Endangered Species
Not So Silent Spring
As humans drown out nature’s precisely partitioned symphony of cries, clicks, and calls, researchers may be witnessing the first steps in an evolutionary shakeup
Who Killed Dolly?
DNA evidence clears wolves, nails dogs
Empty Nests
Alarming chimp population declines in Côte d’Ivoire
Foreclosure Fish
By Debora MacKenzie
Here’s a good one: what links the U.S. mortgage crisis and West Nile disease? Answer: one of the world’s most invasive alien species.
As we all know, unwise dealing by U.S. financial institutions has caused a lot of people to default on mortgages. A lot of this has been happening in the parts of [...]
Word of Mouth
Birds choose nest sites based on what they hear from other birds
Betts, M.G. et al. 2008. Social information trumps vegetation structure in breeding-site selection by a migrant songbird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275(1648):2257–2263.
Much like people, birds looking to raise children like to settle down in neighborhoods that already have plenty of families. For [...]
Don’t Tread on Me
Egg-eating predators could be good for turtle conservation
Barton, B.T. and J.D. Roth. 2008. Implications of intraguild predation for sea turtle nest protection. Biological Conservation 141:2139–2145.
Raccoons (Procyon lotor) love loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) eggs, as do ghost crabs (Ocypode quadrata). Unfortunately, the often-used conservation measure of controlling raccoons at turtle nesting beaches lets the ghost crabs [...]
Down to the Bone
The market for tiger products remains strong—even among people who support tiger conservation
Gratwicke, B. et al. 2008. Attitudes toward consumption and conservation of tigers in China. PLoS ONE 3(7):e2544.
When it comes to endangered tigers, consumers’ buying habits clash with their conservation values, according to a recent study led by Brian Gratwicke of the National Fish [...]
Spot On
Facial-recognition technology picks individual animals out of a crowd
When Kevin McGarigal started studying marbled salamanders, he ran into a problem that left him feeling cross-eyed. A biologist at the University of Massachusetts, McGarigal needed to track individual salamanders as they moved between vernal pools. But the spotted creatures are hard to tell apart, so McGarigal’s [...]
Hold That Thought
Tiny neurologger records mental activity as animals navigate habitat
Alexei Vyssotski’s search for a new way to monitor animal brain waves began in 2002 when he was trying to figure out how homing pigeons, Columba livia, navigate. A researcher at the University of Zurich, Vyssotski wanted to see how the birds’ brain activity changed when they [...]
The Most Popular Lifestyle on Earth
Forget lions, tigers, and sharks. The billions of tiny parasites that make a living castrating and brainwashing their hosts may be the new kings of the food web.
By Carl Zimmer
October-December 2008 (Vol. 9, No.4)
Every science has its icon. Genetics has the double helix of DNA. Particle physics has the spiraling tracks of electrons and protons. [...]