Wild Biology News

Well-traveled wasps provide hope for vanishing species

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 00:00 MST

They may only be 1.5mm in size, but the tiny wasps that pollinate fig trees can travel over 160km in less than 48 hours, according to research from scientists at the University of Leeds. The fig wasps are transporting pollen ten times further than previously recorded for any insect. The fig wasps travel these distances in search of trees to lay their eggs, which offers hope that trees pollinated by similar creatures have a good chance of surviving if they become isolated through deforestation.

Ants are friendly to some trees, but not others

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 00:00 MST

Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees.

Caught in the act: Butterfly mate preference shows how 1 species can become 2

Monday, November 09, 2009 00:00 MST

Breaking up may not be hard to do, say scientists who've found a population of tropical butterflies that may be splitting into two distinct species. The cause of this particular break-up? A shift in wing color and mate preference. In a paper published this week in the journal Science, the researchers describe the relationship between diverging color patterns in Heliconius butterflies and the long-term divergence of populations into new and distinct species.

Why nice guys usually get the girls

Sunday, November 08, 2009 00:00 MST

For the insects called water striders, the pushiest guys don't always get the girls, according to a research team led by a University of Arizona scientist. The finding provides support for the theory of multi-level selection and contradicts previous laboratory experiments that suggested that the most aggressive males are the most successful at reproducing.

Orphan army ants join nearby colonies

Saturday, November 07, 2009 00:00 MST

Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative.

Tags reveal white sharks have neighborhoods in the north Pacific, say Stanford researchers

Saturday, November 07, 2009 00:00 MST

A tracking study of white sharks in the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows they adhere to a rigid route of migration across the sea, returning to precisely the same spot along the California coast each time they come back, according to a team of researchers including some from Stanford University. Over time, this behavior has made the population in the northeastern Pacific genetically distinct from other white shark populations.

Calm before the spawn: Climate change and coral spawning

Friday, November 06, 2009 00:00 MST

Robert van Woesik, a biologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, explains why corals spawn for just a few nights in some places but elsewhere string out their love life over many months. The study shows that corals spawn when regional wind fields are light. When it is calm, the eggs and sperm have the chance to unite before they are dispersed.

Notorious 'man-eating' lions of Tsavo likely ate about 35 people - not 135, scientists say

Friday, November 06, 2009 00:00 MST

The legendary "man-eating lions of Tsavo" that terrorized a railroad camp in Kenya more than a century ago likely consumed about 35 people -- far fewer than popular estimates of 135 victims, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The study also yields surprises about the predatory behavior of lions.

Hormone that affects finger length key to social behavior

Thursday, November 05, 2009 00:00 MST

Research at the universities of Liverpool and Oxford into the finger length of primate species has revealed that cooperative behavior is linked to exposure to hormone levels in the womb.

Wolves, moose and biodiversity: An unexpected connection

Thursday, November 05, 2009 00:00 MST

Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity? A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists from Michigan Technological University, reporting in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology

New clues to the Falklands wolf mystery

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 00:00 MST

Ever since the Falklands wolf was described by Darwin himself, the origin of this now-extinct canid found only on the Falkland Islands far off the east coast of Argentina has remained a mystery. Now, researchers reporting in the Nov. 3 issue of Current Biology who have compared DNA from four of the world's dozen or so known Falklands wolf museum specimens to that of living canids offer new insight into the evolutionary ancestry of these enigmatic carnivores.

Inconspicuous leaf beetles reveal environment's role in formation of new species

Monday, November 02, 2009 00:00 MST

Unnoticed by the nearby residents of St. Johnsbury, Vt., tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in the area have just provided some of the clearest evidence yet that environmental factors play a major role in the formation of new species.

Dining out in an ocean of plastic: How foraging albatrosses put plastic on the menu

Monday, November 02, 2009 00:00 MST

Reporting in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Dr. Lindsay Young of the University of Hawaii and her colleagues examined whether Laysan albatrosses nesting on Kure Atoll and Oahu, Hawaii, 2,150 km away, ingested different amounts of plastic by putting miniaturized tracking devices on birds to follow them at sea and examining their regurgitated stomach contents. Surprisingly, birds from Kure Atoll ingested almost ten times the amount of plastic compared to birds from Oahu.

New tactics in Guam rhino beetle invasion

Sunday, November 01, 2009 00:00 MST

Canines and a bio-control organism come to the rescue of Guam's coconut trees in efforts to control an invasive species plaguing the island.

When ants attack: Researchers recreate chemicals that trigger aggression in Argentine ants

Saturday, October 31, 2009 00:00 MST

Researchers have identified and synthesized the chemical cues by which Argentine ants distinguish colony-mates from rivals. By exploiting these chemicals, researchers have demonstrated that normally friendly Argentine ants can turn against each other and fight.