https://phys.org/biology-news/plants-animals en-us The latest science news on plants and animals New research in PLOS ONE uncovers an important discovery in the study of marine mammal health by being the first study to detect Otariid gammaherpesvirus 1 (OtGHV1) in free-ranging South American pinnipeds, as well as a novel herpesvirus Otariid gammaherpesvirus 8 (OtGHV8) in South American sea lions (Otaria byronia) in the Southern Hemisphere. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-reveals-herpesvirus-south-american-pinnipeds.html Plants & Animals Veterinary medicine Wed, 06 Mar 2024 17:01:03 EST news628966862 The determination of animal growth rate and body size is an interesting scientific issue, and understanding the molecular mechanisms involved can guide agricultural production for genetic breeding. However, differences in the genetic background across species have led to slow progress in related research. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-comparison-diploid-triploid-hybrid-fish.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:17:03 EST news628964221 Birds migrating from north to south are a given, but migrating from the southwest to the southeast is a little rarer. A burrowing owl is overwintering on a Tennessee River peninsula near New Johnsonville, Tennessee, marking the first sighting of the species in the state, and a Mississippi State wildlife ecologist is researching the fascinating oddity. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-texas-tennessee-burrowing-owl-odd.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:54:42 EST news628959247 Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-humans-bees-chimps-skills.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:40:01 EST news628958079 Invasive plants can stay dormant for decades or even centuries after they have been introduced into an environment before rapidly expanding and wreaking ecological havoc, according to a new study led by the University of California, Davis. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-invasive-hidden-ecological-threat.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:39:03 EST news628958341 Greg Rouse, a marine biologist at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other researchers have discovered a new species of deep-sea worm living near a methane seep some 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Rouse, curator of the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection, co-authored a study describing the new species in the journal PLOS ONE. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-deep-sea-worm-methane-seep.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:00:01 EST news628942718 April in the Florida Panhandle. It was hot, humid, and a thunderstorm was lurking. But as a fresh graduate student, I was relieved for the escape from my first brutal Minnesota winter. I was accompanying my adviser, Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido, on a project that would end up dominating my Ph.D. work. Out in the scrubland, my eyes darted at every movement, on the alert for an insect that likes shiny beads. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-robber-flies-track-beetle-prey.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:50:01 EST news628945905 Early experiences in an animal's life can have a significant impact on its capacity to thrive, even years or decades later, and DNA methylation may help record their effects. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-early-life-adversity-term-signatures.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:44:04 EST news628947842 Global change is altering the physiology of the hibernation and behavior of bats, according to a study led by the University of Barcelona, carried out over 20 years. Given the milder winters in Spain, bats are accumulating less fat reserves in autumn, they shorten their hibernation periods and they leave their winter shelter sooner. These changes could alter the migration pattern of bats and the phenology of their seasonal displacements. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-global-affecting-hibernation.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:28:04 EST news628946881 Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum explain how it is possible for the small brains of pigeons, parrots and corvids to perform equally well as those of mammals, despite their significant differences. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-birds-smart.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:26:03 EST news628946761 An international team of wildlife researchers has found that the giant tortoises living on the Galápagos islands may be in danger of losing a major food resource due to the encroachment of invasive Cedrela odorata trees. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-galpagos-giant-tortoises-danger-due.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:20:01 EST news628946004 In a groundbreaking discovery, bumblebees have been shown to possess a previously unseen level of cognitive sophistication. A new study, published in Nature, reveals that these fuzzy pollinators can learn complex, multi-step tasks through social interaction, even if they cannot figure them out on their own. This challenges the long-held belief that such advanced social learning is unique to humans, and even hints at the presence of key elements of cumulative culture in these insects. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-bumblebees-scientists-advanced-social-skills.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:00:01 EST news628942848 It would be a game-changer if all members of a basketball team could see out of each other's eyes in addition to their own. A research duo at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute has found evidence that this kind of collective sensing occurs in close-knit groups of African weakly electric fish, also known as elephantnose fish. This instantaneous sharing of sensory intelligence could help the fish locate food, friends and foes. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-scientists-uncover-evidence-electric-elephantnose.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:00:01 EST news628942854 Elephants are the natural carriers of a virus called Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV) that can, for yet unknown reasons, cause profound clinical signs in some young elephants and be rapidly fatal. For nearly two decades, zoos and university partners have been working to study the virus and develop early detection protocols and treatment options. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-hematology-discovery-medical-elephants.html Plants & Animals Veterinary medicine Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:38:30 EST news628943907 Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-scientists-ct-scanned-thousands-natural.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:27:04 EST news628943215 A multi-institutional team of geneticists in China has discovered the gene mutation responsible for a brown coat in giant pandas. In their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group sequenced the genes of a captive giant panda with a brown coat and compared the results with the genes of hundreds of black and white pandas. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-gene-mutation-responsible-brown-giant.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:02:11 EST news628941720 Researchers with the University of Minnesota hope to release highly specialized parasitic wasps to serve as a biological control method to save Darwin's finches from a dire threat: the invasive avian vampire fly, Philornis downsi. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-highlights-urgency-parasitic-wasp-native.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 17:07:02 EST news628880821 A group of marine biologists specializing in shark ecology, genetics and fisheries have challenged the findings from a recent study suggesting that South Africa's white shark population has not decreased, but simply redistributed eastwards to flee predation from orcas. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-actions-south-africa-declining-white.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:45:04 EST news628879501 A new feathered face has just popped up in front of the live cameras hosted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Bird Cams project. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-flying-tigers-university-bird-cams.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:07:02 EST news628877221 The 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant transformed the surrounding area into the most radioactive landscape on Earth. Humans were evacuated, but many plants and animals continue to live in the region, despite the high levels of radiation that persist nearly four decades later. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-tiny-worms-tolerate-chornobyl.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 15:38:30 EST news628875504 No birds alive today have teeth. But that wasn't always the case; many early fossil birds had beaks full of sharp, tiny teeth. In a paper in the journal Cretaceous Research, scientists have described a new species of fossil bird that was the first of its kind to evolve toothlessness; its name, in honor of naturalist Sir David Attenborough, means "Attenborough's strange bird." https://phys.org/news/2024-03-fossil-attenborough-strange-bird-kind.html Plants & Animals Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:56:04 EST news628872961 Scientists have confirmed the presence of a whale off New England that went extinct in the Atlantic Ocean two centuries ago—an exciting discovery, but one they said that illustrates the impact of climate change on sea life. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-whale-native-north-pacific-england.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:20:01 EST news628867059 The first confirmed baby right whale of the year has been found dead from a collision with a ship, a devastating blow for the vanishing species. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-baby-whale-season-dies-injuries.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:16:57 EST news628867011 Though some crown rust fungi are known to cause widespread damage to oat and barley crops, new research from the University of Minnesota suggests a close relative of these major pathogens could actually be a valuable asset in managing two highly invasive wetland plants in Minnesota. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-crown-rust-fungus-highly-invasive.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:03:02 EST news628866181 Imagine that you're in a comfortable room with your cat. You're both sharing the same space, temperature and lighting. But while you're enjoying the décor, and perhaps a book or the taste of hot chocolate, the cat seems intrigued by something else. Maybe she's looking for a treat or making sure that no one infringes on "her" preferred spot, a comfortable armchair near the heater. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-world-dolphins-super.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 12:45:04 EST news628865101 There are roughly 100 million managed western honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in hives worldwide, with about half in Europe, Africa and western Asia, where the species is native, and the rest in the Americas, Oceania and eastern Asia, where it is introduced. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-honey-bees-abundant-wild-hives.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:00:03 EST news628858801 An endangered North Atlantic right whale calf that was recently spotted with severe wounds from a vessel strike has been found dead on Georgia's Cumberland Island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said March 2. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-endangered-whale-calf-dead-georgia.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 10:06:29 EST news628855587 Scientists at Nottingham Trent University investigated how thousands of bees reacted in unison to a very short and weak vibrational knock delivered at randomized times to a number of hives. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-gentle-hive-reveal-health-honeybee.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 09:50:03 EST news628854601 In a new study, published in the journal New Phytologist, a team of scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have, for the first time, predicted the extinction risk of all 328,565 known species of flowering plants. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-scientists-extinction-world-ai.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 08:31:03 EST news628849861 Until recently, technology limitations have made it challenging to effectively study the aggregation behavior of beluga whales. As climate change continues and sea surface temperatures rise quickly, the ability to do so becomes a priority, requiring methods that can capture data completely and accurately. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-seas-negatively-affecting-beluga-whales.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 06:50:01 EST news628766268