A new study from <a href="https://www.osu.edu/">Ohio State University</a> reveals what is going on inside of your <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/gut-brain-interactions-have-an-influence-on-diseases/">brain</a> when you get lost in a fictional fantasy. The experts discovered that the more immersed we become in the lives of our favorite characters of fiction, the more our brain activity reflects how much we identify with them.
&#8220;When they think about a favorite fictional character, it appears similar in one part of the brain as when they are thinking about themselves,&#8221; said study lead author Timothy Broom.
The research was focused on self-described fans of the HBO series &#8220;Game of Thrones.&#8221; The individuals were instructed to think about themselves, nine of their friends, and nine characters from the drama series. The participants also reported on which character they felt closest to and liked the most.
According to Broom, Game of Thrones was ideal for this study because it attracted a devoted fan base and the large cast presented a variety of characters that people could become attached to.
One of the key findings involved participants who scored highest on &#8220;trait identification.&#8221; These individuals agreed most strongly with statements like &#8220;I really get involved in the feelings of the characters in a novel.&#8221;
&#8220;People who are high in trait identification not only get absorbed into a story, they also are really absorbed into a particular character,&#8221; said Broom. &#8220;They report matching the thoughts of the character, they are thinking what the character is thinking, they are feeling what the character is feeling. They are inhabiting the role of that character.&#8221;
The researchers used an fMRI machine to measure activity in various parts of the brain through small changes in blood flow. As the participants&#8217; brains were scanned, they were evaluating themselves, their friends, and Game of Thrones characters. 
A part of the brain called the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) is known to show increased activity when people think about themselves and, to a lesser extent, when they think about close friends.
While in the fMRI, the individuals were shown a series of names &#8211; including themselves, friends, or characters &#8211; along with a trait, such as lonely, sad, trustworthy, or smart. The participants simply said &#8220;yes&#8221; or &#8220;no&#8221; to imply whether the trait fit the person.
As expected, the vMPFC was most active when people were evaluating themselves, less active when they evaluated friends, and least active when they evaluated characters from Game of Thrones.
However, among those who were high in trait identification, the vMPFC was more active when they thought about the fictional characters than it was for participants who identified less with the characters. This region of the brain was particularly active when the individuals evaluated the character they identified with the most.
Study co-author Dylan Wanger said the findings help explain how fiction can have such a big impact on some people.
&#8220;For some people, fiction is a chance to take on new identities, to see worlds though others&#8217; eyes and return from those experiences changed,&#8221; said Wagner.
&#8220;What previous studies have found is that when people experience stories as if they were one of the characters, a connection is made with that character, and the character becomes intwined with the self. In our study, we see evidence of that in their brains.&#8221;
The study is published in the journal <a href="https://academic.oup.com/scan">Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience</a>.
&#8211;&#8212;
By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

What happens in your brain while you're lost in fiction

Middle aged people who experience frequent nightmares are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia later in life, according to research led by the <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/index.aspx">University of Birmingham</a>. The study suggests that nightmares may become prevalent several years or even decades before <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/insomnia-may-lead-to-memory-loss-in-adults/">memory</a> and thinking problems of dementia set in.



“We’ve demonstrated for the first time that distressing dreams, or nightmares, can be linked to dementia risk and cognitive decline among healthy adults in the general population," said Dr. Abidemi Otaiku.



“This is important because there are very few risk indicators for dementia that can be identified as early as middle age. While more work needs to be done to confirm these links, we believe bad dreams could be a useful way to identify individuals at high risk of developing dementia, and put in place strategies to slow down the onset of disease.”



The researchers analyzed data from three community-based cohorts which included more than 600 adult men and women aged 35 to 64; and 2,600 adults aged 79 and older. All of the participants were dementia-free at the start of the study. Data was collected between 2002 and 2012. Younger participants were followed up to nine years, and the older participants were followed for five years.



The experts found that middle-aged people (35-64) who reported bad dreams on a weekly basis were four times more likely to experience cognitive decline over the following decade. Older people were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia.



Associations were much stronger for men than for women. Older men experiencing nightmares on a weekly basis were five times more likely to develop dementia. In women, the risk increased by 41 percent.



The experts will continue to investigate whether this association exists for young people as well. Future research will also consider other dream characteristics, such as how often we remember dreams and how vivid they are, to identify dementia risk. Using electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers plan to investigate the biological basis of bad dreams in both healthy people and people with dementia.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101640">EClinicalMedicine</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Nightmares in middle age linked to dementia

Middle aged people who experience frequent nightmares are more likely...

Even if no human being has set foot on Mars yet, the Red Planet is already littered with over 15,000 pounds of trash from the 18 human-made objects that have been sent to the planet over the past five decades. According to Cagri Kilic, a postdoctoral fellow in Robotics at the <a href="https://www.wvu.edu/">West Virginia University</a>, the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/millions-of-pieces-of-debris-threaten-the-space-economy/">debris</a> currently found on Mars comes from three main sources – discarded hardware, inactive spacecraft, and crashed spacecraft.&nbsp;



Every mission on Mars requires a module protecting the spacecraft – which includes a heat shield to protect the craft when passing through the planet’s atmosphere, as well as a parachute and landing hardware to ensure a smooth landing on the planet’s surface. As it descends, the craft discards parts of the module, which can land in different locations, and can break down into smaller pieces when hitting the ground, which are further dispersed by Martian winds. Over the years, a great quantity of such small, windblown litter has been found across the planet’s surface.&nbsp;



In addition, the nine inactive spacecraft currently abandoned on Mars make up the second type of debris, although “these might be better considered historical relics than trash,” according to Dr. Kilic. Finally, crashed spacecraft and their pieces are another major source of trash.



“When you add up the mass of all spacecraft that have ever been sent to Mars, you get about 22,000 pounds (9979 kilograms). Subtract the weight of the currently operational craft on the surface – 6,306 pounds (2,860 kilograms) – and you are left with 15,694 pounds (7,119 kilograms) of human debris on Mars,” Dr. Kilic reported in <a href="https://theconversation.com/mars-is-littered-with-15-694-pounds-of-human-trash-from-50-years-of-robotic-exploration-188881">The Conversation</a>.&nbsp;



This massive amount of litter currently spread on Mars poses risks to current and future missions on the Red Planet. For instance, the Perseverance teams are documenting all debris they find in order to make sure that none of it will contaminate the samples that the rover is collecting. Moreover, NASA engineers have recently investigated whether Perseverance could get tangled in debris from the landing, but have concluded that the risk is rather low.



However, according to Dr. Kilic, the “real reason debris on Mars is important is because of its place in history. The spacecraft and their pieces are the early milestones for human planetary exploration.” Yet, whether trash could be considered or not a valuable historical artefact remains a topic for debate.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Mars littered with over 15,000 pounds of trash

Even if no human being has set foot on Mars...

Colorful,Pink,And,Purple,Calla,Flowers,Composition

According to horticulture expert Paul Alder, several common <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/houseplants-can-instantly-reduce-indoor-air-pollution/">houseplants</a>, such as the daffodil, Aloe Vera, or English Ivy contain toxic chemicals which can cause kidney stones, swelling of the throat, and vomiting in adults, and are almost impossible for children or pets to break down, often leading to irreparable damage if consumed.



One of the most dangerous houseplants is the elegant calla lily, which has a curved bloom and can be found in a variety of colors. However, this plant contains calcium oxalate crystals which cannot be broken down by the human body, and can lead to renal or liver failure, particularly in children and pets.&nbsp;



Another toxic plant for pets is the bird of paradise, a beautiful plant with brightly colored flowers resembling the head of a feathered bird, which contains hydrogen cyanide – an extremely dangerous substance for cats and dogs, causing vomiting, drowsiness, and even death. Similarly, the Sago palm – a slow-growing subtropical plant native to Japan and Southern China – contains a toxin called cycasin, which causes liver damage and death if consumed by pets.



Parents should take particular care in keeping their children away from the philodendron plant, which is currently very common in indoor gardens. Although it is not fatal, eating its leaves can cause nausea, burning skin, swelling of the throat, vomiting, and diarrhea, particularly in young children. Even more dangerous is the English Ivy, an evergreen perennial climbing vine which stays green all year round. Just touching this plant’s leaves or sap can cause skin irritation, swelling, and shortness of breath.



Even the innocent-looking daffodil, a beloved springtime flower, harbors toxins such as lycorine, a chemical which can be lethal if ingested in large amounts. And regardless of its name, the Peace Lily can be extremely toxic for cats and other small animals, injuring their tissues if touched or ingested – a phenomenon observed also in the case of the medicinal plant Aloe Vera, which can cause severe vomiting and diarrhea, while lowering blood sugar levels in both children and pets.



Other houseplants that can be dangerous include the Easter Lily, a springtime flower which can irritate the mouth and throat of children if ingested, the Monstera deliciosa, a beautiful, low maintenance plant that causes stinging sensations if touched or eaten, or the Pothos, an easy to care for evergreen plant which leads to burning sensations in the mouth, throat, and tongue.



According to Alder, these beautiful but dangerous houseplants could be replaced by other non-toxic ones, such as the Areca Palm, the Pilea Ivy, the Haworthia Zebra, or the White Orchid.&nbsp;&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Common houseplants can poison children and pets

According to horticulture expert Paul Alder, several common houseplants, such...

According to a new study led by <a href="https://www.eurac.edu/en">Eurac Research</a> – a private research center from Bolzano, Italy – global snow cover has been steadily declining over the past four decades. On average, there are 15 fewer days that snow remains on the ground - with peaks of up to 20 or even 30 fewer days in Canada’s western provinces - and snow coverage has decreased by a total of four percent.&nbsp;



This study is a follow-up of an initial analysis of global snow cover published in 2020, which provided evidence that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/snow-cover-in-the-alps-could-soon-be-cut-in-half/">snowfall</a> has declined in 78 percent of mountain areas over the past two decades. By extending the start of data collection to 1982, the author of both studies Claudia Notarnicola, the deputy director of Eurac Research’s <a href="https://www.eurac.edu/en/institutes-centers/institute-for-earth-observation">Institute for Earth Observation</a>, has shown that “with a few exceptions, data on both the extent and duration of snow cover are clearly decreasing.”



To investigate these trends, Notarnicola took a hybrid approach, combining MODIS satellite data time series from 2000 to 2020 with state-of-the-art mathematical models.&nbsp;



“I chose a highly attested NASA global model as the basis and then refined it. In fact, for the period when the data from the model and the more precise satellite images overlapped, I was able to better calibrate the model thanks to so-called ‘artificial neural networks,’ a computational system that falls under the aegis of artificial intelligence,” explained Notarnicola.&nbsp;



“The analysis of the harmonized time series over 38&nbsp;years indicates an overall negative trend of −&nbsp;3.6% ± 2.7% for yearly snow cover extent and of −&nbsp;15.1&nbsp;days ± 11.6&nbsp;days for snow cover duration.”



