Plants- Animals Science News

The ability of gray squirrels to learn from observing others is highlighted in a new study. The research shows how squirrels can quickly learn from watching their peers, particularly if it relates to stealing food. The research adds to growing evidence that animals are primed to learn quickly about what is most important to their survival and that they learn by observing others. It is the first study to test the ability of gray squirrels to learn from observation.

The research team tested the squirrels' ability to learn to choose between two pots of food after watching another squirrel remove a nut from one of the pots. One group was rewarded for choosing the same pot as the previous squirrel, the second group was rewarded for targeting the other pot.

Those that were rewarded for choosing food from the other pot learned more quickly than those that were rewarded for choosing the same pot. This suggests that grey squirrels learn more quickly to recognise the absence of food.

The study was repeated, but instead of observing another squirrel, the animals were trained with the use of a card. In this test, the squirrels showed no significant difference in their ability to learn to choose the same or opposite pot.

The study suggests that squirrels are primed to recognise other squirrels as potential food thieves. It also shows that they learn more quickly from real life observations.

Corresponding author Dr Lisa Leaver of the University of Exeter, said: "Our study is significant because it is the first to show that grey squirrels learn from observing others. It adds to growing evidence that all kinds of animals, from humans and other primates to many species of birds, learn from observation and that they have evolved to learn quickly about those things that are most important to their lives – in the case of grey squirrels, gathering and storing nuts."

The research team now hopes to conduct further studies into the psychology of grey squirrels to learn more about how the animals learn from – and possibly deceive – one another.


http://www.exeter.ac.uk/

Why do some plants defend themselves from insect attacks better than others? New evidence shows that the difference might be due to whether they're getting any plant love.


In research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from North Carolina State University and Duke University discovered that sexually produced evening primrose plants withstand attacks from plant-eaters like caterpillars better than plant relatives that reproduce by themselves.

The findings are important steps to learning more about how plants have evolved defenses against insect herbivores, says Dr. Marc Johnson, assistant professor of plant biology at NC State and the lead author of the research paper.

"The variation in sexual reproduction has a large impact on the ability of plants to evolve defenses against herbivores," Johnson says.

In the study, the researchers performed both lab and field experiments on evening primrose (Onagraceae) plants, a plant family that has 259 different species – 85 percent of which reproduce sexually with the remainder reproducing asexually – to gauge the effects of plant sex on defense mechanisms. The researchers found that so-called generalist herbivores – those that eat a variety of plants – preferred to feed on the asexual species and lived longer while doing so.

The results were a bit different for so-called "specialist" plant-eaters, however. Those insects that prefer just one kind of food were more apt to munch on sexually reproduced species of plant. This most likely occurs, Johnson says, because specialized plant-eaters evolve alongside their hosts and have found ways to co-opt plant defenses. Instead of being deterred by certain chemical compounds produced as defenses by the plant, the specialized plant-eaters are attracted to them.

Johnson says the nuanced results make sense.

"Sex shuffles up genes and allows individual plants to get rid of bad genes and keep good ones," he said. "That helps them evolve defenses against generalist herbivores. Though there are short-term benefits to asexual reproduction – populations can grow more rapidly and propagate even when pollination is not possible – losing sex puts plants at a long-term disadvantage.

The research was funded by NC State, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation, Duke University and the National Institutes of Health. Johnson's co-authors from Duke University are Dr. Mark D. Rausher, professor of biology, and Dr. Stacey D. Smith, a post-doctoral researcher in biology.


http://www.ncsu.edu/

http://www.plos.org/

No human is a clone of their parents but the same cannot be said for other living things. While your DNA is a combination of half your mother and half your father, other species do things differently. The advantage of clonal reproduction is that it produces an individual exactly like an existing one—which would be very useful for farmers who could replicate the best of their animals or crops without the lottery of sexual reproduction. Clonal reproduction of crop species took a step closer to being realised with new research published in PLoS Biology.
The type of cell division that creates eggs and sperm is called meiosis, and it differs from 'normal' cell division (mitosis) because instead of producing two genetically identical daughter cells, it produces four cells each containing only half of the parental amount of DNA. Meiosis occurs in all species that reproduce sexually, from microorganisms such as yeast to plants, animals and human beings. This new paper blurs the line between the two different types of cell division by showing a plant where three specific mutations are experimentally combined. These divisions are normally meiotic – which make pollen and egg cells – and are replaced by mitotic divisions.

The work, by a team of researchers in France and Austria, is potentially very important commercially, because it makes the creation of stable new mutant crops—such as plants of a different colour, or with a different yield, etc.—much simpler. It is now much closer to being possible to reproduce a plant that produces perfect potatoes, maize or rice, without the lottery of reassortment that each meiotic division and ensuing fertilization introduces.

The first steps of both meiosis and mitosis are the replication of the dividing cell's DNA. Once replication has occurred, the chromosomes condense into tightly bound structures, and in mitosis these form an X shape in which each half of the X is a chromatid, comprising one complete copy of the chromosome. The double-chromatid chromosomes line up along the centre of the cell. In mitosis, the two chromatids are pulled apart—the X is divided along one axis of symmetry—and these then pass into two genetically identical daughter cells. In meiosis, there are two lining up and dividing phases. The first lining up is of homologous chromosomes—all chromosomes in an adult cell have a partner, members of the partnership coming from the mother and father of the cell—and these homologous chromosomes are each made up of two chromatids. The first division divides homologous pairs of chromosomes while the second meiotic division is just like the mitotic di vision: the chromosomes line up at the middle of the new cell and the chromatids divide at the centre of the X.

Thus the differences between mitosis and meiosis are that meiosis has two rounds of division; co-segregation of sister chromatids at the first division; and recombination that occurs during the first division—a swapping over process that adds more genetic diversity to offspring. The new work, led by Raphael Mercier, identifies a gene that controls one of these three features—entry into the second meiotic division—in the sexual plant Arabidopsis thaliana. By combining a mutation in this gene with two other previously described mutations—one that eliminates recombination and another that modifies chromosome segregation—the authors have created a strain of plant (called MiMe for 'mitosis instead of meiosis') in which meiosis is totally replaced by mitosis.

MiMe plants produce pollen and eggs that are genetically identical to their parent. If MiMe eggs are self-fertilized by MiMe sperm, the offspring plant has twice as much DNA as the parent generation, and has all the genes from this single parent.

Thus the authors have made a form of asexual reproduction possible in a normally sexual species. Turning meiosis into mitosis is not enough to reach clonal reproduction, but it's a giant leap towards it. This has potential revolutionary applications in crop improvement and propagation.

This work was supported by an INRA postdoctoral fellowship to Id'E. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ The latest assessment of the status of all of the UK’s 246 regularly occurring birds – Birds of Conservation Concern 3 – shows 52 are now of the highest conservation concern and have been placed on the 'red list'.

The revised red list now includes even more familiar countryside birds, including the cuckoo, lapwing and yellow wagtail, joining other widespread species such as the turtle dove, grey partridge, house sparrow and starling.

Alarmingly, red listed species now account for more than one-in-five (21 per cent) of all the UK’s bird species. This is a far higher proportion than compared to the last assessment in 2002, when 40 species (16 per cent) were red listed. Most species on the red list have suffered a recent halving of range or population in the UK, or have undergone a historical decline since 1800.

Amongst the species new to the red list is a suite of birds visiting the UK in summer, notably the cuckoo, wood warbler, and tree pipit. These birds, are widespread, but rapidly-declining, summer visitors to the UK.

Their addition to the red list is highlighting the concern that many long-distance migratory birds nesting in Europe and wintering in Africa are increasingly in trouble. Currently 21 of the birds on the red list are summer visitors to the UK, with the majority of these spending the winter in sub-Saharan Africa.

The continued decline of widespread farmland and woodland birds is a theme which has developed since the compilation of the last list in 2002. Lapwing, a formerly much-more widespread wading bird, and the hawfinch, a woodland bird largely confined to England, have both joined the red list in the latest assessment.

Three species of seabird join the red list for the first time. The Balearic shearwater - a smaller relative of the albatross - visits the UK from its Mediterranean breeding grounds regularly each autumn. This seabird, which is thought to face a higher risk of global extinction even than the giant panda - is the rarest bird to regularly occur in the UK.

Highlighting concerns about the fortunes of seabirds around the northern coasts of the British Isles, the Arctic skua has joined the red list straight from the 2002 green list: the only species to do so. The familiar herring gull also joins the red list as its population has more than halved in recent times.

For the first time two winter-visiting birds have joined the red list. The dunlin, a starling-sized wading bird, and the scaup - a duck - have been placed on the red list because of declines in wintering populations. The ongoing decline of the dunlin population has seen this wader slump to its lowest levels since recording began.

While a link to climate change has not been demonstrated, the addition of five species on the southern edge of their nesting range in Britain (Temminck’s stint, ruff, whimbrel, redwing and fieldfare) to the red list may provide some the evidence of range shifts. These species have only had a toehold in the UK in recent decades and now that appears to be slipping. (However, redwing and fieldfare are still plentiful visitors to the UK in winter).

