Category: Plants & Animals
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Yellowstone Wolves Protect Grizzlies
The return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park may be helping imperiled grizzly bears to survive by keeping elk herds on the move and preventing them from destroying berries that are a staple food for grizzlies, according to a new study.
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Fruity Crocodilians. Predators Enjoy A Sweet Snack, too.
Crocodylians can be considered “occasional frugivores.” And while they don’t seem to have discriminating tastes about the fruit and seeds they eat, crocodylians nonetheless have the ability to transport those plant parts far and wide.
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Seed Dispersal By Birds Beats The Competition
These results call into question the pre-eminence of escape as the primary advantage of dispersal within populations and document two overlooked mechanisms by which frugivores can benefit fruiting plants.
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Orchids’ Multifarious Floral Mimicry
We show that the species from these two distantly related families are often more similar in floral colour and shape than expected by chance and propose that a system of multifarious floral mimicry
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Ant Bodyguards Get Exclusive Contract from Trees
This alliance between ants and acacias is a staple of textbooks, but it‘s even more intimate than anyone suspected. Some acacias don‘t just supply their ants with any old food. They offer the biological equivalent of a cheque
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Are Ants Manipulating Nectar For Their Own Purposes?
By transmitting sugar-eating yeasts to the nectar on which they feed, ants may be indirectly altering the nectar-chemistry and thus affecting subsequent pollinator visitations.
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Chimpanzee Botanists
Chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this botanical knowledge during their daily search for fruit.
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Overhunting Seed Dispersers Is Decimating Forests
Hunting and poaching has decimated many mammal and bird populations across the tropics, and according to two new studies the loss of these important seed-disperser are imperiling the very nature of rainforests.
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Fig Wasps As Keystone Species, Vulnerable To Global Warming
From the wings of tiny creatures hang the fates of hundreds of bird and mammal species, and perhaps even entire rainforests. They are fig wasps and they play a disproportionate role in the grand drama of life on Earth. They shape our own story too because of this. But new research warns that these insects could be
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How To Charm A Bee: Have Her Over For Coffee
Scientists have found that some plants, like the coffee plant (Coffea), use caffeine to manipulate the memory of bees. The nectar in their flowers holds low levels of caffeine that pollinators find highly rewarding.