According to Notarnicola, the few existing counter-trends are not very encouraging. For instance, although the eruption of the El Chichon volcano in Mexico in the early 1980s caused a slight cooling which counteracted the decrease in snowfall, this phenomenon had not lasted long.&nbsp;



“In general, over these 38 years of analysis there are also some cases of increases in both coverage and snow days, specifically in parts of Central Asia and some valleys in the United States,” Notarnicola added. “There are no consensus explanations for these phenomena, but they could be other effects of climate change, for example variations in currents and winds or specific microclimatic conditions. In any case, these are a few exceptions in a very negative global context,” she concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16743-w">Nature Scientific Reports</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Snow cover has decreased in recent decades

According to a new study led by Eurac Research –...

For so long, the world has been focused on the impacts of carbon dioxide (CO2) <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/unchecked-emissions-could-kill-90-percent-of-marine-species/">emissions</a> on global warming and subsequent changes in climate. But CO2 is not the sole product released as a result of industrial processes or the combustion of fossil fuels. There is an array of other airborne pollutants that enter the atmosphere along with CO2 that behave very differently from the greenhouse gases. A new study finds that the impacts of these other pollutants on human health, economies, and agriculture differ drastically depending on where the pollutants are emitted.



Led by scientists from the <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/">University of Texas at Austin</a> and the University of California San Diego, the study is the first to simulate how aerosol pollution affects both climate and air quality for locations around the globe. Although the atmosphere is made up largely of gases, there are also tiny solid particles and droplets of liquid that are present, suspended in the air. These small suspended droplets and particles are known as aerosols. They originate from natural sources, such as ocean spray and mineral dust from deserts, and also from human activities, including the combustion of fossil fuels.&nbsp;



Unlike CO2, which is a long-lived gas that spreads out through the atmosphere globally, aerosols are short-lived and tend to have more local and regional effects. Aerosols can absorb incident sunlight and scatter it back into the atmosphere, meaning that they actually have a cooling effect that is opposite to the effect of greenhouse gases. However, if they occur at high densities, the aerosols can also prevent light from reaching the leaves of crops where photosynthesis takes place. They are also involved in the formation of smog. In these ways, aerosols can impact human health and agricultural and economic productivity.



Although CO2&nbsp;and aerosols are often emitted at the same time during the combustion of fuels, the two substances behave differently in Earth’s atmosphere, said co-lead author Geeta Persad, an assistant professor at the UT Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. “Carbon dioxide has the same impact on climate no matter who emits it,” said Persad. “But for these aerosol pollutants, they tend to stay concentrated near where they're emitted, so the effect that they have on the climate system is very patchy and very dependent on where they’re coming from.”



The researchers investigated the influence of aerosols in worsening the social costs of carbon (a measure of the economic costs of greenhouse gases on society) in eight key regions of the world: Brazil, China, East Africa, Western Europe, India, Indonesia, United States and South Africa. They considered these costs both for the region producing the aerosols and for neighboring countries.&nbsp;



In order to do this, the researchers created a set of climate simulations using the Community Earth System Model version 1 developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They then ran simulations in which each of the eight regions produced identical aerosol emissions and mapped how temperature, precipitation, and surface air quality were affected in these regions and across the globe.



The experts connected this data with known relationships between climate and air quality and infant mortality, crop productivity, and gross domestic product across the eight regions. In a final step, they compared the total societal costs of these aerosol-driven impacts against the societal costs of co-emitted CO2&nbsp;in each of the eight regions, and produced global maps of the combined effects of aerosols and CO2 emissions. The researchers said the study is a big step forward from previous work, which either only estimated the air quality impacts of aerosols or didn’t consider their diverse global climate effects.



The findings showed that, depending on the geographic location of the emissions, aerosols can increase the social costs of carbon emissions by as much as 66 percent. Aerosols can directly affect human health and the climate independently of CO2. They are associated with negative health impacts when inhaled, and can affect the climate by influencing temperature, precipitation patterns and how much sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface.



“This research highlights how the harmful effects of our emissions are generally underestimated,” said Jennifer Burney, co-lead author and the Marshall Saunders Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Global Climate Policy and Research at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. “CO2&nbsp;is making the planet warmer, but it also gets emitted with a bunch of other compounds that impact people and plants directly and cause climate changes in their own right.”



The outcome paints a fairly complicated picture. Emissions from some regions produce climate and air quality effects that are between two and 10 times more severe as those seen in other regions. In addition, the social costs of this pollution can sometimes affect neighboring regions more than the region that produced the aerosol emissions. For example, in Europe local emissions result in four times as many infant deaths outside Europe as within its borders. Despite the complex relationships that emerge from the modelling exercise, the researchers note that aerosol emissions are always bad for both the emitter and the planet overall.



“While we might think about aerosols, which cool the climate, as having the silver lining of counteracting CO2-driven warming, when we look at all these effects in combination, we find that no region experiences overall local benefits or generates overall global benefits by emitting aerosols,” said Persad.



For example, the study found that adding aerosol costs to CO2&nbsp;costs could double China’s incentive to mitigate emissions. And it switches the impact of local emissions in Europe from a net local benefit to a net cost. The study also shows that some emerging economies, like in East African nations and India, might be motivated to collaborate on emission cuts since they are strongly impacted by each other’s emissions.&nbsp;



Overall, the findings indicate that individual countries would often benefit from working together with their neighbors to cut emissions since regional emissions affect everyone, not just the country doing the emitting. Researchers also said the findings create potentially new motivations for countries to cut emissions – and to care about other countries cutting their own emissions.



The framework developed in this study can also be applied to maximize societal benefits from current mitigation strategies being considered by policy makers. For example, the researchers applied it to the “fair-share” approach laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement in which all countries target the same per-capita CO2&nbsp;emissions. They found the approach, while beneficial for climate stability, does not improve the mortality and crop impacts from combined aerosol and CO2&nbsp;emissions because it focuses mitigation in regions that already have fairly low aerosol impacts, like the U.S. and Europe.



“By expanding societal cost calculations to include the geographically-resolved societal impacts of co-emitted aerosols, we’re showing that the incentive for individual countries to mitigate and collaborate on mitigation is much higher than if we only think about greenhouse gases,” Burney said.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/journal/sciadv">Science Advances</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Airborne pollutants amplify the effects of climate change

For so long, the world has been focused on the...

The bacteria that live in our digestive systems break down components of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/changing-animal-feed-could-supply-food-for-one-billion-people/">food</a> we eat. This not only provides the bacteria with food, but also enables us to access nutrients that are essential for our own health. The importance of a rich and vibrant microbial community in our guts has been emphasized by numerous recent research studies, and yet scientists know little about exactly how some of the bacteria go about digesting certain molecules present in our food.



Complex carbohydrates form an important source of nutrients available to the microbes in our guts, and bacteria have a vast array of enzymes, sometimes more than 300 different types, capable of breaking them down. Of particular interest to scientists from the <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/index.aspx">University of Birmingham</a> and Newcastle University in a recent study, was a genus of gastrointestinal bacteria called Bacteroides. These microbes make up the most substantial portion of the human gut microbiota and are very good at digesting the carbohydrates known as plant glycans.



In their study, the researchers investigated the pathway by which the bacteria break down N-glycans, which are sugars found bonded to the protein molecules of plants. Since plants form the majority of the human diet, N-glycans are very common in the human gut. The researchers, whose findings are published in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208168119">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, used genomic data from the bacteria to identify specific enzymes produced by them that were capable of digesting different types of glycans.&nbsp;



Using this novel genome association approach the researchers were able to identify five different carbohydrate-active enzymes that are involved in the breakdown of N-glycans. This information about enzymes that are produced by the gut microbes will enable researchers to understand better how to manage good gut health, say the authors of the study. In addition, since glycans are sometimes associated with allergies to pollen or to plant-based foods such as soya, the researchers propose that the newly-identified enzymes that break down glycans could be used to make some foods or medicines less allergenic.&nbsp;



“The gut microbiome is an incredibly important feature for human health, and this finding will enable us to better understand the microbiome," said study lead author Dr. Lucy Crouch from the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham. "By identifying the particular enzymes that these microbes use to digest their food, we can consider how future diets can be developed that promote a healthy gut, and as a result improve our general health.”



The researchers state that one of the potential uses of the enzymes that specifically target N-glycans is in the production of pharmaceutical proteins from plants. Plants such as maize, rice, tobacco, flax, and strawberry have already been used to produce proteins for use as antibodies (“plantibodies”), collagen, vaccines and enzymes, but in order to reduce the allergenic properties of these proteins before being given as human treatments, it would be useful to remove the N-glycan sugars from the protein molecules.&nbsp;



In addition to showing how plant N-glycans are degraded in the human gut, the researchers also found that glycans bonded to the proteins from insects were also degraded by some of the same enzymes. This implies that insects, when included in the human diet, would also be a source of suitable nutrients for gut microbes. Insects have been a human food source for centuries for some populations, they are common in other primate diets, and there is an increased interest in the use of insect protein in human diets for environmental and sustainability reasons.



"We are still learning the role our gut plays in our overall health and so learning how microbes in our gut are able to use plant N-glycans is vital," said study co-author Dr David Bolam from Newcastle University. "This has developed our knowledge both in terms of understanding how these sugars are broken down by the microbiota, but also to discover new enzymes that could be used to alter and analyse N-glycan structures for medical and industrial applications.”



---



By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Human gut bacteria feed on complex plant sugars

The bacteria that live in our digestive systems break down...

Image,For,3d,Floor.,Underwater,World.,Turtle.,Corals.

Although <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/what-are-coral-reefs-and-why-are-they-important/">coral reefs</a> cover less than one percent of the Earth’s surface, they are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet. Moreover, they are providing a habitat for about 25 percent of all marine life, and are supporting over one billion people with food, income, and coastal protection.&nbsp;



Unfortunately, nearly 75 percent of coral reefs are currently threatened by climate change and human activities. Without sustained efforts to protect them, an estimated 99 percent of these reefs will vanish by the end of the century.



However, according to a new study led by an international team of experts, coral reefs could adapt to climate change if given the opportunity to evolve.&nbsp;



“Evolution happens when corals that have already adapted to new environmental conditions breed with corals that have not yet adapted,” explained study co-author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/">Rutgers University</a>. “As ocean temperatures rise, we need to keep corals in hotter waters healthy and protected so they can reproduce and spread their heat tolerance to other coral reef areas.”&nbsp;



Thus, the researchers advocate for a conservation approach which protects coral reefs at local, regional, and global scales in ways that allow heat tolerance to spread.&nbsp;



“The best part about these results is that they underscore the importance of our actions at local scales - we don’t have to just sit back and watch coral reefs suffer as our climate changes,” said study lead author Madhavi Colton, the former executive director of the <a href="https://coral.org/en/">Coral Reef Alliance</a>. “This study provides guidance on how to design local conservation solutions that will have real, lasting impacts well into the future.”&nbsp;



“We simply cannot afford to lose coral reefs,” added study co-author Helen Fox, the conservation science director at the Coral Reef Alliance. “It is imperative that we do what we can to save coral reefs now because we will be faced with combined global economic, humanitarian, and biodiversity crises if we do not,” she concluded.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01854-4">Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Coral reefs can survive, if given the chance to evolve

Although coral reefs cover less than one percent of the...

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are a type of small whale that inhabit the Arctic Ocean. Also known as the unicorns of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/extreme-marine-heatwave-persists-in-the-mediterranean-sea/">sea</a>, narwhals are mysterious creatures. However, researchers with <a href="https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/">Hokkaido University</a> and Greenland Institute of Natural Resources have begun to uncover some of their secrets.



