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Wild Biology Research
 | Pigeons display spectacular variations in their feathers, feet, beaks and other physical traits, but a new University of Utah study shows that visible traits don't always coincide with genetics: A bird from one breed may have huge foot feathers, while a closely related breed does not; Yet two unrelated pigeon breeds both may have large foot feathers.
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Another attractive theory falls foul of the facts. A census of trees in rainforests on three continents has confirmed that competition plays a central role in structuring communities. This contradicts the so-called neutral theory in ecology, which views random fluctuations as the decisive factor.
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 | Pigeons come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Some have feathers reaching up over their heads like a hood. Others have feathers all the way to the tips of their toes or fanned out on their tails like tiny turkeys. Now, researchers reporting online on Jan. 19 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have traced the birds' family tree in an effort to sort out how all that remarkable variation came to be. ...> Full Article |
Why different animals carry different amounts of fat depends on how they have solved the problem of avoiding both starving to death and being killed by predators, new research from the University of Bristol suggests.
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 | An international team of scientists has found one of the rarest and least known primates in Borneo, Miller's Grizzled Langur, a species which was believed to be extinct or on the verge of extinction. The team's findings, published in the American Journal of Primatology, confirms the continued existence of this endangered monkey and reveals that it lives in an area where it was previously not known to exist. ...> Full Article |
 | More than half of the 19,232 species newly known to science in 2009, the most recent calendar year of compilation, were insects -- 9,738 or 50.6 percent -- according to the 2011 State of Observed Species report released Jan. 18 by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. ...> Full Article |
The dung beetle dance, performed as the beetle moves away from the dung pile with his precious dung ball, is a mechanism to maintain the desired straight-line departure from the pile, according to a study published in the Jan. 18 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
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 | New research demonstrates that fruit flies keep their bearings by using the polarization pattern of natural skylight, bolstering the belief that many, if not all, insects have that capability. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists have long seen evidence of social behavior among many species of animals. Dolphins frolic together and lions live in packs. And, right under our feet, it appears that nematodes are having their own little gatherings in the soil. Until recently, it was unknown how the worms communicate to one another when it's time to come together. Now, researchers from Caltech and Cornell have identified, for the first time, the chemical signals that promote aggregation. ...> Full Article |
Researchers have found two new frog species in New Guinea, one of which is the new smallest known vertebrate on Earth.
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 | Predators select their prey in order to eat a nutritionally balanced diet and give themselves the best chance of producing healthy offspring. A new study shows for the first time that predatory animals choose their food on the basis of its nutritional value, rather than just overall calorie content. ...> Full Article |
 | Dozens of giant tortoises of a species believed extinct for 150 years may still be living at a remote location in the Galápagos Islands, a genetic analysis conducted by Yale University researchers reveals. ...> Full Article |
Females influence the gender of their offspring so they inherit either their mother's or grandfather's qualities. "High-quality" females -- those which produce more offspring -- are more likely to have daughters. Weaker females, whose own fathers were stronger and more successful, produce more sons.
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 | Climate change is having a more profound effect on alpine vegetation than at first anticipated, according to a study carried out by an international group of researchers and published in Nature Climate Change. The first ever pan-European study of changing mountain vegetation has found that some alpine meadows could disappear within the next few decades. ...> Full Article |
Oxytocin, the "love hormone" that builds mother-baby bonds and may help us feel more connected toward one another, can also make surly monkeys treat each other a little more kindly.
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