Ecology & Zoology

Flowers And Color: How The Bees Sees Ultravioletly

Colors are not constant, they are relative and relatively speaking, bees see much differently than we do. Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and Imperial College London have developed what they call FReD – the Floral Reflectance Database – tha ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 13 2010 - 5:53pm

Squid-eating Whales Pay the Price in Pollutants

All this talking I've been doing about those nasty ol' sperm whales hunting down and devouring poor defenseless squid (okay, they're not quite defenseless, but still) might make you think I'm a whale-hater. Not so! In fact, I harbor (he ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 13 2010 - 9:25pm

Closing the California Market Squid Fishery

Big squid news, in California at least: the state Department of Fish and Game announced that the fishery for California market squid is hitting its harvest limit and is scheduled to be closed on Friday. This is big news because A) market squid is the bigge ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 14 2010 - 10:58pm

How Many, How Much?

A key question in ecology is: who eats whom? This can be fairly straightforward to answer, by observing predatory or grazing activities, by opening up stomachs or sifting through feces, or even by analyzing chemical signals. A more challenging follow-up qu ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 15 2010 - 8:22pm

More on CA Market Squid

News of the California market squid fishery closure is spreading. "We have had a banner year for market squid this year," said Dale Sweetnam, a Fish and Game marine biologist who oversees the commercial squid market. "The colder-than-normal ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 16 2010 - 10:56pm

Calamari For Christmas

Sigh. I was going to write with lyric beauty about a dream I had last night, in which I was finally, finally successful in feeding baby squid. I watched them stuffing copepods into their mouths with deep satisfaction. But that will have to wait, because gu ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Dec 17 2010 - 4:08pm

No chestnuts on an open fire? The plight of the American Chestnut tree

The American chestnut tree (Castanea dentata) was once among the most culturally and economically important trees in the eastern United States but in the last century more than four billion trees were lost due to chestnut blight. Along with the hardwood t ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 18 2010 - 10:46am

While Visions of Squid Feeding Danced in My Head

I had a beautiful dream on Thursday night. Having recently graduated, I was cleaning up and moving out of my lab, and in particular, I was deciding what to do with the animals in the aquarium room. I had several small aquariums with young squid in them--no ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 18 2010 - 10:19pm

Helixanthera Schizocalyx: Just In Time For Christmas, A New Mistletoe Discovered

A  parasitic, tropical mistletoe has been discovered near the summit of Mount Mabu in northern Mozambique and, just in time for Christmas, this new wild mistletoe has been named Helixanthera schizocalyx. It was spotted by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew East Af ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 19 2010 - 2:38am

Baby Squid Goes Zoom

In honor of all the hullaballoo about California market squid (hullaballoo which I will soon be adding more to, stay tuned!) here are some pictures I took a few years ago. The subject is a baby market squid viewed through a microscope. First it opens its m ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Dec 19 2010 - 9:58pm