Good news

However, the 2009 assessment does contain some good news. Six species (stone-curlew, woodlark, quail, Scottish crossbill, bullfinch and reed bunting) have been removed from the 2002 red list, largely because of a recovery in their numbers or range, or a better understanding of their populations. These species are now placed on the amber list.

The stone-curlew is a bird of farmland and open countryside. Virtually confined to Wessex and central East Anglia, the stone-curlew population has increased because of the fantastic efforts by landowners to improve the fortunes of this striking wading bird.

'Conservation works, but with a growing to-do list we have to strive even harder to retain the rich variety of wildlife that our islands possess.'

Improvements in land management, especially of heathland, have also led to a dramatic increase in the UK population of the woodlark, a heathland bird. The bullfinch and the reed bunting have also been placed on the amber list following modest recoveries in their populations.

Scottish crossbill stable

The Scottish crossbill – the only bird species with its total world range confined to the UK – has also been removed from the red list. A survey (funded by RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage) found approximately 13,000 individuals of this colourful endemic finch, and its population is currently thought to be stable.

Five species assessed in 2002 (bluethroat, scarlet rosefinch, icterine warbler, hoopoe and snow goose) were not considered in the 2009 revision, because they failed to meet the qualifying criteria for inclusion.

Four species not assessed in 2002 (Balearic shearwater; shorelark; yellow-legged gull; and hooded crow) were considered in the 2009 revision for the first time.

Birds of Conservation Concern 3 is compiled by a partnership of organisations, including the British Trust for Ornithology, Countryside Council for Wales, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural England, Northern Ireland Environment Agency, RSPB, Scottish Natural Heritage, and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust,

The full Birds of Conservation Concern 3 report will be published in the June edition of British Birds.

According to a new publication by Wetlands International, more than half the populations of waders in Europe, West Asia and Africa are declining at an accelerating rate.

Waders are a group of relatively small waterbirds including species like lapwings, plovers, godwits, curlews and sandpipers. Many of them undertake long distance migrations from their Arctic breeding grounds to wintering areas as far away as Southern Africa. Some concentrate in huge numbers at just a few sites, making these wetlands critical for their survival.

The new ‘Wader Atlas’ is the first comprehensive overview of key site networks for waders in Europe, West Asia and Africa, and the publication highlights a need for better protection of the key wetlands along their flyways, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

The authors outline that whilst many European Union (EU) Member States have established a fairly comprehensive network of protected areas for waders, many of which are Important Bird Areas (IBAs) identified by the BirdLife Partnership, the protection and management of key sites is still far from adequate beyond the EU’s borders.

“Waders such as Ruff [Philomachus pugnax] are heavily protected in the EU; farmers receive thousands of Euros for nest protection”, said author Simon Delany. However, the new publication outlines that resources outside the EU urgently need to be increased – helping to conserving waterbirds at all stages of their lives.

The wetlands of the African west coast are under enormous pressures. The sparse water resources in the Sahelian zone are tapped by dams which have turned formerly shallow wetlands into permanently dry lands. Irrigation schemes for growing human population disrupt the water flow in wetlands such as the shrinking Lake Chad. The atlas also outlines that wetlands themselves are often converted to agricultural use - such as in the Tana River Delta in Kenya, which is threatened by conversion to sugar cane plantations.

“Migratory waterbirds can only be effectively conserved through international cooperation along their entire flyway”, said Dr Vicky Jones - BirdLife’s Global Flyways Officer. “BirdLife Partners are focusing on joining up site-based action at critical sites for waterbirds within the African-Eurasian area”.

BirdLife is a key partner in the Wings over Wetlands (WOW) project which is making an enormous difference to the understanding of migratory waterbirds and their needs, demonstrating best practice in the conservation and wise-use of wetlands, and increasing cooperation along the African-Eurasian flyway.

BirdLife is also involved in a new ‘WetCap’ project to help strengthen waterbird conservation and build capacity for wetland management activities at key sites in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania. “WetCap will promote the wise-use of wetlands which benefit local people by providing clean water and opportunities for fishing, agriculture, recreation and tourism”, said Dr Jones.

On the ground, IBA Caretakers and Site Support Groups are working to protect and monitor key sites for migratory birds. “A wide range of activities are being implemented by the BirdLife Partnership to support the development and growth of this local approach to site conservation, through capacity building, networking, sharing experience and provision of seed-financing”, added Dr Jones.

BirdLife recognises that despite their importance, wetlands are amongst the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems.

Thirty-five percent of the world’s birds, 52 percent of amphibians and 71 percent of warm-water reef-building corals are likely to be particularly susceptible to climate change, the first results of an IUCN study have revealed.

The report identified more than 90 biological traits which are believed to make species most susceptible to climate change. It found that 3,438 of the world’s 9,856 bird species have at least one out of 11 traits that could make them susceptible to climate change.

Albatross, penguin, petrel and shearwater families are all likely to be susceptible to climate change, while heron and egret families, and osprey, kite, hawk and eagle families are among those least likely to be susceptible to climate change.

“This is the first time that a systematic assessments of species’ susceptibility to climate change has been attempted,” says Wendy Foden, of IUCN’s Species Programme. “Climate change is already happening, but conservation decision makers currently have very little guidance on which species are going to be the worst affected.”

The study found 3,217 of the 6,222 amphibians in the world are likely to be susceptible to climate change. Three salamander families are could be particularly susceptible, while 80-100 percent of Seychelles frogs and Indian Burrowing Frogs, Australian ground frogs, horned toads and glassfrog families were assessed as susceptible.

Specialized habitat requirements, such as species with water-dependant larvae, and those unable to disperse due to barriers such as large water bodies or human-transformed habitats are most at risk.

The report found that 566 of 799 warm-water reef-building coral species are likely to be susceptible to the impacts of climate change. The Acroporidae family, including staghorn corals, had particularly high numbers of susceptible species, while the Fungiidae family, including mushroom corals, and the Mussidae family, including some brain corals, possess relatively few.

Coral species qualified due to their sensitivity to increases in temperature, sedimentation and physical damage from storms and cyclones. Poor dispersal ability and colonization potential were used as a further important indicators.

According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 32 percent of amphibians are threatened with extinction. Of these, 75 percent are susceptible to climate change while 41 percent of non-threatened species are susceptible to climate change. For birds, the overall percentage of those threatened with extinction is lower – 12 percent. However, 80 percent of those are susceptible to climate change.

“There is a large overlap between threatened and climate change susceptible amphibian and bird species,” says Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head of IUCN Species Programme. “Climate change may cause a sharp rise in the risk and rate of extinction of currently threatened species. But we also want to highlight species which are currently not threatened but are likely to become so as climate change impacts intensify. By doing this we hope to promote preemptive and more effective conservation action.”


http://www.iucn.org/

Cyclamen, a common, pretty garden flower, is at risk of extinction because of climate change.

In a study published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, researchers show, using mathematical modelling, that the ideal climate for Cyclamen will become increasingly rare and might have totally disappeared by the 2050's. Some species of Cyclamen are adaptable enough and could survive climate change, but many would probably disappear.

Chris Yesson and Alastair Culham, from the University of Reading in the UK built mathematical models based on the current distribution of the 21 different species of Cyclamen, in order to predict the impact of climate change on Cyclamen within the next 50 years.

Yesson and Culham identified distinct climatic niches -- geographic areas with the ideal climate -- for different species of Cyclamen. Most Cyclamen species thrive in a typical Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters, but many are found in areas with much harsher climatic conditions. Yesson and Culham show that climatic niches are likely to decrease for all species of Cyclamen, and by more than 60% for most species.

Yesson and Culham conclude: "Many of these species are considered to be at high risk of extinction due to climate change."


http://www.biomedcentral.com/

Retaining a network of wildlife conservation areas is vital in helping to save up to 90 per cent of bird species in Africa affected by climate change, according to scientists.

The research team – led by Durham University, including BirdLife International and the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK) – looked at the effects of climate change on 815 bird species of conservation concern in sub-Saharan Africa and on the network of sites designated for them (termed Important Bird Areas).

Published in the journal Ecology Letters, the research – funded by the RSPB – demonstrates that a network of wildlife areas will be a crucial tool to help biodiversity survive future climate change. The findings suggest an urgent need for legislators to protect eco-systems and key wildlife areas in Africa. They show that, over the next 75 years, the biodiversity of some regions will suffer more than others as a result of climate change. They also underline the importance of providing 'green corridors' to help wildlife to move to find new climatically-suitable areas.

The team led by Dr Stephen Willis and Dr David Hole from the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University, used simulation models to see how climate change might affect birds in Important Bird Areas, in the coming decades under a scenario of moderate climate change.

The researchers looked at a network of 863 IBA sites across 42 countries and territories covering around 2,079,306 square kms (1,292,020 square miles) or 7 per cent of the African continent. The sites are identified as being critical for the conservation of birds, in particular, species that are globally threatened, restricted in range or restricted to particular biomes. Together, African IBAs are home to 875 of these species.

