Archive | conservation biology

New exhibition looks at fishes from the “Inside Out”

New exhibition looks at fishes from the “Inside Out”

"X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out," is a new exhibition of striking x-rays that reveal the complex bone structure of fishes in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. [...more]

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Fungi-filled forests are critical if endangered orchids are to thrive

Fungi-filled forests are critical if endangered orchids are to thrive

Older forests with just the right fungi may be secret to saving these vulnerable plants. [...more]

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Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

Scientists studying genetic variation and gene flow in a population of tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in California’s Mojave Desert, were surprised recently to discover that two roads built in the desert in the 1970s had a noticeable impact on the population’s genetic structure. [...more]

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Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

Scientists studying genetic variation and gene flow in a population of tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in California’s Mojave Desert, were surprised recently to discover that two roads built in the desert in the 1970s had a noticeable impact on the population’s genetic structure. [...more]

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VIDEO: Meet our Scientist Rachel Page. She studies frog-eating bats, and other animals, in Panama

VIDEO: Meet our Scientist Rachel Page. She studies frog-eating bats, and other animals, in Panama

Meet Rachel Page, a Smithsonian scientist in Panama who studies frog-eating bats (fringe-lipped bats), among other topics. Her current research focuses on learning and memory in neotropical bats, combining field studies with laboratory experiments to learn about predator cognition and its effects on the evolution of their prey. [...more]

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Cold spells spell trouble for warm-weather invasives

Cold spells spell trouble for warm-weather invasives

In a laboratory at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., scientist João Canning Clode and colleagues tested the cold-water tolerances of a number of invasive green porcelain crabs. [...more]

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Great Barrier Reef coral Acropora tenuis

Great Barrier Reef coral Acropora tenuis

This photo shows developing embryonic cells of the coral species Acropora tenuis, from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and other partnering organizations spent two weeks at the end of November collecting sperm and embryonic cells during spawning from this and one other [...] [...more]

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Reptiles may be spreading deadly amphibian disease in the tropics

Reptiles may be spreading deadly amphibian disease in the tropics

Reptiles that live near and feed upon amphibians in the tropics may be spreading the deadly amphibian disease Chytridiomycosis (caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dedrobatidis), holding and transporting reservoirs of the fungus on their skin. [...more]

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This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.

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