News by Subject Biology

Scientists from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa apply new computer models to identify where cesspool conversion and marine conservation efforts will minimize human impacts on coral reefs.

New research provides the most complete account to date of the viruses that impact the world's oceans, increasing the number of known virus populations tenfold. Researchers analyzed marine samples far and deep in an effort to understand the complexities of viruses, which are increasingly being recognized as important players in the oceans' role in tempering the effects of climate change.

An international team has conducted the first-ever global survey of the ecological diversity of viruses in the oceans during expeditions aboard a single sailboat. They identified nearly 200,000 marine viral species, which vastly exceeds the 15,000 known from prior ocean surveys of these waters and the approximately 2,000 genomes available from cultured viruses of microbes. Their findings, appearing April 25 in the journal Cell, have implications for understanding issues ranging from evolution to climate change.

Regardless of whether we are dealing with a floodplain landscape or an entire national park, the success of a restoration project depends on more than just the reintroduction of individual plant or animal species into an area. In the latest issue of Science, a international team of researchers reveals it is more a matter of helping the damaged ecosystem to regenerate and sustain itself.

Taking on characteristics from another, younger stage in its life-cycle, a newly named fossil crab species was able to adapt to new conditions.

A UA team shows that evolution is driven by dependency on other species within ecological communities - testing a long-held idea of the UA's late, great George Gaylord Simpson.

Advanced molecular techniques have revealed the diversity of a little-understood group of ocean microbes called protists, according to a new publication in Scientific Reports. The project analyzed samples collected by the global Tara Oceans expedition, documenting genomes that will help researchers identify protists throughout the ocean.

Picos de Europa National Park has given its name to a new species of perennial brome-grass from Spain. Having worked on the systematics of the genus Bromus for a long time, the scientists were surprised to record previously unrecognised specimens from the well-studied "Fuente la Escalera" area in the National Park. Identified as a new species and recorded from a total of eleven locations, the plant is now described in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

The arctic archipelago of Svalbard is already experiencing dramatic effects from climate change. A new study shows how these changes can force wild reindeer to graze on seaweed, a strategy that increases their likelihood of survival -- and is recorded in their poop.