Biodiversity
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May 9 | News
An
increase in plastic debris floating in a zone between Hawaii and
California is changing the environment of at least one marine critter,
scientists recently reported. Over the past four decades, the amount of
broken-down plastic has grown significantly in a region dubbed the
"Great Pacific Garbage Patch." Most of the plastic pieces are the size
of a fingernail.
May 3 | News
To
help predict the rate at which plants respond to changing climate
conditions, researchers use experiments that manipulate the temperature
surrounding small plots of plants to gauge how specific plants will
react to higher temperatures. But wild plants are leafing out and
flowering sooner each year than predicted by results from these
experiments, according to data from a major new archive of historical
observations.
Apr 17 | News
Research
led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History shows that
ammonites—an extinct type of shelled mollusk that's closely related to
modern-day nautiluses and squids—made homes in the unique environments
surrounding methane seeps in the seaway that once covered America's
Great Plains. These findings show that mobile shelled mollusk stayed put
if conditions were right.
Mar 16 | News
Climate
is believed to be the driving force behind most of humanity’s
evolutionary processes, including geographical range change. According
to a new paper,
new concepts such as “refugia”, or movements forced by harsh Ice Age
climates, may explain the emergence of new species, or subspecies.
Mar 9 | News
Decades
ago, marine scientists made the startling discovery of hydrothermal
vents, where hot water surges from the seafloor and life thrives without
sunlight. Then they found equally unique, sunless habitats in cold
areas where methane rises from seeps on the ocean bottom. Could vents
and seeps co-exist in the deep, happily living side-by-side? No one
thought so until now.
Mar 2 | News
According
to researchers with Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, there are few parallels in the geologic record for today's
rapid ocean changes. In a review of hundreds of paleoceanographic
studies, the researchers found evidence for only one period in the last
300 million years when the oceans changed as fast as today: the
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Feb 24 | News
Providing
new information about the little-understood evolution of the diversity
of sizes and shapes in nature is a recent study identifying genetic
differences between two closely related species of Nasonia
wasps. Digging deeply, the research team identified the chromosomal
location of “wing size” gene, the differences in DNA sequences of the
genes, and the regulatory controls that govern the genes.
Feb 22 | News
A
mysterious pattern of increases and decreases in marine biodiversity
every 60 million years over the past 500 million years could be tied to a
periodic uplifting of the world's continents. The theory is tied to the
amount of the isotope strontium-87 found in marine fossils.
Feb 13 | News
The
assumption has long been that massive species die-offs are probably
followed by an explosive period of evolution as the remaining species
fill gaps in an ecosystem. But according to detailed research on a tiny
marine organism called a graptoloid, some species didn’t rapidly develop
new traits until 2 million years after competing species became
extinct.
Feb 9 | News
Researchers
who broke through the world’s thickest ice cap to access a the
long-hidden Lake Vostok will have to wait until December (Antarctic
summer) to determine whether their frozen sample contains ice. If it
does—and like already exists in challenging situations on Earth—it will
offer hope that life exists beyond our world.