The experts analyzed 83 days' worth of data from a satellite-tagged animal to study the whale's daily diving behaviors. Prior to this study, scientists believed that narwhal diving and surface resting behavior was irregular.



"While animal-borne ocean sensors continue to advance and collect more data, there is a lack of adequate methods to analyze records of irregular behavior," said study first author Evgeny A. Podolskiy.



However, this idea was abandoned when a new method of analysis was used. The researchers applied mathematical equations of the chaos theory to the movements and patterns that were previously difficult to detect.



"Our approach is relatively simple to implement and can map and label long term data, identifying differences between the behavior of individual animals and different species, and also detecting perturbations in behavior caused by changing influences," explained the study authors.



The researchers found that the tagged whale would rest close to the ocean surface mid-day, but when they did dive during that period, the dives were very deep. At dusk, the narwhal would take shallower dives, but these dives were more intense, perhaps due to hunting squid. The experts also noticed that more sea ice restrictions seemed to compel more extreme diving.&nbsp;



The narwhal is a charismatic species but also one of the most vulnerable to our changing climate since it depends on sea ice. As the ice melts, they become more exposed to the open ocean. Consequently, there is increased conflict with humans via hunting and oil extraction. Also, the opening of sea ice allows the natural migration of predators such as orcas deeper into the arctic.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The authors hope this study will encourage other scientists to use the methods developed in this research to assist in narwhal preservation. The chaos theory could also be applied to other endangered animals in the Arctic.



The study appears in the journal <a href="https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/clarifying-the-chaos-of-narwhal-behavior/">PLOS Computational Biology</a>.



Image Credit: Carsten Egevang



---



By <a href="mailto:nire518@gmail.com">Erin Moody </a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Chaos theory may help protect narwhals

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are a type of small whale that...

A new study published by the <a href="https://www.agu.org/">American Geophysical Union</a> is the first global survey of lake colors. While this may not seem like an important topic, color is directly tied to the ecological health of a lake and is intimately influenced by the climate. Since the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/drinking-water-quality-will-suffer-from-climate-change/">climate</a> has been changing, so has the algae and sediment content of lake water, shifting the color from blue to brownish.



To be clear, less than a third of all lakes are naturally blue in color. These are mostly deep lakes found in cool, high latitude environments with winter ice cover and high precipitation. Worldwide, 69 percent of lakes are already green-brown.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“No one has ever studied the color of lakes at a global scale,” said Xiao Yang, remote sensing hydrologist at Southern Methodist University. “There were past studies of maybe 200 lakes across the globe, but the scale we’re attempting here is much, much larger in terms of the number of lakes and also the coverage of small lakes. Even though we’re not studying every single lake on Earth, we’re trying to cover a large and representative sample of the lakes we have.”



To complicate things, lake colors can change seasonally with algae growth. The researchers categorized the lakes by the color most frequently shown over seven years.&nbsp;



The experts also looked at how changing climate might impact the future color of lakes. Lakes in the Rocky Mountains, northeast Canada, northern Europe and New Zealand are likely to turn from blue to green-brown in the future.&nbsp;



“Warmer water, which produces more algal blooms, will tend to shift lakes towards green colors,” said Catherine O’Reilly, an aquatic ecologist at Illinois State University. “There are lots of examples of where people have actually seen this happen when they studied one individual lake.”



The scientists say that while studies of lake health have been carried out on local and regional levels, lake color is a good metric for global scale lake health measurements. This method is also a way to look at the health of remote lake ecosystems.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098925">Geophysical Research Letters</a>.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Many blue lakes are expected to turn green and brown

A new study published by the American Geophysical Union is...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sauropod-dinosaurs-lived-only-in-earths-warmer-regions/">Dinosaurs</a> originated in the late Triassic Period (approximately 225 million years ago) and dominated the Earth until their mass extinction 66 million years ago. Towards the end of the 19th century, enough dinosaur fossils have been found for scientists to develop a binary classification system based primarily upon the shape of dinosaurs’ hip bones: saurischians (lizard-hipped) versus ornithischians (bird-hipped).&nbsp;



Although this classification proved reliable enough for all dinosaur remains to slot neatly into one of the two groupings, more recent studies argued that bird-hipped and lizard-hipped dinosaurs most likely evolved from a common ancestor, thus questioning the utility and reliability of the previous classification. Now, a research team led by the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a> and the <a href="https://www.ufsm.br/">Federal University of Santa Maria</a> in Brazil has conducted a new analysis of the origins of bird-hipped dinosaurs and discovered that they probably evolved from a group of animals known as silesaurians, which were first identified two decades ago, and had some of the features of saurischians.&nbsp;



Currently, there is a gap of over 25 million years in the fossil record, making it difficult to identify the origins of the ornithischians. “It seemed to be that they originated with all other dinosaurs in the Late Triassic but exhibited a unique set of features that could not be fitted into an evolutionary succession from their dinosaur cousins,” said study lead author David Norman, a Cambridge paleontologist. “It was as if they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere.”



However, according to Professor Norman and his colleagues, the discovery of the remains of several rather unusual Late Triassic dinosaur-like animals called silesaurians could potentially help fill this gap. While these creatures had long slender legs and hip bones similar to those of saurischians, they had a&nbsp;toothless, beak-like region at the front of their lower jaws not unlike the predentary structure found in ornithischians.&nbsp;



“Silesaurians progressively modified their anatomy during the Late Triassic, so that they come to resemble ornithischians,” said Professor Norman. “We have been able to trace this transition through the development of the toothless beak, the development of leaf-shaped coarse-edged teeth typical of those seen in the herbivorous ornithischians, modifications to the shoulder bones, changes in the proportions of the pelvic bones, and finally a restructuring of the muscle attachment areas on the hind legs.”



These findings suggest that ornithischians emerged in the Late Triassic in the guise of silesaurs which gradually re-arranged their anatomy until recognizable&nbsp;ornithischians had evolved by the beginning of the Jurassic Period. Interestingly though, these earliest ornithischians from the Late Triassic retained the saurischian hip construction.



“So, the very earliest ornithischians were, technically, saurischian,” Professor Norman concluded. “From a taxonomic perspective, classifying silesaurs as early ornithischians seems counterintuitive. But, taking a Darwinian perspective, the unique anatomical characteristics of ornithischians&nbsp;had&nbsp;to evolve from somewhere, and where better than from their nearest relatives: their saurischian cousins!”



The study is published in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlac062">Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society</a>.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

How did bird-hipped dinosaurs evolve?

Dinosaurs originated in the late Triassic Period (approximately 225 million...

Aerial,View,Of,A,Rib,Boat,With,Snorkelers,And,Divers

While many parts of Europe struggled with record-breaking temperatures this summer, it was not only the continental mainland that was affected. According to <a href="https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/careheat/">CAREHeat</a> (deteCtion and threAts of maRinE Heat waves), a new project funded by the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> (ESA), the Mediterranean Sea also suffered an intense <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/marine-heatwaves-reduce-the-oceans-ability-to-absorb-carbon/">marine heatwave</a>, with sea surface temperatures reaching 5°C higher than average.



Marine heatwaves are massive rises in sea temperatures over an extended period of time, which negatively impact marine ecosystems, threaten marine biodiversity, and lead to significant losses for fisheries, aquaculture, and tourism industries. Moreover, such high water temperatures can also cause extreme weather events, such as tropical storms and hurricanes, and can increase the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and wildfires.



As global ocean temperatures continue to increase, marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent, widespread, prolonged, and intense. Thus, predicting their occurrence and duration, and better understanding their impact on marine ecosystems, is essential. CAREHeat – an ESA-initiative started in March 2022 - uses near-real time sea surface temperature data available from the&nbsp;<a href="https://marine.copernicus.eu/">Copernicus Marine Service</a> to identify marine heatwaves, assess their status and trends, and clarify their impact on marine life.&nbsp;



In the context of this project, scientists detected a particularly extreme heatwave event that started in the second half of April, 2022, and stretched across the central and northwestern Mediterranean Sea. In these regions, sea surface temperatures spiked rapidly, rising from 16°C to 22°C&nbsp;in less than ten days. In the Ligurian Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean), the maximum intensity of the heatwave was reached on July 21, with a 5°C increase above normal temperatures.&nbsp;



Although it partially subsided, the heatwave in the Mediterranean is still present now in September. “We are still observing an averaged sea surface temperature anomaly of around 2°C, which intensified in the northwest Mediterranean where the anomaly is higher than 4°C,” said Rosalia Santoleri, the CAREHeat Project Coordinator.



The research team will continue to monitor the evolution of this unprecedented heatwave in order to clarify how the temperature signal propagates below the sea surface, which are the drivers of this extreme event, and what impact it has on Mediterranean ecosystems.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Extreme marine heatwave persists in the Mediterranean Sea

While many parts of Europe struggled with record-breaking temperatures this...

A team of researchers led by <a href="https://wsu.edu/">Washington State University</a> (WSU) has described a coronavirus recently discovered in Russian bats that belongs to the same family as SARS-CoV-2 (sarbecoviruses), and is likely capable of infecting humans. If this virus – named Khosta-2 - were to spill over into human populations, it would be resistant to currently existing vaccines and treatments. 



The discovery of the virus stresses the urgent need to develop universal vaccines to protect against sarbecoviruses in general, rather than just against known variants of SARS-CoV-2, in order to avoid future <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/massive-global-failures-to-control-the-covid-pandemic/">pandemics</a>.



Although hundreds of sarbecoviruses have been discovered in bats in recent years (predominantly in Asia), most of them are incapable of infecting human cells. Initially, scientists believed that the Khosta-1 and Khosta-2 viruses – found in Russian bats in late 2020 – do not pose threats to humans either.&nbsp;



“Genetically, these weird Russian viruses looked like some of the others that had been discovered elsewhere around the world, but because they did not look like SARS-CoV-2, no one thought they were really anything to get too excited about,” said study senior author Michael Letko, a virologist at WSU. “But when we looked at them more, we were really surprised to find they could infect human cells. That changes a little bit of our understanding of these viruses, where they come from, and what regions are concerning.”



While laboratory analyses revealed that Khosta-1 poses a low risk of spilling over to humans, Khosta-2 appeared highly efficient in using its spike protein to infect cells by attaching – just like SARS-CoV-2 - to a receptor protein called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which is found throughout human cells. Moreover, the researchers found that Khosta-2 is not neutralized by serum derived from human populations vaccinated against Covid-19 or previously infected with the Omicron variant.&nbsp;



These worrisome findings suggest an urgent need to find universal vaccines against this family of viruses. “Right now, there are groups trying to come up with a vaccine that doesn't just protect against the next variant of SARS-2 but actually protects us against the sarbecoviruses in general,” Letko explained. “Unfortunately, many of our current vaccines are designed to specific viruses we know infect human cells or those that seem to pose the biggest risk to infect us. But that is a list that’s everchanging. We need to broaden the design of these vaccines to protect against all sarbecoviruses.”



Although Khosta-2 appears to lack some of the genes believed to be involved in pathogenesis in humans, there is a significant risk of this virus recombining with other viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 in animal populations and spilling back into humans.



