https://phys.org/biology-news/plants-animals en-us The latest science news on plants and animals A small team of bio-scientists from the University of Rostock's Institute for Biosciences and Nuremberg Zoo's Behavioral Ecology and Conservation Lab, both in Germany, has found evidence that bottlenose dolphins can sense electric fields. In their study, reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the group tested the ability of two captive bottlenose dolphins to sense a small electric field. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-bottlenose-dolphins-electric-fields.html Plants & Animals Sun, 03 Dec 2023 08:20:01 EST news620648234 James Cook University researcher Matthew Connors has discovered two new praying mantis species with the help of citizen scientists. The finds have been published in Zootaxa. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-citizen-scientists-mantis-species.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:18:00 EST news620648278 When it comes to studying patterns in how bugs damage plants, is it important to know the average amount and type of damage? Or the variation around the average? https://phys.org/news/2023-12-key-patterns.html Plants & Animals Agriculture Fri, 01 Dec 2023 08:33:04 EST news620641982 Born tail first, bottlenose dolphin calves emerge equipped with two slender rows of whiskers along their beak-like snouts—much like the touch-sensitive whiskers of seals. But the whiskers fall out soon after birth, leaving the youngster with a series of dimples known as vibrissal pits. Recently, Tim Hüttner and Guido Dehnhardt, from the University of Rostock, Germany, began to suspect that the dimples may be more than just a relic. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-bottlenose-dolphin-weak-electric-fields.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 18:00:01 EST news620582542 New research from Northern Arizona University has explained coast redwood's remarkable ability to recover from very severe fire, a rare sign of optimism amid a landscape increasingly scarred by severe fires. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-cautious-resilience-redwoods.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 17:31:03 EST news620587861 Animals often use vocalizations to warn of nearby danger to others. While this information is generally intended for members of the same species, other species can eavesdrop on the warnings to use the information for their own benefit. Sentinels are animals that have warning calls so widely understood by others that those other species will form groups with them, relying on the sentinels to provide warnings of danger. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-sentinel-universally-understood-continents.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:16:55 EST news620579812 In humans, nodding off for a few seconds is a clear sign of insufficient sleep—and can be dangerous in some situations, such as when driving a car. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-penguins-hours-seconds-long-micronaps.html Plants & Animals Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:10:30 EST news620579424 A new study of a migratory songbird shows that individuals with average-sized white tail spots—a trait that is critical to successful foraging—live longer than individuals with more extreme amounts of white in the tail. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-migratory-songbird-link-white-tail.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:18:51 EST news620572729 Dog and cat owners are familiar with the age-old debate: which of the two species is smarter? However, answering this question is impossible, especially due to the difficulty of a sound comparison. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-dogs-cats-skilled-human-gestures.html Plants & Animals Veterinary medicine Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:39:14 EST news620570352 There's a species of ant that is so rare, only a handful of records exist from across the entire eastern United States. North Carolina State University researcher Michelle Kirchner not only found these ants in the Triangle region of North Carolina, she is the first to document an entire colony for scientists, taxonomists and ant-thusiasts everywhere. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-rare-ant-species-rediscovered-north.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 11:58:12 EST news620567889 Plants regulate their development with a distinct group of molecular players. ROP proteins, a group of plant-specific proteins, are known to control plant tissue formation. Now, Hugh Mulvey and Liam Dolan at the GMI show that ROP proteins evolved at the transition between unicellular and multicellular plant life. The findings were published on November 30 in the journal Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-rop-exploring-dawn-multicellular-life.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 30 Nov 2023 11:00:01 EST news620557073 Hung from a common utility pole, a fiber optic cable—the kind bringing high-speed internet to more and more American households—can be turned into a sensor to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound, through an emerging technology called distributed fiber optic sensing. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-periodical-cicadas-chorus-fiber-optic.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:00:04 EST news620560802 In a study published in Current Biology, researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with their collaborators, reveal a groundbreaking discovery: Morphology of the orchid mantis' petal-shaped femoral lobes actually serves as structures for gliding, rather than the long-held belief that these lobes mimic flowers to attract pollinating prey. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-orchid-mantises-petal-shaped-femoral-lobes.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 08:31:16 EST news620555473 We humans are fixated on big brains as a proxy for smarts. But headless animals called brittle stars have no brains at all and still manage to learn through experience, new research reveals. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-brittle-stars-fine-brain.