A group blog highlighting ecology, evolution and biodiversity, and other aspects of biology.
Malaysians react angrily at the news of a tiger being poached and butchered.
"Tiger poaching and trade rile up public and NGOs." By Florence A. Samy. The Star Online, 16 Oct 2005.
Habitatnews has collated three articles from The Star Online about this grim reminder of the species' vulnerability- Link.
Now we know how the pterosaurs took off from a standing start or landed gracefull. They have flaps in front of each wing. I remember flying at the youth flying club but the flaps were behind. You need to use the flaps to take off and land. In landing when you put down the flaps, you create more lift so that the plane can slow down and not stall and fall like a brick.
Check out the nice animations in the"Found: the flying lizards’ missing lift." . By Paul Marks. NewScientist.com, 12 Oct 2005.
"More Flores 'Hobbits' described." BBC NEWS, 11 Oct 2005.
'Last year scientists reported that a single, partial skeleton that was little more than a metre tall and lived 18,000 years ago was of a small people that once lived on Flores island, Indonesia. This human species was new to science, and called Homo floresiensis.
Now, more remains of have been discovered - skeletal remains from at least nine of the "Hobbit-like" individuals, including missing parts of the old skeleton.
The researchers are now more convinced than ever that Homo floresiensis represents a distinct species and not some diseased individual of modern human (Homo sapiens) as some sceptics have suggested.
"The finds further demonstrate that LB1 is not just an aberrant or pathological individual but is representative of a long-term population," they write in Nature.'
See BBC NEWS.
I came across the article in the Science Magazine, and thought it fitting in view of the storm kicked up in US about intelligent design and even the attitudes of some students in local schools.
I liked his concluding remarks, "...we who cherish science should be careful to distinguish when we are doing science and when we are extrapolating from it, particularly when we are teaching our students. If it is science that is to be taught, then teach science and nothing more. Leave the other discussions for a more appropriate time."
"Is Evolution a Secular Religion?" Michael Ruse Science, Vol 299, Issue 5612, 1523-1524 , 7 March 2003.
See also "Science and Religion: Lessons from History?" John Brooke Science, Vol 282, Issue 5396, 1985-1986 , 11 December 1998.
I first heard this over BBC on the way to NIE. I am so glad its on PLOSBiology. Now at least it can be easily shared.
According to Breuer, Ndoundou-Hockemba and Fishlock (2005), "This paper documents what we believe to be the first two observations of tool use in wild western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla)."
"We first observed an adult female gorilla using a branch as a walking stick to test water deepness and to aid in her attempt to cross a pool of water at Mbeli Bai, a swampy forest clearing in northern Congo. In the second case we saw another adult female using a detached trunk from a small shrub as a stabilizer during food processing. She then used the trunk as a self-made bridge to cross a deep patch of swamp."
Reference: Breuer T, Ndoundou-Hockemba M, Fishlock V (2005). First Observation of Tool Use in Wild Gorillas. PLoS Biol 3(11): e380. Get that PDF here.
Labels: behaviour
It has been known that species diversity generally enhances the health of an ecosystem. Now, scientists (Reusch et al., 2005) who studied the seagrass Zostera marina in the Baltic Sea have found that DNA diveristy within a species can provide resilience to populations of the seagrass within an ecosystem.
It was found that the more genetic diverse populations of the species survived a heat wave better than a population of the same species with less diverse genotype. Not only that, epifaunal groups associated with the seagrass like juvenile bivalves, grazers like snails and isopods also benefitted from such intra-specific diversity.
Now wouldn't that have some implications for enhancing gene diversity within crops that tend to have low genetic diversity on account of focussed breeding for selected traits?
Summarised from (Frankham, 2005).
Refs.:
Frankham, R (2005). Ecosystem recovery enhanced by genotypic diversity. Heredity, 95, 183. News and Commentary
Reusch, T. B. H., A. Ehlers, et al. (2005). Ecosystem recovery after climatic extremes enhanced by genotypic diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 102(8): 2826-2831.