“When you see SARS-2 has this ability to spill back from humans and into wildlife, and then there are other viruses like Khosta-2 waiting in those animals with these properties we really don’t want them to have, it sets up this scenario where you keep rolling the dice until they combine to make a potentially riskier virus,” Letko concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010828">PLoS Pathogens</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Vaccine-resistant coronavirus discovered in Russian bats

A team of researchers led by Washington State University (WSU)...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/3d-printed-lungs-lives/">3D printing</a> is currently gaining significant momentum in the construction industry, with static and mobile robots printing materials used in construction projects, such as steel or concrete structures. Now, inspired by natural builders such as bees or wasps, who work together to create intricate structures, a research team led by <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/">Imperial College London</a> (ICL) has devised a new technology that uses drones for manufacturing and building in dangerous or difficult-to-access locations, such as high buildings or areas affected by natural disasters.



These drones - known collectively as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM) – work together from a single blueprint, adapting their methods as they go. Although they are fully autonomous while flying, they are monitored by a human controller who checks their progress and intervenes if necessary, based on the information provided by the drones themselves.



“We’ve proved that drones can work autonomously and in tandem to construct and repair buildings, at least in the lab. Our solution is scalable and could help us to construct and repair building in difficult-to-reach areas in the future,” said study senior author Mirko Kovac, a professor of Aerial Robotics at ICL.



In order to help the drones adapt to variations in the geometry of the structure as the construction progresses, Aerial-AM uses both a 3D printing and path-planning framework, which help them assess the printed geometry in real time and adapt their behavior to ensure they meet the build specifications. The fleet of drones consists of “BuilDrones” that deposit materials during flight and quality-controlling “ScanDrones” which measure the output of the BuilDrones in order to inform their next manufacturing moves.



This groundbreaking technology may offer future possibilities for building or repairing structures in hard-to-access locations. As a next step, the researchers aim to collaborate with construction companies to validate these solutions and provide repair and manufacturing capabilities.



“We believe our fleet of drones could help reduce the costs and risks of construction in the future, compared to traditional manual methods,” Professor Kovac concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04988-4">Nature</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

3D printing drones work like bees to build structures

3D printing is currently gaining significant momentum in the construction...

Our earliest <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hominins-appeared-europe-africa/">hominin</a> ancestors used a variety of tools to interact with, and modify their environment. Such tools would have given them access to more sources of food and improved their chances of survival. Studies of early hominin tool use have been focused mostly on the production and diversity of stone flakes as cutting tools, rather than on the use of pounding tools. This is despite the fact that percussive artefacts have been identified at several Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites and even form a component of the archaeological assemblages into the Later Stone Age.&nbsp;



In a new study led by Tomos Proffitt from the <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/index/">Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology</a>,&nbsp;the use of stone tools for pounding has been investigated in a group of wild chimpanzees from the&nbsp;Taï Forest National Park in Cote d'Ivoire. These primates&nbsp;have long been known to use percussive stone tools to crack open edible nuts; the tools take the form of hammer stones with which to bash a nut, and anvils upon which the nut is initially placed. The researchers felt that an improved understanding of the characteristics of these types of tools may cast light on the tool artefacts found at early hominin archaeological sites.&nbsp;&nbsp;



For their study, the researchers analyzed a total of 11 hammerstones and seven stone anvils, each one selected because it showed signs of being actively used.&nbsp; All hammerstones were found in close association with an active anvil (either wooden or stone) and freshly cracked nut debris. All anvils were found in association with an active hammerstone and freshly cracked nut debris within a radius of 50 cm to the anvil. By using a techno-typological analysis, along with two- and three-dimensional quantifiable measures of percussive damage patterns, the researchers characterized the features of these stone tools.&nbsp;



The experts then compared the findings with those derived from a similar study of stone percussive tools in another group of wild chimpanzees, this time in the forest of Bossou in Guinea. In this way, the researchers hoped to develop a better understanding of the variation within and between assemblages of chimpanzee stone tools used for nut-cracking.&nbsp;



The researchers found that the chimpanzees of the Taï Forest regularly use stone and wooden tools to crack open nuts from five different species. These include coula nuts (Coula edulis), panda (Panda oleosa), parinari (Parinari excelsa) saccaglottis (Sacoglottis gabonensis) and, more rarely, detarium nuts (Detarium senegalense). The chimpanzees use only hammers made of stone, but were found to use both stone anvils (for example exposed boulders) and wooden anvils, usually in the form of living tree roots that were often part of the nut tree itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;



All of the hammerstones and stone anvils showed evidence of use wear, mostly in the form of pitting and depressions on the surface. There were also places where the surface grain had been crushed, flakes had been accidentally detached and nut residue was present. The hammerstones and anvils were made of different types of rock, reflecting what was present in the local environment, and the hammers were of different sizes, reflecting the fact that some of the nuts are easier to crack open than others.&nbsp;



When the hammerstones and anvils used by the Taï Forest chimpanzees were compared with those used by chimpanzees from the Bossou Forest in Guinea, there were several noticeable differences. The Taï Forest tools were larger in size overall and showed different patterns of wear. The researchers feel that, although this represents a clear pattern of difference between chimpanzee groups, this may be driven by a combination of stone choice, stone availability, and the nut species eaten.



As a result of their use of stone tools, chimpanzees have doubtless left a durable archaeological record of their own. Previous research has shown that, for some groups of chimpanzees this record may date back at least 4,300 years. This means that the assemblages may represent a useful comparative model for early hominin tool use, specifically when it involves tools for pounding.



“The ability to identify regional differences in stone tool material culture in primates opens up a range of possibilities for future primate archaeological studies,” said Proffitt.



It has been hypothesized that a simple technology, like nut cracking, was a precursor to more complex stone technologies during the early stages of our own evolution more than three million years ago. “By understanding what this simple stone tool technology looks like, and how it varies between groups, we can start to understand how to better identify this signature in the earliest hominin archaeological record," said Proffitt.



The research is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220826">Royal Society Open Science</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Did early hominins use stone tools like chimpanzees do today?

Our earliest hominin ancestors used a variety of tools to...

A new study led by <a href="https://wsu.edu/">Washington State University</a> (WSU) has discovered the genetic factors structuring <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-hibernating-bears-could-help-humans-prevent-muscle-loss/">hibernating bears</a>’ insulin control – a major scientific advance that could ultimately lead to the treatment of diabetes. Although the experts observed thousands of changes in gene expression during hibernation, they managed to narrow this multitude of genetic changes down to only eight key proteins that play a fundamental role in bears’ insulin control during hibernation.



“There seem to be eight proteins that are working either independently or together to modulate the insulin sensitivity and resistance that’s seen in hibernating bears,” said study corresponding author Joanna Kelley, an evolutionary geneticist at WSU. “All of these eight proteins have human homologues. They’re not unique to bears. The same genes are in humans, so that means maybe there’s a direct opportunity for translation.”



The scientists examined changes in bear cell cultures which were exposed to blood serum drawn from grizzly bears housed at the WSU Bear Center. Both the cells and the blood serum were drawn from the bears during active and hibernating seasons, as well as from an interrupted hibernation period when the scientists woke the bears and fed them honey-water.&nbsp;



The serum extracted during this period helped the most in identifying the eight proteins. “By feeding the bears just for two weeks during hibernation, it allowed us to control for other things like daylength and temperature as well as food availability,” Kelley explained.



“This is progress toward getting a better understanding of what’s happening at the genetic level and identifying specific molecules that are controlling insulin resistance in bears,” added study co-lead author Blair Perry, a postdoctoral fellow in Functional and Evolutionary Genomics at WSU.&nbsp;



In future research, the scientists aim to investigate how these proteins work to reverse insulin resistance – which is a key factor in allowing bears to hibernate for several months – in order to find new ways of preventing and treating human diabetes.



“There's inherent value to studying the diversity of life around us and all of these unique and strange adaptations that have arisen. By understanding the genomic basis of these adaptations, we gain a better understanding of what we share with other species, and what makes us unique as humans,” Perry concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105084">iScience</a>.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

How hibernating bears could help treat human diabetes

A new study led by Washington State University (WSU) has...

A team of researchers from the <a href="https://www.hku.hk/">University of Hong Kong</a> (HKU) has recently provided an estimate of how many <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ants-show-signs-of-cognitive-sophistication/">ants</a> currently live on our planet. The result is staggering: 20 quadrillion – or 20,000,000,000,000,000 – ants roam the Earth, meaning that for each human being, there are about 2.5 million ants. According to the experts, if all the ants were plucked from the ground and weighted, they would outweigh all the mammals and wild birds put together.



“I was amazed that the ants’ biomass was higher than that of wild mammals and birds combined, and that it reaches 20 percent of the human biomass. That gives you an understanding of the scale of their impact,” said study co-lead author Sabine Nooten, an insect ecologist at HKU.



“It’s unimaginable,” added study lead author Patrick Schultheiss, a researcher at the <a href="https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/home/">University of Würzburg</a> in Germany. “We simply cannot imagine 20 quadrillion ants in one pile, for example. It just doesn’t work.”



Like humans, ants have spread almost all over the Earth, and although they are most abundant in tropical and subtropical regions, they can be found nearly everywhere besides the coldest parts of our planet. These insects play important roles in the proper functioning of a variety of ecosystems. For instance, they aerate the soil and drag seeds underground to sprout, they serve as food for a variety of birds, mammals, and arthropods, and they help decomposing dead wood and other types of matter.



“Some ants can certainly be very annoying, but that’s a very human-centered perspective,” Schultheiss explained. “Most ants are actually highly beneficial, even to us humans. Think about the amount of organic matter that 20 quadrillion ants transport, remove, recycle, and eat. In fact, ants are so essential for the smooth working of biological processes that they can be seen as ecosystem engineers. The late ant scientist E.O. Wilson once called them ’the little things that run the world.’”



While scientists are already seeing troubling declines in insect populations all over the world – caused by habitat destruction, climate change, and increased use of pesticides – they are not yet sure whether ants’ numbers are falling down too. “We did not yet attempt to show this temporal shift in ant abundance. That would be something that would come next,” Nooten concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2201550119">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

There are 2.5 million ants for each human on Earth

A team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong...

Well-known for their eight arms, octopuses leverage all of these appendages to move through the water and capture <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-can-pythons-eat-prey-as-large-as-a-deer/">prey</a>. Although their movements can look awkward and seemingly unplanned most of the times, a new study led by the <a href="https://twin-cities.umn.edu/">University of Minnesota</a> (UMN) has found that octopuses preferred certain arms over others when hunting, rather than using all arms equally, depending on the type of prey they aimed to capture.



“Normally when you look at an octopus for a short while, nothing is repeatable. They squirm around… and just look weird in their exploratory movements,” said study senior author Trevor Wardill, an assistant professor of Biology at UMN.&nbsp;



Together with his team, Wardill studied the behavior of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides), which lives about two years and grows to the size of tennis balls. By dropping different types of prey – including crabs and shrimp – into the tanks where the octopuses where kept, the scientists discovered that each type of prey required different hunting techniques.&nbsp;



Although no matter what type of prey came by, octopuses started their attack by using the second arm from the middle, when hunting crabs they pounced on the prey with a cat-like movement, while, when hunting the much faster shrimps, they were more careful to avoid spooking their prey, and used neighboring arms two and three to secure it.



