Biology

A striking new species of leaf warbler has been discovered in the forests of the Indonesian island of Rote by an international team of researchers. The discovery is outlined in the journal Scientific Reports. The Rote leaf warbler (Phylloscopus rotiensis) has a characteristic long bill. Image credit: Philippe Verbelen. Named …

A team of researchers from Utah State University has conducted the first complete assessment of the Pando aspen clone — the largest living organism on Earth — and the results show continuing deterioration of this unique ‘forest of one tree.’ The Pando aspen clone from a distance (green foreground and …

Wind-dispersed plants have evolved ingenious ways to lift their seeds. The common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) uses a bundle of drag-enhancing bristles that helps to keep their seeds aloft. A new study, led by University of Edinburgh researchers Ignazio Maria Viola and Naomi Nakayama, shows that movement of air around and …

Why share when access to benefits is uncertain is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of cooperation in human societies. In a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr. Catherine Crockford of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and colleagues investigated some of the …

The total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 traversed 5,000 km from coast to coast of North America. In its 90-min span, sunlight dropped by three orders of magnitude and temperature by 10-15 degrees Celsius. To investigate impacts of these changes on bees, a team of professional and citizen scientists …

A highly endangered species of bird called the Bahama nuthatch (Sitta insularis) has been rediscovered by two international teams of ornithologists searching the island of Grand Bahama. The finding is significant because the species had been feared extinct following the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. But it …

A study of Pliocene to recent bivalves and gastropods from the Western Atlantic suggests laziness might be a fruitful strategy for survival of individuals, species and even communities of species. Strotz et al focused on the high-resolution record of Pliocene to recent mollusks from the Western Atlantic. For the study, …

A research team led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Huazhong Agricultural University has identified two new fatty acids — named Nebraskanic acid and Wuhanic acid — in the seed oil of the Chinese violet cress (Orychophragmus violaceus), a flowering plant native to central China. The discovery is reported in …

A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science provides the first evidence of how goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) read human emotional expressions. Nawroth et al show that goats can discriminate human facial expressions with different emotional valences and prefer to interact with positive ones. Image credit: Filinecek. …

A new paper published in the journal Biology Letters describes how tail walking was learned by a single bottlenose dolphin and then copied by other dolphins in the same community, and, much like a pop fad, then faded out. Tail-walking involves a dolphin rising vertically out of the water and …