Vertebrate species, including humans, exposed to stress prenatally tend to have higher stress hormones after birth, according to a new Dartmouth-led study published in Scientific Reports. While previous research has reported examples of maternal stress experience predicting offspring stress hormones in different species, this study is the first to empirically demonstrate the impact of prenatal...
Brain activity of free-flying bats
Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a way to study the brain of a bat as it flies, recording for the first time what happens as a roving animal focuses and refocuses its attention.
This groundbreaking advance allows us to see what happens in the brains of naturally behaving animals, uninhibited by laboratory constraints. Because bats...
How cheetahs outsmart lions and hyenas
Cheetahs in the Serengeti National Park adopt different strategies while eating to deal with threats from top predators such as lions or hyenas. A new study in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology shows that male cheetahs and single females eat their prey as quickly as possible. Mothers with cubs, on the other hand, watch...
Birds migrate away from diseases
In a unique study, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have mapped the origins of migratory birds. They used the results to investigate and discover major differences in the immune systems of sedentary and migratory birds. The researchers conclude that migratory species benefit from leaving tropical areas when it is time to raise their young...
How spiders can harm and help flowering plants
Interactions between organisms such as plants and animals can be found everywhere in nature. Anina Knauer and Florian Schiestl, a professor at the Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany of the University of Zurich, have taken a closer look at one such instance: the interaction between crab spiders and the buckler-mustard, a yellow flowering plant...
Rats, cats, and people trade-off as main course for mosquitoes in Baltimore, Md.
Understanding how neighborhood dynamics regulate mosquito bites is key to managing diseases like West Nile virus and Zika virus. Today in Parasites & Vectors, researchers report that in Baltimore, Maryland, socioeconomic differences between neighborhoods influence bite risk, with rats being a primary blood meal source in lower income neighborhoods.
Shannon LaDeau, a disease ecologist at the...