News by Subject Biology

Despite being a protected high conservation value habitat, the Atlantic coastal dunes are severely impacted by invasive species. In the Belgian coastal dunes, Oregon grape is one of the worst invaders, so Belgian scientists conducted an experiment to provide recommendations for all affected countries. By publishing their discovery in the open-access journal NeoBiota, the research team aims to boost international collaboration on the development of methods for invasive species control in conservation habitats.

The recent reports from the IPCC concluded that new land-use options to enhance the terrestrial carbon sink are needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate. As a result of the integrated analysis, the research team led by Masayuki Kondo, an Assistant Professor at the Center for Environmental Remote Sensing, Chiba University, succeeded in reducing the mismatches between net CO2 fluxes from multiple data sources. Their results was published on Dec. 12 in Global Change Biology.

Researchers evaluated the performance of a Hyb-Seq (hybrid capture with high-throughput sequencing) probe set designed for the large and diverse sunflower family (Asteraceae) and found it effective in reconstructing relationships at multiple taxonomic levels. As part of the study, an optimized pipeline is presented for the preparation and analysis of Hyb-Seq data. These findings are important both for evolutionary studies in Asteraceae and to demonstrate the broad use of phylogenetic studies using Hyb-Seq.

New research from a cross-organizational consortium in the Amazon has found indigenous knowledge to be as accurate as scientific transect monitoring.

Researchers at Stirling University have found that exposure to chronic low-dose radiation, found in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, negatively affects bumblebee energy use by increasing their metabolic rate and food consumption. The preliminary results will be presented on Dec. 12, at the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting in Belfast.

A study in Pacific Panama identifies 11 potential nursery areas of locally common and migratory sharks, which could support shark conservation efforts in the region.

If you want to know how climate change and hypoxia -- the related loss of oxygen in the world's oceans -- affect fish species such as the economically important Baltic cod, all you have to do is ask the fish. Those cod, at least, will tell you that hypoxia is making them smaller, scrawnier and less valuable. A paper published today in the journal Biology Letters points to a link between hypoxia and fish well-being.