News by Subject Biology

Researchers at the University of São Paulo's Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil have discovered a new virus in a white-rumped sandpiper (Calidris fuscicollis), a migratory bird species captured in April 2012 in the Lagoa do Peixe National Park in Rio Grande do Sul State. The current evidence suggests that it is not a risk to humans. The discovery was published in PLOS ONE.

Despite being relatively close together, two recently discovered hydrothermal vent fields in the Gulf of California host very different animal communities. This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring vents will share similar animal communities, and suggests that local geology and vent-fluid chemistry are important factors affecting vent communities.

Evolutionary biologists from Konstanz help solve puzzle of evolutionary relationships among vertebrates.

A new species of non-photosynthesizing parasitic plant has been discovered on the subtropical island of Ishigaki in Okinawa, Japan and named Sciaphila sugimotoi. The research team responsible for this discovery was led by Project Associate Professor SUETSUGU Kenji (Kobe University Graduate School of Science) and these findings will be published on July 25 in Phytotaxa.

Three new species of toads have been discovered living in Nevada's Great Basin in an expansive survey of the 190,000 square mile ancient lake bottom. 'We've found the toads in small, wet habitats surrounded by high-desert completely cut off from other populations,' Dick Tracy, renowned biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said. 'These are absolutely new, true species that have been separated from other populations for 650,000 years.'

Citizen science has revealed the spread of the invasive giant slug Limax maximus and its potential native predator in Japan, providing new insights into predator-prey dynamics between introduced prey and native predators.

A study conducted by a UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country research group within the framework of the European Globaqua project proposes going beyond the study of river ecosystems and incorporating into the studies routinely carried out a set of processes that regulate not only the fluxes of matter but also the fluxes of energy within an ecosystem. In a recently published paper, the group is proposing a new working framework to study the status of rivers.

The preferred fodder of horses is grass. This is true for domestic horses and wild horses in the Gobi Desert. Researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna found out through tail hair analysis that before their extinction in the wild Przewalski's horses had been on a different diet than today. Thanks to improved societal attitude, the horses have now access to richer pastures. In former times, the wild horses were hunted and chased away. Published in Scientific Reports.