Homeowners concerned about the decline of bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects need look no further than their own back yards, says ecologist Susannah Lerman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the USDA Forest Service. In new research, she and colleagues suggest that homeowners can help support bee habitat in suburban yards, specifically their...
60-year-old paleontological mystery of a 'phantom' dicynodont
A new study has re-discovered fossil collections from a 19th century hermit that validate 'phantom' fossil footprints collected in the 1950s showing dicynodonts coexisting with dinosaurs.
Before the dinosaurs, around 260 million years ago, a group of early mammal relatives called dicynodonts were the most abundant vertebrate land animals. These bizarre plant-eaters with tusks and turtle-like...
Climate change risk for half of plant and animal species in biodiversity hotspots
Up to half of plant and animal species in the world's most naturally rich areas, such as the Amazon and the Galapagos, could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change if carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked.
Even if the Paris Climate Agreement 2°C target is met, these places could...
Feeding wildlife can influence migration, spread of disease
Animal migration patterns are changing as humans alter the landscape, according to new research from the University of Georgia. Those changes can affect wildlife interactions with parasites-with potential impacts on public health and on the phenomenon of migration itself.
In a paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Leone Brown, a recent postdoctoral...
New guidelines on preventing and treating 'equine strep throat'
Just as strep throat can run rampant in elementary schools, strangles, the "strep throat" of horses, caused by a different Streptococcus bacterium, Streptococcus equi sp equi, is highly contagious. Lymph nodes in the head and neck region become swollen and develop abscesses, resulting in nasal discharge and drainage from the throat. Though rarely fatal, strangles...
Mowing the lawn less often improves bee habitat
When it comes to improving habitat for beleaguered native bee species, doing less may accomplish more. New research by the USDA Forest Service and partners funded by the National Science Foundation found that mowing the lawn less frequently can significantly improve pollinator habitat.
Susannah Lerman, a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station,...