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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]
Tag Archive | "ecology"
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]
conservation biology, zoology Comments (0)
New Book: “Fishes: The Animal Answer Guide”
In this fun, accessible and informative book, ichthyologists Gene Helfman, professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, and Bruce Collette, of the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provide accurate, entertaining, and sometimes surprising answers to more than 100 common and not-so-common questions. [...more]
Book Review, Research Topics, zoology Comments (1)
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
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]
conservation biology Comments (0)
Air pollution is fertilizing tropical forests
Studies at two remote Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory sites in Panama and Thailand show the first evidence of long-term effects of nitrogen pollution in tropical trees. [...more]
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Hitchhiking snails fly from ocean to ocean
Just as people use airplanes to fly overseas, marine snails may use birds to fly over land,” said Mark Torchin, staff scientist at the Smithsonian. [...more]
Featured, zoology Comments (1)
Zoo celebrates birth of two Micronesian kingfishers, a species extinct in the wild
The Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., is celebrating the recent hatching of two Micronesian kingfisher (Todiramphus c. cinnamominus) chicks, a female and male, born July 25 and Aug. 20, respectively. [...more]
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Science Spotlight
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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