December 26, 2006, 6:06 PM CT

Biggest Fish Catch In 24 Years

Five tons of marbled Antarctic cod (Notothenia rossii), now that was surely a big surprise to researchers and crew on board of Polarstern, alike considering that prior and subsequent hauls barely ever reaped such plentiful harvests.

Their shimmering silver and dark blue bodies, which can grow up to 70 cm, were piled on the aft deck of the research vessel maintained by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

In combination with prior stock assessments, fisheries biologists onboard interpreted the catch as a sampling of a discrete, small-scale aggregation of this fish species.

There are two hypotheses to explain the observed dense aggregation: 1. krill, the main prey of marbled Antarctic cod, aggregate to form a band of dense shoals in close vicinity to its preferred habitat; and 2. certain seafloor topographies, such as canyons or cliffs may be conducive to its aggregation. The tendency to shoal made them an easy target for commercial fisheries in the past. After depletion of marbled Antarctic cod stocks the "Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources" (CCAMLR) decided to ban fishing activities. Resuming commercial fisheries could easily lead to stocks being overfished. Gera number of, represented by the Federal Research Centre for Fisheries, is constantly providing results to the responsible CCAMLR working group to prevent overexploitation of Antarctica's fish stocks.........

Posted by: Ashley      Read more         Source

December 25, 2006, 4:28 PM CT

Ocean Temperature And Marine Species

Ocean temperature apparently has a great effect on the spread of marine species. I was reading the following article this morning, and thought about writing this article in this column.

Researchers can predict how the distance marine larvae travel varies with ocean temperature - a key component in conservation and management of fish, shellfish and other marine species - as per a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Most marine life, including commercially important species, reproduces via larvae that drift far along ocean currents before returning to join adult populations. The distance larvae travel before maturing, called dispersal, is directly associated with ocean temperature, the scientists found. For example, larvae from the same species travel far less in warmer waters than in colder waters, said lead author Mary O'Connor, a graduate student in marine ecology in UNC's curriculum in ecology and the department of marine sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"Temperature can alter the number and diversity of adult species in a certain area by changing where larvae end up," O'Connor said. "It is important to understand how a fish population is replenished if we want to attempt to manage or conserve it".

Using data from 72 marine species, including cod, herring, American lobster, horseshoe crabs and clams, O'Connor and her colleagues developed a model that predicts how far larvae travel at a certain temperature. The predictions appear to hold for virtually all marine animals with a larval life cycle.........

Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

December 20, 2006, 7:03 PM CT

Gateways To Conservation Campaign

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) began a new chapter in its history with the launch of its $650 million Gateways to Conservation campaign. The new campaign will fund key improvements at the Bronx Zoo and other WCS facilities, as well as conservation education, wildlife health, and global conservation programs.

Gateways to Conservation has already raised more than $475 million (including $111.1 million in public funding) to support new Bronx Zoo initiatives such as the C.V. Starr Science Campus. A key element of the Science Campus is the Jose E. Serrano Center for Global Conservation, an eco-friendly building that will house the science, conservation, exhibition design, and outreach programs of WCS. Also part of the campus is the Wildlife Health Center, currently under renovation. WCS's health center not only provides care for more than 20,000 animals, but also serves as a base of operations for overseas wildlife health programs.

Other upcoming projects include the transformation of the Bronx Zoo's Beaux Arts-style Lion House building into a new Madagascar exhibit, and the restoration of historic Astor Court. The campaign will also fund a new shark exhibit at the New York Aquarium, along with much-needed improvements to the infrastructure of this facility. Planned exhibits at WCS's other city zoos include snow leopards at the Central Park Zoo, Amur leopards at Prospect Park Zoo, and jaguars at the Queens Zoo. Financial support for these three thus far has been provided by the City of New York.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

December 18, 2006, 9:20 PM CT

Top 10 Myths About Evolution

Though the United States is the world leader in science and technology, many of its citizens display a shocking ignorance regarding basic scientific facts. Recent surveys have revealed that only about half of Americans realize that humans have never lived side by side with dinosaurs, and about the same number reject the idea that humans developed from earlier species of animals. This lack of knowledge in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution springs from a number of negative influences in contemporary society: poor secondary education in some regions of the country, misinformation in the mass media, and deliberate obfuscation by supporters of Creationism and Intelligent Design.

