have important implications for theories of sexual conflict, which arises when the costs and benefits of multiple matings differ for males and females. "The male versus female arms race (invo...

Three new species of lemurs identified

Researchers have identified three new species of lemurs, the small, big-eyed primates native to the island of Madagascar. In a study published today in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, a team of researchers from Madagascar and Europe identified new species of lemurs based on differences in a specific gene sequence. The new species also live in distinct geographical areas....

Sexual reproduction delays aging in a mammalian species

Past research on aging and the life histories of diverse species has shown that sexual reproduction is biologically costly for individuals and tends to decrease lifespan rather than increase it. But a new study by Philip Dammann and Hynek Burda from the University of Duisburg-Essen shows that, in a vertebrate species, the opposite can be true as well. The authors, studying captive Zambian...

Horseshoe crab decline threatens shorebird species

Each year, the red knot, a medium-sized shorebird, makes a 20,000-mile round-trip from the southern tip of Argentina to the Artic Circle ?one of the longest migrations of any bird. And each year from April to June, the red knot stops over in the Delaware Bay to feed on horseshoe crab eggs resulting from the largest spawning of horseshoe crabs found on the East Coast of the United States....

Invasive species harms native hardwoods by killing soil fungus

An invasive weed that has spread across much of the U.S. harms native maples, ashes, and other hardwood trees by releasing chemicals harmful to a soil fungus the trees depend on for growth and survival, scientists report this week in the Public Library of Science. The tree-stifling alien, garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), first introduced into the U.S. in the 1860s, has since spread to Canada...

Protecting endangered species helps reduce poverty

Saving endangered species like pandas, gorillas and tigers helps reduce poverty and improve the lives of local communities, according to a new World Wildlife Fund report. Now as the eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity opens today in Curitiba, Brazil, WWF urges the CBD and member governments to integrate species conservation work into efforts to alleviate pov...

Scientists discover dozens of new species in 'Lost World' of western New Guinea

An expedition to one of Asia's most isolated jungles ?in the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains of western New Guinea ?discovered a virtual ''Lost World" of new species, giant flowers, and rare wildlife that was unafraid of humans. The December 2005 trip by a team of U.S., Indonesian, and Australian scientists led by Conservation International (CI) found dozens of new species including frogs, bu...

Taking evolution's temperature: Researchers pinpoint the energy it takes to make a species

Comfortable living is not why so many different life forms seem to converge at the warmer areas of the planet. The finding - by researcher...

Antarctic Treaty Meeting moves to protect frozen continent from non-native species

Important new measures to protect Antarctica ?the world's last great wilderness ?from invasive non-native species have been agreed at a meeting of Antarctic experts in Edinburgh. Scientists and policy makers at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, which finished at Edinburgh International Conference Centre on Friday 23 June, agreed new measures that will reduce the risk of non-native...

First surveys of Tanzanian mountains reveal 160+ animal species, including new & endemic

The first field surveys of the Rubeho Mountains in Tanzania revealed over 160 animal species--including a new species of frog and eleven endemic species--according to an article published in the African Journal of Ecology this month. The findings elevate the importance of protecting this biologically-rich wilderness area and the broader Eastern Arc Mountain range from destructive activities under...

Fish virus in Northeast spreading to other fish species

Cornell researchers have found that a deadly fish virus detected in the northeastern United States for the first time in June in two species has probably spread to at least two more. But they have yet to determine whether the virus is responsible for the death of hundreds of fish in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River in recent weeks. Over the past month, Cornell's Aquatic Animal Healt...

Invasive species alter habitat to their benefit

When scientists study habitats that alien species have invaded, they usually find predictable patterns. The diversity of native species declines, and changes occur in natural processes such as nutrient cycling, wildfire frequency and the movement of water through the system. University of Michiga...

Ecosystem services and invasive species

As 3,000 scientists arrive in Memphis, Tennessee for the Ecological Society of America's 91st Annual Meeting, many ecologists working in the state will be presenting the results of their research from the region. Below, a few of the highlights: Past and present declines in Hemlocks and the future of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Monday August 7, 5 ?6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall, Cook C...

Species unique to tidal marshes face threats

Tidal marshes cover only about 45,000 square kilometers worldwide--about the area of Denmark. In comparison with other habitats, tidal marshes support few nonaquatic vertebrate species, but their unique characteristics have led to the evolution of species and subspecies that are endemic (found nowhere else). These endemic species and subspecies, which seem to be largely restricted to North Americ...