Ecology & Zoology

Patterns Of Tropical Deforestation

In a fairly optimistic paper published in Biotropica in 2006 Joseph Wright and Helene Muller-Landau suggested that declining rates of population growth in tropical countries, coupled with increased urbanisation " give reason to hope that deforestatio ...

Article - Ian Ramjohn - Feb 8 2008 - 5:36pm

Singing In The Rainforest: Public Versus Private Signaling By The White-Browed Warbler

According to the Chinese proverb, a bird sings because it has a song, not because it has an answer. A team of French and Brazilian researchers, however, may have the answer as to how the song of Brazilian white-browed warbler has become so well-adapted to ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 13 2008 - 1:31am

Spironucleus Salmonicida- New Species Of Parasite Described

While studying towards his doctorate of philosophy, Anders Jørgensen discovered a previously undescribed species of parasite that infects farmed fish and produces serious disease. Single-celled parasites of the genus Spironucleus are known to produce serio ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 19 2008 - 6:30am

Chaos In Food Webs: The Balance Of Nature Concept Takes A Beating

The traditional idea of the balance of nature gets quite a beating by a study that appears in the current issue of Nature. Using a long-term laboratory experiment, the authors conclude that, even under constant conditions, all species in a food web continu ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 13 2008 - 9:31am

Bats: Fossils Show Flying Came Before Echolocation

Nothing would seem to be stranger than bats flying without their special radar. They would be the Keystone Cops of zoology. But the discovery of a remarkably well-preserved fossil representing the most primitive bat species known to date demonstrates that ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 13 2008 - 5:44pm

Tropical Deforestation- Part II

In response to Wright and Muller-Landau’s paper on the future of tropical forests (which suggests that declining rural populations can allow forest recovery; see my previous post), Sloan pointed out reduced rural population often leads to increased defores ...

Article - Ian Ramjohn - Feb 20 2008 - 9:03pm

Human Impacts On Pre-Columbian Tropical Forests

When European naturalists first visited the New World Tropics they saw vast forests that seemed untouched by humans. While indigenous people often lived in these forests, their populations were small. This led to a perception of tropical forests as primev ...

Article - Ian Ramjohn - Feb 19 2008 - 6:25pm

Beelzebufo- Giant Frog From Hell Ate Baby Dinosaurs

A team of researchers has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist. The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago w ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 20 2008 - 2:05pm

Odd Discovery In The Antarctic Abyss: Krill

Scientists have discovered Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), a shrimp-like crustacean thought to live only in the upper ocean, are living and feeding down to depths of 3000 metres in the waters around the Antarctic Peninsula. The discovery completely ch ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2008 - 4:30pm

Do Bats Literally Have Animal Magnetism?

Do bats have animal magnetism? Yes, say researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Princeton who say they have discovered that bats use a magnetic substance in their body called magnetite as an ‘internal compass’ to help them navigate. Dr Richard Holla ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 27 2008 - 12:45am