Climate change is not the only issue affecting wildlife in Africa. More than 40 per cent of African IBAs lack any form of legal protection under national or international law. Agricultural development, logging, invasive alien species, and unsustainable hunting and trapping are the main threats to bird species and IBAs across the African continent.

Dr Stephen Willis said: "We looked at bird species across the whole network of protected areas in Africa and the results show that wildlife conservation areas will be essential for the future survival of many species of birds.

"Important Bird Areas will provide new habitats for birds that are forced to move as temperatures and rainfall change and food sources become scarce in the areas where they currently occur. Protected areas are a vital conservation tool to help birds adapt to climate change in the 21st century."

The findings show that the biodiversity of particular areas is likely to change significantly. The turnover of species in some sites could be as high as 50 per cent, as established species leave to find more suitable climes or new food supplies, and new species move in to an area. The adaptability of birds will be an important factor, the experts say.

Dr Stephen Willis said: "The results show that 90 per cent of priority species in Africa will find suitable climate somewhere in the network of protected areas in future. However, one in ten birds will have to find new places to live and breed so new sites will have to be added to the IBA network.

"The central regions of Africa should maintain many of their current species as long as the protected areas remain intact. By contrast, areas of the Afrotropical Highlands, which occur in countries such as Cameroon, South Africa and Ethiopia, will see enormous change with more than 40 per cent of species leaving."

The findings also show that some species are likely to struggle, and may even become extinct unless new populations can be established. A priority species might be lost from a particular IBA, but there may be other climatically suitable sites in the network for the species to move to. Many species will only survive if they adapt by moving across Africa to seek out new, climatically-suitable areas to inhabit.

Dr Stuart Butchart, Global Research Coordinator at BirdLife International, said: "The survival of much of the planet's biodiversity under climate change will depend upon adequate protection for biodiverse ecosystems, the IBAs within them, and support for the people who depend on them - so that local communities can participate actively in making their environment more resilient. It is essential that policy leads to adequate protection of IBAs and takes account of the critical role that ecosystems play in helping wildlife and people adapt."

Ruth Davis, head of climate change at the RSPB, said: "Looking after IBAs is vital for the future of our wildlife. Protecting the natural resources and services provided by these ecosystems is vital for people too. Healthy ecosystems are the first line of defence against the impacts of climate change for many of the world's poorest people."

One example, is the Gola Forest Transboundary Peace Park, on the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia, uniting existing protected IBAs and encompassing additional forest to provide corridors for the movement of wildlife between them. It protects one of the largest remaining blocks of intact forest in the Upper Guinea Area of West Africa.

Between 129 and 221 new species of frogs have been identified in Madagascar, practically doubling the currently known amphibian fauna. The finding suggests that the number of amphibian species in Madagascar, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, has been significantly underestimated. According to the researchers, if these results are extrapolated at a global scale, the number of amphibian species worldwide could double.
Their study, conducted with participation of the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC), is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

As Professor David R. Vieites, CSIC researcher at the Spanish National Natural Sciences Museum in Madrid, states: “the diversity of species in Madagascar is far from being known and there is still a lot of scientific research to be done. Our data suggest that the number of new species of amphibians not only has been underestimated but it is spatially widespread, even in well studied areas. For example, two of the most visited and studied National parks, Ranomafana and Mantadía/Analamazaotra, harbour 31 and 10 new species respectively.”

Dr. Frank Glaw, curator of herpetology at the Zoologische Staatssammlung from Munich explains: ”During the past 15 years, we discovered and described over 100 new frog species from Madagascar, which led us to believe that our species inventory is almost complete. But as our new surveys show, there are many more species than we suspected.”

The paper suggests that the total biodiversity on the island could be much higher also in other groups, so the actual destruction of natural habitats may be affecting more species than previously thought. This is important for conservation planning, as the rate of destruction of rainforests in Madagascar has been one of the highest in the planet, with more than 80% of the historic surface of rainforest already lost.

“Although a lot of reserves and national parks have been created in Madagascar during the last decade, the actual situation of politic instability is allowing the cut of the forest within national parks, generating a lot of uncertainty about the future of the planned network of protected areas,” explains Vieites. Almost a quarter of the new species discovered have not been found yet in protected areas.

Biodiversity

The study proposes different criteria -- morphological, genetic and bioacoustic -- to assign the candidate species (the ones which have been identified as potential new species but not yet formerly described) to different categories. In Madagascar, the number of candidate species is higher than the number of described species in some genera.

“Using these criteria and the integration of different techniques under the principle of congruence could help to boost the inventory and the process of species description worldwide,” explains Vieites. Dr. Miguel Vences, professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig adds: "People think that we know which plant and animal species live on this planet. But the century of discoveries has only just begun – the majority of life forms on Earth is still awaiting scientific recognition."

Also participating in the study were researchers from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Museo regionale di Scienze Naturali from Torino, and the Hessisches Landesmuseum from Darmstadt.

Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world and one of the most biodiverse areas globally, with a high degree of endemic species. “To get an idea of its biodiversity, while in the Iberian Peninsula are about 30 species of amphibians and in Germany about 20, in a single locality in Madagascar we can find ca. 100 species of frogs,” explains Vieites.


http://www.csic.es/index.do

Male anole lizards signal ownership of their territory by sitting up on a tree trunk, bobbing their heads up and down and extending a colorful throat pouch. They can spot a rival lizard up to 25 meters away, said Terry Ord, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis who is working with Judy Stamps, professor of evolution and ecology.

The lizards' signals need to be strong enough for a rival to see, but not vivid enough to say "eat me" to a passing predator. But their forest home can be a visually noisy environment, with branches and leaves waving in the breeze and casting patterns of light and shade.

"They have to have a strategy to get their message across," Ord said.

Ord videotaped two species of anole lizards, Anolis cristatellus and Anolis gundlachi, in the Caribbean National Forest in Puerto Rico. He found that the more "visual noise" in the background, the faster and more exaggerated the movements of the lizards.

Anole lizards are interesting to evolutionary biologists because different species are found on different islands all over the Caribbean. The lizards are not particularly closely related -- they are separated by 30 million years of evolution -- but they live in similar environments with the same obstacles to communication. So Ord is using them as a model to investigate the evolution of such signals.

The other authors on the paper, which is published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society part B, are Richard A. Peters, Australian National University, Canberra; and Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behavior at UC Davis. The work was supported by grants from the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.


http://www.ucdavis.edu/index.html

Whether baby lizards will turn out to be male or female is a more complicated question than scientists would have ever guessed, according to a new report published online on June 4th in Current Biology. The study shows that for at least one lizard species, egg size matters.

"We were astonished," said Richard Shine of the University of Sydney. "Our studies on small alpine lizards have revealed another influence on lizard sex: the size of the egg. Big eggs tend to give girls, and small eggs tend to give boys. And if you remove some of the yolk just after the egg is laid, it's likely to switch to being a boy, even if it has female sex chromosomes; and if you inject a bit of extra yolk, the egg will produce a girl, even if it has male sex chromosomes."

In many animals, the sex of offspring depends on specialized sex chromosomes. In mammals and many reptiles, for instance, males carry one X and one Y chromosome, while females have a pair of X chromosomes. In contrast, animals such as alligators depend on environmental cues like temperature to set the sex of future generations.

The new findings add to evidence that when it comes to genetic versus environmental factors influencing sex determination, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. In fact, Shine and his colleagues earlier found in hatchlings of the alpine-dwelling Bassiana duperreyi that extreme nest temperatures can override the genetically determined sex, in some cases producing XX boys and XY girls. His group had also noticed something else: large lizard eggs were more likely to produce daughters and small eggs to produce sons.

Despite the correlation, Shine said he had assumed that the association was indirect. In fact, his colleague Rajkumar Radder conducted studies in which he removed some yolk from larger eggs, more likely to produce daughters, to confirm that assumption.

"We were confident that there would be no effect on hatchling sex whatsoever," Shine said. "When those baby boy lizards started hatching out, we were gob-smacked."

Shine thinks there will be much more to discover when it comes to lizard sex determination.

"I suspect that the ecology of a species will determine how it makes boys versus girls, and that our yolk-allocation effect is just the tip of a very large iceberg," he said.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators have joined forces to control the pink hibiscus mealybug, which, if unchecked, could cause an estimated $750 million in crop losses annually in the United States.

This invasive pest, Maconellicoccus hirsutus, was first found in Florida several years ago and is spreading within Florida and to other states. As it feeds, the mealybug injects saliva into the plant, causing malformation, stunting and eventual death.

Research leader David Hall and entomologist Stephen Lapointe of the ARS Subtropical Insects Research Unit (SIRU), Fort Pierce, Fla., are leading an effort to find biological methods to stop the pest.

Before the pest came to Florida in 2002, Lapointe, working in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, discovered that female pink hibiscus mealybugs (PMH) emit a powerful pheromone that attracts males. To recreate this chemical in the laboratory, Lapointe used a hormone analog to eliminate male PHMs from a colony, leaving only females for pheromone analyses.