The researchers were amazed to see how exceedingly repeatable the hunting behavior of octopuses was, and how predictably they began prey capture with the second arm. Better understanding how these creatures operate their tentacles could provide inspiration to engineers aiming to design bio-inspired robots.



“Octopuses are extremely strong. For them, to grasp and open a door is trivial, given their dexterity. If we can learn from octopuses, then we can apply that to making an underwater vehicle or soft robot application,” Professor Wardill concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.080">Current Biology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Octopuses adjust their hunting strategy according to prey

Well-known for their eight arms, octopuses leverage all of these...

Woodlice, known to scientists as isopods and to the rest of us by a number of common names including "roly-poly" and "pill bug," are fascinating creatures that are often overlooked. Despite their commonplace and diminutive appearance, woodlice have life histories that are anything but mundane.



Woodlice live for only a year and mate once during that time. Females dig burrows and males compete for the affection of a female and her digs. After mating, a pair of woodlice live together in the burrow with their 60 to 70 offspring. Both of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/emotional-eating-by-teens-is-influenced-by-their-parents/">parents</a> care for their extensive brood and all members of the family clean and enlarge the burrow.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Typically, males seem to prefer larger females and the larger males tend to overcome smaller competitors and mate with these females. Researchers at the <a href="https://en.huji.ac.il/en">Hebrew University of Jerusalem</a> wondered if a large female with a burrow in a risky area might be less desirable to males.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The scientists observed woodlice mating in two different plots in the Negev Desert, one area near a dangerous Israeli gold scorpion burrow and one a safe distance from scorpions. The researchers found that risky den sites made large males less keen to compete for large females in the area.&nbsp;



“Using this manipulative field experiment, we found that desert isopods under risk of scorpion predation maintained ‘size assortative mating,' but that males that chose and fought over females were on average smaller for a given female size,” explained Dr. Viraj Tosekar.



Smaller males still often ended up with the worst of both worlds, mating with smaller females near scorpion habitat. Medium-sized males split their choices between medium-sized females in safe areas and larger females in dangerous areas, showing that these were viewed as equally fit.&nbsp;



"This supported our novel hypothesis that the males anticipated the future risk of predation," noted Torsekar.



Overall, woodlice show a preference for burrows in safe locations, showing they can anticipate danger. Furthermore, the risk of danger can also weigh into how attractive a potential mate is.&nbsp;



The research is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20412015.v1">Ecology</a>. &nbsp;



--



By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The secret love lives of woodlice

Woodlice, known to scientists as isopods and to the rest...

The dinosaur <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/greater-temperature-changes-linked-to-worse-extinction-events/">extinction</a> 66 million years ago was likely caused by a large asteroid that hit the Earth, leaving birds as the only living descendants. During the Cretaceous period, dinosaurs lived all over the world. However, scientists have debated whether dinosaurs were already in a state of decline before their extinction. 



Did dinosaurs go out with a bang or a whimper? Researchers at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have an answer -&nbsp; dinosaurs were not diverse before extinction and were already in decline during the end of the Cretaceous period.



Most of the data from this period comes from North America, suggesting that dinosaurs in this area were thriving. However, other research suggests that dinosaurs were dwindling, which set the stage for their mass extinction. For the current study, the IVPP team examined the dinosaur record in China to determine if the declining trend extended to Asia.



The research was focused on over 1,000 fossilized dinosaur eggs and egg shells from the Shanyang Basin. Computer modeling was applied to 5,500 geographic samples to determine age estimates of the rock layers. This created a timeline of nearly two million years representing the period right before extinction, allowing direct comparisons with data from around the world.



Based on this data, a decline in dinosaur diversity was found. The dinosaur egg fossils represented only three different species: Macroolithus yaotunensis, Elongatoolithus elongatus, and Stromatoolithus pinglingensis. Two of the three dinosaur eggs species are from a group of toothless dinosaurs known as oviraptors, while the other is from the plant-eating hadrosaurid group (also known as duck-billed dinosaurs).



Additional bones showed that tyrannosaurs and sauropods also lived in the area between about 66.4 and 68.2 million years ago. This low diversity in central China occurred during the last two million years before the mass extinction, far from the world depicted in Jurassic Park.



The results suggest that dinosaurs were likely in a global decline before their extinction. This decline may have been caused by global climate fluctuations and volcanic eruptions leading to ecosystem instability, which would have left dinosaurs vulnerable to mass extinction.



The findings were published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2211234119">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Dinosaurs were in a state of decline before their extinction

The dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago was likely caused...

Studies of singing in birds have revealed that some birds are capable of vocal learning. This means they modify their own vocalizations in response to hearing the songs of other birds. Until recently, vocal learning had only been identified in three out of more than 40 orders of birds: the songbirds, parrots and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/female-hummingbirds-mimic-males-to-avoid-violence/">hummingbirds</a>. In each of these groups, the ability to update and modify song is supported by the existence of particular regions in the brain, each one with gene expression specializations.&nbsp;



Birds that are incapable of vocal learning have thus far been found to lack these specialized brain regions, or to have rudimentary regions without the necessary expression of the relevant genes. This means that their vocalizations are innate and do not get modified by the bird’s experiences of the songs or sounds around it.



In a new study published in the open access journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001751">PLoS Biology</a>, scientists from the U.S. and Denmark analyzed the brains of seven species of birds representing lineages that are assumed to be incapable of vocal learning – these comprised a hawk, turaco, flamingo, penguin, emu, duck and woodpecker. Apart from looking for the specialized brain regions typical of vocal learners’ brains, the scientists also looked for the gene parvalbumin (PV), which codes for a small, stable protein and which shows up-regulation (increased activity) in the forebrain song regions of all avian vocal learners identified to date.



Scientists study songbirds because human language and birdsong have many similarities. Both are learned when young, require complex muscle coordination, and are controlled by specialized regions of the brain. Both humans and songbirds express the marker gene PV&nbsp;in these regions while it has never been found in the forebrains of their closest non-learning vocal relatives.&nbsp;



The researchers, led by Matthew Fuxjager at Brown University and Eric Schuppe at Wake Forest University, did not expect to find any evidence of specialized brain regions for vocal learning in the seven selected species in this study. Although the sample size was only one individual for each of the species, the results showed no forebrain regions with elevated levels of PV expression – except for the woodpecker, that is.



In response to this unexpected finding, the researchers extended their sample to include several more species of woodpeckers and found they all had specialized regions of the brain that make the protein parvalbumin. In addition, these areas were similar in number and location to several of the forebrain nuclei that control song learning and production in songbirds. But when they followed this up with field tests on woodpeckers, the researchers found that activity in these brain areas was not stimulated by vocalization behavior but by the characteristic, rapid drumming of the woodpecker’s beak on a tree trunk.



Woodpeckers use drumming as a form of communication, just as songbirds use song. Drumming is performed to generate specific patterns of sounds that can indicate territorial claims and it is different from the use of the beak for feeding or excavating a nest hole. Drum patterns encode information about species identity, and even about the individual making the sounds. Woodpeckers can apparently recognize the drumming of a neighbor as compared to that of a newcomer in the area.&nbsp;



Just like birdsong, drumming is a form of acoustic communication. It requires rapid and complex motor movements, and must be adaptable when birds compete with each other. The findings of this study indicate that the specialized brain areas usually associated with vocal learning in some avian groups are used in woodpeckers to produce and control their elaborate drumming behavior.&nbsp;



One of the implications of this finding is that woodpeckers might actually acquire components of their drumming repertoire through learning. Although scientists have not yet established that drumming is a learned behavior, this new evidence from the brain predicts that it is. Finding this system for non-vocal communication that is both neurologically and functionally similar to the song system can help us understand how existing brain systems evolve and become co-opted for new, but similar functions.



“Woodpeckers have a set of specialized brain areas that control their ability to drum, or rapidly hammer their bill on trees (and gutters!), during fights with other birds," said Fuxjager. "Furthermore, these brain areas look remarkably similar to the parts of the brain in songbirds that help these animals learn to sing.”



---



By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Woodpeckers learn to drum just as songbirds learn to sing

Studies of singing in birds have revealed that some birds...

From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, a fungal pathogen called&nbsp;Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (or “Bd”) dispersed across Costa Rica, wreaking havoc among amphibian populations, and continued its path eastward across Panama during the 2000s. Globally, this deadly pathogen led to the extinction of over 90 amphibian species, and the decline of at least 500 additional species. 



Shortly after this gruesome mass die-off of amphibians in Costa Rica and Panama, both countries experienced significant spikes in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-malaria-colder-areas/">malaria</a> cases. According to a new study led by the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/">University of California, Davis</a>, this spike in malaria was caused by the amphibian die-off.&nbsp;



“Stable ecosystems underpin all sorts of aspects of human wellbeing, including regulating processes important for disease prevention and health,” said study lead author Michael Springborn, a professor of Environmental Sciences and Policy at UC Davis. “If we allow massive ecosystem disruptions to happen, it can substantially impact human health in ways that are difficult to predict ahead of time and hard to control once they’re underway.”



Since many frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians consume hundreds of mosquito eggs per day, their massive die-off caused by the fungal pathogen led to a large increase in mosquito populations, which are vectors for malaria. By combining their knowledge of amphibian ecology with newly digitized public health record data and data-analysis methods developed by economists, the researchers discovered a clear connection between the time and location of the spread of the fungal pathogen and the time and location of the spikes in malaria cases.&nbsp;



Moreover, no evidence of other variables which could both drive malaria and follow the same pattern of die-offs has been found. Although tree cover loss is also associated with increases in malaria cases (by 0.12 cases per 1,000 people), the massive spike witnessed in Costa Rica and Panama (1 extra case per 1,000 people) was most likely caused by the amphibian die-off.



The researchers argue that measures to help prevent the spread of pathogens to wildlife – such as updating trade regulations to better target major host species – are necessary. “The costs of putting those protective measures in place are immediate and evident, but the long-term&nbsp;benefits of avoiding ecosystem disruptions like this one are harder to assess but potentially massive, as this paper shows,” Professor Springborn concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326">Environmental Research Letters</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Massive spike in malaria linked to amphibian die-off

From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, a fungal pathogen called&nbsp;Batrachochytrium...

Dogs’ ability to show affection towards humans is well-known. Some scientists argue that such a capacity to form strong attachments with humans arose in dogs only after their domestication 15,000 years ago. However, a team of researchers led by <a href="https://www.su.se/cmlink/stockholm-university">Stockholm University</a> in Sweden has now found that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/wolves-improve-the-genetic-fitness-of-moose-populations/">wolves</a> are also capable of exhibiting attachment behaviors towards human caregivers – a surprising discovery that could help contradict the domestication hypothesis.



After raising wolf and dog puppies from the age of ten days to 23 weeks, the scientists performed a series of behavioral tests designed to quantify attachment behaviors in canids. The tests revealed that both species were able to spontaneously discriminate between a familiar person and a stranger and displayed more proximity seeking and affiliative behaviors towards the familiar person. Moreover, the presence of the familiar person acted as a social stress buffer for the wolves, helping them calm down during stressful situations.



“It was very clear that the wolves, as the dogs, preferred the familiar person over the stranger. But what was perhaps even more interesting was that while the dogs were not particularly affected by the test situation, the wolves were,” said study lead author Christina Hansen Wheat, a behavioral ecologist at Stockholm University.



