Lecture on ecology of infectious diseases
...urbanized ecosystems in the country. Black-tailed prairie dogs, an imperiled species in western states, are ...unty, Colo., for example, nearly two-thirds of all prairie dog colonies are within a half-mile of urban development. Prairie dogs are highly susceptible to ...Droughts like 1930s Dust Bowl may have been unexceptional in prehistoric times, new study suggests
... for up to several decades each. At their heights, prairie fires became uncommon because there was too little...The ages of charcoal deposits suggest instead that prairie fires occurred during intervening wet periods, with each wet-dry cycle lasting more than a century e...Researchers make promiscuous animals monogamous by manipulating genes
...differences in vasopressin receptor levels between prairie and meadow voles could explain their opposite mating behaviors. Previous studies of monogamous male prairie voles, which form lifelong social or pair bonds with a single mate, determined the animals' brains c...Is that plant a tortoise or a hare? Answer predicts its response to environmental change
... equate plants in Amazonian rain forest, Minnesota prairie or Alaskan spruce woods using the same set of economic strategies. Moreover, a plant's position on the continuum predicts how it will likely respond to climate change and other factors. The work will be published in the April 22 issue of the journal ...Researchers decode genome of rabbit fever pathogen
...ad by insect bites and human contact with rabbits, prairie dogs, and other small and medium-sized animals. While seldom fatal, and treatable with antibiotics, the disease causes severe, long-lasting pneumonia-like symptoms and a variety of glandular and intestinal disorders. As few as 10 organisms entering t...Reward mechanism involved in addiction likely regulates pair bonds between monogamous animals
... Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) study of prairie voles published in the January 19 edition of the J...n receptors in the ventral forebrain of monogamous prairie voles that have been previously tied to pair bond formation: oxytocin (OTR) and vasopressin V1a rece...World's largest scientific society holds regional meeting in Columbia, Mo.
...s include the following: Nov. 7 8:30 a.m. Native prairie plants as sources of new pharmaceuticals - Kirk Manfredi, University of Northern Iowa, Department of Chemistry, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 319-273-2295, manfredi@uni.edu ; and Kelly Kindscher, University of Kansas, Lawrence, kindsche@ku.edu 8:40 a.m. Lipi...Studies probe rapid evolution of Chinese tallow trees
... 30 years, they can reduce an ecologically diverse prairie to a single-species forest. Recent studies, in areas including the Big Thicket National Preserve, indicate the invading tallow trees are just as successful at taking over native forests. One reason the trees thrive in Texas is that they're ignored by...Weather extremes shed light on prairie's past and environment's future
...tion, the researchers noted, is why the tall-grass prairie only supported grass when the soil easily could ha...y was not new. The role of fire in sustaining the prairie and preventing the growth of trees was first established in the early 1950s, based on pioneer descri...Science picks: Leads, feeds and story seeds for August 2003
...ere this exotic disease occurred in humans and pet prairie dogs, primarily in Wisconsin and Illinois. Monkeyp... May, the disease spread through the pet trade, to prairie dogs and other captive species, and resulted in at least 71 suspected human cases in six states. Cal...New science at K-State attracts $4.2 million from National Science Foundation
...ion near Manhattan. Konza represents the tallgrass prairie in the National Science Foundation's network of lo...atural habitat. Herman will put the worm back into prairie soil in order to identify genes that are activated under various water and nutrient conditions typic...Invading species have tough time cracking diverse neighborhood
...earch at the University of Minnesota. Working with prairie plants, the research team found that a rich assemb... The plots contained between one and 24 species of prairie plants that had become well established, with 20-24 replicates at each level of diversity. The resea...Mouse study suggests mammoth evolutionary change
...e Chicago region -- the white-footed mouse and the prairie deer mouse. But the search for historical samples ...showed the white-footed mouse had squeezed out the prairie deer mouse from its dominant position, diminishing the samples needed to do a comparative study, so ...Sudden removal of fat impairs immune function in rodents, biologists find
...tection in two commonly studied rodent models, the prairie vole and the Siberian hamster, scientists have fou...n removed. The research team divided 54 adult male prairie voles and 36 adult male Siberian hamsters into three experimental groups. The individuals from one o...Changes in jet stream, storm tracks, linked to prairie drought patterns, study finds
...years from lake sediments in the northern Canadian prairie region (Manitoba to Alberta), as well as from sites in North Dakota and Minnesota. "Our results from the Canadian prairies show a previously unknown and abrupt shift in climatic conditions around AD 700, while in the northern U.S. prairies, the shift...SRS research highlights from the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Symposium
...including the Diana fritillary, northern bobwhite, prairie warbler, brown-headed nuthatch, and Bachman's sparrow--responded well to the restoration. For more information: Ron Thill (936-569-7981) or rthill@fs.fed.us ....Midwest wetlands almost gone but may still have most species
... Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio -- was tallgrass prairie that included extensive seasonal wetlands. For instance, ephemeral ponds used to cover about a fifth of Illinois (nearly five million acres) from roughly early spring to mid-summer. By the mid-1900s, about 85% of these wetlands had been drained and c...K-State researchers use Colbert Hills process to study ecosystem of former landfill site...
MANHATTAN, KAN. - It plays on the prairie of Kansas' Flint Hills but will it play on a weste... and after construction of Colbert Hills' pristine prairie site. The research team also includes Bob Bauernfeind, professor of entomology; Walt Fick, associate...Animals can be induced to cooperate if partners reciprocate and benefits accumulate
...ty uncooperative lot. While species like lions and prairie dogs cooperate in some cases, scientists seldom know the costs and benefits of cooperative acts in the wild. In particular, scientists have long been interested in situations in which cooperating animals give up something now in order to develop a re......rs discovered "a host of changes" in the tallgrass prairie as a result of just altering the patterns of rainfall and not the amount of rainfall. When intact, native grassland plots exposed to more variable rainfall patterns were compared to plots that received natural rainfall patterns, the researchers found...