He also developed a simple diet for feeding the mealybugs, showing that PHM could be reared--for research purposes--on an artificial diet. Due to the expanding infestation of the mealybug, research to develop an optimal artificial diet was recently initiated at the Fort Pierce laboratory.

In addition to these efforts, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services responded to the Florida infestation by releasing two effective mealybug parasites, Anagyrus kamali and Gyranusoidea indica, along with a predatory ladybug, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri. These releases have resulted in a reduction of more than 98 percent in PHM population density in some locations.

Lapointe's new artificial PHM diet will enable the production of larger numbers of healthy mealybugs to rear wasps and ladybugs needed for successful PHM-control programs.


http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found a way to entice male pink hibiscus mealybugs (PHMs) to congregate. That leaves the pesky insects--which attack more than 200 species of ornamental, vegetable and citrus crops--open to detection.

A team of researchers led by chemist Aijun Zhang at the ARS Chemicals Affecting Insect Behavior Laboratory (CAIBL), Beltsville, Md., discovered the two compounds that together make up the female PHM's sex pheromone.

The compounds provide a timely method with which to monitor and ultimately reduce infestations. PHMs escape conventional insecticides partly because their outer coatings, or cuticles, are resistant to topical penetration.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Riverdale, Md., are using the PHM-pheromone blend as a sex lure to track mealybug pest infestations in Florida and California. APHIS is also using the pheromone blend to chart the effectiveness of "biological controls," or natural enemies used to combat agricultural pest species.

The ARS scientists are now working with cooperators to improve both the process for producing the PHM pheromone and the method for using the compounds to control infestations. Such methods include technologies to disrupt the PHMs' mating activities, as well as to attract them on a mass scale for removal.

The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators are seeking the public's help in surveying for once-common ladybug species that are now hard to find.

Researchers with ARS, Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y., and South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings want people to photograph every ladybug possible, and to send the photos to Cornell so researchers can inventory the insects. In particular, the scientists are looking for rare species, such as the nine-spotted, two-spotted and transverse lady beetles.

These beetles were common 20 years ago, but have become harder to find in the past few decades. There are more than 400 ladybug species native to North America, but some have become extremely rare, displaced perhaps by development, pesticides, non-native species and other factors.

Entomologist Louis Hesler at the ARS North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings is particularly interested in the nine-spotted, two-spotted and transverse ladybugs because the farm community in South Dakota where he works has depended on these predatory beetles for years to eat insect pests that eat farm crops.

Urban gardeners are interested in ladybugs because they protect garden crops as well. Ladybugs also protect North American forests.

In a survey this past summer, Hesler and colleague Mike Catangui, an entomologist at SDSU in Brookings, found 1,000 ladybugs, but only about 10 each of the three rare species. Hesler and Catangui are co-principal investigators in the SDSU part of the "Lost Ladybug Project."

The project has two facets: the research component, which Hesler, Catangui, and other scientists in New York State are participating in, and the citizen science component.

As part of the citizen science part of the project, researchers are encouraging participation from students who are interested in entomology, agriculture or science.

Those wishing to participate can visit http://www.lostladybug.org for tips on finding and photographing ladybugs and submitting photos. The website includes ways to track and map the Lost Ladybug data.

Two Iowa State University botanists and their colleague at the University of North Carolina have discovered a new species of North American bamboo in the hills of Appalachia. It is the third known native species of the hardy grass. The other two were discovered more than 200 years ago.

ISU botanists Lynn Clark and Jimmy Triplett study bamboo diversity and evolution. They first heard about "hill cane" from University of North Carolina botanist Alan Weakley. As soon as they saw it, they knew it was different.

'Hill cane'

Lynn Clark, Iowa State professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, and Ph.D. student Jimmy Triplett study bamboo diversity and evolution. They first heard about "hill cane" from Alan Weakley, a botanist at the University of North Carolina. Although the plant was known to the people in the area, its distinctiveness was not recognized.

Hill cane differs from the other two native North American bamboo species -- commonly known as switch cane and river cane -- in an important way: It drops its leaves in the fall.

"That's why it was recognized locally as being different," Clark said. "It's pretty uncommon for bamboos to drop their leaves."

Clark should know. She's an internationally recognized bamboo expert. She had previously discovered 74 new species of bamboo.

"All the other new ones came from Central and South America," she said. "It's so exciting to find a new species in our own backyard!"

Her 75th species discovery has been named Arundinaria appalachiana. Clark, Triplett and Weakley recently completed the intricate process botanists are obliged to follow to officially name and describe a newfound species. Following rules laid out in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, they prepared a short description of the plant in Latin and a longer one in English, and provided drawings and other information to make a strong case for the recognition of A. appalachiana as a distinct species of bamboo. They submitted their evidence in a manuscript to the scientific journal Sida, Contributions to Botany, convincing the peer reviewers that the bamboo they discovered was new. Their study was published last fall.

Bamboos of North America

There are 1,400 known species of bamboo. Of those, about 900 are tropical and 500 are temperate. The bamboos of North America are found in the Eastern and Southeastern United States, from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Texas. River cane (Arundinaria gigantea) occurs in low woods and along riverbanks. Switch cane (Arundinaria tecta) is found in non-alluvial swamps, moist pine barrens, live oak woods and along sandy margins of streams.

"Most people have no idea that we have native bamboo in the U.S.," Clark said. "But it has been a very important plant ecologically. And there's recent interest in using it for re-vegetation projects because it's native and was used for habitat by so many different animals, especially birds."

Building a bamboo family tree

Clark and Triplett began looking at the North American bamboos as part of a larger collaboration with botanists worldwide to develop an evolutionary family tree of bamboo species. They're using modern DNA sequencing technologies together with traditional plant taxonomy, which involves observation and description of a plant's form, anatomy, ecology and other characteristics.

"We want to get the big picture of how all the temperate bamboos are related to each other. That means taking inventory of what exists, then comparing notes," Clark said.

They already know that the closest relatives of native North American bamboos are not in Central or South America, but are in East Asia.

"That's a well-known pattern of diversity in plants and animals. Plants known to be closely related that were previously found across a large area of the earth are only in those two areas now. For various reasons, the Eastern U.S. and East Asia are a repository for a lot of diversity," Clark said.

"But we still don't understand exactly how long it has been since our bamboos separated from their Asiatic cousins. And we don't know how we ended up with three species in North America and 500 in East Asia," she said.

Although botanists had previously studied the North American bamboos, no one had done extensive fieldwork to study and collect the plants in the wild, and questions remained as to whether there was really more than just a single species. In 2003, with funding from the National Geographic Society, Clark and Triplett set off for the Southeast to find the switch cane and river cane in their native habitats.

They knew it was different

"Once we actually saw the plants in the field, we knew quickly that there were two distinct species," Clark said. "But we kept hearing about a third plant, called hill cane."

And as soon as they saw it, they knew it was different.

Although it may sound like an oxymoron, a University of Iowa anthropologist and his colleagues report the first discovery of a skull from a "pygmy-sized" giant panda -- the earliest-known ancestor of the giant panda -- that lived in south China some two million years ago.


The ancestor of today's giant panda really was a pygmy giant panda, says Russell Ciochon, UI professor of anthropology. Ciochon is a co-author of an article published in the June 18-22 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Previous discoveries of teeth and other remains made between 1985 and 2002 had failed to establish the animal's size.

Ciochon says that the ancient panda (formally known as Ailuropoda microta, or "pygmy giant panda") was probably about three feet in length, compared to the modern giant panda, which averages in excess of five feet in length. Also, like it's modern counterpart, it lived on bamboo shoots, as indicated by wear patterns recorded on teeth and specialized muscle markings, indicating heavy chewing, on the skull.

The new find, made about 18 months ago in a south China karst (limestone) cave by Chinese researchers and co-authors Changzhu Jin and Jinyi Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows that the basic anatomy of the giant panda has remained largely unchanged for millions of years.

Ciochon says that the skull --, about one-half the size of a modern-day giant panda skull, but anatomically very similar -- indicates that the giant panda has evolved for more than three million years as a separate lineage apart from other bears and was adapted to eating bamboo very early in its development.

"Pandas are very unique bears --- the only bear species that is known to exist wholly on a vegetarian diet," says Ciochon. "The evolution of this unique dietary specialization probably took millions of years to refine. Our new discovery shows the great time depth of this unique bamboo-eating specialization in pandas. Thus, pandas have been 'uniquely pandas' for many millions of years says Ciochon."

Ciochon says that the find further helps establish conditions that existed in the region during the varying climatic conditions of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, stretching back some three millions years before the present. The pygmy giant panda lived in lowland tropical bamboo forests. It is often found associated with the extinct elephant-like creature, Stegodon, and the giant extinct ape, Gigantopithecus. Today's giant panda is isolated in mountainous upland bamboo forests, partly due to the pressure of modern civilization.

Ciochon, anthropology professor and department chair in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, says that he plans to return to China this November to explore new cave sites in collaboration with Chinese colleagues. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ciochon is internationally recognized for his contributions to the fields of primate paleontology and paleoanthropology in Asia concerning "anthropoid origins" and Homo erectus evolution and dispersal.