“They were pacing the test room. However, the remarkable thing was that when the familiar person, a hand-raiser that had been with the wolves all their lives, re-entered the test room, the pacing behavior stopped, indicating that the familiar person acted as a social stress buffer for the wolves. I do not believe that this has ever been shown to be the case for wolves before and this also complements the existence of a strong bond between the animals and the familiar person.”



According to Dr. Hansen Wheat, these similarities between wolves and dogs can shed more light on where the behaviors we now see in dogs originated. “Together with earlier studies making important contributions to this question, I think it is now appropriate to entertain the idea that if variation in human-directed attachment behavior exists in wolves, this behavior could have been a potential target for early selective pressures exerted during dog domestication. Wolves showing human-directed attachment could have had a selective advantage in early stages of dog domestication,” she concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9299">Ecology and Evolution</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Wolves can show attachment toward humans

Dogs’ ability to show affection towards humans is well-known. Some...

Due to a variety of factors, including habitat loss and the use of pesticides, many <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/save-native-bees/">bees</a> are currently endangered, together with the plants that depend on them for pollination. Now, a research team led by <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/">Rutgers University</a> has found that simply saving a greater number of bees may not be enough to solve these problems. According to the experts, the biodiversity of bee populations is most critical to maintaining the ecosystem function of crop pollination.&nbsp;



“We found that biodiversity plays a key role in the stability of ecosystems over time,” said study lead author Natalie Lemanski, a postdoctoral fellow in Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers. “You do actually need more bee species in order to get stable pollination services over a growing season and over years.”



By studying various bee populations at dozens of farms in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California, the researchers discovered that different bee species pollinated the same types of plants at different times of the year, and that different bee species were the dominant pollinators on the same kind of plants in different years. Thus, due to natural fluctuations in bee populations, all these bee species were necessary to maintain a minimum threshold of pollination, particularly during lean years.



“This research shows that abundance [of a species] matters, but bee diversity matters even more,” said Michelle Elekonich, the deputy division director of the National Science Foundation’s <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=BIO">Directorate for Biological Sciences</a>, which funded this research. “It’s not the same bees that are abundant at a given point in time, and variety is necessary to provide balance during a growing season – and from year to year.”&nbsp;



These findings offer evidence for what ecologists refer to as the “insurance hypothesis,” which argues that ecosystems benefit the most when nature “diversifies the portfolio,” supporting multiple animal or plant species rather than relying on one dominant species.&nbsp;



“We found that two to three times as many bee species were needed to meet a target level of crop pollination over the course of a growing season compared to a single date,” Dr. Lemanski reported. “Similarly, twice as many species were needed to provide pollination over the course of six years compared to a single year.”



“The magnitude of increase in species needed over multiple years was remarkably consistent among crop systems when considered over the same interval of time. In addition, the fact that the relationship between timescale and the number of species needed did not level off suggests that even longer time series, spanning multiple seasons, may further bolster the need for biodiversity to ensure reliable ecosystem service,” she concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01847-3">Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Bee diversity is critical to ecosystems

Due to a variety of factors, including habitat loss and...

A study from the <a href="https://www.umass.edu/">University of Massachusetts Amherst</a> has revealed that non-biting flies are underestimated in their ability to transmit diseases to humans. Biting flies are known to spread <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-heightens-risk-of-most-infectious-diseases/">diseases</a> by transferring infected blood from host to host. The new research suggests that the vomit of non-biting flies poses an even greater risk to human health.



“I’ve been working on synanthropic flies since I was a graduate student in the 1960s,” said John Stoffolano, a professor of entomology at UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture. “And synanthropic flies have largely been ignored. Blood-feeding flies have taken the limelight, but we should pay attention to the ones that live among us because they get their nutrients from people and animals that shed pathogens in their tears, feces and wounds.”



For example, the common house fly may eat foods such as roadkill, animal dung, or rotting garbage before entering a home. Each time the fly feeds, it fills its crop.



“The crop is like a gas tank, a place to store food before it makes its way into the digestive tract where it will get turned into energy for the fly," explained Stoffolano.



The crop is used for storage - not for digestion.&nbsp; According to the researchers, there are very few digestive enzymes or antimicrobial peptides present to neutralize most pathogens. This means that the crop essentially becomes a place to store disease-producing pathogens.



The experts explained that, as the fly then takes off,&nbsp; it gets rid of excess water in its crop by regurgitating the water. If the fly has landed on a sandwich, it will empty its crop onto the bread.&nbsp;



Stoffolano noted that we still don’t know many of the basics about these flies. “It’s the little things that cause the problems. Our health depends on paying closer attention to these flies that live with us.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects13090776">Insects</a>.



---



By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Non-biting flies pose a bigger threat to public health

A study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has revealed...

Millions of people around the globe are currently facing malnutrition or even famine, while the production of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/feed-livestock-reduce-land-use/">feed for livestock</a> and fish is tying up limited natural resources which could be used to produce food for people. A new study led by <a href="https://www.aalto.fi/en">Aalto University</a> in Finland has shown how certain adjustments to animal feed could maintain production while also making more food available for people. According to the experts, implementing a series of relatively simple changes could increase the global food supply substantially, providing calories for 13 percent more people without requiring increases in natural resource uses or major dietary changes.



Currently, about a third of cereal crop production is used as animal feed, while a quarter of captured fish are not used to feed people. To find ways of solving these pressing problems, the researchers investigated the potential of using crop residues and food by-products in livestock and aquaculture production, thus freeing-up a significant amount of material that could feed people.



“This was the first time anyone has collected the food and feed flows in this detail globally, from both terrestrial and aquatic systems, and combined them together. That let us understand how much of the food by-products and residues is already in use, which was the first step to determining the untapped potential,” said study senior author Matti Kummu, an associate professor of Global Water and Food Issues at Aalto.



By analyzing the flow of food and feed – together with their by-products and residues – through the global food production system, the researchers identified ways of changing these flows to produce better outcomes for people. For instance, livestock and farmed fish could be fed with food system by-products, such as citrus pulp or sugar beet, rather than with materials that are also fit for human use.&nbsp;



With these changes, between 10 and 26 percent of total cereal production and 17 million tons of fish could be redirected from animal feed to human use, which would lead to gains in food supply of 6-13 percent in terms of caloric content and 9-15 percent in terms of protein content.&nbsp; “That may not sound like a lot, but that’s food for up to about one billion people,” said study lead author Vilma Sandström, a postdoctoral fellow in Food Systems Sustainability and Transformation at Aalto.



However, implementing such changes would require significant adjustments in supply chains. “For example, we’d need to reorganize the food system so that the industries and producers with by-products can find the livestock and aquaculture producers who would need them. And some of the by-products would need processing prior to using them as feed,” Dr. Sandström explained.



“I don't think there’s any serious problem with doing this. What we’re suggesting is already being done on a certain scale and in some areas, so it’s not something that would have to be developed from scratch. We just need to adjust the current system and increase the scale of those practices," concluded Professor Kummu.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00589-6">Nature Food</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Changing animal feed could supply food for one billion people

Millions of people around the globe are currently facing malnutrition...

<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/white-tailed-deer-behavior/">White-tailed deer</a> are heavily overpopulated along United States’ East Coast, and play a major role as vectors in the transmission of tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme or anaplasmosis. Until recently, efforts to control deer populations have been based on the assumption that deer live mostly in wooded parklands, and pass only occasionally through neighborhoods to graze on gardens and landscaped yards.&nbsp;



However, according to a new longitudinal study led by the <a href="https://www.umd.edu/">University of Maryland</a> (UMD), deer spend much more time in suburban environments than previously thought, often passing their nights within 50 meters of residential properties.&nbsp;



“We knew deer were in and around neighborhoods, but we didn’t realize just how much they were living in the neighborhoods,” said study senior author Jennifer Mullinax, an assistant professor of Wildlife Ecology at UMD.



“A big takeaway from this study is that neighborhoods&nbsp;are&nbsp;the home range of suburban white-tailed deer. Agencies monitoring and estimating suburban deer populations may be missing a huge part of the population if they focus their monitoring efforts only on deer in wooded parks and undeveloped areas, because a lot of the deer are actually living in the neighborhoods, especially at night and in winter.”



The scientists captured and collared 51 deer from five parks from the metropolitan area of Howard County, Maryland – a highly suburban area including residential neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and patches of undeveloped land. The collars contained high-resolution GPS trackers which recorded deer locations each hour for 62 to 116 weeks.



While deer tended to a avoid residential areas during the day, they often moved into them at night, particularly during winter, sleeping near the edges of lawns and yards surrounding houses and apartment buildings. “We used to think people mostly got Lyme disease when they walked in the woods,” Mullinax said. “But recent studies have shown they’re getting Lyme disease in their own backyards, and now that we know the deer are living right there too, it makes more sense.”



These findings offer important guidance for suburban communities seeking to reduce the risk of tick-borne diseases. Removing deer – which serve as tick reservoirs – or treating suburban areas where deer spend time could help limit the spread of tick-borne diseases and lower the rates of human exposure to this parasite.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11252-022-01270-3">Urban Ecosystems</a>.&nbsp;



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Tick-carrying deer are living in the suburbs

White-tailed deer are heavily overpopulated along United States’ East Coast,...

Sea anemones start off life as slightly ovoid, free-swimming larvae and metamorphose into elongated, tubular adults that are stuck to the rock and have tentacles around their mouths. This involves drastic changes in behavior and life form, along with extensive changes to tissues. Although embryonic development has received research attention in the past, and behavior of early embryos has been studied, it is not clear to what extent the physical activity of an <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/neon-gobies-decide-when-to-hatch-their-embryos/">embryo</a> influences its own change in body shape.



In the past, scientists wishing to map the connections between dynamic behavior and the body changes that take place during metamorphosis have been hampered by the lack of live imaging strategies that capture the dynamics of this life-history transition. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have now overcome this obstacle using their expertise in live imaging, computational methodology, biophysics, and genetics. They have managed to turn&nbsp;2D and 3D live imaging into quantitative features to track the changes in the bodies of developing starlet sea anemones (Nematostella). The.results have been published in the journal <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home">Current Biology</a>.



The experts established a method of high-throughput live imaging using a specially adapted microscope and observed the changes that occur during the transition from larva to polyp in 707 anemones. This took place over about seven days and the researchers recorded the changes at 5-minute intervals. They found that larval circularity decreased dramatically during the transition, due mostly to a 3–4-fold increase in the length of the polyp body as it became more tubular and developed oral tentacles.&nbsp;



During this time, the sea anemones behaved like hydraulic pumps, taking in water and regulating body pressure through muscle activity. The researchers performed specific patterns of gymnastic movements that put pressure on certain tissues, thereby sculpting the shape of the body as it grew more elongated. Too much or too little muscle activity or a drastic change in the organization of their muscles could deviate the sea anemone from its normal shape.



