The most important fish in the sea. Cross-posted from Gilt Taste. On a bright morning in May, a calm Chesapeake Bay glitters in the sun, an expanse of blue, the nation’s largest and once most productive estuary. A sudden commotion shatters the serenity: Dozens of gulls swoop toward the 135-foot ship Reedville, and the water beneath the boat begins to churn and froth. With two smaller boats at its side, the Reedville encloses a school of fish in a stiff black purse seine net. With practiced efficiency, workers onboard hoist a vacuum pump into the net and suck tens of thousands of small silvery fish out of the water. It looks like an unusual way to catch fish; it’s all the more unusual when you realize that this particular industrial catch is actually banned by every state on the East Coast.
The fish going up the tube are Atlantic menhaden, known to ocean ecologists as the “breadbasket of the ocean,” though some prefer to call them “the most important fish in the sea.” Why does Virginia allow it? Washington zoo's only whooping crane the strong, silent type. Rocky is a healthy bird except for lack of whoopVocalizing is "a huge part of their bonding"The species is endangered, with 567 in North AmericaThe zookeeper plans to keep him dancing Washington (CNN) -- Rocky, the National Zoo's first whooping crane since 1923, has no "whoop. " "I haven't heard any little squeak or squawk or anything from him," National Zoo keeper Debi Talbott said. "I have no idea why he doesn't vocalize. " Rocky, who has been at the zoo less than two months, has a champion in Talbott.
Rocky probably won't produce any offspring at least in part because he doesn't whoop. "As a crane, if you can't vocalize, you can't do what we call 'unison calling' with a mate, which is so much a part of the breeding, the bond, the courtship," Talbott said. Whooping cranes are an endangered species. In his previous home in Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs State Park in Florida, Rocky shared an enclosure with a female whooping crane named Peepers, park manager Art Yerian said.
Loss of Top Animal Predators Has Massive Ecological Effects. ScienceDaily (July 14, 2011) — "Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth," a review paper that will be published on July 15, 2011, in the journal Science, concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth's terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. The paper claims that the loss of apex consumers from ecosystems "may be humankind's most pervasive influence on nature. " The research was funded primarily by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The paper is co-authored by the Institute's executive director, Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch, and the lead author is Dr. James A. The review, conducted by an international team of 24 scientists, illuminates the patterns and far-reaching impacts of predation and herbivory on the structure and dynamics of global ecosystems. Loudest animal is recorded for the first time. Scientists have shown for the first time that the loudest animal on earth, relative to its body size, is the tiny water boatman, Micronecta scholtzi. At 99.2 decibels, this represents the equivalent of listening to an orchestra play loudly while sitting in the front row.
The frequency of the sound (around 10 kHz) is within human hearing range and Dr. James Windmill of the University of Strathclyde, explains one clue as to how loud the animals are: "Remarkably, even though 99% of sound is lost when transferring from water to air, the song is so loud that a person walking along the bank can actually hear these tiny creatures singing from the bottom of the river. " The song, used by males to attract mates, is produced by rubbing two body parts together, in a process called stridulation. In water boatmen the area used for stridulation is only about 50 micrometres across, roughly the width of a human hair. X-rays reveal patterns in the plumage of the first birds. Scientists report that they have taken a big step in determining what the first birds looked like more than 100 million years ago, when their relatives, the dinosaurs, still ruled Earth. At the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, they discovered chemical traces of a pigment, an important component of color, that once formed patterns in the feathers of the fossilized birds.
The pigment, eumelanin, is one of the coloring agents responsible for brown eyes and dark hair in many modern species, including humans. It would have been one of the factors that determined the birds' color patterns, along with structural properties of the birds' feathers and other pigments they ingested as part of their diets. The discovery, reported June 30 in Science Express, will help give textbook illustrators, diorama makers and Hollywood special-effects artists a more realistic palette for their depictions of ancient animals.
The most striking of these trace elements was copper. Mating turtles shut down runway at JFK. Turtles block NYC airport runway Trying to access best mating grounds, more than 150 turtles cross over active runwayIt's unclear how many flights were delayed; FAA hopes to have number by day's endJFK International Airport is surrounded by a bay and wetlandsAmorous turtles also crowded onto a runway in 2009 (CNN) -- Love is in the air at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. More than 150 turtles crossed over an active runway and disrupted air traffic on Wednesday so that they could continue their mating season. The diamondback terrapins were trying to get to an ideal location to lay their eggs. JFK is surrounded by a bay and wetland areas. The first turtle was spotted at 6:45 a.m. and a short time afterward, Port Authority staff was dispatched and the U.S.
"This happens every year," Marsico said. After a turtle was spotted, it was picked up and moved to a better destination to continue nesting, Bannerman said. "Oh @JFKTurtles, we could never stay mad at you ... Getting Wise to Owls to Help Gauge Climate Change. How humpback whales catch prey with bubble nets. Marine biologist David Wiley of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and others report in the latest issue of Behaviour how humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine catch prey with advanced water technology. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are large baleen whales (up to 14 m long) that feed on a small prey in dense concentrations, such as krill or herrings. Humpbacks whales have large flukes relative to their size providing greater thrust for quick maneuvers.
While other baleen whales feed by swimming rapidly forward, humpbacks are adapted for fine-scale movement to create bubble nets. Behaviorally, humpback whales capture prey by engaging in complex feeding maneuvers that are often accompanied by the apparently directed use of air bubble clouds (the production of single or multiple bursts of seltzer-sized bubbles) to corral or herd fish. Lion killed by car on Connecticut highway. By Rachel Garrett, CNN June 13, 2011 -- Updated 1712 GMT (0112 HKT) Officials say the mountain lion is likely the same one that was seen this week in nearby Greenwich. Connecticut official says it is most likely the same cat that was seen in GreenwichState Environmental Protection is testing to determine if it was the same animalThe driver of the car was uninjured in the wreck (CNN) -- A mountain lion was killed in a car accident in Milford, Connecticut, on Saturday and authorities say the cat may have been the same one spotted this week in nearby Greenwich.