This research was funded by travel grants from UI International Programs, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Human Evolution Research Fund of the UI Foundation.

They may be black and white, but new research at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Zoo Atlanta shows that giant pandas can see in color. Graduate researcher Angela Kelling tested the ability of two Zoo Atlanta pandas, Yang Yang and Lun Lun, to see color and found that both pandas were able to discriminate between colors and various shades of gray. The research is published in the psychology journal Learning and Behavior, volume 34 issue 2.
“My study shows that giant pandas have some sort of color vision,” said Kelling, graduate student in Georgia Tech’s Center for Conservation Behavior in the School of Psychology. “Most likely, their vision is dichromatic, since that seems to be the trend for carnivores.”

Vision is not a well-studied aspect of bears, including the giant pandas. It has long been thought that bears have poor vision, perhaps, Kelling said, because they have such excellent senses of smell and hearing. Some experts have thought that bears must have some sort of color vision as it would help them in identifying edible plants from the inedible ones, although there’s been little experimental evidence of this. However, one experiment on black bears found some evidence that bears could tell blue from gray and green from gray. Kelling used this study’s design as the basis to test color vision in Zoo Atlanta’s giant pandas.

Over a two-year period, Kelling investigated whether giant pandas can tell the difference between colors and shades of gray. In separate tests, the two pandas (Lun Lun, the female, and Yang Yang, the male) were presented with three PVC pipes, two hanging under a piece of paper that contained one of 18 shades of gray and one that contained a color – red, green or blue. If the panda pushed the pipe located under a color, it received a reward. If it pushed one of the pipes under the gray paper, it received nothing.

Kelling tested each color separately against gray. In the green versus gray tests, the bears’ performance in choosing green was variable, but mostly above chance. In the red versus gray tests, both bears performed above chance every single time. Only Lun Lun completed the blue versus green tests because Yang Yang had a tooth problem that prevented him from eating the treats used as reinforcement. For this trial, Lun Lun performed below chance only once.

“While this study shows that giant pandas have some color vision, it wasn’t conclusive as to what level of color vision they have,” said Kelling. “From this study, we can’t tell if the pandas can tell the difference between the colors themselves, like red from blue, or blue from green. But we can see that they can determine if something is gray or colored. That ability and the accompanying visual acuity could lead to the pandas being better able to forage for bamboo. For instance, to determine whether to head for a bamboo patch that is healthy and colorful as opposed to one that is brown and dying.”


http://www.gatech.edu/

Zoo staff carefully observed each mating and, because satisfactory mating did not occur, Zoo scientists and veterinarians performed a nonsurgical artificial insemination Wednesday morning. Both pandas were anesthetized, allowing Zoo scientists to collect sperm from Tian Tian and insert it directly into Mei Xiang's uterus.

Giant pandas have one very brief breeding season per year, with only a day or two of actual mating.

Zoo staff separated Mei Xiang and Tian Tian prior to mating. Following mating, they will remain separated for the next few months, until Mei Xiang either delivers a cub, or until Zoo scientists determine that she is not pregnant. Keeping the pandas separated will reduce the risk of increased stress hormone levels in Mei Xiang, which could jeopardize ovulation, conception and implantation. Veterinarians will monitor Mei Xiang's hormone levels and perform ultrasounds to determine whether or not she is pregnant.

A team of experts from the National Zoo developed the comprehensive breeding plan for the Zoo's giant pandas. They took into consideration the genetic goals for the zoo population in addition to the welfare of each animal.

During 2007's breeding season, the National Zoo collaborated with the San Diego Zoo to use frozen semen from their male panda, Gao Gao (gow-GOW). As part of the breeding plan, he was considered again this year to be an ideal sperm donor for Mei Xiang. In February, Gao Gao was examined for signs of discomfort. A definitive cause could not be determined, but the panda's discomfort may be related to arthritis. Because his condition is still being monitored, scientists and veterinarians decided not to anesthetize him for semen collection and, instead, allow Mei Xiang to mate with Tian Tian.

This year's breeding is very similar to what took place in 2005, when scientists performed an artificial insemination after natural mating attempts between the two bears proved unsuccessful. That led to cub Tai Shan (tie-SHON), who was born July 9, 2005. He will remain at the National Zoo until some time after his fourth birthday, when he will be sent to a giant panda preserve in China.
http://www.si.edu/

The giant panda is not at an "evolutionary dead end" and could have a long term viable future, according to new research involving scientists from Cardiff University.
Previous studies have found that the giant panda's isolation, unusual dietary requirements and slow reproductive rates have led to a lack of genetic diversity that will inevitably lead the species to extinction.

Now a study by Professor Michael Bruford and Dr Benoît Goossens from the School of Biosciences, in collaboration with Professor Fuwen Wei and colleagues from the Institute of Zoology along with the China West Normal University in Sichuan, has found that the decline of the species can be linked directly to human activities rather than a genetic inability to adapt and evolve.

"Our research challenges the hypothesis that giant panda's are at an 'evolutionary dead end'" said Professor Bruford. "It is however clear that the species has suffered demographically at the hands of human activities such as deforestation and poaching".

The study gives a new genetic perspective on the giant panda, as well as tracing its demographic history. The research also shows that in areas where habit conservation projects are in place, the giant panda is flourishing and population numbers are increasing.

"Our research suggests we have to revise our thinking about the evolutionary prospects for the giant panda" said Professor Bruford. "The species has a viable future and possesses the genetic capacity to adapt to new circumstances. Conservation efforts should therefore be directed towards habitat restoration and protection. In their natural environment, the giant panda is a species that can have a bright future."

The research is reported in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.


http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/

Hands wring and teeth gnash over the loss of endangered species like the panda or the polar bear. But what happens to the parasites hosted by endangered species? And although most people would side with the panda over the parasite, which group should we worry about more?
In a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, North Carolina State University biologist Rob Dunn and colleagues examine the concept of coextinction, or the domino effect of extinctions caused by species loss. For example, each fig species tends to be pollinated by a single fig wasp such that the loss of one should result in the loss of the other.

Mathematical models suggest that coextinctions due to the actions of humans are very common, the paper asserts. Yet, counterintuitively, there have been few reported cases of coextinction in the scientific literature.

"What we know about coextinctions presents a kind of paradox. The models suggest thousands of coextinctions have already occurred and that hundreds of thousands may be on the horizon. Yet we have observed few such events," Dunn says. "So we're not sure if all of these coextinctions are happening and not being tracked, or if parasites and mutualist species are better able to switch partners than we give them credit for, or something in between. Maybe some of the specialized relationships – like between the figs and fig wasps – aren't so specialized."

Moreover, Dunn says, the models, if crudely accurate, suggest that the number of parasite coextinctions greatly outweighs the number of host extinctions.

"Since the diversity of parasitic or affiliated species – which may include viruses, ticks, lice and bacteria, and butterflies, but also so-called mutualists such as the crops pollinated by honey bees or the bees themselves – is several orders of magnitude greater than that of their hosts, the numbers of coextinctions are also expected to be far greater than the number of extinctions of host species," Dunn says.

This numbers game alone presents strong evidence to suggest that coextinctions are more important than the original host extinctions themselves. But the paper also examines other costs of coextinction – including the losses of biological diversity, unique species traits and what we can learn about evolutionary history.

But, regardless of whether we care at all about the loss of such species and their traits and roles, there is something even scarier about the consequences of coextinction.

"There is a distinct possibility that declines in host species could drive parasite species to switch onto alternative hosts, which in turn could escalate the rate of emerging pathogens and parasites both for humans and our domesticated animals and plants," Dunn says. "Put simply, when a host becomes rare, its parasites and mutualists have two choices: jump ship to another host or go extinct. Either situation is a problem."

Dunn noted that the regions where new human diseases, such as bird flu, are emerging coincide with the regions where the most mammal and bird species are endangered. "We have long talked about the negative consequences of the endangerment of the species we love," he says, "but getting left with their parasites is a consequence no one bargained for."

The paper concludes by calling for better study and understanding of coextinction, and for documenting cases of coextinction when they are discovered. It also calls for more study into the interactive effects of the different reasons for extinction – habitat loss, species invasion, overkill and coextinctions, not to mention climate change – to gauge how they affect each other.

Bringing grains of pollen to waiting blackberry and red raspberry blossoms may be the special talent of a small, emerald-green bee called Osmia aglaia. That's according to Agricultural Research Service entomologist James H. Cane, who—in outdoor experiments in Oregon and Utah—has studied the pollination prowess of this 3/8-inch-long bee perhaps more extensively than any other scientist.

The hardworking bee, native to Oregon and California, may help with pollination chores, augmenting the work of America's best-known crop pollinator, the European honey bee Apis mellifera.

In recent years, hived honey bees across the country have been hit hard by a mostly mysterious condition known as colony collapse disorder. That problem—and others caused by mites, beetles, diseases and Africanized honey bees—have added even more urgency to the need to find proficient pollinators among America's wild native bees, noted Cane.

