{channel_title} Archive
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Chickadees Sound a Complex Alarm
If you have your window open right at this moment, you may hear it: a chickadee chick-ing and dee-ing away. Bird enthusiasts and even the rest of us think of the call primarily as a territorial signal, one that, like barking dogs, can be heard on every corner during May. While ornithologists agree, they’re discovering that the call also encodes… (more)
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Invasion of the Wasps
There is yet another invasive pest to beware of, says Cornell Extension Associate Dr. E. R. Hoebeke. Last September, he happened across the woodwasp Sirex noctilio (Fabricius) while searching screening traps in Fulton County, New York, set by the New York State Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey to capture bark beetles. This woodwasp poses a major threat to all pine tree… (more)
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At the Speed of Pollen
Too often, innovations that have existed in the plant world for millennia are attributed to the human mind. A study of the bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), found in woodlands throughout New England, proves us wrong yet again. It seems that bunchberries have been using the catapult, a discovery credited to humans, for much longer than we have.
Bunchberry, a relative… (more)
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Abundant Food Key to Warbler Breeding Success
Humans have a long time to choose if, when, and how many times to reproduce. But many animals have short lives and must spend most of their time surviving and ensuring the perpetuation of their genes. Take, for example, the black-throated blue warbler, a migratory songbird found in the summer in the Northeast. Each year, it has a 40 to… (more)
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Deer Love Ginseng to Death
You might have a hard time finding wild ginseng in the future woods, thanks to one of our most abundant herbivores: the white-tailed deer. Though deer populations are temporarily low in some areas, overall deer populations across the eastern United States are at an all-time high and are taking a toll on forest vegetation. Dr. James McGraw and his research… (more)
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Deadbeat Redstarts Get a Head Start
Scientists have recently found that, when it comes to making offspring, American redstarts have good years and bad years. More specifically, a good year will likely be followed by a bad year, and vice versa. The reason is because of tradeoffs between energy-intensive activities, some of which help a redstart be a better parent and others that help the redstart… (more)
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Past Land Use Affects Plant Biodiversity
Two of the most important components of biodiversity are species diversity (how many species are out there) and genetic diversity (how wide a variety of genes are present in one species). Islands are often considered to be “hot spots” of biodiversity, because they provide a usually predator-free environment with many ecological niches where species from the mainland are often forced… (more)
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Salamanders Undaunted by Open Fields
Fragmentation of forests is one of the biggest threats facing animal populations in the Northeast. Some forest animals, especially amphibians, are considered to be especially vulnerable to fragmentation because crossing patches of open habitat is often a lethal enterprise. Following fragmentation, animal populations end up being cut off from one another, and if the population in one patch dies out,… (more)
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Buggy Water is Cleaner
The importance of forest cover along streams and rivers is not a new idea – we’ve likely all read that trees stabilize streambanks and prevent erosion, filter out runoff from agriculture and development, and keep water temperatures cool for fish and other aquatic life. “Ecosystem services” is the trendy term to describe the often unrecognized benefits riparian buffer strips provide… (more)
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Cowbirds like Company
Who knew that cowbirds could make good siblings? Well, decent ones, anyhow. Cowbird mothers are famous for laying their single eggs in the nests of other bird species, sometimes removing the resident’s eggs, and leaving the surrogate mother to care for a foreign nestling that is usually several times larger than her own. Because of their large size, cowbird nestlings… (more)