https://phys.org/biology-news/plants-animals en-us The latest science news on plants and animals The radiation levels experienced by the frogs living in Chernobyl have not affected their age or their rate of aging. These two traits do not differ, in fact, between specimens captured in areas with high levels of radiation and those living in control areas without radiation. Nor have differences been found in the levels of corticosterone, a hormone associated with the response to stress, depending on the radiation received by these amphibians. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-chernobyl-frogs-exposed-aging-stress.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:35:17 EST news650216113 Most research on plant stem cells focuses on the tips of roots and shoots, where growth occurs in height. But biologist Kirsten Ten Tusscher from Utrecht University explains that thickness growth is just as essential. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-uncovers-thickness-growth-mechanisms.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:30:04 EST news650212201 The more a plant species invests in defense, the less potential it has for growth, according to a new study. Research made possible by open science provides new insights into plant adaptation and interspecies variation. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-defense-growth-allocate-resources.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:00:01 EST news650190482 The cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove have been placed under quarantine on Wednesday in light of an uninvited and unwelcome visitor: the oriental fruit fly, an invasive pest that attacks over 230 crops including fruits, nuts and vegetables. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-invasive-fruit-fly-species-southern.html Plants & Animals Agriculture Thu, 07 Nov 2024 11:30:01 EST news650200922 Killer whales off Canada's Atlantic coast continue to be contaminated with dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals that put them at elevated risk of severe immune-system and reproductive problems, a recent McGill-led study has found. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-atlantic-killer-whales-dangerously-high.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 07 Nov 2024 10:54:04 EST news650199242 Teams of mountaineering mice are helping advance understanding into how evolutionary adaptation to localized conditions can enable a single species to thrive across diverse environments. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-mountaineering-mice-evolutionary.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 07 Nov 2024 09:21:03 EST news650193661 What gives an Australian finch its brilliantly colored red, yellow or orange bill? A major new study has uncovered the genetic switches controlling these distinctive colors, revealing a key piece in the puzzle of how animals develop their coloration. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-genetic-red-yellow-orange-bills.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 07 Nov 2024 08:45:04 EST news650191501 Research led by the University of New Hampshire sheds light on how coyotes, North America's most successful predators, are responding to various environmental pressures, including human development, hunting and competition with larger carnivores. Surprisingly, the study's findings suggest that human hunting practices may actually contribute to increasing the number of coyotes. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-coyotes-human-predator-pressures-large.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:30:04 EST news650133001 Sleep is one of the most mysterious, yet ubiquitous components of our biology. It has been described in all major groups of animals, including worms, jellyfish, insects or cephalopods, and in all vertebrates, from fish to humans. Common characteristics of sleep include reduced movement, decreased muscle tone, and an increased need for sleep after periods of deprivation, for example after a night out. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-australian-dragon-reveals-link-motor.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 06 Nov 2024 14:56:37 EST news650127388 Albatrosses are exceptionally mobile and use the wind to travel hundreds of thousands of miles to feed on squid, fish, or other animals found near the water surface in the open ocean. In fact, some larger species of albatrosses are so reliant on the wind that they struggle to even take off when the conditions are calm. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-reveals-stormy-conditions-affect-albatrosses.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Nov 2024 12:21:03 EST news650118061 At less than 3mm long, you may not think Dunatothrips aneurae seem like much. And—as I have shown in a new study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology—you'd be absolutely right. That's because these may be the world's laziest insects. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-tiny-insects-world-laziest-bugs.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Nov 2024 11:51:16 EST news650116272 A pair of biologists at the University of Toronto has found that vampire bats are able to burn amino acids as a fuel source similarly to blood-sucking insects. In their study published in the journal Biology Letters, Giulia Rossi and Kenneth Welch coaxed vampire bats in their lab to run on a treadmill as a way to measure their metabolism. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-vampire-metabolism-mirrors-blood-insects.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 Nov 2024 10:56:34 EST news650112982 Scientists from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB), together with partners from the University of Cologne, have discovered a new group of defense substances in barley that are effective against a broad spectrum of fungal pathogens. One exception is the root rot pathogen Bipolaris sorokiniana. This fungus neutralizes the defense substances and uses them to grow better. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-scientists-arms-barley-fungal-pathogen.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 05 Nov 2024 13:08:03 EST news650034481 Swallows infected with parasites move less and in smaller ranges than healthy ones—with detrimental effects on their foraging success and their survival. As a result, infected individuals foraged in less productive areas, such as cultivated farmland, clearly avoided by their healthy conspecifics. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-mini-transmitters-infections-parasites-affect.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 05 Nov 2024 08:47:05 EST news650018821 The fastest animal on land is the cheetah, capable of reaching top speeds of 104 kilometers per hour. In the water, the fastest animals are yellowfin tuna and wahoo, which can reach speeds of 75 and 77 km per hour respectively. In the air, the title of the fastest level flight (excluding diving) goes to the white-throated needletail swift, at more than 112 km per hour. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-big-small-modern-humans-ideal.html Plants & Animals Evolution Sat, 02 Nov 2024 15:20:01 EDT news649592697 Wilting flowers might not signal poor flower or plant health, but rather the effects of a sophisticated resource management strategy in plants, millions of years in the making. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-wilt-energy.html Plants & Animals Sat, 02 Nov 2024 05:00:01 EDT news649680808 Bats are incredibly diverse animals: They can climb onto other animals to drink their blood, pluck insects from leaves or hover to drink nectar from tropical flowers, all of which require distinctive wing designs. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-comparison-bird-wings-reveals-evolutionary.html Plants & Animals Evolution Fri, 01 Nov 2024 11:49:03 EDT news649680541 In the game of evolution, key behavioral adaptations that confer fitness in survival and reproduction, paying tremendous dividends for an individual's progeny, may seemingly arise from thin air—so much so, even familiar species like the humble fruit fly can surprise biologists. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-wing-fruit-flies-insights-female.html Plants & Animals Evolution Fri, 01 Nov 2024 11:26:04 EDT news649679161 When light conditions rapidly change, our eyes have to respond to this change in fractions of a second to maintain stable visual processing. This is necessary when, for example, we drive through a forest and move through alternating stretches of shadows and clear sunlight. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-fruit-flies-accurate-visual-behavior.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:36:26 EDT news649611377 Most plants and animals are exposed to a wide range of environmental variations. A study published in the journal Nature and conducted by the team of Richard Benton, professor at the Center for Integrative Genomics in the Faculty of Biology and Medicine at the University of Lausanne, looks at the ability of Drosophila to adapt to fluctuations in day length. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-night-day-uncovers-genetic-basis.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:25:04 EDT news649610701 A new method developed by Penn State biologists allows them to turn stripped-down plant cells into other types of cells, similar to the way stem cells differentiate into different cell types. Using this method, the research team explored the banding patterns that increase the stability of plant cell walls—much like the corrugated patterns in cardboard—and how they are created. Additionally, the researchers revealed how the assembly of these structures can go astray in different mutant plant cells, which they said could ultimately inform methods to break down plant cells for biofuels. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-stem-cell-approach-specialized-wall.html Plants & Animals Cell & Microbiology Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:00:13 EDT news649609202 Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub and Santa Fe Institute have developed a model to calculate how quickly or slowly an organism should ideally learn in its surroundings. An organism's ideal learning rate depends on the pace of environmental change and its life cycle, they say. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-ideal-based-life.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:34:03 EDT news649604041 Echolocating bats have been found to possess an acoustic cognitive map of their home range, enabling them to navigate over kilometer-scale distances using echolocation alone. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-echolocating-acoustic-cognitive.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:00:01 EDT news649584601 A commercialized New Age ritual is causing not only "unwanted energies" to go up in smoke, but also foreign wild plants. A study by Utrecht University researchers Isabela Pombo Geertsma and Anastasia Stefanaki, alongside colleagues from Wageningen UR and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, reveals that dried plant bundles sold in the Netherlands for ritual burning often include plants from distant regions. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-age-ritual-bad-energies-contribute.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:41:52 EDT news649521707 A new article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the unprecedented ability for reverse development in a ctenophore, also called comb jelly. The findings suggest that life cycle plasticity in animals might be more common than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-young-jellies-age-reverse.html Plants & Animals Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:26:03 EDT news649509961 In the past, African giant pouched rats have learned to detect explosives and the tuberculosis-causing pathogen. Now, a team of researchers have trained these rats to pick up the scent of pangolin scales, elephant ivory, rhino horn, and African blackwood. These animals and plants are listed as threatened and at high danger of extinction. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-giant-rats-illegal-wildlife-sniffing.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 30 Oct 2024 01:00:01 EDT news649410601 Anecdotes abound of wildlife behaving "drunk" after eating fermented fruits, but despite this, nonhuman consumption of ethanol has been assumed to be rare and accidental. Ecologists challenge this assumption in a review published October 30 in Trends in Ecology & Evolution. They argue that since ethanol is naturally present in nearly every ecosystem, it is likely consumed on a regular basis by most fruit- and nectar-eating animals. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-alcohol-consumption-human-animals-rare.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:01 EDT news649411561 Flea toads, as some species in the genus Brachycephalus are known, are less than 1 cm long in adulthood. Their size is far smaller than a fingernail. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-mm-length-atlantic-rainforest-flea.html Plants & Animals Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:40:03 EDT news649435201 Jake Lewis, an entomologist in the Environmental Science and Informatics Section at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), is fascinated by weevils, a diverse group of beetles that includes many species with elephant trunk-like mouthparts (called a rostrum). Weevils provide various ecosystem services such as pollination and decomposition, but some species are serious pests known to decimate crop fields and timber forests. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-advanced-imaging-uncovers-weevil-species.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:00:01 EDT news649410901 Erebus Bay, Antarctica, is home to the southernmost population of the world's southernmost living mammal—the Weddell seal. These seals may look like couch potatoes when they are resting on the ice, but Weddell seals go to great lengths to make a living in the harshest and most rapidly changing environments. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-weddell-antarctic-strategically-extreme-maximize.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:46:03 EDT news649421161