“Humans use a skeleton made of muscles and bones to exercise. In contrast, sea anemones use a hydroskeleton made of muscles and a cavity filled with water,” said Aissam Ikmi, EMBL group leader. The same hydraulic muscles that help the developing sea anemones move also seem to impact how they develop. Using an image analysis pipeline to measure body column length, diameter, estimated volume, and motility in large data sets, the scientists found that&nbsp;Nematostella&nbsp;larvae naturally divide themselves into two groups: slow- and fast-developing larvae. To the team’s surprise, the more active the larvae, the longer they take to develop.&nbsp;



“Our work shows how developing sea anemones essentially ‘exercise’ to build their morphology, but it seems that they cannot use their hydroskeleton to move and develop simultaneously,” Ikmi said.



The developing anemones use this hydraulic system to remodel their tissues during this time. Through the use of peristaltic waves, squeezing and longitudinal contractions, they stimulate tissue proliferation in some places and cell death in others, thereby changing the layout of their body tissues.&nbsp;



“There were many challenges to doing this research,” explained first author and former EMBL predoc Anniek Stokkermans, now a postdoc at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands. “This animal is very active. Most microscopes cannot record fast enough to keep up with the animal’s movements, resulting in blurry images, especially when you want to look at it in 3D. Additionally, the animal is quite dense, so most microscopes cannot even see halfway through the animal.”



To look both deeper and faster, Ling Wang, an application engineer in the Prevedel group at EMBL, built a microscope to capture living, developing sea anemone larvae in 3D during their natural behavior.



“For this project, Ling has specifically adapted one of our core technologies, Optical Coherence Microscopy or OCM. The key advantage of OCM is that it allows the animals to move freely under the microscope while still providing a clear, detailed look inside, and in 3D.” said Robert Prevedel, EMBL group leader. “It has been an exciting project that shows the many different interfaces between EMBL groups and disciplines.”



With this specialized tool, the researchers were able to quantify volumetric changes in tissue and body cavity. “To increase their size, sea anemones inflate like a balloon by taking up water from the environment,” Stokkermans explained. “Then, by contracting different types of muscles, they can regulate their short-term shape, much like squeezing an inflated balloon on one side, and watching it expand on the other side. We think this pressure-driven local expansion helps stretch tissue, so the animal slowly becomes more elongated. In this way, contractions can have both short-term and a long-term effects.”



To better understand the hydraulics and their function, researchers collaborated with experts across disciplines. Prachiti Moghe, an EMBL predoc in the Hiiragi group, measured pressure changes driving body deformations. Additionally, mathematician L. Mahadevan and engineer Aditi Chakrabarti from Harvard University introduced a mathematical model to quantify the role of hydraulic pressures in driving system-level changes in shape. They also engineered reinforced balloons with bands and tapes that mimic the range of shapes and sizes seen in both normal and muscle-defective animals.



“Given the ubiquity of hydrostatic skeletons in the animal kingdom, especially in marine invertebrates, our study suggests that active muscular hydraulics play a broad role in the design principle of soft-bodied animals,” Ikmi said. “In many engineered systems, hydraulics is defined by the ability to harness pressure and flow into mechanical work, with long-range effects in space-time. As animal multicellularity evolved in an aquatic environment, we propose that early animals likely exploited the same physics, with hydraulics driving both developmental and behavioral decisions.”



“We still have many questions from these new findings," said Stokkermans. "Why are there different activity levels? How do cells exactly sense and translate pressure into a developmental outcome? Furthermore, since tube-like structures form the basis of many of our organs, studying the mechanisms that apply to&nbsp;Nematostella&nbsp;will also help gain further understanding in how hydraulics play a role in organ development and function.”



---



By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Sea anemones "exercise" to build their bodies

Sea anemones start off life as slightly ovoid, free-swimming larvae...

Leaving home to explore the world can be a difficult decision. Tiny coral reef fish called neon gobies help their <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/older-parents-may-be-beneficial-to-offspring/">offspring</a> by pushing them out the door when the time is right, according to a new study from <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/">UT Austin</a>. This research provides the first documented case of a coral reef fish regulating when its offspring hatch.&nbsp;



Coral reef fish are incredibly vulnerable when hatching, which means that choosing the right time to hatch is a crucial decision. Male neon gobies hatch their embryos by removing eggs from the nest with their mouth. They transport the eggs to the opening of the sponge where the fish live - and then spit them out of the sponge entrance.



“We often think that eggs are like tiny kitchen timers: they develop for a set period of time, then - ding! - they hatch. But, in many species, embryos have to actively decide when to hatch," explained study co-author John Majoris.



The researchers found that when neon goby embryos develop without parents, they hatch up to 50 percent earlier than embryos cared for by their parents.



All of the male parents in the study hatched their offspring at sunrise on the seventh day of development, suggesting that all of the goby parents know the best time for their embryos to hatch.



“Goby embryos are ready and waiting,” said Majoris. “When parents are around, they wait patiently for their dads to make the call that it’s time to hatch.”



Offspring hatched by their parents are more developed and likely benefit from their larger size when catching food, escaping predators and navigating the ocean. This is the first time scientists have discovered a coral reef fish that tells its offspring when to hatch, which could be more common than we think.&nbsp;



Cryptobenthic coral reef fishes - a group of tiny bottom dwellers - often lay their eggs deep in reef crevices, where it is difficult for embryos to judge hatching conditions. In this case, parents can help out by hatching their eggs at just the right time.&nbsp;



“This is a remarkably complex parenting behavior for a tiny fish,” Majoris said. “It goes to show that we still have so much to learn about life in our oceans.”



The surprising complexities of fish parenting behavior provides evidence that&nbsp; fish parents can make decisions based on the local conditions that influence the survival, resilience and success of their offspring.



The paper is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1466">Proceedings of the Royal Society B</a>. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, and a Dana Wright Summer Research Fellowship.



---



By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Neon gobies decide when to hatch their embryos

Leaving home to explore the world can be a difficult...

By using both field observations and a machine-learning algorithm applied to the audio clips recorded in the field, a research team led by the <a href="https://www.unl.edu/">University of Nebraska-Lincoln</a> (UNL) has investigated the “whoops” of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/spotted-hyenas-change-their-foraging-behavior-to-adapt/">spotted hyenas</a> in the Maasai Mara grasslands of southwestern Kenya. The analysis revealed that hyena whoops feature signatures unique to individuals – a form of “caller ID” distinct enough that hyenas can distinguish one from another – and that repetition of such whoops often improves identification.&nbsp;



Since spotted hyena clans are built on hierarchies depending upon social rank, but consist of multiple families that regularly come together and disperse across the savannah, a capacity for identifying specific individuals is particularly important.&nbsp;



“Hyenas don’t treat every individual in the clan the same, so if they’re deciding whether to show up and help someone, they want to know who they’re showing up to help,” said study lead author Kenna Lehmann, a postdoctoral fellow in Biology at UNL.



By recording the sounds of hundreds of hyenas in the African savannah and employing a machine-learning algorithm trained to pair specific hyenas with the whoops they emitted, Dr. Lehmann and her colleagues identified three major traits of the whoops that helped hyenas recognize the individual that emitted them: the duration of the call, the highest frequency of the call, and the average frequency during the portion of the call which was most consistent in pitch. According to their analysis, the greater the disparity in these traits, the more likely the hyenas would be to distinguish among the sources of the whoops.



However, since many acoustic nuances can get lost during transmission – when the calls come from far away, or are masked by environmental noises from wind, precipitation, or other animal calls – repetition of the whoops becomes essential. “There’s an understanding that one of the ways to get your message across is to repeat it, especially if you’re in a noisy environment or if you’re communicating over long distances,” Dr. Lehmann explained. “It’s like getting a little bit more information (each time). The first time you hear it, you might notice: Oh, that was definitely a male or a female voice. Then, the next whoop, you might be able to narrow it down further.”



Although the calls of some animal species also contain signatures that differentiate the groups to which they belong from other same-species groups – somewhat similar to human accents or dialects – the researchers were surprised to find that this was not the case for hyenas. Apparently, the amazing ability to memorize so many individual signatures may have rendered a clan signature either useless or not useful enough to bother developing.



“If you know who the individual is, you know what group they’re in,” Dr. Lehmann said. “Animals are pretty good at associating that information. So if they need individual signatures for other reasons, then there just may have never been a need to also develop a group signature, which is what this finding suggests. They should be able to keep track of all the individual voices and be able to distinguish: If this is Individual X, they’re in my group. I can choose to help them based on them being a group member, but maybe there are more decisions to be made about whether they’re a group mate that I actually want to help,” she concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.0548">Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

Spotted hyenas recognize each other from their distinctive whoops

By using both field observations and a machine-learning algorithm applied...

Burmese pythons are not only huge <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/snakes-depend-on-their-sex-chromosomes-for-survival/">snakes</a> – reaching over 18 feet in length and 200 pounds in weight – but also voracious eaters, often feeding on prey as large as a deer. Now, a team of biologists from the <a href="https://www.uc.edu/">University of Cincinnati</a> (UC) has found that it’s not only the size of the head and the body that make pythons able to consume such large animals; they also evolved highly stretchy skin between their lower jaws which allows them to feed on prey up to six times larger than similar-sized snakes.



Since most snakes swallow they prey whole, they must have extremely wide mouths to accommodate such meals. Unlike humans’ lower jawbones, those of snakes are not connected, allowing them to open wide.&nbsp;



“The stretchy skin between left and right lower jaws is radically different in pythons. Just over 40 percent of their total gape area on average is from stretchy skin,” said study lead author Bruce Jayne, a professor of Biology at UC. “Even after you correct for their large heads, their gape is enormous.”



Pythons are constrictors, meaning that they bite their prey and wrap their powerful coils around it, cutting off its vital blood flow before consuming it whole – and the larger the prey, the more energy snakes derive from a single meal. Due to this, pythons do not need to hunt that often, which can carry high risks in a world replete with other dangerous predators and busy roads.



Since small snakes derive greater benefits in relative mass prey from just a modest increase in gape size, python babies have an early advantage from being able to consume a broader range of prey compared to other snakes of similar size.&nbsp;



Moreover, being big also helps snakes avoid being eaten themselves by predators ranging from wading birds, minks, and raccoons to alligators and other snakes. “Once those pythons get to a reasonable size, it’s pretty much just alligators that can eat them,” Professor Jayne said. “And pythons eat alligators.”&nbsp;



Currently, Burmese pythons are wreaking havoc on the ecology of Everglades National Park where they were introduced due to the release of captive animals from the exotic pet trade in the 1980s.&nbsp;



“The Everglades ecosystem is changing in real time based on one species, the Burmese python,” said study co-author Ian Bartoszek, an environmental science project manager for the <a href="https://conservancy.org/">Conservancy of Southwest Florida</a>.&nbsp;



Fortunately, they rarely attack people. According to Bartoszek, the only defensive encounters he has had with wild pythons were with females guarding their nests. “It’s way more dangerous to drive there than to work with the snakes,” he concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obac033">Integrative Organismal Biology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

How can pythons eat prey as large as a deer?

Burmese pythons are not only huge snakes – reaching over...

