EcoWorldly

In 2002, there were 2,749 lions in Kenya.  Today, only about 2,000 exist.  In an announcement earlier this week by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), conservationists warn that at the current rate of decline, lions in Kenya could face extinction within the next 20 years unless urgent action is taken. Read the rest of this entry »

A very special whale was spotted recently on two separate occasions by researchers off the Great Barrier Reef.  Migaloo, an all-white humpback whale, is truly one-of-a-kind.   First spotted in 1991 off the coast of Australia, the 20-something male is the only documented white humpback whale in the world.   Derived from an Aboriginal name meaning “white fella,” Migaloo’s last confirmed sighting was back in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

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Both economic theory and experimental data concur–increasing the distance traveled to find food incurs “negative fitness consequences”, by decreasing total energy for maintenance, repair and reproduction. Yet, most animals must travel to find food. Individual, small groups, and large herds of eutherian (placental) mammals–like wild buffalo, gazelles, lions, and elephants–often travel great distances to find food. This expenditure of energy, at the apparent risk of biological fitness, has puzzled zoologists for some time.

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View of Blüemlisalp and Oeschinen lake, Bernese Alps

As climate scientists scour the Earth’s surface looking for indications of climate change impacts, freshwater lakes and reservoirs are becoming the sentinels of choice for many investigations. Although they make up a small percentage of the planet’s surface area, such bodies of water–small to large–are providing clues to past climate fluctuations, as their sediments and “catchments” (the total chemical and biological material that results from the presence of the body of water) often record ancient climate shifts and impacts and offer indicators of current climate change.

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It was called the “red mark test”, or just the “mark test”, and it was first tried out on a Gorilla over two decades ago. Scientists applied a smudge of red powder to the forehead of a sleeping gorilla, then placed a large viewing mirror close by, and waited for the ape to awaken. To the surprise of all, after the gorilla first noticed its reflection (and reacted to it as a social response), it then began to recognize that it was looking at itself, somehow, and, noticing the smudge over its eyes, immediately began trying to wipe it off. Later, the gorilla would use the mirror to groom itself and even examine parts of its body.

The test is now referred to as mirror self recognition (MSR). The test indicates self-awareness of a higher, and formerly, distinctly human level. The test is also thought to correlate to higher brain behaviors such as empathy and altruism.

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Of the great apes–a group that includes chimps, gorillas, and bonobos–the orangutan (found only in the tropical rain forests of Sumatra and Borneo islands) is the most endangered, currently. Recent wild fires, tribal conflicts and on-going deforestation has seriously dwindled their total habitat. Some primatologists believe that the orangutan is the closest primate relative to humans–more than even the chimpanzee.

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Scuba divers are quite familiar with the dangers associated with decompression. Diving deep into high-pressure waters forces the compressed air in their tanks into solution in the blood stream. As they surface, some of the nitrogen in this dissolved air emerges as bubbles of nitrogen gas, which is highly damaging to blood vessels, and can be lethal. This is known commonly as “the bends”, and medically as decompression syndrome. Thus, divers know that they must resurface at a slow rate to give the body time to dispense with the nitrogen. Even with this precaution, many divers experience pain and even bone damage (known as osteonecrosis) from repeated diving over many years.

Scientists who study Cetacea (the group that includes whales, porpoises and dolphins) have long puzzled over how deep-diving whales (which are also air-breathing mammals like us) avoid this dangerous, decompression condition, that is, why don’t whales get the bends?

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Ecologists and biologist who study the world’s flora and fauna have been reporting a species decline amongst amphibians for over a decade or more. This decline has been attributed to a combination of habitat loss and diseases (a fungus pandemic, a virus). A 2007 paper (Becker, et al) made a case for “habitat splitting” wherein certain Brazilian, Amazon frog species that are born in water, but then occupy land ecosystems as adults, are “cut off” from making this transition, due to human road building and development.

And yet, despite this trend, there remain biological (or biodiversity) “hot spots” around the globe in which a great many amphibian species are found to be thriving in the same ecosystem. In some cases, such hot spots offer potentially hundreds of new species for discovery and analysis. One such hot spot is the island of Madagascar. It is an “Eden” for amphibians.

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searocket plants (cakile maritima)

In another addition to the “secret life” (and mysterious abilities) of plants, a recent study demonstrated that a native, perennial plant, The Great Lakes Searocket (Cakile edentula), responds to the presence of related and non-related plants differently.

If the searocket is place in beds with plants that are not related to it, it will begin to stimulate its root system to grow more rapidly, which is a tactic that many plants use automatically in order to compete with others (for space, light, nutrients, etc.), indiscriminate of relatedness. But when placed in pots with related (sibling) plants, the searocket does not do this. Somehow–and no one has discovered how yet–the plant is able to detect similarities and differences (perhaps genetic, chemical, or physiological) in its local, vegetative environment. Many animals are not able to do this.

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A common garden slug, Arion lusitanicus, eating (note: the subject of these experiments was a sea slug) photo credit: Håkaan Svensson, Xauxa

After two weeks of a strict algae-only diet, a one-inch, green sea slug species (Elysia chlorotica) was somehow able to incorporate the plants chloroplasts (the cell-like organelles that trap solar energy and convert it to sugar), and then live out the rest of their single-year lives without eating.

The slug, a snail-like mollusk without a shell, was able to photosynthesize, just as plants do. Scientists are not sure exactly how it is able to pull this trick off, but they do know that the slug is able to harness the DNA found within the alga’s chloroplasts (note: chloroplasts in plants are like mitochondria, in that each has its own DNA apart from the DNA found in the cell’s nucleus). But this DNA only encodes a small percentage of the genes (and their proteins) needed for complete photosynthesis. The rest of the needed genes (in particular the nuclear osbO gene) are in the algae cell’s nuclear DNA. Not to worry, somehow, the slug is able to “steal” those genes as well, and incorporate them into their germ line cells–allowing them to pass this new capability on to their off-spring.

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