In The Top 10 Myths About Evolution, educators Cameron M. Smith and Charles Sullivan clearly dispel the ten most common myths about evolution that continue to mislead average Americans. Using a refreshing, jargon-free style, they set the record straight on claims that evolution is "just a theory," that Darwinian explanations of life undercut morality, that Intelligent Design is a legitimate alternative to conventional science, that humans come from chimpanzees, and six other popular but erroneous notions.

Smith and Sullivan's reader-friendly, solidly researched text will serve as an important tool, both for teachers and laypersons seeking accurate information about evolution.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

December 18, 2006, 9:10 PM CT

Borneo's Rainforests

"The more we look the more we find," says Stuart Chapman, WWF International Coordinator of the Heart of Borneo Program. "These discoveries reaffirm Borneo's position as one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world and why conservation there is so important".

Scientists have discovered at least 52 new species of animals and plants this past year on the island of Borneo. The discoveries, described in a new WWF report, include 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species.

Some of the creatures new to science include: a miniature fish, the world's second smallest vertebrate measuring less than a third of an inch in length and found in the highly acidic blackwater peat swamps of the island; six Siamese fighting fish, including one species with a beautiful iridescent blue-green marking; a catfish with protruding teeth and an adhesive belly which allows it to literally stick to rocks; and a tree frog with striking bright green eyes. The new ginger plants more than double the number of the Etlingera species found to date.

Several of these new species were found in the "Heart of Borneo," an 84,000 square mile mountainous region about the size of Kansas that is covered with equatorial rainforest in the center of the island. Large areas of the forest are at risk from destructive logging and expanding rubber, oil palm and pulp plantations. Since 1996, deforestation across Indonesia has increased to an average of 7,700 square miles each year, an area slightly smaller than Vermont. Today only half of Borneo's original forest cover remains.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

December 18, 2006, 4:48 AM CT

Christmas Dinners Depend On Control Of Plant Diseases

The British Society for Plant Pathology are asking you to spare a thought this Christmas for how plant diseases caused by pathogenic fungi, bacteria and viruses could affect your celebrations.

Why? Because the 12,000 tonnes or so of potatoes eaten have to be protected against the devastating potato blight, likewise Brussels sprouts from ring spot and white blister, carrots from cavity spot. Even the stuffing is under threat with blight of chestnut trees. Less obvious accompaniments include the wine (grape mildew), beer (barley mildew), coffee (coffee rust), and if there is any room left after the meal, the chocolates are from cocoa bushes that survived or were protected from the well-named witches broom or black pod diseases.

These "basics" are all taken for granted but are only there by controlling a whole range of diseases. Also our homes really wouldn't be complete at Christmas without the 'trimmings' of 7.5 million conifer trees, potentially susceptible to Dothistroma needle blight; this would cause needles to drop even before you collected the tree! These comments apply of course to any meal, celebratory or not and is applicable worldwide. A number of cultures are heavily dependent on rice for example, which succumbs to Magnaporthe rice blast, arguably of equivalent importance in those producing countries to potato blight. Our research makes sure that only high quality produce, free from diseases, makes it into your home and onto your plate.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

December 13, 2006, 6:28 PM CT

Soil Nutrition And Carbon Sequestration

USDA Forest Service (FS) scientists from the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Research Triangle Park, NC, along with colleagues from Duke University, published two papers in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) that provide a more precise understanding of how forests respond to increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the major greenhouse gas driving climate change.

Building on preliminary studies reported in Nature, the researchers found that trees can only increase wood growth from elevated CO2 if there is enough leaf area to support that growth. Leaf area, in turn, is limited by soil nutrition; without adequate soil nutrition, trees respond to elevated CO2 by transferring carbon below ground, then recycling it back to the atmospheric through respiration.