He's based at the ARS Pollinating Insect Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah. In one series of experiments, Cane showed that O. aglaia bees work quickly, visiting just as many red raspberry flowers, and nearly as many blackberry blossoms, as do honey bees, in the same amount of time.

Both kinds of berries are mostly self-pollinating, meaning that they can form fruit without the need for insects to bring pollen to them. But better berries result if honey bees or O. aglaia visit red raspberry flowers, Cane found. The plump, well-formed fruits were 30 percent bigger than those on red raspberry plants not visited by either bee species.

Bees provide crucial pollination service to numerous crops and up to a third of the human diet comes from plants pollinated by insects. However, pollinating bees are suffering widespread declines in North America and scientists warn that this could have serious implications for agriculture and food supply. While the cause of these declines has largely been a mystery, new research reveals an alarming spread of disease from commercial bees to wild pollinators.

Michael Otterstatter and James Thomson of the University of Toronto have presented compelling evidence in a new study that commercially produced bumble bees used in greenhouses are infecting their wild cousins, and that this is likely contributing to reductions in the natural pollinating bee population.

Otterstatter and Thomson investigated the occurrence of disease in wild bumble bees in southern Ontario, Canada, particularly in areas close to industrial greenhouse operations. In addition, the authors used a combination of laboratory experiments and mathematical modelling to simulate the spread, or 'spillover', of disease from commercial bees to wild populations, and to predict the extent and severity of such spread in the wild.

The researchers found that commercial bumble bees often carry a harmful and highly contagious pathogen, Crithidia bombi, and that these bees regularly escape from greenhouses and interact with wild bees at flowers. Near greenhouses, the rates of infection were startling: up to one half of wild bumble bees were infected with C. bombi, whereas no bees harboured this pathogen at sites away from greenhouses.

Furthermore, the frequency and severity ofinfections declined with increasing distance from greenhouses, suggesting that these agricultural operations are foci of disease for wild pollinators.

The mathematical model that Otterstatter and Thomson developed confirmed that pathogen spillover from commercial bees would allow diseaseto invade wild pollinator populations near greenhouses. The model predicts that, although disease may build up slowly at first, given sufficient time, spillover will result in a large-scale epidemic among wild bees.

The commercial bumble bee industry is expanding worldwide. The abundance of disease in commercial bees, and the international trafficking of infected hives, may pose a substantial threat to wild bee pollinators. The authors emphasize that improved management of domestic bees through, for example, greater attention to their diseases and their overlap with wild species, would greatly reduce, or even eliminate, pathogen spillover.

Up to a third of our food supply depends on pollination by domesticated honeybees, but the insects are up to five times more efficient when wild bees buzz the same fields, according to a study published Aug. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.


"As honeybees become more scarce, it becomes more important to have better pollinators," said Sarah Greenleaf, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis and first author on the study.

As a graduate student at Princeton University, Greenleaf carried out a two-year study of honeybees used to pollinate sunflower crops on farms in Yolo County, Calif., near UC Davis.

Compared to honeybees, wild bees did not contribute much directly to crop pollination. But on farms where wild bees were abundant, honeybees were much more effective in pollinating flowers and generating seeds, Greenleaf found.

There appear to be two reasons for that. Male wild bees, probably looking for mates, will latch onto worker honeybees, which are sterile females, causing them to move from one flower to another. Secondly, female wild bees appear to "dive bomb" honeybees, forcing them to move. Frequent movement between flowers spreads pollen around more effectively.

Greenleaf and her co-author Claire Kremen, now a professor at UC Berkeley, calculated that wild bees contributed about $10 million of value to the $26-million sunflower industry alone.

All the fields in the study were conventionally farmed, but varied in their proximity to natural habitat, Greenleaf said.

When bees collect nectar, how do they hold onto the flower? Cambridge University scientists have shown that it is down to small cone-shaped cells on the petals that act like 'velcro' on the bees' feet.

New research shows that bumblebees can recognise the texture of petal surfaces by touch alone. More importantly, they choose to land on petals with conical cells that make it easier to grip, rather than on flat, smooth surfaces. With this extra grip, they can extract nectar from the flower more efficiently.

In the natural world, bees can take visual or olfactory cues without needing to land on the flower itself. Their ability to identify conical-celled surfaces by touch would therefore seem to be of limited use in terms of flower recognition. The researchers, led by Beverley Glover, wondered whether the conical cells play a different role by providing better grip on an otherwise slippery plant surface, thereby making nectar collection easier for the bees.

To test this, the researchers used artificial flowers cast from epoxy resin, half with conical cells and half with flat surfaces. When these casts were horizontal, the bees showed no preference, visiting each type roughly half the time. However, once the angle of the cast increased, so did the bees' preference for the conical cells. When these casts were vertical, the bees visited the conical-celled ones over 60% of the time.

The researchers, who were funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), were able to visualise why the bees preferred conical cells. Using high-speed video photography they saw that when bees attempted to land on the flat-celled epoxy petals they would scramble for grip, rather like a climber struggling to find a foothold on an ice-covered cliff. However, on the conical-celled casts the bees were always able to find grip, stop beating their wings and feed on the flower.

The next step was to establish whether bees in the natural world actually preferred real flowers with conical cells. To test this, the researchers used snapdragon plants, which have conical petal cells, and mutant snapdragons, lacking such cells. When the flowers were horizontal and required little handling the bees would visit the conical-celled flowers 50% of the time. However when the flowers were vertical and required complex handling the bees learnt to recognise the conical-celled flowers and landed on them 74% of the time.

Around 80% of flowers have these conical cells and the researchers believe that all pollinators that land on flowers (such as butterflies, flies and other kinds of bee) may have a preference for petals with a rough surface.

Beverley Glover said: "For bees to maintain their balance and hold onto a flower is no easy task, especially in windy or wet conditions. It's great to see that evolution has come up with the simple solution of equipping flowers with a Velcro-like surface that bees can get a grip on".

The Galapagos giant tortoise and other iconic wildlife are facing a new threat from disease, as some of the islands' mosquitoes develop a taste for reptile blood.

Scientists from the University of Leeds, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Galapagos National Park have discovered that while its mainland ancestors prefer the blood of mammals and the occasional bird, the Galapagos form of the black salt marsh mosquito (Aedes taeniorhynchus) has shifted its behaviour to feed mainly on reptiles – primarily Galapagos giant tortoises and marine iguanas.

The findings raise fears that these changes could devastate the islands' unique native wildlife if a new mosquito-borne disease is introduced - a scenario which is increasingly likely with the continuing rise in tourism.

Using genetic techniques, the researchers showed that the mosquito colonised the Galapagos around 200,000 years ago and was not introduced by humans as previously thought, giving them time to adapt to conditions in Galapagos. They have also found that unlike the mainland populations that normally live in mangroves and salt marshes along the coast, the Galapagos form of the mosquito can also breed up to 20 km inland and at altitudes of up to 700 metres. The research team believe the shift in feeding behaviour is an adaptation to life in Galapagos, since the islands had few mammal species prior to the arrival of Man some 500 years ago.

"When we started the work we thought that this species was also introduced by humans, so it was a surprise that it turned out to be so ancient," says Arnaud Bataille, the University of Leeds and ZSL PhD student who carried out the work. "The genetic differences of the Galapagos mosquitoes from their mainland relatives are as large as those between different species, suggesting that the mosquito in Galapagos may be in the process of evolving into a new species."

Mosquitoes are known to transmit important wildlife diseases, such as avian malaria and West Nile fever. While there is no evidence that such diseases are currently present on Galapagos, the widespread presence of the mosquito, and the fact that it feeds on a broad range of the native species, means that any new disease that arrives from the continent could spread rapidly to a wide variety to wildlife throughout the islands. Due to its long isolation, Galapagos wildlife is not likely to have much immunity to new diseases, so the effects could be devastating.

"With tourism growing so rapidly the chance of a disease-carrying mosquito hitching a ride from the mainland on a plane is also increasing, since the number of flights grows in line with visitor numbers" says Dr Andrew Cunningham, from the Zoological Society of London, one of the authors of the study. "If a new disease arrives via this route, the fear is that Galapagos' own mosquitoes would pick it up and spread it throughout the archipelago."

Rather than implementing control measures against Galapagos' own unique mosquito, the research team argues that it is imperative that measures are taken to avoid introducing new diseases to the islands.

The Ecuadorian government recently introduced a requirement for planes flying to Galapagos to have a residual insecticide treatment on the interior surfaces, and spraying in the hold and cabin on each flight. However, similar controls are yet to be implemented for ships.

Co-author Dr Simon Goodman, of Leeds' Faculty of Biological Sciences says: "It is absolutely vital that these control measures are maintained and carried out rigorously, otherwise the consequences could be very serious indeed."

The lion (Panthera leo) is one of the world's most charismatic carnivores. In an article published November 7 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, an international team of researchers provides insights into the genetic structure and history of lion populations.

Their work refutes the hypothesis that African lions consist of a single, randomly breeding (panmictic) population. It also indicates the importance of preserving populations in decline as opposed to prioritizing larger-scale conservation efforts.

