Discoveries Archive
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Orange Is In
While many of us shy away from the sunlight’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, male raptors may rely on that light to find their mates. Research by Francois Mougeot and Beatriz Arroyo from the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in the United Kingdom shows that the cere – the yellow-orange patch of skin above the beak that encompasses the nostrils – of… (more)
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Your Enemy’s Enemy May Not Be Your Friend
When a non-native plant appears on the scene, resource managers sometimes suggest introducing one of the non-native plant’s non-native predators to control it. New research by John D. Parker of the Georgia Institute of Technology, however, suggests this may not be the wisest course of action. In a review of 63 studies of the effects of native and non-native vertebrate… (more)
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Canada Warbler Stewardship Guidelines
Nearly 10 years ago, an analysis by the Vermont Forest Bird Monitoring Program (FBMP) revealed that Canada warblers were declining significantly on study sites across the state. The warbler was also found to be declining on North American Breeding Bird Survey routes throughout the Northeast, and very little was known at the time about its breeding ecology and habitat needs.… (more)
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Opposing Effects on the Size of Moose
It may sound politically incorrect, but let’s face it: males and females are different. Some human animals strive to bridge those differences, but in most of the animal kingdom, differences between males and females (aside from the one obvious difference) are drivers of evolution. These differences – in color, size, shape, adornments, smell, vocalizations, or behavior – are what set… (more)
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Old Trees Too Large for Their Own Good
In our Autumn 2004 Discoveries, we reported on research suggesting that friction and gravity constrain evapotranspiration in trees and thus limit tree height – to 426.51 feet in the redwoods studied, though the principle is thought to operate in every species of tree. Tree height and growth rates are known to slow as trees age, and though the reason has… (more)
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Insects and Birds Suffer at Mouths of Deer
In last summer’s Discoveries, we reported that overly abundant white-tailed deer are inflicting great damage on forest understory plants, like ginseng. What are the implications of a forest bereft of forest-floor plants, including many other wildflowers? The problem begins with the reduction in forest floor abundance and diversity but then is magnified up the food web whose foundation is understory… (more)
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Life of Bees
It is spring again, and that means that bees are buzzing about. Recently, two studies of bees have attempted to answer two basic questions – how honeybees fly and how bumblebees learn. How honeybees take to the air has long been an unanswered question for scientists. Honeybee flight was first studied in France in the 1930s, when scientists determined that… (more)
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Remedy for Winter Blues and Arthritis, Too
Scientists have found that Christmas trees have more to offer people than just a dose of holiday cheer. In fact, one tree in particular, Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), has bark that contains compounds potentially beneficial to human health. As part of an extensive study of natural extracts in plants, Kalevi Pihlaja and his research team from the University of… (more)
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Sink or Source?
Our regenerating forests may not be the panacea for mitigating global climate change that some experts once expected, say researchers in the journal Science. By sponging up vast amounts of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from natural and human sources, regenerating forests such as those in the Northeast were long considered to be a stable “sink” for carbon,… (more)
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“Bird-Brained” No Insult to Winter Residents
We’ve all heard that crows and jays are among the smartest of the avian crew. And we have all year to watch them excel, since they don’t fly south for the winter. But chickadees and cardinals? Juncos and titmice? Einsteins all, according to Daniel Sol, of the Independent University of Barcelona, and his colleagues. In a new study published in… (more)