Evidence for sympatric speciation by host shift in the sea
New species most commonly evolve when populations become geogr...solated (allopatric speciation). The idea that new species can also evolve within the range of a single population (sympatric speciation) has been around since...Circadian clock genes reign in duration of fruit fly copulation
...rcadian clock mechanism and are present in diverse species including humans. Both genes play critical roles in the control of the 24-hour clock. However, despite their roles in controlling the timing of daily behaviors such as sleep, the period and timeless genes appear to influence the duration of fly copul...Asian elephant sex pheromone transporter revealed
...one transport in the Asian elephant, an endangered species of which only a few thousand individuals remain. Female elephants communicate their readiness to mate by excreting a sex pheromone in their urine. Male elephants exhibit a range of responses to this pheromone, beginning with sniffing and "check and p...Evidence for the impact of climate change on deep-sea biodiversity
...ea are sufficient to induce significant changes in species richness and functional diversity. They conclude that deep-sea fauna is highly vulnerable to environmental alteration, and that very minor temperature shifts in deep-water masses can rapidly and significantly alter both structural and functional dee...Plumbing trees' plumbing reveals their engineering skill
...nded into the caves and sampled roots of four tree species -- a juniper, an evergreen oak, a deciduous oak and the deciduous gum bumelia, which is also known as the chittamwood. "The evergreen oak we studied is the dominant oak on the Edwards Plateau," said Jackson. "Because it needs a lot of water to mainta...Invasive species may cause severe economic losses. Thus the hot deb...n Hildebrand returned to Panama in the 1930's many species had already moved into streams on the opposite slope. In 2002, the authors of the new report returne...Researchers report new gene test for isolated cleft lip and palate
...ecurring variations in the usual DNA sequence of a species that are spaced out, like signposts, along a gene ...fish to humans, meaning if the valine was trivial, species along the evolutionary ladder might have altered it with greater frequency. "The change wasn't goi...... solving the human genome and the genomes of other species is that those billions of letters of DNA are deposited into databases and become available to scientists everywhere to conduct post-genomic research. Such research includes annotating the human genome -- matching the DNA codes that hold the secret to...Muscling their way into the food chain: Zebra mussels alter fish populations in the Hudson River
...son River. Over the past two decades, the prolific species has colonized habitats with hard sediments, becomi...lining in response to the exotic invader. Invasive species research is often limited by a lack of ecological data on pre-invasion conditions. Since the 1970s, ...Using statistics to decipher secrets of natural mutation
...it, hedgehog and armadillo. Such comparisons among species across the mammalian evolutionary tree can yield i...text-dependent mutation in the segments across the species revealed that the CpG mutations, unlike other mutation types, accumulated in a regular clock-like fa...Flame retardant levels much higher in farmed salmon
..., according to the researchers. Among all the wild species in the study, Chinook tend to feed higher in the food web and grow to be larger fish. While its difficult to make direct comparisons, the concentrations found in farmed salmon are similar to levels that have been measured in people in recent years, H...Rutgers-Newark scientist: Mosquitoes may carry lethal parasite
...rosporidia now known to infect humans. About 1,500 species of microsporidia have been found infecting a wide variety of life forms. Their spores a dormant stage in the creatures' life cycle inhabit virtually every surface water source, becoming active microsporidia once they have been ingested by an animal...For Africa's valuable mahoganies, it's the soil, stupid
...ue of the journal Ecology, looked at four mahogany species in Dznagha-Sangha Dense Forest Reserve, a 1,700 sq...ic. The authors found that that three of the four species required specialized soils those with a particular combination of plant nutrients - and were restri...Scientists identify compounds that mimic calorie restriction
...because it increases the life span of almost every species studied. In mammals, calorie restriction suppresses many diseases associated with the obesity epidemic. However, the mechanisms by which calorie restriction suppresses these diseases are not known. Lead author, J. Christopher Corton, PhD, with Toxic...Excess levels of nitrogen, phosphorus linked to deformed frogs
... Oh, that tangled web. Here's how the two species make a tag team to create deformed frogs. The adult parasite lives in birds, laying its eggs inside the bird; the eggs then get excreted as waste in a pond or wetland; the young parasite has evolved to seek out a ramshorn snail and invades the snail...Biologists deciphering complex lemur scent language
...h of the primate tree, and they're more similar to species such as rodents in terms of olfactory communicatio...sible only because of the availability of the many species of rare lemurs at the Primate Center. The research has been sponsored by funds from Duke, the Howard...Size does matter when choosing a mate
...ence in size between males and females of the same species is all down to the battle for a mate, according to...e and ecology of more than 100 different shorebird species from around the world. They found that in larger shorebirds the battle between males for a mate is ...New hypoxic event found off Oregon coast
...ling a wide range of fish, crabs, and other marine species that literally suffocate. "The figures in 2002 were just off the charts compared to the historical norm, and already this year we have had some readings in that same range," Chan said. "One recent measurement taken at a 30 meter depth station just 1......ed remarkably in many cases and several amphibians species have colonized new ponds that the blast created. For more information about this session and other ESA Annual Meeting activities visit the ESA meeting homepage at: http://www.esa.org/portland . The theme for the meeting is "Lessons of Lewis and Clar......are like smart bombs that target and kill only the species or strain of bacteria for which they were designed. They will not harm human cells or the beneficial microorganisms that live in the nasal passages and throat and help protect against other infections. The strength and specificity of these enzymes ...