News by Subject Biology

Weeds often emerge at the same time as vulnerable crop seedlings and sneak between plants as crops grow. How do farmers kill them without harming the crops themselves? In a new University of Illinois study, researchers identify genes and metabolic pathways responsible for safener efficacy in grain sorghum.

Meadows adjacent to high-intensity agricultural areas are home to less than half the number of butterfly species than areas in nature preserves. The number of individuals is even down to one-third of that number. These are results of a research team led by Jan Christian Habel at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Thomas Schmitt at the Senckenberg Nature Research Society.

A global research team including scientists from La Trobe University have identified specific locations within plants' chromosomes capable of transferring immunity to their offspring.

Honey bee colonies foraging on land with a strong cover of clover species and alfalfa do more than three times as well than if they are put next to crop fields of sunflowers or canola, according to a study just published in Scientific Reports by an Agricultural Research Service scientist and his colleagues.

A new model quantifies how forest change affects local surface temperatures by altering sunlight-reflection and evapotranspiration properties, and predicts that Brazilian deforestation could result in a 1.45°C increase by 2050, in a study published March 20, 2019, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jayme A. Prevedello from the Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil, and colleagues.

Natural selection predicts that mutualisms -- interactions between members of different species that benefit both parties -- should fall apart. Individuals that gain from the cooperation of others but do not reciprocate (so-called cheaters) should arise and destabilize mutualisms. Yet to date, surprisingly little evidence of such cheating or destabilization exists. A team of biologists at the University of California, Riverside, has now found strong evidence of this cheating.

Researchers at the University of Freiburg warn of the effects of summer drought and competition for ground water.