The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection says it responded to a State Police call about 1 a.m. Connecticut DEP says it's possible and even likely that the mountain lion killed early Saturday morning is the same cat that's been roaming around Greenwich this month. There is no native population of mountain lions in Connecticut, the DEP says, and the eastern mountain lion has been declared extinct by federal authorities. Whales: The Sea's Mysterious Giants - July/August 2011 - Sierra Magazine. Sierraclub.org - sierra magazine - july/august 2011 - whales - whales: the sea's mysterious giants Photography by Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures, from Among Giants | Captions by Della Watson A humpback whale meets a hydrophone, in Maui, Hawaii. While both sexes make some noises, only male humpbacks sing. Researchers have discovered that the whales' songs evolve and change, much like human language transforms over time. Scientists crack the spiders' web code.
Decorative white silk crosses are an ingenious tactic used by orb-weaving spiders to protect their webs from damage, a new study from the University of Melbourne has revealed. The team, led by Dr Andre Walter and Professor Mark Elgar from the University of Melbourne's Department of Zoology, found that orb-weaving spiders respond to severe damage to their webs by building bigger silk crosses, but if the damage is mild they don't bother adding extra decoration.
Professor Mark Elgar said web damage is costly for spiders as a lot of nutritional resources are required to rebuild a web. "So they evolved this ingenious way to minimise unwanted damage," he said. "It's much like we mark glass windows with tape to prevent people walking into them," he said. The team collected a group of orb-weaving spiders and left them to build their webs in the laboratory. "Our study helps unravel this mystery," Professor Elgar said. Krill and Whales in Antarctica. The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. Adults range in length from 39—52 feet and weigh approximately 79,000 pounds. Like other large whales, the humpback was and is a target for the whaling industry. Due to over-hunting, its population fell by an estimated 90% before a whaling moratorium was introduced in 1966. Stocks have since partially recovered.
There are at least 80,000 humpback whales worldwide. Scientists have recently observed a super-aggregation of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula. The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. Krill is the common name given to the small invertebrates that are found in all oceans of the world. What is happening is a change in the existing ecosystem. Sea turtle declines not all due to human impacts. Humans are pushing sea turtles to the brink of extinction by entangling them in fishing gear, tossing plastic garbage into their habitats, and building resorts on prime nesting beaches, among other affronts.
That's the going hypothesis, anyway. But a new study suggests that our transgressions are peanuts compared to natural oceanic cycles, at least for loggerheads. The findings don't let people off the hook, the authors say, but they do provide new insight into the ways climate can shape turtle populations. Loggerheads lay their eggs on subtropical beaches around the world. Between the mid-1990s and 2006, loggerhead nests in Florida—one of the species' nesting epicenters—declined from roughly 55,000 per year to around 30,000. In the new study, published online this week in PLoS ONE, the duo measured the effect of certain ocean conditions on loggerhead nesting, using nest count data from Japan and Florida stretching back as far as the 1950s.
Frog lovers worldwide unite for 'Save the Frogs' day. Frog lovers in 19 countries gathered Friday to “ribbet” in honor of “Save The Frogs” day, known as the largest day of worldwide amphibian conservation action and education. Scientists, educators and policymakers took part in more than 100 international events with one leaping mission in mind: to raise awareness of the amphibians’ rapid rate of decline. Habitat destruction, infectious diseases, pollution and pesticides, climate change and over-harvesting for pet and food trades are the some of the major contributing factors to the amphibian’s decline worldwide, said Kerry Kriger, founder and executive director of “Save The Frogs.”
“Frogs are the flag-ship species of all amphibians,” said Dr. Malcolm McCallum, managing editor of Herpetological Conservation and Biology. Frogs can adapt to aquatic and terrestrial environments and their permeable skin is naturally susceptible to pathogens, pollutants, and slight changes in the environment, McCallum said. Not everyone agrees. Humpback whale songs spread eastward like the latest pop tune. Humpback whales have their own version of the hit single, according to a study reported online April 14 in Current Biology. At any given time within a population, male humpbacks all sing the same mating tune.
But the pattern of the song changes over time, with the new and apparently catchy versions of the song spreading repeatedly across the ocean, almost always traveling from west to east. "Our findings reveal cultural change on a vast scale," said Ellen Garland, a graduate student at The University of Queensland. Multiple songs moved like "cultural ripples from one population to another, causing all males to change their song to a new version. " This is the first time that such broad-scale and population-wide cultural exchange has been documented in any species other than humans, she added. In fact, only one song ever moved to the west over the period of the study. Most of the time, songs contain some material from the previous year blended with something new.
Model of island ecology sheds new light on the origins of island species. Animal and bird species found only on a single island should still be common within that island. This is the finding of a new model developed by researchers from the University of Leeds and Imperial College London. The model could apply both to actual islands and isolated areas of habitat on the mainland that are home to unique species, such as the table top mountains of South America. The natural history of islands is littered with examples of unusual species found only in one place, such as the Hawaiian Goose, Galápagos Tortoises and Dodo that may once have been common on their islands, but since human contact have become rare or even extinct. Now this new modelling approach shows that in general, most unique island species should be common on their island.
If they are not, then the researchers believe human activity is most likely to be the cause. To develop the model, the researchers collated data on bird species found across 35 islands and archipelagos. Circadian rhythms spark plants' ability to survive freezing weather. Squid and octopuses experience massive acoustic trauma from noise pollution in the oceans.