Bronx Zoo feathers help save rare birds half a world away
NEW YORK (March 26) -- To help save two rare bird species living deep in the jungles of Sarawak, Malaysia, the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) spent two years collecting donations of a different kind from zoos throughout North America. It wasnt money, but tail feathers shed from...Traditional floodplain forest restoration may decrease bird diversity
...ts that this lower tree diversity may lead tolower bird diversity. "Birds tended to prefer uncommon tree species -- one bird, theyellow-throated warbler, was a virtual specialist on bald cypress," saysAaron Gabbe, who did this work while at the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign and is now at the U...Farming inside forests hurts bird communities more than timber harvesting, study suggests
...LUMBUS, Ohio - Farming in and around forests hurts bird populations more than does tim...suggests that farming may make bird nests more vulnerable to predation by squirrels and other animals. ...... observed species locations that include all 1,179 bird species, all 416 mammal species, and 175 butterfly species in Mexico." Peterson and UNAM colleague Navarro developed the data sets for birds, while Snchez-Cordero helped with the mammal data sets and Jorge Sobern with the data for butterflies. The c...Researchers project future shrinking biodiversity of Mexican species
...n." For example, the west Mexican chachalaca, a bird found only in tropical southwestern Mexico, may be greatly affected by changing climate. Under some climate change scenarios, the species' distribution area in interior Mexico would become much less habitable, while its coastal range would remain in...Forest fragmentation and birds
...ly occupy fragmented landscapes. When documenting bird numbers, they say, regional numbers, regional land...entists should be careful to not assume that local bird activities will mirror regional or global trends. Therese Donovan from the US Geological Society Ver...Amphibians and crippling parasites
...l developmental stage, the parasite depends upon a bird or mammal to eat an infected amphibian or fish. T...rasite then sexually matures and releases eggs via bird or mammal feces. When the eggs hatch they invade the tissue of Planorbella, an aquatic snail. The s...Widespread amphibian deformities caused by parasite
... at various times includes an amphibian or fish; a bird or mammal; and aquatic snails, usually of the genus Planorbella. The tissues of the snails are where the parasite's eggs actually develop and reproduce. The study surveyed 101 sites across California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, and about...Silvereye birds help scientists to settle disputed evolutionary theory
...sted the founder effect model in an unusual island bird species, the Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis), which has colonised a series of islands in the south west Pacific from the Australian mainland during the last 200 years. The Silvereye's pattern of colonisation there was originally used to support the ...People linked to new sea otter diseases
...pted to the new pathogen. For instance, introduced bird malaria has decimated many Hawaiian song birds that used to be common. "Many of these wildlife diseases are viewed as emerging, particularly as we introduce species around the globe and as our domestic plants and animals encroach on natural habitat,"...DNA shows genetic variability of the nene lost more than 500 years ago, not during the 20th century
...ndividuals by the middle of the last century; each bird as closely related to the others as human siblings...an interference contributed to extinctions of many bird species in the islands 500 to a thousand years ago. These species, including the nene, likely were ...Expeditions find no evidence of ivory-billed woodpecker
...THACA, N.Y./ RICHMOND, Va. -- Since early January, bird researchers, conservationists and bird enthusiasts everywhere have been holding their breath for results of a series of cooperative expedit...Lakeshore development affects birds
...R---Lakeshore housing development affects breeding bird communities in subtle ways that conventional metho... boomed in recent years. "The idea was to compare bird communities between pairs of lakes, with one member of each pair being developed and the other undev...Warmer world will be a sicker world, say scientists
...toes has come the spread ofavian malaria to native bird populations. "Today there are no native birdsbelow 4,500 feet," says Andrew Dobson. Now the honeycreepers are mostlyrestricted to the highest forested slopes of the Big Island of Hawaii andMaui at elevations cool enough to stop the mosquitoes. Expa...Clover strip-cropping in cotton provides critical habitat for threatened songbirds
...r growing season, recording the type and number of bird species in each farming scenario. To learn more about food availability for the birds, they also sampled the insects in each field type, noting whether they were beneficial or crop pests. "Our idea wasn't to try to come up with something new but to l...Historic U.S.-Peru debt-for-nature swap
...0,000 species of vascular plants, and nearly 1,800 bird species. Yet this rich biodiversity faces a number of threats including the loss of habitat due to unsustainable logging (particularly of hardwoods such as mahogany and cedar), conversion of forest land to agriculture, mining, oil and gas exploratio...Sprawl may threaten wildlife in reserves
...tudied the effects of land use and habitat type on bird populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (...privately-owned lowlands. The researchers assessed bird abundance and diversity at 100 sites that represented the study area's range of topography, climate ...Illicit crops threaten birds in Colombia
While Colombia has more bird species than any other country worldwide, much of ...panding into forest remnants where many threatened bird species live. "Ultimately, the conservation of forests and forest-dependent birds in Colombia may hi...1918 human influenza epidemic no longer linked to birds
...nian's National Museum of Natural History historic bird collections was critical in determining that the 1...ated and sequenced a portion of the HA gene from a bird captured in 1917. Comparisons of this sequence with that of the 1918 pandemic virus suggest that th......solation. The Duke professor "did a census of the bird communities in 1993 and 1995 and found that small ...l survey, the Duke scientists have done additional bird censuses during the last three years and expanded their research area from 12 to 31 islands. In the ...