Understanding the broader aspects of the evolutionary history of the lion has been hindered by a lack of comprehensive sampling and appropriately informative genetic markers. Nevertheless, the unique social ecology of lions and the well-documented infectious diseases they have experienced, including lion-specific feline immunodeficiency virus (FIVPle), provides the opportunity to study lion evolutionary history using both host and virus genetic information.

In total, a comprehensive sample of 357 individuals from most of the major lion populations in Africa and Asia were studied. The authors compared the large multigenic dataset from lions with patterns of genetic variation of FIVPle to characterize the genomic legacy of lion populations.

The research reveals evidence of unsuspected genetic diversity even in the well-studied lion population of the Serengeti ecosystem, which consists of recently admixed animals derived from three distinct genetic groups.

Parts of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) isolated from wild lions have undergone substantial genetic recombination, says new research. The sequencing of the two full FIV genomes of different lion subtypes shows the importance of whole-genome analysis in understanding complex genetic events. These findings will be relevant to big cat conservation and developing more effective animal models for HIV.

FIV is a member of the lentivirus family of retroviruses, as is HIV. The feline virus causes similar disease progression to HIV in domestic cats, and is used by researchers as an animal model for human disease.

FIV also infects a number of other cat species, many of which are endangered. The virulence and pathogenicity of the virus varies between species, but the genetic contribution to this variation is unclear. Full-length viral genome sequences are vital for scientists to understand the extent of genetic involvement yet, until recently, only six species-specific strains of FIV had been sequenced in full: Pallas cat, domestic cat (subtypes A, B and C) and puma (subtypes A and B).

Now, Jill Pecon-Slattery and Stephen J. O'Brien from the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research in Frederick, MD, USA and colleagues from the USA and Botswana have sequenced the genomes of two lion FIV subtypes in full: FIVPle subtype B, isolated from lions in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, and FIVPle subtype E, isolated from lions in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Using comparative genomics methods the team found that the two viral subtypes shared a common evolutionary history -- confirming earlier research that suggested FIV has evolved in a species-specific manner.

However, the lion viruses showed substantial variation in the env gene region, which encodes the envelope glycoprotein essential for viral binding and entry. Lion virus subtype E was more closely related to domestic cat virus than to lion subtype B or Pallas cat virus. The researchers suggest this is due to recombination between strains in the wild, either involving an unidentified lion FIV strain or a strain from another African cat species.

The authors write: "The changes observed in the env gene as a consequence of recombination in FIVPle will provide important clues to the natural history of these viruses and their hosts, and may lead to insights into genetic determinants of pathogenicity and virulence differences between domestic cat and lion FIV; findings with important implications for HIV pathogenesis in humans and virus attenuation in wild populations of endangered species."


http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcgenomics/

Although society is accustomed to seeing Garfield-sized cats, obese, middle-aged cats can have a variety of problems including diabetes mellitus, which can be fatal. The causes of diabetes mellitus in cats remain unknown, although there has been a strong debate about whether a dry food diet puts cats at greater risk for diabetes. A new study from a University of Missouri-Columbia veterinarian suggests that weight gain, not the type of diet, is more important when trying to prevent diabetes in cats.

Because dry cat food contains more starch and more carbohydrates than canned cat food, some have argued that a diet containing large amounts of carbohydrates is unnatural for a cat that is anatomically and physiologically designed to be a carnivore. Carbohydrates constitute between 30 percent and 40 percent of dry cat food. Some have been concerned that this unnatural diet is harmful to cats and leads to increased incidence of diabetes. Wet cat food, on the other hand, is high in protein and more similar to a natural carnivore diet.

In the study, Robert Backus, assistant professor and director of the Nestle Purina Endowed Small Animal Nutrition Program at MU, and his team of researchers compared a colony of cats in California raised on dry food with a colony of cats in New Zealand raised on canned food. After comparing glucose-tolerance tests, which measures blood samples and indicates how fast glucose is being cleared from the blood after eating, researchers found no significant difference between a dry food diet and a wet food diet.


They also compared the results between cats less than three years of age and cats older than three. The MU veterinarian indicated that allowing cats to eat enough to become overweight is more detrimental to their health than the type of food they eat.

"Little bits of too much energy lead to weight gain overtime," Backus said. "We did find that cats on canned or wet food diets have less of a tendency towards obesity than cats on dry food diets."

Forty percent of all cats in middle age are overweight or obese. According to Backus, male cats should weigh between 10 and 11 pounds, and female cats should weigh between 5.5 and 7.7 pounds. Besides diabetes, overweight cats are prone to other conditions such as skin diseases, oral diseases and certain cancers. When cats are spayed and neutered, they have a tendency to eat more and gain weight. Backus suggests monitoring the food even more closely at this time and not allowing the cat to eat in excess.

"The most effective thing you can do is be the one who determines how much your cat eats," Backus said. "We have been conditioned to fat cats, but cats should have only between 18 percent to 20 percent body fat."

Backus' research was presented recently at the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Conference in Seattle.


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New research at the University of Glasgow has found that arthritis in cats is far more common than previously thought.

Professor David Bennett in the University’s Vet School, has found that as many as 30 per cent of all cats over the age of eight may be suffering in pain and a reduced quality of life due to arthritis. It has been supposed cats do not suffer from this disease because their symptoms are less prominent than in other species.

Professor Bennett said: “One of the problems has been in recognizing the signs of arthritis in cats and we have always assumed these are the same as in other animals. Arthritis is often a very painful condition and it is always difficult to detect and quantify pain in animals and cats in particular, but what we do know is that cats with arthritis will generally not limp as a dog or as a horse might do. Also, their joints may not be particularly thickened and crepitus and effusion are rare, again different to other animals. It is also unusual for them to vocalize their pain but this does not mean that cats suffer from arthritis any less frequently than dogs and other animals”.

A recent study of cats with osteoarthritis by Professor Bennett and his team found that the key to recognising pain in cats is to check for any lifestyle changes which may result from mobility issues. These could include an unwillingness to jump or an inability to jump as high as previously, and a reduction in the cats overall activity levels, such as, sleeping more and hunting and playing less. Because cats often exercise out of sight of their owners, abnormalities in their gait can be difficult to spot."

Professor Bennett continued: “In my view, the owner is critical to the diagnostic process. They just have to be asked the right questions. There is undoubtedly a lack of awareness by owners that their cats can suffer from arthritis and they assume that these lifestyle changes such as an unwillingness to jump are just a reflection of ‘getting old’. However, these cats are in significant pain and when given appropriate treatment, they can once again enjoy a much better quality of life, in many cases getting back to their old self.

“Fortunately the emergence of arthritis in cats as a major clinical problem is now being taken much more seriously and pharmaceutical companies are now putting much more effort into developing medicines for treating this unpleasant disease in cats.”

There are currently nine million cats in the UK and a quarter of all households now own at least one cat. This figure is set to grow with cats starting to overtake dogs in numbers possibly due to more single occupancy households and owners with busy lifestyles.

Cats suffer with arthritis as a result of increasing ‘wear and tear’ due to age or as a consequence of previous injury to the skeleton or due to some developmental abnormality of the skeleton which they may have been born with. This eventually results in chronic pain and a significant reduction in the quality of life of the cat.


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Cats, like humans, can develop stress-related illness, University of Edinburgh experts have found. Significant life-changes like moving house or the arrival of a new member of the family can lead to bladder problems in some cats, say the animal specialists. But the biggest stressor of all for a cat is when it doesn't get along with other cats in the house, studies have shown.

Cat health professionals at the University's Hospital for Small Animals studied the lifestyles of a group of cats with no apparent physical cause for their bladder problems and compared them with a control group of disease-free cats. They found that the sick cats were generally more anxious, and were particularly stressed by being in conflict with other cats in the house.

Dr Danielle Gunn-Moore, the Nestlé Purina senior lecturer in feline medicine at the University of Edinburgh Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, explained: "Feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) is a group of diseases of the bladder, most commonly seen in pedigree, middle-aged, overweight male cats which take little exercise, use an indoor litter box, don't go out much and eat a dry food diet.

"This condition is particularly frustrating for vets and owners, because most cases have no apparent cause, and are categorised as feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC). Earlier studies led us to believe that stress could be a trigger factor for FIC, and we wanted to identify differences in the cats' environments and temperaments which might be causing this condition."

This latest, questionnaire-based study compared 31 cats with FIC to 24 cats in the same households that did not have cystitis. These were in turn compared with a control group of 125 healthy cats.

Dr Gunn-Moore said: " Although many owners of cats taking part in the study reported that a fear of strangers was the most common problem they observed, this tends to be a short-term stressor. If a cat is living with another cat where there is a conflict, this is a chronic situation causing long-term stress. We concluded that this is a significant factor in the development FIC, and will be carrying out further studies to see how best this and other stress factors can be overcome."

Dr Gunn-Moore recommends that cats that have FLUTD or FIC should be fed wet food, and encouraged to drink more fluid. This can be done, for example, by adding tuna-flavoured ice-cubes to water, or offering water fountains to encourage them to drink.

