Category: Plants & Animals
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Monarch Butterfly Mothers Medicate Their Offspring
We have shown that some species of milkweed, the larva's food plants, can reduce parasite infection in the monarchs. And we have also found that infected female butterflies prefer to lay their egg on plants that will make their offspring less sick, suggesting that monarchs have evolved the ability to medicate their offspring.
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Mutualism Arose From Self-Interest, Not Cooperation
The new work would discount the theory that host species have evolved to promote symbiosis, the close and helpful interaction of species, by promising rewards or threatening punishment.
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Hiding In The Jaws Of A Predator
One of the world's smallest frogs has been discovered living inside pitcher plants in Borneo.
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Carnivorous Plants Doing Right By Pollinators
It's a good story. It sounds like the kind of elegant solution that evolution comes up with. Now we have the hard data from these experiments and it shows that explanation is wrong. It's not about food, it's about sex.
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Photosynthesizing Salamanders
There are signs that intracellular algae may be directly providing the products of photosynthesis — oxygen and carbohydrate — to the salamander cells that encapsulate them.
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Fish As Farmers
Damselfish maintain algae gardens and they weed, harvest and defend them, a new study reveals.
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Carnivores As Seed Dispersers
Researchers have shown that carnivorous animals such as foxes and martens play an important role in helping fruiting plants to reproduce and disperse their seeds.
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Frogs As Litter Breeders
A new species of frog has been discovered that lays its eggs and grows its tadpoles in dead leaves that litter the forest floor.
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Battle Between Native vs. Introduced Species Has Unexpected Casualties
It's a battle between an invasive plant and a native plant, but with a new twist… European beachgrass provides cover that allows a timid deer mouse to get close enough to the lupine to snip off stalks of lupine fruits without being nabbed by overflying birds.
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Pandas Are Not The Only Ones Relying On Bamboo
Ethiopia's mysterious Bale monkey eats almost nothing but bamboo, according to the first study of the primate.