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 30 Nov 2023 06:27:05 EST news620548017 How do animals make decisions when faced with competing demands, and how have decision making processes evolved over time? In a recent publication in Biology Letters, Tina Barbasch, a postdoctoral researcher at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and Alison Bell (GNDP), a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, explored these questions using three-spined stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus). https://phys.org/news/2023-11-fish-brains-insight-molecular-basis.html Plants & Animals Cell & Microbiology Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:17:46 EST news620486259 Many people are keen on making healthy as well as sustainable food choices, and they often intuitively equate "healthy" with being "sustainable." A study by researchers at the University of Konstanz, the Johannes Kepler University Linz, and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences focuses on whether or not this perception corresponds to reality. It has just been published in the journal PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-healthy-foods-automatically-sustainable.html Plants & Animals Agriculture Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:34:03 EST news620480041 A team of evolutionary biologists and limnologists affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. has described the synchronous bioluminescent signals they observed being produced by a type of marine ostracod (Crustacea; Luxorina). In their paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their study of the synchronized mating behavior of the tiny creatures. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-sea-firefly-ostracods-synchrony-bioluminescent.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:10:01 EST news620478027 Biodiversity—the total variation of life—is multidimensional. Its study encompasses multiple facets, such as taxonomy (the variety of species), phylogenetics (their evolutionary history) and functionality (the ecological roles that species play in ecosystems). Protecting biodiversity implies safeguarding all of these dimensions. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-highly-threatened-sharks-rays-inadequate.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:27:41 EST news620476059 A team of zoologists and wildlife managers at the Endangered Wildlife Trust, in South Africa, working with a colleague from Stellenbosch University, another with South Africa's Department of Agriculture, and a third from the University of Pretoria, has found DNA evidence of a golden mole thought to be extinct. In their study, published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, the group used two techniques to find evidence of the mole. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-evidence-golden-mole-species-thought.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:25:04 EST news620475902 A Hobart-based solicitor built his reputation as "the foremost scientist in the colony" in the mid-1800s, despite limited contributions to scientific knowledge. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-solicitor-19th-century-tasmania-human-aboriginal.html Plants & Animals Other Tue, 28 Nov 2023 19:00:01 EST news620411401 A pair of environmental and life scientists, one with the University of Newcastle, in Australia, the other the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, has found that one species of mosquito native to Australia targets only the noses of frogs for feeding. In their paper published in the journal Ethology, John Gould and Jose Valdez describe their three-year study of frogs and Mimomyia elegans, a species of mosquito native to Australia. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-australian-mosquito-species-frogs-noses.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 28 Nov 2023 12:33:46 EST news620397223 A team of zoologists, environmental scientists, marine biologists and life scientists affiliated with several institutions in Ireland and the U.K. has found that despite international bans, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) continue to be both widespread and pervasive in the environment, including the world's oceans. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-years-persistent-pollutants-threat-marine.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:13:38 EST news620388816 A team of scientists from Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have revealed an unexpected function of a transport protein and its role in plant regulatory mechanisms. Their research, published in The Plant Cell earlier this year, could help reduce human mineral deficiencies by packing essential micronutrients into edible parts of plants. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-x-rays-reveal-unexpected-protein-function.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:54:05 EST news620387641 Tetrodotoxin, the neurotoxin that makes a blue-ringed octopus deadly, also protects Taricha newts—but we don't understand how they produce it, or what purposes it serves for them. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-female-toxin-producing-newts-poisonous-males.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:00:01 EST news620299848 University of Helsinki researchers have collected data about the personality traits of thousands of dogs, cats and their owners to explore owner–pet attachment. The data encompass about 2,500 pet owners and 3,300 pets. The work is published in the journal iScience. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-owner-personality-mental-well-being-humanpet.html Plants & Animals Veterinary medicine Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:07:45 EST news620323662 In the 50 years since monk parakeets arrived in Europe and spread across the continent, the species has developed distinct dialects that vary across countries and cities, according to a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institutes of Animal Behavior in Konstanz and for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-document-dialect-differences-parrot-european.html Plants & Animals Ecology Mon, 27 Nov 2023 14:40:03 EST news620318401 Headlamps alone illuminated the trail bisecting the Costa Rican rainforest. Having waded the black of the Tirimbina reserve so often before, Gilbert Barrantes, Laura Segura Hernández and Diego Solano Brenes knew the routine. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-silk-lines-pirate-spiders-capture.html Plants & Animals Ecology Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:50:19 EST news620311816 For the first time ever, scientists have studied the genome of Sosnowsky's hogweed, a poisonous invasive plant whose juice causes skin burns. They found that its genome has nearly twice as many genes as most other plants. The study is published in The Plant Journal. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-poisonous-invasive-genes.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:32:14 EST news620055131 In a unique study, published in the journal Environmental Pollution,the ability of "shrimp-like" creatures to reproduce successfully was found to be compromised by chemicals found in everyday plastics. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-plastic-shrimp-like-creatures.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 24 Nov 2023 12:59:00 EST news620053132 Scleractinian corals, or hard corals, have been disappearing globally over the past four decades, a result of climate change, pollution, unsustainable coastal development and overfishing. However, some Caribbean octocorals, or soft corals, are not meeting the same fate. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-key-algae-species-soft-corals.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 24 Nov 2023 12:24:04 EST news620051041