A small, separate pilot study by Dr Gunn-Moore's team used a synthetic soothing scent to reduce anxiety showed a trend for cats exposed to the scent to have fewer episodes of FIC. More work will continue on this study.

In a complete turnaround, instead of pets being blamed for causing allergies and breathing problems amongst people, human lifestyles are potentially triggering asthma attacks in cats. Cigarette smoke, dusty houses, human dandruff, pollen and certain types of cat litters can all create inflammation in cats' airways and worsen asthma. Now, in a first study of its type in the UK, feline clinicians at the University of Edinburgh's Hospital for Small Animals will look at the part played by a specific bacteria found in the lungs of asthmatic cats, with a view to improving treatments.

Feline asthma is a common disease, with around one in 200 cats suffering from the condition, which causes cough, wheeze and shortness of breath. Pedigree oriental breeds like Siamese cats are more prone to the disease, and the disease is worsened by household irritants.

Nicki Reed, Feline Advisory Bureau senior clinical scholar at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, based at the University's Hospital for Small Animals, explained: "Cats with feline asthma syndrome can be made worse by living in a household where people smoke, or where there are other potential allergens or irritants. We find that bringing asthmatic cats into the hospital here and removing them from the standard 'triggers' like dust and smoke can improve their condition. Also, changing cat litter from granules to a newspaper-based product can help some asthmatic animals."

Recent work in the field of human asthma has suggested a link between bacterial Mycoplasma infection and a worsening of asthmatic symptoms. Research in the United States and Australia has shown this bacterium is present in a fifth of all lung fluid samples from asthmatic cats. The Edinburgh team now seek to study 50 cats with asthma to identify the incidence of this bacterial infection in the UK and improve treatments. The cats will be sent to the Hospital by referring vets.

Aging cats can develop a feline form of Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals. Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California have identified a key protein which can build up in the nerve cells of a cat's brain and cause mental deterioration.


In humans with Alzheimer's disease, this protein creates 'tangles' inside the nerve cells which inhibit messages being processed by the brain. The team says that the presence of this protein in cats is proof that they too can develop this type of disease.

By carrying out post-mortem examination of cats which have succumbed naturally to the disease, scientists may now be able to uncover vital clues about how the condition develops. This may eventually help scientists to come up with possible treatments.

Scientists already thought cats were susceptible to dementia because previous research had identified thick, gritty plaques on the outside of elderly cats' brain cells which are similar to those found in humans. But, by pinpointing this second key marker, the Edinburgh-led team says we can be sure that cats can suffer from a feline form of Alzheimer's.

Dr Danielle Gunn-Moore, at the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, said: "This newly discovered protein is crucial to our understanding of the aging process in cats. We've known for a long time that cats develop dementia, but this study tells us that the cat's neural system is being compromised in a similar fashion to that we see in human Alzheimer's sufferers. The gritty plaques had only hinted that might be the case -- now we know.

"The shorter life-span of a cat, compared to humans, allows researchers to more rapidly assess the effects of diet, high blood pressure, and prescribed drugs on the course of the disease. However, we also need to understand more about our geriatric cats for their own benefit, so we can slow down the degeneration the disease brings and keep them as happy cats for as long as possible."

"As with humans, the life expectancy of cats is increasing and with this longer life runs the greater chance of developing dementia. Recent studies suggest that 28% of pet cats aged 11-14 years develop at least one old-age related behaviour problem and this increases to more than 50% for cats over the age of 15."

Experts suggest that good diet, mental stimulation and companionship can reduce the risk of dementia in both humans and cats. Dr Gunn Moore explained: "If humans and their cats live in a poor environment with little company and stimulation, they are both at higher risk of dementia. However, if the owner plays with the cat, it is good for both human and cat. A good diet enriched with antioxidants is also helpful in warding off dementia, so a cat owner sharing healthy meals like chicken and fish with their pet will benefit them both."

Dr Frank Gunn-Moore, at the School of Biology, University of St Andrews, said: "This work relied on a team effort with the different skills and expertise from our different institutions. It has given us an insight into the molecular changes that are occurring in the degenerating brain. From this knowledge we are now currently trying to develop new and novel treatments which will be able to help both cats and humans".

The findings of the study are published in a recent edition of the Journal of Feline Medicine.


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About one in 3,500 people are affected with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a disease of the retina's visual cells that eventually leads to blindness. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has identified a genetic link between cats and humans for two different forms of RP. This discovery will help scientists develop gene-based therapies that will benefit both cats and humans.

"The same genetic mutations that cause retinal blindness in humans also cause retinal blindness in cats," said Kristina Narfstrom, the Ruth M. Kraeuchi-Missouri Professor in Veterinary Ophthalmology in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine. "Now, cats with these mutations can be used as important animal models to evaluate the efficiency of gene therapy. In addition, the eye is an ideal organ to use as we examine the potential of gene replacement intervention because it offers an accessible and confined environment."

Researchers examined the genetic mutations in two groups of cats; one with a congenital form of RP and another with a late-onset form and were able to identify the genes responsible for both forms of the disease in cats. In the study, researchers found that cats with the late-onset form of the disease have a mutation in the CEP290 gene, which is the same mutation found in humans with Joubert syndrome and Leber's congenital amaurosis. In both of these diseases, the genetic mutations result in changes in the function and structure of the photoreceptors. A photoreceptor is a nerve cell found in the eye's retina that is capable of phototransduction, or the process by which light is converted into electrical signals. The changes in the photoreceptors result in cell death, which lead to blindness.

"Cats are excellent models because they have relatively large eyes that are comparable to those of human babies. The retinal changes that occur and the progression to blindness in cats is similar to what happens in the human disease," Narfstrom said. "As a surgeon, I can use the same treatment methods and tools in cats that they use in humans."

Human autosomal recessive RP is among the most common cause of retinal degeneration and blindness, with no therapeutic intervention available. Initially it leads to night blindness, then loss of peripheral vision and, with progression, there is also a loss of central vision.

Like humans, Abyssinian cats with the CEP290 mutation have normal vision at birth but develop early changes in the interior of their eyes by the time they are approximately 2 years old. The cats with the congenital form of the disease are blind from birth with severe changes in the interior of their eyes after only a couple of months.

In May, Narfstrom will present her latest findings during the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2009 Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. An earlier study, "Mutation in CEP290 Discovered for Cat Model of Human Retinal Degeneration," was published in the Journal of Heredity.


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Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in cats have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function.


In a study published March 30, 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that the restoration in cats of myelin — a fatty insulator of nerve fibers that degrades in a host of human central nervous system disorders, the most common of which is multiple sclerosis — can lead to functional recovery.

"The fundamental point of the study is that it proves unequivocally that extensive remyelination can lead to recovery from a severe neurological disorder," says Ian Duncan, the UW-Madison neuroscientist who led the research. "It indicates the profound ability of the central nervous system to repair itself."

The finding is important because it underscores the validity of strategies to reestablish myelin as a therapy for treating a range of severe neurological diseases associated with the loss or damage of myelin, but where the nerves themselves remain intact.

Myelin is a fatty substance that forms a sheath for nerve fibers, known as axons, and facilitates the conduction of nerve signals. Its loss through disease causes impairment of sensation, movement, cognition and other functions, depending on which nerves are affected.

The new study arose from a mysterious affliction of pregnant cats. A company testing the effects on growth and development in cats using diets that had been irradiated reported that some cats developed severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis. Taken off the diet, the cats recovered slowly, but eventually all lost functions were restored.

"After being on the diet for three to four months, the pregnant cats started to develop progressive neurological disease," says Duncan, a professor of medical sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and an authority on demyelinating diseases. "Cats put back on a normal diet recovered. It's a very puzzling demyelinating disease."

The afflicted cats were shown to have severe and widely distributed demyelination of the central nervous system, according to Duncan. And while the neurological symptoms exhibited by the cats are similar to those experienced by humans with demyelination disorders, the malady does not seem to be like any of the known myelin-related diseases of humans.

In cats removed from the diet, recovery was slow, but all of the previously demyelinated axons became remyelinated. The restored myelin sheaths, however, were not as thick as healthy myelin, Duncan notes.

"It's not normal, but from a physiological standpoint, the thin myelin membrane restores function," he says. "It's doing what it is supposed to do."

Knowing that the central nervous system retains the ability to forge new myelin sheaths anywhere the nerves themselves are preserved provides strong support for the idea that if myelin can be restored in diseases such as multiple sclerosis, it may be possible for patients to regain lost or impaired functions: "The key thing is that it absolutely confirms the notion that remyelinating strategies are clinically important," Duncan says.

The exact cause of the neurological affliction in the cats on the experimental diet is unknown, says Duncan, who was not involved in the original study of diet.

"We think it is extremely unlikely that [irradiated food] could become a human health problem," Duncan explains. "We think it is species specific. It's important to note these cats were fed a diet of irradiated food for a period of time."

In addition to Duncan, authors of the new PNAS study include Alexandra Brower of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory; Yoichi Kondo and Ronald Schultz of the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine; and Joseph Curlee, Jr. of Harlan Laboratories in Madison.