In a new study from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a>, scientists have looked at the impact of sublethal exposures of oil on mahi-mahi, a commonly sought sport <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earliest-land-animals-had-fewer-skull-bones-than-fish/">fish</a>. Mahi-mahi are found in subtropical regions, including the Gulf of Mexico. Due to this, the scientists are using their research as an analogue for damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.&nbsp;



For the investigation, mahi-mahi were captured and placed either in a tank with sublethal amounts of oil or a control tank with clean water. The fish were fitted with satellite tags which collected and transmitted data on depth, acceleration, temperature and location to the scientists. Clips from fins were also taken to assess gene expression.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Our findings showed that sublethal observations in the laboratory are also observed in wild fish and that they translate to reduced survival and reduced reproduction,” said lead author Lela Schlenker, a graduate of the <a href="https://www.earth.miami.edu/">Rosenstiel School</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Understanding the direct impacts of oil exposure on wild fish is critically important as deeper and riskier offshore oil drilling operations increase.” said study co-author Professor Martin Grosell.



While still in the lab, the fish showed impacts to their vision, smell, and swimming abilities. There was also evidence that their entire sensory and central nervous systems were incapacitated to some degree.



After release, the mahi-mahi that had been exposed to oil were preyed upon more heavily for the first eight days. Exposed fish also saw a decrease in spawning for a full 37 days compared to control fish.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The scientists conclude that exposure of fish to oil, as happened during the Deepwater Horizon leak, can negatively impact fish and is one more step towards a full reckoning with the damage such oil spills cause.&nbsp;



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.2c01783">Environmental Science and Technology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Mahi-mahi exposed to crude oil have impaired functioning

In a new study from the University of Miami, scientists...

Researchers from <a href="https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/">Lund University</a> in Sweden have discovered that when <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bee-diversity-is-key-to-sustainable-agriculture/">bees</a> consume the pesticide clothianidin on rapeseed flowers, they move more slowly than non-exposed bees. The experts also found that strawberries pollinated by the affected bees are smaller.



"We studied bees that ingested clothianidin, a pesticide that was previously used in rapeseed to control flea beetles. Our study indicates that the substance made the bees slower and impaired their ability to pollinate the strawberry flowers," explained study lead author Lina Herbertsson.



The researchers conducted an experiment using 12 outdoor cages containing the bees and rapeseed plants. Half the cages had rapeseed plants treated with clothianidin, and the other half were not treated with the pesticide.&nbsp;



The bees in the treated containers took more time to visit the same number of rapeseed flowers as the non-exposed bees. When they weighed the strawberries pollinated by the bees, researchers determined the strawberries pollinated by the exposed bees weighed less.



"Previous studies have shown that clothianidin affects wild bees negatively in terms of foraging speed, development and reproduction. Our results indicate that it can also impair the bees' ability to pollinate strawberry flowers," said Herbertsson.



Although the study is significant, the authors are careful not to jump to conclusions. "In our study, we did not identify the cause for the lower strawberry weight, and after only having performed a single study under rather special circumstances, we also don't know if this is a general pattern," explained Herbertsson.



"Although clothianidin is now banned, other substances that affect the nervous system of insects in a similar way have partly replaced it. It is therefore of the utmost importance to continue this research and investigate how these substances affect bee behavior and pollination."



This study can be found in the journal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273851">PLoS ONE</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:nire518@gmail.com">Erin Moody </a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Pesticides impair the ability of bees to pollinate strawberries

Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have discovered that when...

There are ideas about what makes an ideal candidate for urban wildlife. According to Lauren Stanton from UC Berkeley, several cognitive abilities have been proposed as particularly important for urban <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/predicting-disease-transmission-between-wildlife-and-humans/">wildlife</a>, including adaptability.&nbsp;



Few studies have looked directly at the abilities of one consummate urban animal - the raccoon. Staton teamed up with Sarah Benson-Amram at the University of Wyoming and other researchers across the US to determine what personality traits best served urban raccoons.&nbsp;



"We used live traps baited with cat food to humanely capture raccoons living in the city of Laramie, Wyoming," said Stanton.



The animals were then moved to a lab where they were tagged with microchips and tested to see if they were more docile or impulsive. The team counted the number of times a raccoon was caught as a further sign of compulsiveness. After 204 raccoons were tagged in four years, the research progressed.&nbsp;



Small raccoon-sized boxes were placed in the neighborhoods. The boxes were fitted with two buttons: one that dispensed dog treats and one that did not. The raccoons soon learned the trick to get themselves some treats. When most of the animals learned, the buttons were switched to see how quickly the raccoons would relearn. Overall, 19 raccoons learned to push the button the first time and 17 relearned to switch buttons.



Initially, the more impulsive and young animals were the first to explore the boxes - but older, less impulsive adults learned the buttons quicker and were especially good at relearning when the buttons were switched. This suggests a potential relationship between emotional reactivity and cognitive ability in raccoons, explained Stanton.



In the laboratory, animals seemed to learn faster. This was likely because there were more distractions and interruptions during testing in the natural conditions, noted Stanton.&nbsp;



The researchers hope that their study helps wildlife managers understand that it’s not the compulsive raccoons that can be the most nuisance but instead the docile animals.&nbsp;



The research is published in the <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.243726">Journal of Experimental Biology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Docile raccoons are the most clever criminals

There are ideas about what makes an ideal candidate for...

Scientists have long known that land mammals, such as horses, experience “pulses” in their blood while galloping, as blood pressure inside the body fluctuates on every stride. Now, a team of researchers from the <a href="https://www.ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a> (UBC) has found that the same phenomenon occurs also in marine mammals that swim with dorso-ventral movements, such as <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/great-whales-will-drift-southward-due-to-climate-change/">whales</a>, but that the mechanism that protects them from brain damage during these pulses is different from that employed by terrestrial animals.



In all mammals, blood pressure is higher in the arteries exiting the heart than in veins. This difference in pressure drives the blood flow through the body and the brain. However, locomotion often causes spikes in pressure, or “pulses” to the brain, which can cause significant damage. In order to avoid such problems, animals evolved different ways of compensating for such differences in pressure between the blood entering and exiting the brain. Horses, for instance, deal with these pulses by breathing in and out. But how do whales manage to avoid brain damage?



“If cetaceans can’t use their respiratory system to moderate pressure pulses, they must have found another way to deal with the problem,” said study lead author Margo Lillie, a research associate emerita in Zoology at UBC.



By collecting biochemical parameters from 11 whale species, and using a computer model to analyze the data, the scientists found that special blood vessels in whale brains and spines - known as “retia mirabilia,” or “wonderful net”- may protect them from the damage caused by pulses occurring while they swim.



According to the researchers, the retia uses a “pulse-transfer” mechanism to ensure there is no difference in blood pressure in the whales’ brain during movement. Thus, rather than dampening the pulses occurring in the blood, the retia transfers them from the arterial blood entering the brain to the venous blood exiting it, while keeping the same amplitude or strength of the pulse in order to avoid differences in pressure in the brain itself.



“Our hypothesis that swimming generates internal pressure pulses is new, and our model supports our prediction that locomotion-generated pressure pulses can be synchronized by a pulse transfer mechanism that reduces the pulsatility of resulting flow by up to 97 percent,”&nbsp;explained study senior author Robert Shadwick, a professor emeritus of Zoology at UBC.



“Understanding how the thorax responds to water pressures at depth and how lungs influence vascular pressures would be an important next step,” added study co-author Dr. Wayne Vogl, a professor of Cellular and Physiological Sciences at UBC. “Of course, direct measurements of blood pressure and flow in the brain would be invaluable, but not technically possible at this time.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abn3315">Science</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer&nbsp;&nbsp;

How do whales avoid brain damage while swimming?

Scientists have long known that land mammals, such as horses,...

Shallow reefs and the diverse creatures that inhabit them are changing due to rising <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-may-be-the-oceans-biggest-enemy/">ocean</a> temperatures. Researchers in Australia have been tracking these changes for over a decade. Their findings illustrate how warming waters impact tropical and temperate reef fish communities differently.



“Reefs provide a ton of benefits to people, from food, livelihoods, recreation, physical protection from storms, and I dare say even happiness and inspiration,” said study lead author Rick Stuart-Smith, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania.&nbsp;



“We specifically considered the fishes that live on reefs, as these are important for many of those aspects, and also help maintain the natural ecological function of the reefs.”



The Reef Life Survey was created by the authors to collect data to better understand how Australia’s reefs are changing. For this study, the survey data was combined with two reef monitoring programs amongst the longest running in the world.&nbsp;



“The combination of these datasets provided a more comprehensive picture of what is happening on reefs than would be imaginable for any other continent.” said Stuart-Smith.



The research teams looked at impacts such as habitat change, coral bleaching and temperature change and found that impacts varied depending on location. Fish on temperate and subtropical reefs showed signs of temperature change, while tropical reef fish were more affected by habitat change.&nbsp;



The experts also examined how a loss of coral and kelp resulted in less unique fish populations. Northeastern Australia showed evidence of habitat degradation leading to fish populations of generalist species, rather than niche species adapted to specific habitats.



The research team is hopeful for more coordinated local research to evaluate global trends.&nbsp;



“Climate change clearly has a huge impact on marine biodiversity, with changes we observed around the Australian continent over short time scales indicating that much larger changes are likely over the next half century as ocean warming progresses,” wrote the researchers.



The study is published by Cell Press in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.067">Current Biology</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:katherinebucko@gmail.com">Katherine Bucko</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Reef fish populations are altered by rising temperatures

Shallow reefs and the diverse creatures that inhabit them are...

Everyone knows that Alaskan brown bears are big. Still, different brown bear populations survive on varying diets, so how do these populations achieve similar body weights despite various <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-diet-quality-has-not-improved-in-the-past-30-years/">diets</a>? A team of researchers led by North Carolina State University studied 51 bears in 3 Alaskan National Parks, and found that the secret may lie in the bears' gut microbiome.&nbsp;



"We think of bears as having simple digestive tracts, so it's easy to slip into thinking that they therefore have simple gut microbiomes," said co-author Erin McKenney. "But this study shows there can be tremendous diversity in the gut microbiomes between individual bears, and that this variation can be very important to the physical condition of these animals."



"For example, the amount of fat that bears are able to store is absolutely critical to the health of wild populations," said study co-author Grant Hilderbrand. "If female bears are able to reach levels where 19-20% of their body mass in the autumn is fat, they'll reproduce. And knowing that they can take different dietary paths to reach those fat levels is a valuable insight."



"The fact that these populations have distinct diets is valuable, because it allows us to understand the role that the gut microbiome plays in helping bears extract nutrition from very different food sources," explained study co-author Sarah Trujillo.



"We found that bears benefit from having diverse dietary niches, and the gut microbiome does play a role in extracting nutrition from those diets. Ultimately, that means that the bears in these parks were able to achieve very similar body conditions, despite eating very different things."



The information gathered from this study is crucial for brown bear preservation. According to Diana Lafferty, the findings can serve as a baseline for future research.



"This study is also important because it gives us a snapshot of bears and their diet in these parks," said Hilderbrand. "Knowing what bears are eating, and that these diverse diets can all be used to reach similar body conditions, can help us spot emerging challenges for these animals. It can also help us understand how many bears these ecosystems are capable of supporting, even as those ecosystems change."



"In short, this study has given us significant insights into both the park ecosystems that these bears inhabit, and the microbial ecosystems that help these bears thrive," said McKenney.



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Scientific Reports</a>.



---



By <a href="mailto:nire518@gmail.com">Erin Moody </a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Gut microbes help bears gain weight regardless of diet

Everyone knows that Alaskan brown bears are big. Still, different...

species in Diphyidae