"With sufficient soil nutrition, forests increase their ability to tie up, or sequester carbon in woody biomass under increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations," says Kurt Johnsen, SRS researcher involved in the project. "With lower soil nutrition, forests still sequester carbon, but cannot take full advantage increasing CO2 levels. Due to land use history, many forests are deficient in soil nutrition, but forest management -- including fertilizing with nitrogen -- can greatly increase growth rate and wood growth responses to elevated atmospheric CO2".........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

December 11, 2006, 9:36 PM CT

Plant One Tree And Save The Earth

Can planting a tree stop the sea level from rising, the ice caps from melting and hurricanes from intensifying?

A new study says that it depends on where the trees are planted. It cautions that new forests in mid- to high-latitude locations could actually create a net warming. It also confirms the notion that planting more trees in tropical rainforests could help slow global warming worldwide.

In the first study to investigate the combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation in a fully interactive three-dimensional climate-carbon model, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and Universite Montpellier II observed that global forests actually produce a net warming of the planet.

The study provides a holistic view of the deforestation issue. "This is the first comprehensive assessment of the deforestation problem" said Govindasamy Bala, lead author of the research that will be presented on Dec. 15 at the American Geophysical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.

The models calculated the carbon/climate interactions and took into account the physical climate effect and the partitioning of the carbon dioxide release from deforestation among land, atmosphere and ocean.

Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere and increase cloudiness, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth. Climate change mitigation strategies that promote planting trees have taken only the first effect into account.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

December 11, 2006, 5:03 AM CT

Sea Urchin Genome Is a Biology Boon

Researchers have long known that humans and sea urchins are closely related. In fact, these animals are the only invertebrates on the human branch of the evolutionary tree of life. Now that the sea urchin genome is sequenced and assembled, that genetic connection is even clearer.

After identifying 23,300 genes made from 814 million letters of DNA code taken from Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, the California purple urchin, an international science team has observed that humans share 7,077 genes with urchins. This makes the spiny, spineless creature a closer genetic cousin to man than the fruit fly or worm, more widely studied model organisms. Results from the sequencing project are published in a special six-article section of Science.

Other surprises from the project: Urchins have the most sophisticated innate immune system of any animal studied to date. They carry genes linked to a number of human diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease. The urchin also has genes linked to taste and smell, hearing and balance.

And these eyeless animals can see - or at least sense light. How? Through their feet. Researchers found genes linked to vision, genes that are activated in the urchin's tube feet, puny projections on the animal's shells that help it move and feed. "Nobody would've predicted that sea urchins have such a robust gene set for visual perception," said Gary Wessel, a Brown University biology professor and member of the Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Consortium. "I've been looking at these organisms for 31 years - and now I know they were looking back at me".........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

December 11, 2006, 4:48 AM CT

Finding Mind-body Connection With Fruit Fly Sex

Male fruit flies are smaller and darker than female flies. The hair-like bristles on their forelegs are shorter, thicker. Their sexual equipment, of course, is different, too.

"Doublesex" is the gene largely responsible for these body differences. Doublesex, new research shows, is responsible for behavior differences as well. The finding, made by Brown University biologists, debunks the notion that sexual mind and sexual body are built by separate sets of genes. Rather, researchers found, doublesex acts in concert with the gene "fruitless" to establish the wing-shaking come-ons and flirtatious flights that mark male and female fly courtship.

Results are published in Nature Genetics.

"What we found here, and what is becoming increasingly clear in the field, is that genetic interactions that influence behavior are more complex than we thought," said Michael McKeown, a Brown biologist who led the research. "In the case of sex-differences in flies, there isn't a simple two-track genetic system - one that shapes body and one that shapes behavior. Doublesex and fruitless act together to help regulate behavior in the context of other developmental genes".

How genes contribute to behavior, from aggression to alcoholism, is a growing and contentious area of biology. For more than a decade, McKeown has been steeped in the science, using the fruit fly as a model to understand how genes build a nervous system that, in turn, controls complex behaviors. Since humans and flies have thousands of genes in common, the work can shine a light on the biological roots of human behavior. For example, McKeown recently helped discover a genetic mutation that causes flies to develop symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease - a gene very similar to one found in humans.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source