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Her research, recently published in the journal Wild, may be the first documented evidence of any animal within the Procyonidaefamily—a group that includes raccoons, coatis and ringtails—displaying a form of “material culture”: behavior involving material surroundings that is passed along to others.

Researchers returned to the same spots again and again between 2008 and 2023, watching and listening for bird species that appeared during the summer breeding season.

these losses aren't just happening for rare species

These plants develop mutualistic relationships with species of ants, which provide the plant with food, and sometimes help cultivate it, in return for shelter and snacks. Chomicki has found that Squamellaria plants can prevent cooperation from breaking down by isolating their ant “guests” within physical compartments — and that they are far from the only species doing this.

Chomicki described this and other intriguing examples in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics,

True Grit

Also check this non-profit linked about protecting wild cat species.

https://panthera.org/

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Choose Your Wetland!

A recent study published by University of Guelph biologist Mehrdad Hajibabaei and his team searched for environmental DNA (eDNA) in water from 18 Ontario rivers. 

Organisms shed DNA through skin, scales and feces. Using those traces, researchers identified hundreds of aquatic invertebrates that had not been found through traditional methods. 

Only 22 species identified through traditional methods were not detected by the DNA survey. Many species were found at just one site, showing how much river life can be missed.

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People who work, play or live beside the water may know little about its inhabitants. That can put species at risk, Ricciardi suggested.

"How would people who don't know what's living underwater feel any empathy or any sense of loss?"

link to open access paper https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.70377

link to open access paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-75288-y

The phylogenetic framework is based on the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV (APG IV, 2016). Orders containing carnivorous plants are indicated on the tree. Carnivorous lineages are mapped onto major angiosperm clades, including the carnivorous lineage (Saxifraga) reported in this study.

“Jeffrey was appearing thousands of feet above where it should be,” Safford said. “Now everything is moving uphill, but Jeffrey pines are jumping, and that’s our mystery. We’re looking at the result, without having looked much at causes.”

He has a hypothesis, however.

Climate models predicted that the highest-altitude trees would continue to migrate up mountainsides, climbing — slowly — until they couldn’t climb anymore. And that’s happening. Last summer Safford and his team found three trees above 4,000 meters (13,124 feet), the first trees ever found at that altitude in the U.S. and Canada, outside of the southern Rockies.

But Safford says those models haven’t accounted for the role of seed dispersal by birds and other species. His number one suspects are Clark’s nutcrackers (named for explorer William Clark but slated to be renamed), clever corvids who use their strong beaks to extract pinecone seeds. They often bury them to eat later, serving as accidental gardeners in the process.

“The Clark’s nutcracker is a huge part of the story,” Safford says.

Minke whales are among the most widely distributed whales. They’re the only marine mammal species I’ve observed on both coasts of the United States, and to me that’s amazing. I’ve seen them a couple of times on trips to Monterey, California, but I used to see minke whales most often in the decade we lived in Maine.

Dr Natalia Przelomska, from the University's Institute of the Earth and Environment, was part of an international team led by scientists from the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) and the National Museum of Natural History.

The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, place both extinct and living Hawaiian honeycreeper species into their evolutionary context, helping scientists better understand biodiversity loss and informing future conservation priorities.

More than 60 Hawaiian honeycreeper species evolved from a single ancestor on the Hawaiian Islands over a relatively short period, making them one of the world's best examples of adaptive radiation – the rapid diversification of one species into many new ones.

However, rapid diversification can make it difficult to reconstruct evolutionary relationships accurately. Today, that challenge is especially important because only 17 Hawaiian honeycreeper species remain, with most threatened by habitat loss, introduced diseases, invasive predators and climate change.

link to open access paper https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2536533123

Until the Panamanian isthmus formed about 2.8 million years ago, North and South America were isolated continents with unique groups of animals. A riot of marsupials — mammals with brood pouches — and sloths in the south contrasted with camels, horses, pronghorn antelopes and saber tooth cats in the north.

Biologists thought that only after the isthmus formed did animals surge north and south, what biologists refer to as the Great American Biotic Interchange or GABI. That resulted in the extinction of a lot of South American species as North American species took over.

Yet this picture of mammal movements across continents is too simple, UC Berkeley paleontologists argue. After assembling and analyzing a new database of fossil mammals discovered in Mexico, they conclude that northern North American animals had already migrated into southern North America by about 10 million years ago, where they waited around in a kind of holding pen until opportunities arose for some of them to continue crossing to the south starting about 7 million years ago.

“Our study demonstrates for the first time that not only was there a set of significant pre-GABI phases that are different from the traditional Great American Biotic Interchange events 3 million years ago, but that this ramp up is much older than people thought or imagined,” said Jack Tseng, a Berkeley professor of integrative biology and leader of the study. “The ramp up began at the latest about 10 million years ago.”

New work explains how avocado trees coordinate a complex reproductive strategy, switching every day between male and female

The study: Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado

Africa’s smallest wildcat uses abandoned springhare burrows to raise its kittens, according to new research. There are fewer than 10,000 black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) left in the wild and studies on these nocturnal animals are rare. To learn more about them, a team of researchers tracked five female black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) with radio collars and scanned more than 50 burrows in southern Namibia between 2020-21. The research found that 98% of the dens used by the cats had originally been dug, then abandoned, by springhares (Pedetes capensis), an endemic rodent which looks like a cross between a small kangaroo and a rabbit. The cats depend on springhares to provide the underground dens where the felines raise their kittens for the first six to seven weeks of life.  “I can’t prove black-footed cats would disappear without springhares, but at this site they would be much more vulnerable,” Harold Brindley, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, told Mongabay contributor María de los Ángeles Orfila. F. nigripes in a springhare burrow in southern Namibia. Image courtesy of Harold Brindley. Researchers used laser-based, remote-sensing technology to measure tunnel dimensions and determine which species created them. The cats selected burrows with tunnel entrances between 10 and 27 centimeters (4 and 11 inches) in diameter. They ignored smaller rodent holes and larger aardvark or porcupine burrows. After the kittens reached about seven weeks of age, mothers typically transitioned from staying in one location for nearly a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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link to open access paper https://academic.oup.com/ismej/article/20/1/wrag177/8725364

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/67449

"Shark Week," which kicks off this week, has captivated audiences for decades with stories of these powerful ocean predators. But the secret behind their extraordinary swimming abilities lies far deeper than their impressive teeth or iconic tails—it's hidden inside their spines.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

also see https://ecomagazine.com/news/research/fau-researchers-uncover-how-shark-vertebrae-are-engineered-for-speed-and-agility/